Moscow Plague Riot (1771): Epidemic and Revolt in Russia

The Moscow Plague Riot broke out in September 1771, at the height of the worst epidemic in the city’s modern history. Thousands of desperate Muscovites rose against quarantine measures, sacked a monastery in the Kremlin and murdered Archbishop Ambrosius. The revolt was crushed within days, and Empress Catherine II sent Grigory Orlov to restore order and fight the disease.

Plague reaches Moscow

The epidemic came north from the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, which was being fought in Moldavia and Wallachia, where plague was present. It spread through Ukraine in 1770. In late 1770 suspicious deaths at the military hospital in Moscow’s Lefortovo district were diagnosed as plague by the physician Afanasy Shafonsky, but the outbreak seemed to die down.

In March 1771 it reappeared at the Big Woollen Court, a large cloth factory near the Kremlin. Workers fled, carrying the infection across the city. Through the summer the death toll rose sharply, and by late August and September several hundred, and on some days around a thousand, people were dying daily. Like the Great Plague of Marseille half a century earlier, it overwhelmed the city’s authorities.

A city in crisis

Moscow was then Russia’s largest city, with perhaps 300,000 inhabitants. The authorities closed factories, set up quarantine houses, burned infected property and ordered the dead to be buried outside the city. Many residents saw these measures as cruel and arbitrary. Families hid the sick to avoid quarantine, and bodies were left in the streets.

As the epidemic worsened, many nobles and officials left. The governor-general, Field Marshal Pyotr Saltykov, the victor of Kunersdorf, withdrew to his country estate in September. Lieutenant General Pyotr Yeropkin stayed in the city with a small garrison. Trade stopped, food prices rose and thousands of factory workers and servants were left without income.

What happened

Crowds had begun gathering at the Varvarka Gate of the Kitay-gorod district, where an icon of the Virgin, known as the Bogolyubskaya icon, was believed to protect against the plague. People kissed it and left offerings, spreading the infection. Archbishop Ambrosius (Amvrosy Zertis-Kamensky), an educated churchman who supported the quarantines, ordered the offering box sealed and planned to remove the icon.

On the evening of 15 September 1771 (Old Style; 26 September New Style) a rumour spread that the archbishop was robbing the Virgin. The alarm bell was rung and a huge crowd gathered. On 16 September rioters broke into the Chudov Monastery in the Kremlin, the archbishop’s residence, and plundered it. They then found Ambrosius at the Donskoy Monastery on the city’s southern edge, dragged him out and beat him to death. Quarantine houses were attacked and patients released.

On 17 September Yeropkin, with only a few hundred soldiers, used musket fire and cannon to clear the crowds around the Kremlin. Estimates of the rioters killed range from dozens to about a hundred, and some 300 people were arrested.

Orlov restores order

Catherine sent Count Grigory Orlov, her favourite, to Moscow. He arrived on 26 September (Old Style) with detachments of the Guards and a team of doctors. Orlov set up a commission to fight the epidemic, enlarged the hospitals and quarantines, and paid those who recovered when they were discharged, to encourage the sick to come forward. He also provided food and paid public works for the unemployed.

New cemeteries were opened outside the city, and burials inside Moscow were banned. Several of these, including Vagankovo, are still in use today. After an investigation, four men were hanged for their part in the riot and the murder of the archbishop, and others were flogged or sent to forced labour. Catherine ordered the clapper removed from the Kremlin alarm bell that had summoned the crowd.

The arrival of cold weather did more than any policy to end the epidemic, which declined sharply in October and November. Orlov returned to St Petersburg in November. A medal was struck in his honour, and Catherine later had a triumphal arch, the Orlov Gates, built in the park at Tsarskoye Selo to commemorate his mission.

Key people

Ambrosius (Amvrosy Zertis-Kamensky) (1708–1771), Archbishop of Moscow, was a scholar and translator who backed the public health measures and paid for them with his life.

Pyotr Yeropkin (1724–1805), the senior officer left in the city, suppressed the riot and was praised by Catherine for staying at his post.

Grigory Orlov (1734–1783), the leader of the 1762 coup that brought Catherine to power, led the relief effort.

Timeline

• 1770, November–December: Plague cases at the Lefortovo military hospital.
• 1771, March: Outbreak at the Big Woollen Court cloth factory.
• 1771, August–September: The epidemic peaks.
• 1771, 15 September (OS): The alarm bell sounds and crowds gather at the Varvarka Gate.
• 1771, 16 September (OS): Rioters sack the Chudov Monastery and kill Archbishop Ambrosius.
• 1771, 17 September (OS): Yeropkin’s troops disperse the crowds.
• 1771, 26 September (OS): Grigory Orlov arrives in Moscow.
• 1771, November: The epidemic subsides; Orlov leaves the city.

Why it matters

The Moscow plague of 1771 was one of the last great plague epidemics in Europe. The riot showed how fear, poverty and distrust of authority could turn public health measures into a source of violence, a pattern seen in many epidemics before and since. It also led Russia to develop more organised systems of quarantine and medical administration.