leader of a peasant revolt during the Years of Trouble, active 1607 - 1608.
After the death of Fyodor, feeble son of Ivan IV the Terrible, in 1598 the Rurik dynasty had come to an end. The state finances were exhausted from the Lithuanian war, and the peasants were exploited to the utmost. An intense power struggle began, and during the "Years of Trouble" between 1598 and 1613 Russia was embroiled in civil war.
The devastation and increasing oppression led to the first all-Russian peasant revolt under Ivan Bolotnikov, a serf who had served time as a galley slave. His peasant army marched from the south towards Moscow, supported by Cossacks. Camped outside the city in 1606, the peasants demanded the end of serfdom, confiscation of all land owned by the aristocracy and by the church and distribution to the free peasants.
The Russian peasant army fought outside the Danilov Monastery at the gates of Moscow but could not overpower the troops of Tsar Vasily Shuisky. Bolotnikov was betrayed, captured and assassinated.
During the years that followed Russia was overrun by Polish forces, until in 1613 the Zemsky Sobor (rural council) elected Mikhail Romanov as tsar. This brought the Years of Trouble to an end by effectively restoring the status quo ante. The Romanov dynasty reigned until 1917, when it was deposed in the October Revolution.
An opera "Ivan Bolotnikov" by Lev B. Stepanov (Libretto by Dobrzinskij a Stepanov) premiered in 1950 in Moscow.