Yemelyan Pugachev
Yemelyan Ivanovich Pugachev () (c. 1742 – ) was a Russian Cossack who led a great popular insurrection during the reign of Catherine the Great, claiming to be her late husband, Emperor Peter III. Alexander Pushkin wrote a notable history of the rebellion, "The History of Pugachev", and he recounted some of the events in his novel "The Captain's Daughter" (1836).
Pugachev's Rebellion
The Russian government favored the use of manifestos to communicate with the people of Russia. Catherine thought that exhortations to abandon him would excite popular antipathy for his cause and elicit divisions within rebel ranks. Her printed pronouncements were widely distributed in the turbulent areas; they were read on the public squares and from the parish pulpits. In the countryside local authorities were instructed to read them to gatherings of the people, who were then required to sign the decree. These government proclamations produced little positive effect. They actually added more confusion and even provoked unrest when the peasantry refused to believe or sign them.