Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev was born in 1742 in the Don Cossack village of Zimoveyskaya. Interestingly, 110 years before him, another famous rebel, Stepan Razin, was born in the same village.

At the age of seventeen, in 1759, Pugachev began military service. He participated in the battles of the Seven Years' War and the Turkish War and was promoted to the rank of chieftain for his merits in battles against the Turks. Due to illness, he left the army and returned to the Don in 1772. From that moment on, he began his wanderings disguised as a merchant in the Terek region, beyond the Kuban, in Poland, and near Chernigov, accompanied by arrests and escapes. He interacted and lived among the Old Believers.

Pugachev found support among the Cossacks on the Yaik River, now the Ural, in the first half of 1773 after escaping from a Kazan prison. He declared himself the miraculously saved Emperor Peter III and in September of that year issued a manifesto announcing the beginning of the uprising. The uprising spread across territories from the Ural to the Volga, with peasants, workers from Ural factories, and the peoples of the Volga joining the Cossacks.

The uprising began as a response to the oppression of the Cossacks and then became a protest against tax oppression and serfdom. The participants of the Peasant War of 1773-1775 did not seek to overthrow the tsar; their demands were limited to calls to "eliminate the destroyers."

Promises of justice, land, and freedom attracted many people to Pugachev's army, who proclaimed him a liberator. Under his leadership, the army captured the towns of Yaik, Guryev, and Ilets, the Sakmarskaya fortress, the Izhevsk factory, and the Kazan fortress. The cities of Petrovsk, Saratov, Saransk, Kurmysh, and Penza also came under the control of the rebels. In some cities, they were met with bread and salt, and support came from wealthy merchants and church hierarchs.

The scale of the uprising was so great that negotiations with the Turks were expedited, and troops under the command of Suvorov were sent to suppress the rebellion. Near Tsaritsyn in 1774, the uprising was suppressed, and the rebels began to disperse. Pugachev retreated with a small detachment, but he was betrayed to the authorities by his comrades for a reward.

Pugachev was taken to Moscow in an iron cage, where he and a group of associates were sentenced to death. In January 1775, he was beheaded, and his body was quartered in Bolotnaya Square.

Until the last moment, Pugachev maintained his composure, showing calmness and asking for forgiveness from the Orthodox people.

After his death, uprisings continued to flare up in some areas.

Pugachev's family was exiled to the Kexholm prison, now the city of Priozersk in the Leningrad region. He had three children: a son and two daughters, and two wives.

Pugachev's native village was relocated and renamed Potemkinskaya, the Yaik River was renamed the Ural, and the Cossack army was disbanded.