, Columnist
And Now Putin Decides Which Bugs to Crush
Russia’s mutiny is over and done with. Or is it?
Whom to crush, whom to crush...
Photographer: Mikhail Tereshchenko/AFP via Getty Images
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When the rebellion was over, its leader was taken to the Kremlin. He was drawn, quartered and decapitated. The Russian government then cracked down even harder. But the mutiny and its instigator captured the romantic imagination of Russians, in time inspiring some of their greatest literature.
The execution in this case took place in 1774. The rebel leader was a Cossack named Yemelyan Pugachev, his nemesis was the Tsarina Catherine the Great, and the novel — “The Captain’s Daughter” by Alexander Pushkin — was published a whole lifetime later.