Russian plague of 1770-1772
Encyclopedia
The Russia
n plague
epidemic of 1770—1772, also known as the Plague of 1771, was the last massive outbreak of plague in central Russia
, claiming between 52 and 100 thousand lives in Moscow alone (1/6 to 1/3 of its population). The bubonic plague
epidemic
that originated in the Moldova
n theatre of the 1768–1774 Russian-Turkish war in January 1770 swept northward through Ukraine
and central Russia, peaking in Moscow in September 1771 and causing the Plague Riot
. The epidemic reshaped the map of Moscow, as new cemeteries were established beyond the 18th century city limits.
, Moldova discovered first signs of plague in January 1770; the disease, indigenous to the area, was contracted through prisoners of war and booty. The news was hailed and exaggerated by adversaries of Russia, and Catherine wrote a reassuring letter to Voltaire
, arguing that "in spring those killed by plague will resurrect for the fighting". Commanding general von Stoffeln coerced army doctors to conceal the outbreak, which was not made public until Gustav Orreus
, a Russian-Finnish surgeon reporting directly to Field Marshal Pyotr Rumyantsev
, examined the situation, identified it as plague and enforced quarantine in the troops. Shtoffeln, however, refused to evacuate the infested towns and himself fell victim to the plague in May 1770. Of 1,500 patients recorded in his troops in May-August 1770, only 300 survived.
Medical quarantine
checkpoints instituted by Peter I
and expanded by Catherine II
were sufficient to prevent plague from reaching inside the country in peacetime, but they proved to be inadequate in time of war. The system regarded all epidemics as external threats, focusing on border control, and paid less attention to domestic measures. The epidemic blocked the logistics of Rumyantsev's army, and as the state tried to push more reserves and supplies to the theatre, peacetime quarantine controls had to be lifted. Plague swept into Poland
and Ukraine
; by August 1770 it reached Bryansk
. Catherine refused to admit the plague in public, although she was clearly aware of the nature and proportions of the threat, as evidenced by her letters to Governor of Moscow Pyotr Saltykov
.
, locked up the hospital and installed strict quarantine
. Doctor Rinder, his superior, discarded Shafonsky's report as medically incompetent and an undue panic. Although the medical council, convened on the next day, upheld Shafonsky's viewpoint and alerted Catherine and Saltykov, Rinder continued defaming Shafonsky and on January 21, 1771 made an official statement claiming that the outbreak was not a plague. The authorities relied on Rinder' assessment and paid no heed to the disease until March of 1771. Rinder himself died of plague in summer of 1771.
The second mass outbreak, which spilled inside the densely populated Zamoskvorechye
, hit a state-owned textile mill on the island
across the Kremlin
in the end February 1771. Factory managers attempted to conceal the disaster, burying the corpses secretly at night. The workers panicked and ran away, spreading germs across the city; finally, on March 10 the authorities accepted the fact. The traders and peasants who normally delivered goods for sale in the city also fled, causing a severe shortage of food. The city authorities set up temporary hospitals and quarantine checkpoints at Simonov
, Danilov
and Nikolo-Ugresh
monasteries, but these measures could not contain the disease which already swept the city.
s of prisoners to collect and bury the bodies, but their forces were insufficient even for this single task.
Governor Saltykov, failing to control the situation, preferred to desert his station and fled to his country estate; the police chief followed suit. Jacon Lerche, the newly appointed sanitary inspector of Moscow, declared state of emergency, shutting down shops, inns, taverns, factories and even churches; the city was placed under quarantine. Masses of people, literally thrown into the streets, were denied their regular trade and recreation habits. On September 15, 1771, Moscow residents revolted against the authorities. The mob perceived any emergency measures of the state as a conspiracy to spread the disease. In particular, archbishop
Amvrosy, who removed a revered icon from the public to curtail transmission of the disease by worshippers, was accused of conspiracy, hunted down and killed as "enemy of the people". Active rioting continued for three days; the remaining unrest was finally subdued by Grigory Orlov in the end of September.
The epidemic in Moscow, although still rampant in October, gradually reduced through the year. November 15 Catherine declared that it was officially over, but deaths continued into 1772. Estimates of total death toll in Moscow range from 52 to 100 thousand out of total 300 thousand.
. The epidemic was professionally exposed to Western European academia through An account of plague which raged in Moscow 1771, published in 1798 in Latin by Belgian physician Charles de Mertens; an English translation was released in 1799.
's proposal to quit the war and take Polish territories
as compensation: nearby Polish lands were seen as cash source while Moldova had to be ceded to the Turks anyway. Catherine preferred to suit both parties and engaged in the Partitions of Poland
while the war in the South protracted until 1774. Orlov, dismissed from the court, retired for a long tour of Europe.
and others) is mostly extant today; some were razed to make way for the new construction (Dorogomilovo cemetery), some, also destroyed, are now public parks (Lazarevskoe cemetery). Rogozhskoye cemetery
, east of Moscow, became and remains a leading Old Believers
shrine.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
epidemic of 1770—1772, also known as the Plague of 1771, was the last massive outbreak of plague in central Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, claiming between 52 and 100 thousand lives in Moscow alone (1/6 to 1/3 of its population). The bubonic plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
epidemic
Epidemic
In epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...
that originated in the Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
n theatre of the 1768–1774 Russian-Turkish war in January 1770 swept northward through Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
and central Russia, peaking in Moscow in September 1771 and causing the Plague Riot
Plague Riot
Plague Riot was a riot in Moscow in 1771 between September 15 and September 17, caused by an outbreak of bubonic plague.-History:...
. The epidemic reshaped the map of Moscow, as new cemeteries were established beyond the 18th century city limits.
Outbreak
Russian troops in FocşaniFocsani
Focşani is the capital city of Vrancea County in Romania on the shores the Milcov river, in the historical region of Moldavia. It has a population of 101,854.-Geography:...
, Moldova discovered first signs of plague in January 1770; the disease, indigenous to the area, was contracted through prisoners of war and booty. The news was hailed and exaggerated by adversaries of Russia, and Catherine wrote a reassuring letter to Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
, arguing that "in spring those killed by plague will resurrect for the fighting". Commanding general von Stoffeln coerced army doctors to conceal the outbreak, which was not made public until Gustav Orreus
Gustav Orreus
Gustav Orreus was a doctor of Finnish-Swedish origin in Imperial Russian service. An early epidemiologist, Orreus distinguished himself during the Russian plague of 1770-1772. He was the first Doctor of Medicine ever to qualify in Russia....
, a Russian-Finnish surgeon reporting directly to Field Marshal Pyotr Rumyantsev
Pyotr Rumyantsev
Count Pyotr Alexandrovich Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky was one of the foremost Russian generals of the 18th century. He governed Little Russia in the name of Empress Catherine the Great from the abolition of the Cossack Hetmanate in 1764 until Catherine's death 32 years later...
, examined the situation, identified it as plague and enforced quarantine in the troops. Shtoffeln, however, refused to evacuate the infested towns and himself fell victim to the plague in May 1770. Of 1,500 patients recorded in his troops in May-August 1770, only 300 survived.
Medical quarantine
Quarantine
Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....
checkpoints instituted by Peter I
Peter I of Russia
Peter the Great, Peter I or Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov Dates indicated by the letters "O.S." are Old Style. All other dates in this article are New Style. ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his half-brother, Ivan V...
and expanded by Catherine II
Catherine II of Russia
Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great , Empress of Russia, was born in Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia on as Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg...
were sufficient to prevent plague from reaching inside the country in peacetime, but they proved to be inadequate in time of war. The system regarded all epidemics as external threats, focusing on border control, and paid less attention to domestic measures. The epidemic blocked the logistics of Rumyantsev's army, and as the state tried to push more reserves and supplies to the theatre, peacetime quarantine controls had to be lifted. Plague swept into Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
; by August 1770 it reached Bryansk
Bryansk
Bryansk is a city and the administrative center of Bryansk Oblast, Russia, located southwest of Moscow. Population: -History:The first written mention of Bryansk was in 1146, in the Hypatian Codex, as Debryansk...
. Catherine refused to admit the plague in public, although she was clearly aware of the nature and proportions of the threat, as evidenced by her letters to Governor of Moscow Pyotr Saltykov
Pyotr Saltykov
Count Pyotr Semyonovich Saltykov was a Russian statesman and a military figure, russian general-fieldmarshal , son of Semyon Saltykov....
.
Moscow plague
First plague casualties in Moscow were recorded in November 1770. In December, a mass outbreak occurred in a military hospital. 27 inmates fell sick, only five survived. December 21, 1770 hospital surgeon Afanasy Shafonsky promptly identified the disease as bubonic plagueBubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
, locked up the hospital and installed strict quarantine
Quarantine
Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....
. Doctor Rinder, his superior, discarded Shafonsky's report as medically incompetent and an undue panic. Although the medical council, convened on the next day, upheld Shafonsky's viewpoint and alerted Catherine and Saltykov, Rinder continued defaming Shafonsky and on January 21, 1771 made an official statement claiming that the outbreak was not a plague. The authorities relied on Rinder' assessment and paid no heed to the disease until March of 1771. Rinder himself died of plague in summer of 1771.
The second mass outbreak, which spilled inside the densely populated Zamoskvorechye
Zamoskvorechye
Zamoskvorechye District is a district of Central Administrative Okrug in Moscow, Russia. Population: The district contains the eastern half of historical Zamoskvorechye area , and the territories of Zatsepa Street and Paveletsky Rail Terminal south of the Garden Ring...
, hit a state-owned textile mill on the island
Balchug
Balchug , also known as Bolotny Ostrov , is an island in the very centre of Moscow, Russia, squeezed between the Moskva River and its old river-bed which was turned into the Vodootvodny Canal in 1786...
across the Kremlin
Moscow Kremlin
The Moscow Kremlin , sometimes referred to as simply The Kremlin, is a historic fortified complex at the heart of Moscow, overlooking the Moskva River , Saint Basil's Cathedral and Red Square and the Alexander Garden...
in the end February 1771. Factory managers attempted to conceal the disaster, burying the corpses secretly at night. The workers panicked and ran away, spreading germs across the city; finally, on March 10 the authorities accepted the fact. The traders and peasants who normally delivered goods for sale in the city also fled, causing a severe shortage of food. The city authorities set up temporary hospitals and quarantine checkpoints at Simonov
Simonov Monastery
Simonov monastery in Moscow was established in 1370 by monk Feodor, a nephew and disciple of St Sergius of Radonezh.The monastery land formerly belonged to Simeon Khovrin, a boyar of Greek extraction and progenitor of the great clan of Golovins. He took monastic vows in the cloister under the name...
, Danilov
Danilov Monastery
Danilov Monastery, in full Svyato-Danilov Monastery or Holy Danilov Monastery , is a monastery on the right bank of the Moskva River in Moscow, Russia...
and Nikolo-Ugresh
Nikolo-Ugresh monastery
Nikolo-Ugreshsky Monastery is a walled stauropegic Russian Orthodox monastery of St. Nicholas the Miracle-Worker located in a suburb of Moscow formerly known as Ugreshi and now called Dzerzhinsky...
monasteries, but these measures could not contain the disease which already swept the city.
Riot
The plague peaked in September 1771, killing an estimated thousand muscovites a day (20,401 confirmed dead in September), despite the fact that an estimated three quarters of population fled the city. Many deaths escaped the statistics: residents, fearing that the infested properties will be destroyed by authorities, routinely concealed the casualties, burying the dead at night or simply throwing them on the streets. Authorities set up chain gangChain gang
A chain gang is a group of prisoners chained together to perform menial or physically challenging work, such as mining or timber collecting, as a form of punishment. Such punishment might include building roads, digging ditches or chipping stone...
s of prisoners to collect and bury the bodies, but their forces were insufficient even for this single task.
Governor Saltykov, failing to control the situation, preferred to desert his station and fled to his country estate; the police chief followed suit. Jacon Lerche, the newly appointed sanitary inspector of Moscow, declared state of emergency, shutting down shops, inns, taverns, factories and even churches; the city was placed under quarantine. Masses of people, literally thrown into the streets, were denied their regular trade and recreation habits. On September 15, 1771, Moscow residents revolted against the authorities. The mob perceived any emergency measures of the state as a conspiracy to spread the disease. In particular, archbishop
Archbishop
An archbishop is a bishop of higher rank, but not of higher sacramental order above that of the three orders of deacon, priest , and bishop...
Amvrosy, who removed a revered icon from the public to curtail transmission of the disease by worshippers, was accused of conspiracy, hunted down and killed as "enemy of the people". Active rioting continued for three days; the remaining unrest was finally subdued by Grigory Orlov in the end of September.
Emergency measures
When the riot was still unwinding, empress Catherine dispatched Grigory Orlov to take control of Moscow; it is not clear whether her choice was an assignment in good faith or an attempt to get rid of a former lover and a leader of an influential political clan. Orlov, accompanied by Gustav Orreus and four regiments of troops, arrived in Moscow on September 26, immediately calling an emergency council with local doctors. They confirmed presence of both bubonic and septicemic forms of plague. Orlov established and supervised an executive medical commission charged with developing the ways to check the epidemic. More important, he succeeded in changing public opinion if favor of the state's emergency measures, at the same improving the efficiency and quality of medical quarantine (in particular, varying quarantine duration for different groups of exposed but yet healthy people, and paying them for the quarantine stay).The epidemic in Moscow, although still rampant in October, gradually reduced through the year. November 15 Catherine declared that it was officially over, but deaths continued into 1772. Estimates of total death toll in Moscow range from 52 to 100 thousand out of total 300 thousand.
| Month | September | October | November | December | January 1772 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deaths (Moscow) | |
|
|
|
|
Consequences
The plague stimulated local research in disease prevention, which was boosted by discovering indigenous plague in newly-conquered territories of the CaucasusCaucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
. The epidemic was professionally exposed to Western European academia through An account of plague which raged in Moscow 1771, published in 1798 in Latin by Belgian physician Charles de Mertens; an English translation was released in 1799.
Immediate political effect
Devastation caused by the plague forced the government to reduce taxes and military conscription quotas in the affected provinces; both measures decreased the military capabilities of the state and pushed Catherine to seek truce. The statesmen divided between supporters of further pressing into Moldova and Walachia and those who sided with Frederick IIFrederick II of Prussia
Frederick II was a King in Prussia and a King of Prussia from the Hohenzollern dynasty. In his role as a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, he was also Elector of Brandenburg. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel...
's proposal to quit the war and take Polish territories
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...
as compensation: nearby Polish lands were seen as cash source while Moldova had to be ceded to the Turks anyway. Catherine preferred to suit both parties and engaged in the Partitions of Poland
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...
while the war in the South protracted until 1774. Orlov, dismissed from the court, retired for a long tour of Europe.
City planning
In a move to control disease, authorities banned any burials on the traditional parish cemeteries inside the city of Moscow. Instead, they set up a chain of new cemeteries outside the city limits. This ring of cemeteries, established in 1771 (VagankovoVagankovo Cemetery
Vagan'kovskoye Cemetery , established in 1771, is located in the Krasnaya Presnya district of Moscow...
and others) is mostly extant today; some were razed to make way for the new construction (Dorogomilovo cemetery), some, also destroyed, are now public parks (Lazarevskoe cemetery). Rogozhskoye cemetery
Rogozhskoye Cemetery
Rogozhskoe cemetery in Moscow, Russia, is the spiritual and administrative center of the largest Old Believers denomination, called the Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church. Historically, the name cemetery was applied to the whole Old Believer community, with living quarters, cathedral, almshouses,...
, east of Moscow, became and remains a leading Old Believers
Old Believers
In the context of Russian Orthodox church history, the Old Believers separated after 1666 from the official Russian Orthodox Church as a protest against church reforms introduced by Patriarch Nikon between 1652–66...
shrine.