If we proceed from modern scientifically substantiated essential characteristics of the Cossacks, in the past it was a complex self-developing ethno-social phenomenon, by the beginning of the 20th century. which absorbed all the main elements of the socio-ethnic and social-class structure of society and, as a result, was both a subethnic group of the Great Russian ethnic group and a special military service class.
The origin of the ethnonym “Cossack” is not completely clear. Versions of its etymology are based either on its ethnicity (Cossack - a derivative of the name of the descendants of Kasogs or Torks and Berendeys, Cherkassy or Brodniks), or on social content (the word Cossack is of Turkic origin, it was called either a free, free, independent person, or a military guard on the border). At various stages of the existence of the Cossacks, it included Russians, Ukrainians, representatives of some steppe nomads, peoples of the North Caucasus, Siberia, Central Asia, and the Far East. By the beginning of the 20th century. The Cossacks were completely dominated by the East Slavic ethnic basis. So, the Cossacks are a subethnic group of the Great Russian ethnic group.
Cossacks lived in the Don, the North Caucasus, the Urals, the Far East, and Siberia.
Certain Cossack communities were part of a specific Cossack army.
The language of the Cossacks is Russian. Among the Cossacks there are a number of dialects: Don, Kuban, Ural, Orenburg and others.
The Cossacks used Russian writing.
By 1917, there were 4 million 434 thousand Cossacks of both sexes.
Currently, accurate data on the number of Cossacks and their descendants is practically absent. According to various rough estimates, approximately 5 million Cossacks live in 73 constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The number of Cossacks living in densely populated areas in Kazakhstan and Ukraine, as well as the number of their descendants in foreign countries, is unknown.
The term “Cossack” was first mentioned in sources of the 13th century, in particular in the “Secret History of the Mongols” (1240), and, according to various versions, is of Turkic, Mongolian, Adyghe-Abkhazian or Indo-European origin. The meaning of the term, which later became an ethnonym, is also defined in different ways: a free man, a lightly armed horseman, a fugitive, a lonely person, and more.
The origin of the Cossacks and the time of their appearance on the historical stage have not been fully clarified to this day. There are even disputes among researchers over the etymology (origin) of the word-term “Cossack”.
There are many scientific theories of the origin of the Cossacks (only the main ones - 18). All theories of the origin of the Cossacks are divided into two large groups: theories of fugitive and migration, that is, newcomers, and autochthonous, that is, local, indigenous origin of the Cossacks. Each of these theories has its own evidence base, various convincing or not fully convincing scientific arguments, advantages and disadvantages.
According to autochthonous theories, the ancestors of the Cossacks lived in Kabarda, were descendants of the Caucasian Circassians (Cherkas, Yasov), a conglomerate of Kasags, Circassians (Yasov), “black hoods” (Pechenegs, Torks, Berendeys), Brodniks (Yasy and groups of Slavic-Russian and nomadic peoples) and more.
According to migration theories, the ancestors of the Cossacks are freedom-loving Russian people who fled beyond the borders of the Russian and Polish-Lithuanian states either due to natural historical reasons (the provisions of the theory of colonization), or under the influence of social antagonisms (the provisions of the theory of class struggle). The first reliable information about the Cossacks who lived in Chervleny Yar, in addition to scientifically unrecognized evidence in the notes of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (10th century), is contained in the chronicles of the Donskoy Monastery (“Grebenskaya Chronicle”, 1471), “The Known Word ... of Archimandrite Anthony”, “ Brief Moscow Chronicle" - a mention of the participation of the Don Cossacks in the Battle of Kulikovo, contained in the chronicles of 1444. Having arisen in the southern expanses of the so-called "Wild Field", the first communities of free Cossacks were truly democratic social entities. The fundamental principles of their internal organization were the personal freedom of all their members, social equality, mutual respect, the opportunity for each Cossack to openly express their opinion in the Cossack circle, which was the highest power and administrative body of the Cossack community, to elect and be elected by the highest official, the ataman, who was first among equals. The bright principles of freedom, equality and brotherhood in the early Cossack social formations were universal, traditional, and self-evident phenomena.
The process of formation of the Cossacks was long and complex. During it, representatives of different ethnic groups united. It is possible that the original basis of the early Cossack groups contained various ethnic elements. Ethnically, the “old” Cossacks were subsequently “overshadowed” by Russian elements. The first mention of the Don Cossacks dates back to 1549.
In the 15th century (according to other sources, much earlier), communities of free Don, Dnieper, Volga and Greben Cossacks emerged. In the 1st half of the 16th century, the Zaporozhye Sich was formed, in the 2nd half of the same century - communities of free Terek and Yaik, and at the end of the century - Siberian Cossacks. In the early stages of the existence of the Cossacks, the main types of their economic activity were trades (hunting, fishing, beekeeping), later cattle breeding, and from the 2nd half. 17th century - agriculture. War booty played a major role, and later government salaries. Through military and economic colonization, the Cossacks quickly mastered the vast expanses of the Wild Field, then the outskirts of Russia and Ukraine. In the XVI-XVII centuries. Cossacks led by Ermak Timofeevich, V.D. Poyarkov, V.V. Atlasov, S.I. Dezhnev, E.P. Khabarov and other explorers participated in the successful development of Siberia and the Far East.
The Cossacks united into special state-political, socio-economic and ethnocultural formations - Cossack communities, which were later transformed into large structures - troops, which received names on a territorial basis. The highest body of self-government was the general meeting of the male population (circle, rada). All important affairs of the army were decided on it, the military ataman (and during the period of hostilities - the marching ataman), and the military leadership were elected. In the field of civil and military organization, internal administration, court, and foreign relations, the Cossacks were completely independent. During the 18th century, during the formation of a special Cossack military service class, the Cossacks were deprived of these rights. Until 1716, relations between the central government and the Cossacks were carried out through the Ambassadorial, Little Russian and other orders, then through the Collegium of Foreign Affairs, and since 1721 the Cossacks were transferred to the jurisdiction of the Military Collegium. In 1721, military circles were prohibited in the Don Army (later in other troops).
Since 1723, instead of elected military atamans, the institution of assigned military atamans appointed by the emperor was introduced. Since the 18th century to protect the constantly expanding borders of the state, the government forms new Cossack troops: Orenburg Irregular (1748); Astrakhan (1750), or, initially, the Astrakhan Cossack Regiment, transformed in 1776 into the Astrakhan Cossack Army, in 1799 - again into a regiment, and in 1817 - again into an army; Black Sea (1787); Siberian (1808); Caucasian linear (1832); Transbaikal (1851); Amur (1858); Caucasian and Black Sea, later reorganized into Terek and Kuban (1860); Semirechenskoe (1867); Ussuriysk (1899). At the beginning of the 20th century, there were 11 Cossack troops: Don, Kuban, Orenburg, Terek, Transbaikal, Siberian, Ural (Yaitsk), Amur, Semirechenskoe, Astrakhan, Ussuriysk, as well as Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk Cossack divisions (in the summer of 1917, the Yenisei Cossack army), Yakut city Cossack foot regiment of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the local Kamchatka city Cossack equestrian team.
At the stage of the existence of the Cossacks as a unique socio-ethnic community formed from free Cossacks, in Cossack communities, and later in Cossack military formations (troops), on the basis of customary law, fundamental general principles, forms and methods of internal governance were developed and strictly observed. Over time, they underwent certain transformations, but the essence of the established traditional communal democratic principles underlying them remained the same. Significant progress in this area began to occur both in internal content and in external forms under the influence of the processes of transformation of the Cossacks in social and class terms and their transformation into a specific military service class. This process took place in the 18th - 1st half of the 19th centuries. At this time, the Cossacks lose not only their former independence from the state, but also their most important rights in the field of power and internal administration, and are deprived of their highest bodies of self-government in the form of military circles and the military chieftains elected by them. It is also forced to put up with the processes of change in many traditional communal democratic rights and traditions.
Over time, Cossack troops are included in the general system of government of the country. At the same time, there is a process of complete legislative registration of the specific rights and responsibilities of the Cossacks and their special social function.
The process of organizing the highest state administrative structures, which were in charge of all the Cossack troops in the country, also continued to proceed actively. In 1815, all Cossack troops were militarily and administratively subordinated to the General Headquarters of the Ministry of War. And in December 1857, a special Directorate of Irregular Troops, subordinate to the War Ministry, was formed, into whose competence the leadership of all Cossack and other irregular troops was transferred. On March 29, 1867, it was renamed the Main Directorate of Irregular Forces. And in 1879, on its basis, the Main Directorate of Cossack Troops was formed, which was also directly subordinate to the War Ministry. On September 6, 1910, the Main Directorate of Cossack Troops was abolished, and all its functions were transferred to the specially formed Department of Cossack Troops Control of the Main Staff of the War Ministry. Formally, the heir to the throne was considered the ataman of all the Cossack troops of the country since 1827.
By the beginning of the 20th century, a fairly harmonious structure of higher government and local government bodies had finally emerged in the Cossack troops. The highest official in each Cossack army was the military ataman appointed by the emperor (in the Cossack troops of the eastern territories of Russia - simply the ataman). In his hands was the highest military and civil power in the territory of the army. In those Cossack troops whose territories did not form separate independent administrative-territorial units and were located within various provinces and regions (this was typical for the Orenburg, Astrakhan, Ural, Trans-Baikal, Semirechensky, Amur and Ussuri troops), the posts of command atamans were occupied part-time local governors or governors general (if the territory of a particular Cossack army was part of the general government) or commanders of the corresponding military districts, as was the case in the Siberian army. Sometimes the consequence of the existence of such a complex, often peculiar “multi-layered” control system was a situation in which the same person concentrated in his hands several senior administrative and military positions at the same time. For example, the commander of the Omsk Military District was at the same time the Mandatory Ataman of the Siberian Cossack Army, and later, several years before the February Revolution, and the Governor-General of the Steppe Territory, which included the Akmola and Semipalatinsk regions. This state of affairs complicated the implementation of management functions by the highest official of the army and affected their effectiveness.
The Don, Kuban and Terek military atamans, although they exercised their powers only within their Cossack regions, had the rights of governors in the civil part and governors-general in the military. Atamans headed the highest governing body in the troops - military, regional, military economic boards, administrations or councils. They also appointed atamans of departments (districts) and approved the personnel of departmental (district) departments. The Cossack administration included the Military Headquarters, appointed (formally elected at gatherings) atamans of departments (in the Don and Amur Troops - districts. Local bodies of Cossack self-government were represented by gatherings (congresses) of the Cossack population of a particular village, which actually performed the functions of officially liquidated local village residents circles. In them, the Cossacks independently, without the intervention of higher bodies of the Cossack military and departmental (district) administration, elected the village ataman, village judges and members of the village board.
The final formation of the Cossacks into a specific military service class was secured by the “Regulations on the Administration of the Don Army” of 1835, which regulated the staff and internal structure of the army. Its norms were later included in the “Regulations” of all other troops. The entire Cossack male population was obliged to carry out 25 years (from 1874 - 20 years, 1909 - 18 years) military service, including four years directly in the army. All land in the territories of the Cossack regions was transferred to the army as its owner. The principle of equal land use of the Cossacks was established (generals were entitled to 1,500 dessiatines, headquarters officers - 400, chief officers - 200, ordinary Cossacks - 30 dessiatines). There was no right of private ownership of land for ordinary Cossacks.
The Cossacks took an active part in all peasant wars and many popular uprisings. Since the 18th century, Cossacks have been directly involved in all Russian wars. Cossacks especially distinguished themselves in the Russian-Turkish wars of the 17th-18th centuries, the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), the Patriotic War (1812) and foreign campaigns (1813-1814), the Caucasian War (1817-1864), the Crimean War (1853-1856 ), the Russian-Turkish War (1877-1878) and the First World War. During this period, the Cossacks fielded over 8 thousand officers and 360 thousand lower ranks, of which the following were formed: 164 cavalry regiments, 3 separate cavalry and 1 foot division, 30 Plastun (foot) battalions, 64 artillery batteries, 177 separate and special hundreds, 79 convoys, 16 spare regiments and other spare parts. The Cossacks took part in the Civil War and experienced the process of Bolshevik de-Cossackization. The transformations of the 30s had great social consequences for the Cossacks. XX century.
In 1920, the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars liquidated the system of Cossack self-government, and the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee extended the country's general regulations on land management and land use. In 1936, the Central Executive Committee of the USSR abolished the restrictions on military service that existed for the Cossacks.
Cossacks on a massive scale heroically fought the enemy during the Great Patriotic War.
The main types of economic activity of the Cossacks were agriculture, cattle breeding, and fishing.
The military factor had a dominant influence on the way of life of the Cossacks (in the early stages - a constant threat from the outside, military campaigns; later - long-term general military service). There was a special military life of the Cossacks. Agricultural productive activities played a major role. The appearance of a Cossack harmoniously combined the features of a warrior and a hard-working farmer. The Cossacks are characterized by a high level of everyday culture (construction and maintenance of housing and outbuildings, housekeeping, neatness in clothing, cleanliness, etc.) and morality (honesty, decency, kindness, responsiveness). The Cossacks had only monogamous marriage. Until the beginning of the 18th century, there were simple but strictly observed marriage rituals, and later - church wedding rites. Cossack women were equal members of Cossack society, keepers of the home; They raised children, took care of the elderly, and energetically took care of the house. The Cossacks had a well-thought-out traditional system of educating the younger generation. Families of several generations of Cossacks often lived under one roof.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Cossacks were characterized by an all-Russian social structure. The Cossacks were distinguished by high religious tolerance. The believing Cossacks were Orthodox, there were also Old Believers, a few Muslims and Buddhists.
In the minds of the Cossacks, traditional ideological principles dominated (love of freedom, loyalty to military duty, oath, diligence, collectivism, mutual assistance, etc.). The ethnic culture of the Cossacks absorbed its distinctive features as an ethnosocial phenomenon, the originality of the spiritual, military, economic and everyday ways of life, various ethnocultural components (Slavic-Russian, Turkic-Tatar, Cossacks themselves). It was expressed in historical memory, a traditional value system, a unique value system, a unique spiritual (oral folk art, especially folklore songs, dances, education system, family and household customs, calendar holidays and rituals), behavioral (socionormative), material (dwellings, clothing, household items, etc.) culture, as well as in the children's subculture.
Representatives of the Cossack intelligentsia made a significant contribution to the development of domestic and world culture. These are historians V.D. Sukhorukov, S.F. Namikosov, Kh.I. Popov, N.I. Krasnov, E.P. Savelyev, A.F. Shcherbina, S.P. Svatikov, I.F. Bykadorov, A.A. Gordeev, philosopher A.F. Losev, geographer A.N. Krasnov, geologists D.I. Ilovaisky, I.V. Mushketov, doctors S.M. Vasiliev, I.P. Gorelov, D.P. Kosorotov, N.F. Melnikov-Razvedenkov, physicist N.P. Tikhonov, mathematicians V.G. Alekseev, P.S. Frolov, metallurgists N.P. Aseev, G.N. Potanin, composers I.S. Morozov, S.A. Troilin, I.I. Apostolov, M.B. Grekov, singers I.V. Ershov, S.G. Vlasov, B.S. Rubashkin, writers E.I. Kotelnikov, I.I. Krasnov, P.N. Krasnov, F.F. Kryukov, A.S. Popov (Serafimovich), poets N.N. Turoverov, A.N. Turoverov, N.V. Chesnokov, folklorist A.M. Listopadov, artists V.I. Surikov, B.D. Grekov, K.A. Savitsky, N.N. Dubovsky, K.V. Popov, polar explorer G.Ya. Sedov, founder of the domestic film industry A.A. Khanzhonkov and others.
In the foreseeable retrospect, the roots of such a phenomenon as the Cossacks are clearly Scythian-Sarmatian, then the Turkic factor was strongly superimposed, then the Horde. In the Horde and post-Horde periods, the Don, Volga and Yaitsky Cossacks became greatly Russified due to the massive influx of new fighters from Rus'. For the same reason, the Dnieper Cossacks not only became Russified, but also became heavily sinned due to the influx of new fighters from the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. A kind of ethnic cross-pollination took place. The Cossacks of the Aral region and from the lower reaches of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya could not become Russified by definition, for religious and geographical reasons, therefore they remained Kara-Kalpaks (translated from Turkic as Black Cowls). They had very little contact with Russia, but diligently served Khorezm, the Central Asian Genghisids and Timurids, about which there is a lot of written evidence. The same applies to the Balkhash Cossacks, who lived along the shores of the lake and along the rivers flowing into Balkhash. They greatly expanded due to the influx of new fighters from Asian lands, strengthening the military power of Moghulistan and creating the Cossack khanates. Thus, history has de facto separated the Cossack ethnic group into different ethno-state and geopolitical apartments. In order to de jure divide the Cossack subethnic groups, only in 1925, by Soviet decree, the non-Russianized Central Asian Cossacks (called Kyrgyz-Kaysaks, i.e., Kyrgyz Cossacks in tsarist times) were renamed Kazakhs. Strange as it may seem, the Cossacks and Kazakhs have the same roots, the names of these peoples are pronounced and written in Latin (until the recent past and in Cyrillic) absolutely the same, but the ethnohistorical pollination is very different.
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In the 15th century, the role of the Cossacks in the areas bordering Russia sharply increased due to the continuous raids of nomadic tribes. In 1482, after the final collapse of the Golden Horde, the Crimean, Nogai, Kazan, Kazakh, Astrakhan and Siberian khanates arose.
Rice. 1 Collapse of the Golden Horde
These fragments of the Horde were in constant hostility among themselves, as well as with Lithuania and the Moscow state. Even before the final collapse of the Horde, during intra-Horde strife, the Muscovites and Litvins brought part of the Horde lands under their control. The anarchy and unrest in the Horde was especially well used by the Lithuanian prince Olgerd. Where by force, where by intelligence and cunning, where by bribery he included many Russian principalities into his possessions, including the territories of the Dnieper Cossacks (former black hoods) and set himself broad goals: to put an end to Moscow and the Golden Horde. The Dnieper Cossacks made up the armed forces of up to four troops or 40,000 well-trained troops and turned out to be significant support for the policies of Prince Olgerd. And it was in 1482 that a new, three-century period of Eastern European history began - the period of the struggle for the Horde inheritance. At that time, few could have imagined that the provincial, although dynamically developing, Moscow principality would ultimately emerge victorious in this titanic struggle. But less than a century after the collapse of the Horde, under Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible, Moscow would unite all the Russian principalities around itself and conquer a significant part of the Horde. At the end of the 18th century. under Catherine II, almost the entire territory of the Golden Horde would come under Moscow rule. Having defeated Crimea and Lithuania, the victorious nobles of the German queen put an end to the centuries-old dispute over the Horde inheritance. Moreover, in the middle of the 20th century, under Joseph Stalin, for a short time the Muscovites would create a protectorate over the entire territory of the Great Mongol Empire, created in the 13th century. the labor and genius of the Great Genghis Khan, including China. And in this entire post-Horde history, the Cossacks took a very lively and active part. And the great Russian writer L.N. Tolstoy believed that “the entire history of Russia was made by the Cossacks.” And although this statement, of course, is an exaggeration, but, taking a careful look at the history of the Russian state, we can state that all significant military and political events in Russia did not happen without the active participation of the Cossacks. But all this will happen later.
And in 1552, Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible launched a campaign against the most powerful of these khanates - the heirs of the Horde - Kazan. Up to ten thousand Don and Volga Cossacks took part in that campaign as part of the Russian army. Reporting about this campaign, the chronicle notes that the Emperor ordered Prince Peter Serebryany to go from Nizhny Novgorod to Kazan, “... and with him the boyar children and archers and Cossacks...”. Two and a half thousand Cossacks under the command of Sevryuga and Elka were sent from Meshchera to the Volga to block transportation. During the storming of Kazan, the Don Ataman Misha Cherkashenin distinguished himself with his Cossacks. And Cossack legend tells that during the siege of Kazan, a young Volga Cossack Ermak Timofeev, disguised as a Tatar, entered Kazan, inspected the fortress, and, returning, pointed out the places most advantageous for blowing up the fortress walls.
After the fall of Kazan and the annexation of the Kazan Khanate to Russia, the military-political situation changed sharply in favor of Muscovy. Already in 1553, Kabardian princes arrived in Moscow to beat the king, so that he would accept them as citizenship and protect them against the Crimean Khan and the Nogai hordes. With this embassy, ambassadors from the Greben Cossacks, who lived along the Sunzha River and neighboring the Kabardians, also arrived in Moscow. In the same year, the Siberian Tsar Edigei sent two officials to Moscow with gifts and pledged to pay tribute to the Moscow Tsar. Next, Ivan the Terrible set the task for the governors to take Astrakhan and conquer the Astrakhan Khanate. The Moscow state had to strengthen itself along the entire length of the Volga. The next year, 1554, was eventful for Moscow. With the help of the Cossacks and Moscow troops, Dervish-Ali was placed on the throne of the Astrakhan Khanate with the obligation to pay tribute to the Moscow state. After Astrakhan, Hetman Vishnevetsky joined the service of the Moscow Tsar with the Dnieper Cossacks. Prince Vishnevetsky came from the Gediminovich family and was a supporter of Russian-Lithuanian rapprochement. For this he was repressed by King Sigismund I and fled to Turkey. Returning from Turkey, with the permission of the king, he became the headman of the ancient Cossack cities of Kanev and Cherkassy. Then he sent ambassadors to Moscow and the tsar accepted him into the service with “kazatism”, issued him a safe conduct letter and sent him a salary.
Despite the betrayal of the Russian protege Dervish-Ali, Astrakhan was soon conquered, but navigation along the Volga was in the complete power of the Cossacks. The Volga Cossacks were especially numerous at this time and “sat” so firmly in the Zhiguli Mountains that practically not a single caravan passed by without a ransom or was plundered. Nature itself, having created the Zhigulevskaya loop on the Volga, took care of the extreme convenience of this place for such a fishery. It is in this regard that Russian chronicles for the first time specifically note the Volga Cossacks - in 1560 it was written: “... The Cossacks thief along the Volga... The pious Sovereign sent his governors against them with many military men and ordered them to be killed and hanged.. ." The Volga Cossacks consider the year 1560 to be the year of seniority (formation) of the Volga Cossack Army. Ivan IV the Terrible could not jeopardize all eastern trade and, driven out of patience by the Cossacks’ attack on his ambassador, on October 1, 1577, he sent the steward Ivan Murashkin to the Volga with the order “... to torture, execute and hang the thieves’ Volga Cossacks.” In many works on the history of the Cossacks, there is a mention that, due to government repression, many Volga free Cossacks left - some to the Terek and Don, others to the Yaik (Ural), others, led by Ataman Ermak Timofeevich, to the Chusovsky towns to serve to the merchants Stroganov, and from there to Siberia. Having thoroughly destroyed the largest Volga Cossack army, Ivan IV the Terrible carried out the first large-scale decossackization in Russian history (but not the last).
VOLZHSKY ATAMAN ERMAK TIMOFEEVICH
The most legendary hero of the Cossack atamans of the 16th century, undoubtedly, is Ermolai Timofeevich Tokmak (Cossack nickname Ermak), who conquered the Siberian Khanate and laid the foundation for the Siberian Cossack Army. Even before joining the Cossacks, in his early youth, this Pomeranian resident Ermolai son Timofeev received his first and not sickly nickname Tokmak (tokmak, tokmach - a massive wooden mallet for compacting earth) for his remarkable strength and fighting qualities. And Ermak, apparently, has also been among the Cossacks from a young age. No one knew Ermak better than his comrades - veterans of the “Siberian capture”. In their later years, those who were spared by death lived in Siberia. According to the Esipov chronicle, compiled from the memoirs of Ermak’s still living comrades and opponents, before the Siberian campaign, the Cossacks Ilyin and Ivanov already knew him and served with Ermak in the villages for at least twenty years. However, this period of the ataman’s life is not documented.
According to Polish sources, in June 1581, Ermak, at the head of the Volga Cossack flotilla, fought in Lithuania against the Polish-Lithuanian troops of King Stefan Batory. At this time, his friend and associate Ivan Koltso fought in the Trans-Volga steppes with the Nogai Horde. In January 1582, Russia concluded the Yam-Zapolsky Peace Treaty with Poland and Ermak was given the opportunity to return to his native land. Ermak’s detachment arrives on the Volga and in Zhiguli unites with the detachment of Ivan Koltso and other “thieves’ Atamans”. To this day there is a village called Ermakovo. Here (according to other sources on Yaik) they are found by a messenger from the rich Perm salt industrialists Stroganovs with an offer to go to their service. To protect their possessions, the Stroganovs were allowed to build fortresses and maintain armed detachments in them. In addition, within the Perm land there was always a detachment of Moscow troops in the Cherdyn fortress. The appeal of the Stroganovs led to a split among the Cossacks. Ataman Bogdan Barbosha, who had previously been the chief assistant of Ivan Koltso, resolutely refused to be hired by the Perm merchants. Barbosha took several hundred Cossacks with him to Yaik. After Barboscha and his supporters left the circle, the majority in the circle went to Ermak and his villages. Knowing that for the destruction of the Tsar's caravan, Ermak has already been sentenced to quartering, and Koltso to hanging, the Cossacks accept the Stroganovs' invitation to go to their Chusovsky towns for protection from the attacks of the Siberian Tatars. There was another reason. At that time, a grandiose uprising of the Volga peoples had been raging on the Volga for several years. After the end of the Livonian War, in April 1582, royal ship troops began to arrive on the Volga to suppress the uprising. The free Cossacks found themselves between a rock and a hard place. They did not want to participate in actions against the rebels, but they did not take their side either. They decided to leave the Volga. In the summer of 1582, a detachment of Ermak and the atamans Ivan Koltso, Matvey Meshcheryak, Bogdan Bryazga, Ivan Alexandrov nicknamed Cherkas, Nikita Pan, Savva Boldyr, Gavrila Ilyin in the amount of 540 people climbed along the Volga and Kama on plows to the Chusovsky towns. The Stroganovs gave Ermak some weapons, but they were insignificant, since Ermak’s entire squad had excellent weapons.
Taking advantage of the opportune moment when the Siberian prince Alei with the best troops went on a raid on the Perm fortress of Cherdyn, and the Siberian Khan Kuchum was busy at war with the Nogai, Ermak himself undertakes a daring invasion of his lands. It was an extremely daring and bold, but dangerous plan. Any miscalculation or accident deprived the Cossacks of any chance of return and salvation. If they had been defeated, contemporaries and descendants would have easily attributed it to the folly of the brave. But the Ermakovites won, and the winners are not judged, they are admired. We will admire it too. Stroganov's merchant ships had been plying the Ural and Siberian rivers for a long time, and their people knew the regime of these waterways very well. During the autumn floods, the water in mountain rivers and streams rose after heavy rains and mountain passes became accessible for transportation. In September, Ermak could have crossed the Urals, but if he had hesitated there until the end of the floods, his Cossacks would not have been able to drag their ships back through the passes. Ermak understood that only a swift and sudden attack could lead him to victory, and therefore he hurried with all his might. Ermak’s people more than once overcame the many miles of transportation between the Volga and Don. But overcoming the Ural mountain passes was fraught with incomparably greater difficulties. With an ax in their hands, the Cossacks made their own way, cleared rubble, felled trees, and cut a clearing. They did not have the time and energy to level the rocky path, as a result of which they could not drag the ships along the ground using rollers. According to the participants of the campaign from the Esipov chronicle, they dragged the ships up the mountain “on themselves,” in other words, in their arms. Along the Tagil passes, Ermak left Europe and descended from the “Stone” (Ural Mountains) to Asia. In 56 days, the Cossacks covered more than 1,500 km, including about 300 km upstream along Chusovaya and Serebryanka and 1,200 km downstream of the Siberian rivers and reached the Irtysh. This turned out to be possible thanks to iron discipline and solid military organization. Ermak categorically forbade any minor skirmishes with the natives on the way, only forward. In addition to the atamans, the Cossacks were commanded by foremen, pentecostals, centurions and esauls. With the detachment were three Orthodox priests and one priest. During the campaign, Ermak strictly demanded the observance of all Orthodox fasts and holidays.
And now thirty Cossack plows are sailing along the Irtysh. At the front, the wind flutters a Cossack banner: blue with a wide red border. The red cloth is embroidered with patterns, and there are fancy rosettes at the corners of the banner. In the center on a blue field are two white figures standing opposite each other on their hind legs, a lion and an Ingor horse with a horn on its forehead, the personification of “prudence, purity and severity.” Ermak fought with this banner against Stefan Batory in the West, and came with it to Siberia. At the same time, the best Siberian army, led by Tsarevich Aley, unsuccessfully stormed the Russian fortress of Cherdyn in the Perm region. The appearance of Ermak’s Cossack flotilla on the Irtysh was a complete surprise for Kuchum. He hastened to gather Tatars from nearby uluses, as well as Mansi and Khanty princes with detachments, to defend his capital. The Tatars quickly built fortifications (zasek) on the Irtysh near the Chuvashev Cape and placed many foot and horse soldiers along the entire coast. On October 26, a grandiose battle broke out on the Chuvashov Cape, on the banks of the Irtysh, which was led by Kuchum himself from the opposing side. In this battle, the Cossacks successfully used the old and favorite “rook army” technique. Some of the Cossacks with stuffed animals made of brushwood, dressed in Cossack dress, sailed on plows clearly visible from the shore and continuously exchanged fire with the shore, and the main detachment quietly landed on the shore and, on foot, quickly attacked Kuchum’s horse and foot army from the rear and overturned it . The Khanty princes, frightened by the volleys, were the first to leave the battlefield. Their example was followed by the Mansi warriors, who took refuge after the retreat in the impenetrable Yaskalba swamps. In this battle, Kuchum’s troops were completely defeated, Mametkul was wounded and miraculously escaped capture, Kuchum himself fled, and his capital Kashlyk was occupied by Ermak.
Rice. 2 Conquest of the Siberian Khanate
Soon the Cossacks occupied the towns of Epanchin, Chingi-Tura and Isker, bringing the local princes and kings into submission. The local Khanty-Mansi tribes, burdened by the power of Kuchum, showed peacefulness towards the Russians. Just four days after the battle, the first prince Boyar and his fellow tribesmen came to Kashlyk and brought with them a lot of supplies. The Tatars, who fled from the outskirts of Kashlyk, began to return to their yurts with their families. The dashing raid was a success. Rich booty fell into the hands of the Cossacks. However, it was premature to celebrate the victory. At the end of autumn, the Cossacks could no longer set out on the return journey. The harsh Siberian winter has begun. Ice bound the rivers that served as the only means of communication. The Cossacks had to pull the plows ashore. Their first difficult winter began.
Kuchum carefully prepared to deal a mortal blow to the Cossacks and liberate his capital. However, he, willy-nilly, had to give the Cossacks more than a month’s respite: he had to wait for the return of Aley’s troops from behind the Ural ridge. The question was about the existence of the Siberian Khanate. Therefore, messengers galloped to all corners of the vast “kingdom” with orders to gather military forces. Everyone who was able to bear arms was drafted under the khan’s banners. Kuchum again entrusted command to his nephew Mametkul, who had dealt with the Russians more than once. Mametkul set out to liberate Kashlyk, having at his disposal more than 10 thousand soldiers. The Cossacks could defend themselves from the Tatars by settling in Kashlyk. But they preferred attack to defense. On December 5, Ermak attacked the advancing Tatar army 15 versts south of Kashlyk in the area of Lake Abalak. The battle was difficult and bloody. Many Tatars died on the battlefield, but the Cossacks also suffered heavy losses. With the onset of darkness the battle stopped on its own. The countless Tatar army retreated. Unlike the first battle at Cape Chuvashev, this time there was no panicky flight of the enemy at the height of the battle. There was no talk of capturing their commander-in-chief. Nevertheless, Ermak achieved the most glorious of his victories over the combined forces of the entire Kuchumov kingdom. The waters of Siberian rivers were covered with ice and impassable snow. The Cossack plows had long been pulled ashore. All escape routes were cut off. The Cossacks fought fiercely with the enemy, realizing that either victory or death awaited them. For each of the Cossacks there were more than twenty enemies. This battle showed the heroism and moral superiority of the Cossacks; it meant the complete and final conquest of the Siberian Khanate.
To notify the Tsar about the conquest of the Siberian kingdom in the spring of 1583, Ermak sent a detachment of 25 Cossacks led by Ivan Koltso to Ivan IV the Terrible. This was not a random choice. According to the Cossack historian A.A. Gordeeva, Ivan Koltso is the nephew of the disgraced Metropolitan Philip who fled to the Volga and the former royal guard Ivan Kolychev, a scion of the numerous but disgraced boyar family of the Kolychevs. The embassy sent gifts, tribute, noble captives and a petition in which Ermak asked for forgiveness for his previous guilt and asked to send a governor with a detachment of troops to Siberia to help. Moscow at that time was deeply affected by the failures of the Livonian War. Military defeats followed one after another. The success of a handful of Cossacks who defeated the Siberian kingdom flashed like lightning in the darkness, striking the imagination of their contemporaries. The embassy of Ermak, headed by Ivan Koltso, was received in Moscow very solemnly. According to contemporaries, there has not been such joy in Moscow since the conquest of Kazan. “Ermak and his comrades and all the Cossacks were forgiven by the tsar for all their previous guilts, the tsar presented Ivan the Ring and the Cossacks who arrived with him with gifts. Ermak was granted a fur coat from the tsar’s shoulder, battle armor and a letter in his name, in which the tsar granted Ataman Ermak to write as the Siberian Prince...” Ivan the Terrible ordered a detachment of 300 archers, led by Prince Semyon Bolkhovsky, to be sent to help the Cossacks. Simultaneously with the Koltso detachment, Ermak sent ataman Alexander Cherkas with the Cossacks to the Don and Volga to recruit volunteers. After visiting the villages, Cherkas also ended up in Moscow, where he worked long and hard and sought to send help to Siberia. But Cherkas returned to Siberia with a new large detachment, when neither Ermak nor Koltso, who had returned to Siberia earlier, were alive. The fact is that in the spring of 1584, big changes took place in Moscow - Ivan IV died in his Kremlin palace, and unrest occurred in Moscow. In the general confusion, the Siberian expedition was forgotten for a while. Almost two years passed before the free Cossacks received help from Moscow. What allowed them to stay in Siberia with small forces and resources for such a long time?
Ermak survived because the Cossacks and atamans had experience of long wars both with the most advanced European army of that time, Stefan Batory, and with nomads in the “wild field”. For many years, their camps and winter huts were always surrounded by the gentry or the Horde from all sides. The Cossacks learned to defeat them, despite the numerical superiority of the enemy. An important reason for the success of Ermak's expedition was the internal fragility of the Siberian Khanate. Since Kuchum killed Khan Edigei and seized his throne, many years have passed, filled with continuous bloody wars. Where, by force, where by cunning and deceit, Kuchum humbled the rebellious Tatar murzas (princes) and imposed tribute on the Khanty-Mansi tribes. At first, Kuchum, like Edigei, paid tribute to Moscow, but after coming into force and receiving news of the failures of Moscow troops on the western front, he took a hostile position and began to attack the Perm lands that belonged to the Stroganovs. Surrounding himself with a guard of Nogais and Kyrgyz, he strengthened his power. But the very first military failures immediately led to the resumption of internecine struggle among the Tatar nobility. The son of the murdered Edigei, Seid Khan, who was hiding in Bukhara, returned to Siberia and began to threaten Kuchum with revenge. With his help, Ermak restored the former trade links between Siberia and Yurgent, the capital of the White Horde, located on the shores of the Aral Sea. Kuchum's close murza Seinbakht Tagin gave Ermak the location of Mametkul, the most prominent of the Tatar military leaders. The capture of Mametkul deprived Kuchum of a reliable sword. The nobles, who were afraid of Mametkul, began to leave the khan’s court. Karachi - the main dignitary of Kuchum, who belonged to a powerful Tatar family, stopped obeying the khan and migrated with his warriors to the upper reaches of the Irtysh. The Siberian kingdom was falling apart before our eyes. The power of Kuchum was no longer recognized by many local Mansi and Khanty princes and elders. Some of them began to help Ermak with food. Among the allies of the ataman were Alachey, the prince of the largest Khanty principality in the Ob region, the Khanty prince Boyar, the Mansi princes Ishberdey and Suklem from the Yaskalbinsky places. Their help was invaluable for the Cossacks.
Rice. 3.4 Ermak Timofeevich and the oath of Siberian kings to him
After much delay, governor S. Bolkhovsky arrived in Siberia with a detachment of 300 archers, very late. Ermak, burdened by the new noble captives led by Mametkul, hastened to send them immediately, despite the approaching winter, to Moscow with the Streltsy head Kireev. The replenishment did not please the Cossacks much. The archers were poorly trained, they wasted their supplies along the way, and difficult trials lay ahead of them. Winter 1584-1585 in Siberia was very harsh and was especially difficult for the Russians; supplies ran out and famine began. By spring, all the archers, along with Prince Bolkhovsky and a significant part of the Cossacks, died of hunger and cold. In the spring of 1585, Kuchum's dignitary, Murza Karacha, fraudulently lured a detachment of Cossacks led by Ivan Koltso to a feast, and at night, attacking them, he cut them all sleepy. Numerous Karachi detachments kept Kashlyk in a ring, hoping to starve the Cossacks to death. Ermak patiently waited for the moment to strike. Under the cover of night, the Cossacks sent by him, led by Matvey Meshcheryak, secretly made their way to the Karachi headquarters and defeated it. Karachi's two sons were killed in the battle, he himself barely escaped death, and his army fled away from Kashlyk that same day. Ermak won another brilliant victory over numerous enemies. Soon, messengers from Bukhara merchants arrived to Ermak with a request to protect them from the tyranny of Kuchum. Ermak with the rest of the army - about a hundred people - set off on a campaign. The end of the first Siberian expedition is shrouded in a dense veil of legends. On the banks of the Irtysh near the mouth of the Vagai River, where Ermak’s detachment spent the night, they were attacked by Kuchum during a terrible storm and thunderstorm. Ermak assessed the situation and ordered to get into the plows. Meanwhile, the Tatars had already broken into the camp. Ermak was the last to retreat, covering the Cossacks. The Tatar archers fired a cloud of arrows. The arrows pierced the broad chest of Ermak Timofeevich. The rapid icy waters of the Irtysh swallowed him up forever...
This Siberian expedition lasted three years. Hunger and deprivation, severe frosts, battles and losses - nothing could stop the free Cossacks, break their will to victory. For three years, Ermak’s squad did not know defeat from numerous enemies. In the last night skirmish, the thinned squad retreated, suffering minor losses. But he lost a proven leader. The expedition could not continue without him. Arriving in Kashlyk, Matvey Meshcheryak gathered a Circle, in which the Cossacks decided to go to the Volga for help. Ermak led 540 fighters to Siberia, but only 90 Cossacks survived. With ataman Matvey Meshcheryak they returned to Rus'. Already in 1586, another detachment of Cossacks from the Volga came to Siberia and founded the first Russian city there - Tyumen, which served as the basis for the future Siberian Cossack Army and the beginning of the incredibly sacrificial and heroic Siberian Cossack epic. And thirteen years after the death of Ermak, the tsarist commanders finally defeated Kuchum.
The history of the Siberian expedition was rich in many incredible events. The destinies of people underwent instant and incredible changes, and the zigzags and twists of Moscow politics never cease to amaze even today. The story of Prince Mametkul can serve as a striking example of this. After the death of Ivan the Terrible, the nobility ceased to take into account the orders of the weak-minded Tsar Fedor. The boyars and nobles of the capital started local disputes on any occasion. Everyone demanded higher positions for themselves, citing the “breed” and service of their ancestors. Boris Godunov and Andrei Shchelkalov eventually found a way to bring the nobility to reason. By their order, the Rank Order announced the appointment of serving Tatars to the highest military posts. On the occasion of the expected war with the Swedes, a list of regiments was drawn up. According to this painting, Simeon Bekbulatovich took the post of first governor of a large regiment - commander-in-chief of the field army. The commander of the left-hand regiment was ... “Tsarevich Mametkul of Siberia.” Twice beaten and defeated by Ermak, captured and put in a pit by the Cossacks, Mametkul was treated kindly at the royal court and appointed to one of the highest posts in the Russian army.
Cossacks... A completely special social stratum, estate, class. Its own, as experts would put it, subculture: way of dressing, speaking, behaving. Peculiar songs. A heightened concept of honor and dignity. Pride in one's own identity. Courage and daring in the most terrible battle. For some time now, the history of Russia has been unimaginable without the Cossacks. But the current “heirs” are, for the most part, “mummers”, impostors. Unfortunately, the Bolsheviks tried very hard to uproot the real Cossacks during the civil war. Those who were not destroyed rotted in prisons and camps. Alas, what was destroyed cannot be returned. To honor traditions and not become Ivans, not remembering kinship...
History of the Don Cossacks
Don Cossacks Oddly enough, even the exact date of birth of the Don Cossacks is known. It became January 3, 1570. Ivan the Terrible, having defeated the Tatar khanates, essentially provided the Cossacks with every opportunity to settle in new territories, settle and take root. The Cossacks were proud of their freedom, although they took an oath of allegiance to one or another king. The kings, in turn, were in no hurry to completely enslave this dashing gang.
During the Time of Troubles, the Cossacks turned out to be very active and active. However, they often took the side of one or another impostor, and did not at all stand guard over statehood and the law. One of the famous Cossack chieftains, Ivan Zarutsky, even himself was not averse to reigning in Moscow. In the 17th century, Cossacks actively explored the Black and Azov Seas.
In a sense, they became sea pirates, corsairs, terrifying merchants and merchants. The Cossacks often found themselves next to the Cossacks. Peter the Great officially included the Cossacks into the Russian Empire, obliged them to serve as sovereigns, and abolished the election of atamans. The Cossacks began to take an active part in all the wars waged by Russia, in particular with Sweden and Prussia, as well as in the First World War.
Many of the Donets did not accept the Bolsheviks and fought against them, and then went into exile. Well-known figures of the Cossack movement - P.N. Krasnov and A.G. Shkuro - actively collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War. During the era of Gorbachev's perestroika, they started talking about the revival of the Don Cossacks. However, on this wave there was a lot of muddy foam, following fashion, and outright speculation. To date, almost none of the so-called. Don Cossacks and especially atamans by origin and rank are not such.
History of the Kuban Cossacks
Kuban Cossack The emergence of the Kuban Cossacks dates back to a later time than the Don Cossacks - only to the second half of the 19th century. The location of the Kuban residents was the North Caucasus, Krasnodar and Stavropol territories, Rostov region, Adygea and Karachay-Cherkessia. The center was the city of Ekaterinodar. Seniority belonged to the Koshe and Kuren atamans. Later, the supreme atamans began to be appointed personally by one or another Russian emperor.
Historically, after Catherine II disbanded the Zaporozhye Sich, several thousand Cossacks fled to the Black Sea coast and tried to restore the Sich there, under the patronage of the Turkish Sultan. Later, they again turned to face the Fatherland, made a significant contribution to the victory over the Turks, for which they were awarded the lands of Taman and Kuban, and the lands were given to them for eternal and hereditary use.
The Kubans can be described as a free paramilitary association. The population was engaged in agriculture, led a sedentary lifestyle, and fought only for state needs. Newcomers and fugitives from the central regions of Russia were willingly accepted here. They mixed with the local population and became “one of their own.”
In the fire of revolution and civil war, the Cossacks were forced to constantly maneuver between the Reds and the Whites, looked for a “third way,” and tried to defend their identity and independence. In 1920, the Bolsheviks finally abolished both the Kuban army and the Republic. Mass repressions, evictions, famine and dispossession followed. Only in the second half of the 30s. The Cossacks were partially rehabilitated, the Kuban Choir was restored. During the Great Patriotic War, Cossacks fought on an equal basis with others, mainly together with regular units of the Red Army.
History of the Terek Cossacks
Terek Cossacks The Terek Cossacks arose around the same time as the Kuban Cossacks - in 1859, on the date of the defeat of the troops of the Chechen Imam Shamil. In the Cossack power hierarchy, the Terets were the third in seniority. They settled along rivers such as the Kura, Terek, and Sunzha. The headquarters of the Terek Cossack army is the city of Vladikavkaz. The settlement of the territories began in the 16th century.
The Cossacks were in charge of protecting the border territories, but they themselves sometimes did not hesitate to raid the possessions of the Tatar princes. The Cossacks often had to defend themselves from mountain raids. However, the close proximity to the highlanders brought the Cossacks not only negative emotions. The Tertsy adopted some linguistic expressions from the mountaineers, and in particular the details of clothing and ammunition: burkas and hats, daggers and sabers.
The founded cities of Kizlyar and Mozdok became centers of concentration of the Terek Cossacks. In 1917, the Tertsy people declared independence and established a republic. With the final establishment of Soviet power, the Tertsy people suffered the same dramatic fate as the Kuban and Donets people: mass repression and eviction.
Interesting Facts
In 1949, the lyrical comedy “Kuban Cossacks” directed by Ivan Pyryev appeared on the Soviet screen. Despite the obvious varnishing of reality and the smoothing out of socio-political conflicts, it fell in love with the mass audience, and the song “What You Were” is performed on stage to this day.
It is interesting that the word “Cossack” itself, translated from the Turkic language, means a free, freedom-loving, proud person. So the name stuck to these people, you know, is far from accidental.
The Cossack does not bow to any authority; he is fast and free, like the wind.
Recently it has been generally accepted that the Cossacks have been an integral part of the Russian monarchy since they took on a permanent form. However, this is not true. The history of the Cossacks contains many events that, for one reason or another, were not beneficial to cover by the authorities that existed to this day, both tsarist and Soviet. The Cossacks, to one degree or another, have always been disliked by every existing government, but over time, the authorities were forced to recognize them more and more. What's the secret here? Obviously in the constant desire of the Cossacks for a certain independence. To independence, for which they were ready to pay any price, and for which they paid with service, devotion, and lives. In exchange for all this, the authorities did not grant them independence. The authorities put up with them, or rather, they pretended to agree with Cossack independence, but in fact they could not eliminate it. If they could, they liquidated them. The Cossack freemen existed independently of the power of the tsar, and the tsar was forced to pretend that he was satisfied with its existence. There came a time in the history of Russia when the kings began to create family ties with the most prominent representatives of the Cossacks, as a guarantee of mutual devotion. The alliance with the Cossacks was so beneficial. For example, the godfather of the son of Nicholas 2nd Tsarevich Alexei was a Terek Cossack. In fact, the very fact of the existence of the free Cossacks was a symbol of the desire for freedom of the serfs, who every year became more and more difficult to keep in check. It is quite obvious that the tsarist government was forced to put up with the existence of Russian lands inhabited by free people. The king could not grant these lands to one of the aristocrats for certain merits. The Cossacks did not fit into generally accepted concepts. They had to put up with him. They were forced to be taken into account. They were forced to resort to their help in difficult times for Russia. And no matter what, the Cossacks never forgot that they were Russian people. Russian people who have never been slaves and who have never owned slaves. And in order for the serfs to have fewer questions, the Cossacks were identified, at best, as a separate class, and at worst, they were generally recognized as a different, non-Russian people. Well, the lands on which the Cossacks lived, and which they conquered, and watered with sweat and blood, the kings graciously transferred to them for eternal use. The famous charter of Catherine II to the Cossacks is known, officially granting them the lands they conquered. That is why present-day Krasnodar was called Ekaterinodar in those days.
The origin of the Cossacks.
There is not and cannot be an exact date for the birth of the Cossacks. The process of origin took place spontaneously and long before the appearance of any state acts mentioning, establishing or recognizing certain Cossack formations. Peasants began to become Cossacks from the moment serfdom began in Russia. Perhaps this happened even before the appearance of the word itself, Cossack. However, this word is found in the Turkic language. It is translated as - thief, robber. Or maybe this word appeared in the Turkic languages after the Cossacks began to instill fear and horror in their neighbors with their military victories and, accordingly, robberies. But such a phenomenon as the Cossacks does not occur in the history of any country in the world. There was nothing like it anywhere. The Cossacks are a purely Slavic phenomenon.
The fact is that throughout the world serfdom appeared after the slave system as more progressive compared to slavery. In Russia there was no slavery. In our country, serfdom replaced free communal relations, which the peasants liked more than serfdom. That is why serfdom in Russia was imposed slowly, gradually and against the will of the people, and the authorities were able to destroy the peasant community only in 1905-1912, after the Stolypin agrarian reform. If in Europe slaves were turned into serfs, then in Russia free community members were turned into serfs, but not immediately. With the introduction of serfdom, slaves received some kind of independence, the opportunity to have a family, that is, they acquired something. Free community members, after the introduction of serfdom, on the contrary, lost their autonomy and independence. They lost freedom without gaining anything in return. Perhaps the dubious protection of the princely squad from the raids of nomads, but, in general, the Russian community members themselves were excellent warriors. Russian infantry in the Middle Ages was considered one of the best both in terms of tactical characteristics and weapons.
THE APPEARANCE OF SERVES.
In Europe, a slave who had no family, no housing, no land, was told that he would become a serf who would have all this, subject to the payment of taxes. He could not be unhappy, although in this case he remains a slave. Yes, and here everything is not so simple. There were those who became slaves, and before that were free, and there were those who were born slaves. For a free person, the prospect of becoming a serf could not be liked. And for a person born into slavery, this was a chance to become a little freer. He received a small property, even if only for use and disposal, but he received it. It was beneficial for him, although by and large no one asked him. He belonged to the feudal lord along with the land on which he lived and fed. It was more profitable for a slave owner to deal with a peasant than with a slave. In the Roman Empire, the first serfs were serfs and coloni. They were not much different from slaves.
It was not profitable for a free community member to become a serf. He, too, only had land for use, but only because his land was not registered at all. The land did not belong to him, but he belonged to the land on which he lived. It would never have occurred to anyone to determine land ownership. The land was considered property by the right of residence on it of those who cultivated it. It belonged to the peasant as long as he protected it from the encroachments of possible claimants. But he had a family, a home and freedom, and he was ready at any moment to defend them with arms in hand on any land. It was not beneficial for him to become a serf. His situation deteriorated sharply. He had to pay taxes, and this was more than a general tribute to the prince. Therefore, he protested in every way available to him. When the strengthening princely power began to register communal lands for itself and distribute them as property to those close to them, ordinary community members, together with their families, began to leave for free, not yet “registered” lands, not wanting to become slaves of their former fellow tribesmen. It is very important that the Russian people accepted Christianity while being free. For some, Christianity was considered the faith of slaves, but for us, the Orthodox faith was the faith of free people.
Perhaps it was precisely the arbitrariness of the newly-minted Russian feudal lords that pushed many community members to organize their departure to free lands; fortunately, there was enough land at that time. These were probably the first Cossacks, but they didn’t call themselves Cossacks then. Many of the free community members remained, because formally they were still free, but apparently there were many who went to the Cossacks. The nation is divided, but no one mentions this fact. There was no population census, land registry, and much more. In order to reduce the number of peasants leaving the estate, a single deadline for leaving the estate was invented. (Yuriev day). It was autumn, after the harvest. This period included the week before November 26, the day of St. George the Victorious, and the week after it. To make it difficult for the peasant to leave the land he occupied, he was charged with a special tax. It was called "elderly". Only by paying the “elderly fee” could the peasant go to another landowner or wherever he wanted, but where would he go on the eve of the coming winter? And the peasants began to flee in the spring. Only young men without children could do this. They were declared fugitives and tried to be caught legally. In the 16th century, such a basis was the law defining “scheduled summers”. At first it was 5 years from the moment the peasant escaped, during which the landowner could return the peasant. Subsequently, this period was increased to 15 years. Then the “lesson summer” was canceled completely. The caught peasants were severely punished, beaten and had their nostrils torn out, after which they were returned to the landowner with such a mark, visible to everyone. And yet, the Russian peasants had aspirations for a free life, which they greatly regretted. They fled by the thousands. Many were caught. Many died. But many became Cossacks. However, the backbone of the Cossacks was made up of precisely those community members who left the landowners at the very beginning of the appropriation of the land by the princes. Not wanting to have anything to do with this incomprehensible “privatization,” and not being able to resist, free community members simply left for unoccupied places, of which there were a lot. When serfdom intensified and, at best, only a healthy man could escape to become a Cossack, the Cossacks could not arise in this way. The Cossacks were created by free community members who preserved their faith, their way of life, governance, organization, crafts, culture, and families. The main problem for them was the constantly encroaching power of the princes from the north, from which they simply had to leave for other territories. However, it was precisely the mobility of the Cossacks that could help them survive claims from the north, and even the invasion of the Mongol-Tatars. Apparently, during the invasion of the Tatars, and in later periods, the Cossacks retained such a quality as mobility in their settlements. Being farmers, they were always ready to abandon their villages and evacuate to safe places, fleeing the invasion of a stronger enemy. Those who were weaker did not pose a threat to them.
The Cossacks found themselves between two fires. From the north they were pursued by Russian landowners and tsars, and in the south they were opposed by tribes of nomads who were always not averse to profiting from raids on foreigners. However, the Cossacks managed to organize themselves into communities that represented a serious force. However, the Cossacks did not only defend themselves. They themselves began to carry out raids, possibly on Russian settlements. Robberies helped them improve their lives and organize themselves into a specific military structure with strict subordination of ordinary Cossacks to esauls and atamans. This organization helped them subsequently establish everyday life and unique communal relations between the Cossacks. In particular, the division of land by lot. In the north, serfdom became more and more stricter, and in the south and east lived free people who conquered and developed new lands. Their lands were seized by the government, but the Cossacks moved further and further. Their way of life did not fit into serfdom. There were attempts to win the right to this or that region from the tsar, and some of them ended successfully, but the main thing was that in the entire history of the Cossacks, the Cossacks did not have landowners or slaves. They retained freedom as the main condition for intra-Cossack relations. The Cossacks never had their land ownership determined. The Cossack land never belonged to anyone in particular. It was always common and divided by lot among the number of men, including minors, for a period of 3 or 5 years. This situation remained until the 1917 revolution. The Cossacks did not even support the Stolypin reform, citing the fact that assigning communal land to individual Cossacks would weaken the combat effectiveness of the Cossack army. And this was not an invention of the Cossack leadership. Equality reigned among the Cossacks. Ataman was elected. Legally, every Cossack was equal to an ataman. All men were military men, and, accordingly, guarantors of equal rights for all community members. If a man was the last man of his kind, he was protected and not allowed into battles. An earring in a Cossack's ear served as a sign for any Cossack chieftain that this Cossack was the last in his family and with his death the Cossack clan would fade away. There will be no one to even draw lots for the land. Moreover, history does not mention such a phenomenon as “purchase” among the Cossacks, i.e. a man who sold himself for debt. Apparently, the freedom of an ordinary community member, for the Cossacks, was directly proportional to the freedom of the entire community. Freedom among the Cossacks was not an empty phrase, but a real asset. In other words, the Cossacks, not recognizing serfdom, followed the path of developing old communal relations. Their social structure can easily be called a communal, patriarchal democracy. Who knows, maybe the Cossack government was akin to the people's council that existed in Rus', or maybe the constant danger united the Cossacks so much that, combined with freedom, it developed in people a special responsibility for making decisions and choosing atamans from among the most capable Cossacks? One thing is clear. The Cossacks, for a long time, did not have a strong enough centralized Cossack power. If choosing an ataman from among the village residents was a common thing, then choosing an ataman for all the villages was not an easy task. Everyone would vote for their chieftain. In this regard, the Cossacks were satisfied that the Russian Tsar would become their leader. You don't have to choose. His authority is indisputable, God’s anointed, and he does not encroach on the freedom of the Cossacks. Let it be only now. If the Cossacks began to create centralized power themselves, they would end up with the same thing that all ancient democracies came to. To tyranny. And this would have happened if the Russian Tsar tried to destroy the Cossacks. But that didn't happen. The Tsar recognized the Cossacks, and they were given the opportunity to live without changing their way of life in exchange for recognition of them as the Russian people.
Cossack communal democracy was like a bone in the throat of the monarchs, who strangled any seeds of free thought even when they appeared among the aristocracy. But it was not possible to strangle the Cossacks. Their strength was too great. Therefore, any information about the Cossacks was not disclosed. In addition, if official historiography would truthfully describe the history of the origin of the Cossacks, then we would have to admit the fact that the origin of the Cossacks was the result of the unparalleled greed policy of the Russian princely government aimed at appropriating communal land, which brazenly violated the interests of its own people. Turned her people into serfs, dependent people. In order not to admit this, it is easier to say that the Cossacks are a completely different ethnic group. And even better, an ethnic group alien to Russians, having roots of origin from the Tatars themselves. If there were someone more terrible than the Tatars, perhaps the Cossacks would be counted from their roots.
THERE IS AN OPINION that the Cossacks were simply robbers. Allegedly, their life credo was the desire to plunder and attack a defenseless settlement with all the ensuing consequences, as was typical of nomads. I am not inclined to idealize the Cossacks, but such a categorical opinion is probably wrong and here’s why.
If the Cossacks put robbery and a riotous lifestyle at the forefront, there would be no Cossack settlements. The Cossacks, without exception, were believing Orthodox Christians. They were farmers, not nomads. They built their villages and temples. Christian principles were cultivated in their families. The Cossacks systematically moved towards this and sacredly preserved Christian values. They accepted Christ while free, and kept their faith while remaining so. Of course, not all. Among them there were lovers of war, many of whom laid down their lives in various dubious and not so dubious campaigns, but the bulk of the Cossacks sought to create new families. It was these Cossacks who constituted the main force of the Cossacks. They were the main component of the Cossack army. For the settled Cossacks, the main task was to preserve the life of their own village and the villages of their neighbors. And there was someone to protect from. The entire population of the villages was ready to defend their homes at any moment. Even women and children knew how to hold weapons in their hands. This was the main goal of the Cossacks, to survive.
But there were Cossack raids on the highlanders, on the nomads. From time to time they were carried out and were no less cruel than raids on the Cossacks, but this was a necessary condition of that time. The Cossacks strictly followed the laws of the highlanders (and in general all those who lived in their neighborhood), adopting their customs and even clothing. According to these laws, it was possible to live only by forcing oneself to respect. The Cossacks also took hostages and handed them over for ransom, just as the mountaineers did. Even the corpses of mountaineers killed in battle were given for ransom, knowing full well that the ransom would be paid in order to bury the dead relative. And they themselves paid the mountaineers a ransom for their dead. And all this was done in order to intimidate enemies and force them to respect themselves. At the same time, the Cossacks did not part with their weapons even while working in the field. Actually this work was their main occupation. The main source of income. The Cossacks were peasants.
OFFICIAL APPROVAL OF THE COSSACKS.
FOR THE FIRST TIME, the Cossacks declared themselves as a powerful political force during the time of Boris Godunov. Before this, they also made risky trips, including with the knowledge of the sovereign, but not on his direct instructions, like Ermak. However, the authorities began to take them into account when they showed that they could pose a huge danger to the authorities. It was the Cossacks who supported Grigory Otrepyev. Without their support, the Polish army would not have been able to carry out an invasion of such a scale. It is unlikely that the Cossacks wanted to betray Boris Godunov for the sake of an impostor. It is unlikely that they were delighted by the miraculous salvation of Tsarevich Dmitry, the son of Ivan the Terrible, who did not recognize the Cossacks. After all, for them he, too, should have been considered the personification of the danger to their Cossack freemen. It’s just that for the first time the Cossack atamans received a promise, albeit a false one, but still an heir to the throne, to recognize their right to a free life as part of Rus'. In exchange for this recognition, many Cossacks were ready to serve faithfully even an impostor. But they are not the only ones. Many, even high-ranking, aristocratic nobles swore allegiance to False Dmitry, seduced by his boundless promises. These were people who had lands, power, and position at the court of the Rurik dynasty. Formally, their recognition of False Dmitry would have been logical if False Dmitry had not been an impostor. But they knew that he was an impostor. They were present at the funeral of the real Tsarevich Dmitry. Therefore, their oath to False Dmitry was a betrayal. Unlike them, the Cossacks did not know anything for sure, and had nothing but constant disgrace. Their use of the land was spontaneous. They were not recognized. They were not taken into account, and they strove for power in the same way as the aristocrats at court. At the same time, they were not at all embarrassed by the fact that they were not well-born. These “field commanders” of that time did not suffer at all from an inferiority complex regarding their origins, rightly believing that the aristocrats did not become “princes” from the princely chambers. They didn’t care who recognized them, as long as they were recognized by the Russian authorities as being so free, especially since they were only separated by some 600 years from the time of Yaroslav the Wise, when the main stratification of society was determined. They wanted this recognition at any cost. And even when False Dmitry was publicly killed and False Dmitry 2 came to his place, the Cossacks, knowing full well that a substitution had taken place, recognized him too. What difference does it make who gives recognition of the Russian royal throne to the Cossack people?
But not all Cossacks stood under the banners of impostors. Those Cossack atamans who fought on the side of Russia reasoned in approximately the same way. By the way, the Don Cossacks fought against the Poles as mercenaries for money. There is a known case when the Cossacks refused to go into battle without payment and the monks of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra brought them gold and silver frames from icons, as well as utensils made of precious metals as payment. The Orthodox Don people appreciated such a sacrifice and refused to accept it. On this day they went into battle without waiting for money.
In other words, a rather large driving force behind the Russian Troubles was the native Cossacks, whose rights were infringed and striving for recognition. If Boris Godunov could have come to an agreement with the Cossacks before the Polish invasion, it most likely would have been impossible. The Poles and Swedes were interventionists, but they themselves could not have done anything. No wonder the 23-year-old Prince Skopin-Shuisky smashed the Swedes, despite their political and military superiority. If the Poles did not have Cossack support and a troubled time in the history of Russia, essentially a civil war, it is unlikely that they would have been able to do anything. The interventionists took advantage of these factors. However, this did not help them. But the Cossacks achieved their goal. After the defeat of external enemies, the Cossacks were recognized by the Russian authorities. The Cossacks guilty of treason, of course, were executed or roughly punished, but they had to be reckoned with. After all, it is better to have such strength among your allies than to have such dangerous enemies among them. However, this happened in an interesting way. Klyuchevsky (if I’m not mistaken) describes the election of the new Russian Tsar, Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov. Many high-born contenders for the throne spoke at the eminent meeting, but the speech of one nobleman is also described, who issued a “written opinion” in which Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov was presented as a contender for the throne. A very young guy, whose father was the future Patriarch Filaret. (At the time of his son’s election as king, he was in Polish captivity.) Before his tonsure, Fyodor Romanov, who was forcibly tonsured a monk. So Boris Godunov got rid of an intelligent and well-born contender for the royal throne. Boris Godunov himself came from a family of Mongol-Tatar khans. So the first person who immediately supported the candidacy of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov was the ataman of the Don Cossacks, who was present at the meeting. After that, the rest also voted.
History is silent whether there was a conspiracy between the Cossacks and the Romanovs, but if there was one, then one of the main conditions of such a conspiracy could be the unconditional recognition of the Cossacks. It was at this moment that an element of future contradiction arose in Russia.
According to the famous Soviet historian, Professor A.L. Stanislavsky, a well-known specialist in the history of Russian society of the 16th-17th centuries, an important role in the accession of Mikhail was played by the Great Russian Cossacks, free Great Russian people, whose liberties the tsar and his descendants took away in every possible way.
Along with the slave-owning-serf system, the communal-democratic Cossack way of life coexisted peacefully in Russia. Whether the authorities liked it or not, it was already impossible to change anything. The most reasonable thing was to separate the Cossacks into a separate class, or better yet, into a separate ethnic group, distinct from the Russian peasantry, which was done so that the peasants would not strive to become Cossacks. The Cossacks willingly served in the tsarist army and, in addition, protected the borders of the vast empire from encroachment. It was they who began to develop new territories, conquering them from the indigenous population or peacefully neighboring them. It was the Cossacks who annexed Siberia, the Far East, the Urals and the Caucasus to Russia. True, the Cossacks did not have democratic governing bodies. They did not have their own Areopagus, their own historians, legislators, philosophers. They had no time for this during their military life, and history gave them too little time for development, unlike the Greeks or Romans. However, the Greeks during the period of ancient democracy had classical slavery. The Cossacks did not even have a hint of slavery. The history of the Cossacks is certainly of great interest for the purpose of studying one of the options for the socio-political development of the people. Freedom hidden in the shadow of tyranny.
However, cooperation with the Romanov dynasty was not always serene. It is known that Peter 1 tried to deprive the Cossacks of their salt mines. A conflict arose, which degenerated into an uprising of the Cossacks under the leadership of Kondrat Bulavin. The ataman was killed by traitors from among the Cossacks, who were seduced by the reward announced by Tsar Peter, and the entire army of Kondrat Bulavin, under the leadership of another ataman, Ignat Nekrasov, with their families, went first to Kuban, which then belonged to Circassia, and then to Turkey, where the Nekrasov Cossacks settled and lived until the end of the 20th century. The tsarist authorities after Peter 1 repeatedly offered the Nekrasovites to return to their homeland, but the Nekrasovites remained abroad. Their descendants returned to the USSR to the territory of Kuban and Stavropol Territory. They created collective farms that were distinguished by good profits and labor discipline. This fact says a lot. First of all, the Cossacks did not just return to their homeland. For several centuries they have not lost their belonging to Russian culture. We preserved the language, faith, traditions. This refutes those historians who are so eager to separate the Cossacks from the Russian people.
However, it would be unfair not to note that serfs also participated in the development of the Caucasus and other territories. As a rule, these were peasants settled on the territories of their landowners, to whom these lands were granted by the king after they were recaptured from the highlanders. Including during the Caucasian War. For example, the village of Vorontsovo - Aleksandrovskoe (and not only it) in the Stavropol province, was founded by the serf peasants of Prince Semyon Mikhailovich Vorontsov, who came to settle from the Voronezh province, at the suggestion of the prince himself, who received these lands as a reward. The village was founded in 1781, long before the abolition of serfdom. (“Stavropol Province 1897. Koritsky’s printing house Stavropol. A. Tvalchrelidze) In such cases, the peasants were exempted from some duties, and there were cases when they were given manumission. If the resettlement of peasants to Cossack areas occurred after the abolition of serfdom, then this allowed the landowners to allocate land to the peasants not at home, but in the distant Caucasus, the Urals, etc. These people also replenished the Cossack community, adopting customs, traditions, and culture from the Cossacks. For joining the community in the Siberian Cossacks, there was a community contribution of about 30 rubles. A lot of money, but it could also be taken several years after the peasant settled in the community. Observed. The resettlement of peasants to the southern lands was directly related to the development of the Caucasus and other lands, and the displacement of local residents from there. As soon as the next Azov-Mozdok line of fortresses appeared in the Caucasus, pushing the highlanders to the south, the need arose to populate the designated space with Russian people. And then the authorities allowed the transformation of peasants into Cossacks, based on political necessity. By the way, the “Caucasian War”, which lasted 101 years (from 1761 to 1863), contributed to the fact that the Russian government encouraged such relocations. In other words, no one can say with certainty that all Cossacks inhabiting the south of Russia have deep Cossack ancestry. The main population of the current Stavropol Territory (not to be confused with the Terek Cossacks) are descendants of resettled serfs. Once they got to the south, they faced the same problems that the Cossacks had lived with throughout their history. They had to adapt and learn to protect themselves and their families. The peasant settlers did not have Cossack freedoms, but, like the Cossacks, they were forced to become warriors. All this, it would seem, should not have had any impact on the life of the Cossacks, but by creating peasant settlements, the tsarist government, consciously or not, laid down the contradictions that would inevitably arise between the Cossacks and peasant settlers over time. Cases of decossackization became a precedent for such contradictions. “The village of Sablinskoye was founded in 1782 on state-owned land. In 1832, the village was renamed into a village, the inhabitants of which were assigned to the Khopyorsky Cossack regiment, and in 1880, by the Highest command, the Sablinsky Cossacks were again transferred to the civil department.” (A. Tkvalchrelidze. “Stavropol Province” 1897, Art. 157) The land is state-owned, and the Cossacks divide it all among themselves by lot. Disorder. Small plots of land were allocated to the displaced peasants. The main land remained either with the treasury or with the owner-landowner. However, this time bomb was already used by the Bolsheviks during the Civil War. Bolshevik agitators promised the displaced peasants all the land at their disposal. Such a proposal could be of interest to the migrant peasants, who in the second or third generation had already learned to ride and fight on horseback. This statement has not been documented by me, but there is an assumption that the basis of the first cavalry army and the entire cavalry of the Red Army was made up of migrant peasants, whom the Bolshevik agitators were able to oppose to the settled Cossacks fighting on the side of the White Army. The latter did not want to change anything in their way of life. That is why they faithfully defended their lands from possible claimants. That is why they became an obstacle on the way of migrant peasants seeking to acquire ownership of the lands of their former owners. Soviet historiography is silent about this because the Cossack social structure did not contradict the ideas of building socialism. It contradicted the conditions of existence of the dictatorship of the “proletariat”. Years later, the displaced peasants could still be deceived by taking away the land given to them by the Soviet government and claiming that this was being done because the country was carrying out collectivization. The Cossacks could not be deceived. They were not the owners of their land. They did not fit into the framework of the socialist society being created. Their way of life was honest and fair. It did not imply any hypocrisy and therefore remained stable and almost unchanged for centuries.
It should be noted that the Cossacks considered themselves a higher class than serfs. To call a Cossack a peasant meant to insult him. However, the difference between their lifestyles was insignificant. The Cossacks were just as hardworking and their lives, no less than those of the peasants, depended on the harvest, but not on successful raids. The peasant peasants who formed the basis of the Russian infantry were no less courageous than the Cossack peasants. The Cossacks were farmers, and all farmers are alike. But freedom and communal democracy favorably distinguished the Cossacks from the peasants and was the reason for the burning envy of the latter. But this freedom was won by the Cossacks at the cost of several centuries of struggle. Moreover, Cossack freedom was recognized by the authorities at a time when it was no longer possible not to recognize it, but its recognition promised and provided a lot of political benefits.
It is not surprising that at the moment when the government decided to recognize the Cossacks and their right to legal existence, they were faced with the question: how to explain the origin of the Cossacks? In this regard, a variety of theories of the origin of the Cossacks were presented. In Tsarist Russia it was necessary to explain to everyone that it was impossible to become a Cossack. Their special position is due to historical features that are not akin to the traditions of serf Russia. In other words, everything had to be done to keep the huge empire in balance on one side, which was serfdom, at the expense of which the aristocracy lived, and on the other end, the communal democracy of the Cossacks. The Cossacks did not particularly try to restrain the imagination of the tsarist historians; they were far from official science, and therefore the entire historiography of the Cossacks developed in the same direction. Cossacks are anyone, but not Russians, or not entirely Russians, although their development was influenced by many factors that are not inherent to a Russian person. However, they obeyed the king and serve him faithfully.
Today, the historiography of the Cossacks has taken on a variety of colors, but in general two directions are visible:
1. Theories designed to separate the Cossacks from the Russians as a separate ethnic group. In this regard, it is proven that this ethnic group has a very ancient history, even more ancient than the history of Russia, but alien. Why is this being done? Probably in order to somehow play the Cossack card. Sow separatist sentiments among the Cossacks? Why not. In the era of color revolutions, one can expect such deep preparation from provocateurs. Why was this done before? In order to isolate the Cossacks from the rest of Russia and forget that the Cossacks are the descendants of those who did not want to lose their freedom and whose communal-national interests were infringed by the existing government, the kinship with which the descendants of all generations of the Russian aristocracy were and are proud of.
2. Theories that explain the Russian origin of the Cossacks. Where all those factors of foreign interference that influenced the development of customs, traditions, and culture of the Cossacks are not excluded. Where are indicated all those Russian customs, traditions, features that the Cossacks preserved, carrying through the centuries and which they developed in their own way, based on their way of life. This group of theories could be suspected of trying to enhance the greatness of the Russian people, if the Russian government itself did not strive for the opposite. In essence, this is simply a statement of facts. If several foreign words are found in the language of a particular people, then the assumption that these peoples are related is just a hypothesis, as timid as it is bold. But the fact that these people speak their own language is a statement of their originality and independence.
The 2nd group of theories is supported by the fact that the Cossacks voluntarily and willingly submitted to the Russian authorities. Moreover, they achieved this. That is, not only her recognition, but also her leadership. I think that the Cossacks would be willingly recognized by any other government of any other country if the Cossacks applied for it. (An example is the organized departure of the Cossack rebels to Turkey, led by Kondrat Bulavin. After his murder by traitors from the Cossacks, the rebels were led by the Cossack Nekrasov. Almost 250 years later, the descendants of the Nekrasovites returned to the USSR on the territory of the Stavropol Territory.) For many reasons , they could not imagine themselves far from Russia. Could anyone force the Cossacks to submit to force? History does not know such facts. But to serve under a contract. There are a great many of these facts. However, let us consider the theories of the origin of the Cossacks offered to the reader.
1 Group of theories:
- A.A. Gordeev, the author of “The History of the Cossacks,” traces the origin of the Cossacks to the “tribute of blood” - “tamgas” - collected by the Golden Horde from conquered Rus'. Russian youths taken into the Horde were used to guard the steppe borders and perform Yam service, adopting ready-made forms of military and social organization of the steppe people (Mongols and Polovtsians).
S.D. Okhlyabinin elevates the first Cossacks to the vanguard detachments of the Mongol-Tatar troops - familyless daredevils. These scouts and guards are then in regular service with the Tatar Baskaks, who collected tribute from Russian lands, and a century later, together with their masters, they go into the service of the Russian princes, becoming a special branch of the army 29.
It was not only Mr. Gordeev who adhered to this theory. This is the official theory of the origin of the Cossacks dating back to tsarist historiography. Goal: to show Russian citizens that the Cossacks are not entirely Russian. That this is not a derivative of the original Russian people, since the entire Russian people have a different way of life, unlike the Cossacks. Moreover, the Cossacks are a people who are akin to the original Russian enemy, the Tatars. This theory was probably cultivated as a counterbalance to the popular opinion that the Cossacks were able to achieve freedom for themselves, but most importantly, to exclude the version of involvement in the formation of the Cossacks by the Russian authorities themselves. Or rather, its injustice during the transformation of ordinary community members into the property of princes and feudal lords. In order not to discredit the “Russian Truth” of Yaroslav the Wise.
The theory itself does not stand up to criticism. Speaking about the Tatar “tamga” and the fact that Russian youths were used to guard the borders of the Golden Horde, Mr. Gordeev forgets that the borders in those days were not demarcated by anyone. In other words, they simply did not exist, especially among the huge and powerful Golden Horde. Border formations made no sense at all. Sentinel reconnaissance units made sense, but they were formed from the most dedicated warriors. It would be stupid to form such responsible detachments from captured Russians, but the Tatars were not stupid. Why did they take “tamga”? Perhaps they came up with their Janissaries and Mamluks even earlier than the Turks, making them from captured boys. When boys raised in obedience to the khan and unparalleled cruelty grew into warriors, they ceased to be carriers of their native culture. These people could already be entrusted with responsible assignments, but they could no longer become the founders of the Cossacks. Fight for power within the horde under the leadership of any of the khans, perhaps. But not a single Janissary became a Cossack.
According to the leading Russian historian R. Skrynnikov, the Cossacks arose from the merger of a few Russian settlers with the population of Tatar villages in the steppes.
What can't happen in life. Now, according to the largest Russian historian R. Skrynnikov, the Tatars had villages. It turns out that nomads could and wanted to lead a sedentary lifestyle. True, they are still nomadic in Mongolia, and all of Mongolia would have been nomadic if the Russians had not built cities there, but even in this case, the Mongols remained Mongols. However, it can be assumed that the Tatars had villages. The word “stan”, in general, is not Russian, although it does not mean a permanent settlement, but a camp camp. However, there are suggestions that this word came into Turkic dialects from the Russian language. What's the difference? Another thing is interesting. How could it be? A few Russian settlers came, merged with the population of the Tatar villages, so much so that this population began to speak and sing in Russian, and became Christian. It is difficult to imagine that the Tatar women loved the Russians so much that they not only gave birth to children, but also began to teach them to speak Russian. So who were these few Russians then? If the Tatars, of their own free will, ceased to be Tatars and became Cossacks. In general, this is also a very convenient theory for royal historiography. Yes, the Cossacks are a free people. But not very Russian. Or rather, not even Russian at all. However, the monarchy no longer exists. The question is, whose interests does Mr. Skrynnikov’s theory represent today? Maybe the interests of the separatists?
P.N. Lukichev and A.P. Skorik declares the thesis about the ethnic independence of the Cossacks to be obvious.
- V.P. Trut considers that the Cossacks belong to an independent ethnic group and their characterization as an ethnos (people) is completely justified and beyond doubt.
Once again, the ethnic independence of the Cossacks does not give anyone peace. An independent ethnic group can be considered a society of people with a common culture, their own, constantly improving language, territory, self-government bodies, etc. What did the Cossacks have?
Culture, the basis of which was and is Russian national culture.
The language of communication is Russian. The Cossack dialect, if at all different from Central Russian, is no more than any other native Russian dialect. As for linguistic borrowings from other peoples, in this too the Cossacks are as receptive to new words as all Russian people. The Russian dictionary of foreign words contains more than 10 thousand words borrowed by Russian people from the languages of other peoples. The Cossacks have more words in their vocabulary from those peoples with whom they had to neighbor. Moreover, different Cossacks have different borrowings. However, this could not prevent any of them from preserving the original Russian basis in their language in order to understand each other.
For a long time, the Cossacks did not have a territory permanently assigned to them, the existence of which would have to be taken into account by their powerful neighbors. This was the case until they were recognized by the Russian authorities. From that moment on, all the territories occupied by the Cossacks not only began to be perceived as a country, but also began to expand. And all this thanks to Russian centralized power. The same government that did not really favor communal Cossack democracy, as the antithesis of serfdom, but which, not unreasonably, understood that without the active participation of the Cossacks it was not possible to expand the borders of the empire.
What were the bodies of Cossack self-government? At the time the Cossacks were recognized by the Russian Tsar, each village elected an ataman by direct voting. This was done loudly and openly. The Cossacks had hetmans, but they could not be called kings in the generally accepted sense. It seems that the descendants of those who left the nascent princely power and the princely tyranny associated with it sacredly cherished throughout their history the personal independence of each community member, which prevented the creation of their own centralized power. However, it would be incorrect to say that the Cossacks had no generally recognized leaders. They were. But they united the Cossacks not on ethnic or social principles, but by setting some, sometimes adventuristic, goal for the Cossacks. These could be large trips for the purpose of robbery. These could be popular uprisings. Finally, support for contenders for power. And so on. Such Cossack leaders are depicted in documents of national history, but not Cossack history. As a rule, Russian national history. The Cossacks began writing their history relatively recently.
L.N. Gumilyov repeatedly emphasized the origin of the Terek Cossacks from the Khazars-Christians, and in general elevates the Cossacks to the baptized Polovtsians.
- I. Yakovenko, who has already been mentioned by us, is convinced that the Cossacks arose as a result of Polovtsian-Russian mixing with the clear dominance of the Polovtsian substrate. In his opinion, anthropological (skull shape, bodily constitution) and ethnographic (features of everyday culture and songs) data reveal the Cossacks as natural steppe dwellers.
Amazing thing. The last mention of the Polovtsians dates back to the beginning of the Middle Ages. The assumption that the Polovtsians mixed with the Russians and the Cossacks descended from them remains only an assumption, however, the fact that the Polovtsians resettled into the territory of the Georgian kingdom during the reign of King David, nicknamed the builder of “Agmashenebeli”, is absolutely known. It was with him that the Polovtsians entered into an agreement, on the basis of which they received land for settlement, and King David received in return one mounted warrior from each family. And the Polovtsians came to Georgia because they were actively pushed out from the north by stronger tribes of nomadic Tatars. Obviously, they did not leave without resistance. They probably fought with their enemies, which led to a decrease in their numbers. At the time of the conclusion of the agreement with King David, there were more than 40 thousand families of Polovtsians in Georgia. Is it a lot or a little? For a people who need to survive in difficult military conditions, this is not enough. But for the Georgian king David, it was a lot. Having received, in addition to his army, another 40 thousand mounted warriors!!! , he was able to seriously improve the position of his state. It was during his reign that Georgia reached its peak and managed to occupy the largest territory on the world map in the entire history of its existence. Georgians are among those who care about the purity of the nation and do not like to remember this. In the history of Georgia there is never any information about the Polovtsians. Obviously, they became so close to the Georgian people that they simply assimilated and ceased to exist as an independent people. 40 thousand families could range from 250 to 500 thousand people. The population of Georgia at that time was more than 2 and a half million. Georgians do not like to talk about this assimilation. We are talking about this because it is a historical fact. Or maybe the Polovtsians laid the foundation for one of the Georgian nationalities? Mengrels or Svans, for example. But why doesn't anyone talk about this? Why is the Polovtsian version played out in Cossack genealogies?
However, this fact is interesting to us precisely as it relates to the origins of the Cossacks. The Polovtsians had the power of khans. That is, they had a nominal monarch who led tens of thousands of families, hundreds of thousands of people. This is precisely the power from which the Russian people, who later became Cossacks, fled. The language and culture of the Polovtsians had very few points of contact with Russian culture. It was a language that had Turkic roots, and a nomadic culture that was in no way similar to the culture of farmers. If we assume that the Polovtsians really mixed with the Russians and laid the foundation for the Cossack ethnos, then the dominant force in this case, judging by the Russian cultural heritage of the Cossacks, turned out to be the Russian component. In this case, the Polovtsians could not only establish their power among the Russian people, but could not even change the language of the Russians. This means there were very few of them. It is possible, and most likely, that the Cossacks captured women from the Polovtsians to procreate. Perhaps those Polovtsians who did not want to recognize the power of their khan merged with the Cossacks, like the Russians who left the power of their princes. Perhaps those Polovtsians who remained in the old territories after the bulk of their fellow tribesmen migrated to Georgia united with the Cossacks. In any case, the Polovtsians could not become the dominant component in the formation of the Cossacks. And the Cossacks accepted into their ranks everyone who wanted to live with them according to their customs and traditions. All the strangers who came to the villages and converted to Christianity eventually became one of the Cossacks. At the same time, two generations of newcomers were not considered Cossacks. They were said to be "dressed as Cossacks." Only a representative of the third generation of a new kind of newcomers was considered a Cossack. As for the anthropological features that identify the Cossacks as steppe dwellers, we should not forget that the Cossacks lived in the steppes. They were dashing riders, and all the surrounding nature left the same imprints on them as on the notorious Polovtsians.
As for the Khazar-Christians, who became the ancestors of the Terek Cossacks, it is difficult for me to say anything about this. The history of the Khazars is even more obscure, as is the history of the Cossacks. But it is known for certain about the Khazars that they had their own state formation - the Khazar Kaganate. Accordingly, the head of state is the Kagan. Again the same circumstances as the Polovtsians. The fact that the Khazars were Christians is confirmed by some sources, but they are very scarce. It is known that the Khazars replaced the Pechenegs, with whom Prince Svyatoslav fought and defeated them. The Pechenegs, in revenge, attacked his squad at night and killed the prince. A goblet set in silver was made from the bones of his skull. But after this, traces of the Pechenegs are lost. The Khazars appeared, who posed no less a danger to Rus' than the Pechenegs.
Attempts to explain the origin of the Cossacks by Polish or other foreign scientists mostly show their superficial approach to this topic. This is due to the lack of necessary information and distance from this topic in general. In addition, one cannot discount the fact that the Polish interpretation of the origin of the Cossacks is most likely connected with the desire of Polish historians to find their own explanation for the participation of the Cossacks in the militia of the Polish protege, False Dmitry.
In addition to these most famous modern theories, there are a number of historically older hypotheses that have not lost their relevance. The first who tried to clarify the issue of Cossack ethnogenesis were in the 17th century. Poles Pyasetsky and Kokhovsky, who believed that Cossacks (or Cossacks) were those people who were fast and light as goats on their horses.
In the 18th century in the same purely external philological way, based on the consonance in the names, they begin to see in the Cossacks the remnants or descendants of various peoples. Grabyanka, and after him A. Rigelman, produced Cossacks from the Khozars. 14 Yan Potocki saw in the Cossacks the descendants of those Kosogs whom Grand Duke Mstislav Vladimirovich settled in the 11th century. in Chernihiv region.
All of these theories deserve attention. But they are more like hopeless attempts to explain something about which there is no information.
Polish chronicler Martin Belsky, whose uncle was the first foreman in the Cossack army at the beginning of the 16th century, says that the Cossacks stood out from the people thanks to the mental makeup and character of some individuals and living conditions. In general, Belsky’s view of the Cossacks as a class of knights was shared by the French engineer Boplan 18, who spent about 20 years in Ukraine, and the Ukrainian chronicler Samoil Velichko.
What is this? An attempt to idealize the Cossacks?
If we talk about the Cossacks as a knightly order, then I would like to draw the reader’s attention to the fact that the knightly order has a specific purpose for its existence, attributes, means, a complex leadership structure, official and unofficial connections with the leadership of various countries, documentation, chronicles... Everything something that the Cossacks had no trace of.
“And finally, according to I.M. Kamanin, the Cossacks are “the original landowning and agricultural native southern Russian population, aware of their national identity and devoted to their faith, which, having first voluntarily recognized the power of the Tatars, and then coming under the rule of Lithuania, with the invasion of alien gentry and Catholics into his life, he began to strive for isolation, to develop his own forms; but due to the lack of strong central power, united Polish-Turkish pressure from the outside, constant unrest within, it was forced to develop only in a multilateral struggle that weakened it, which constitutes a distinctive feature of Cossack history." The author’s opinion is that the originality and specialness of the Cossacks allows, in any case, to talk about them as something ethnically specific: be it an independent ethnic group, an ethnographic group of Russians, or a special ethnic class group of the population. It’s remarkable that, with all their differences, almost each of the named theories and hypotheses emphasizes the uniqueness of the Cossacks, their deep difference from the rest of the Russian population.” Sopov.
The opinion of such an authoritative author as Kamanin I.M. can be considered the most objective among the theories of all the listed authors. However, given the fact that he wrote his works at the end of the 19th century, it is not difficult to assume that his opinion should have coincided with the official state concept regarding the formation of the Cossacks as a community distinct from the Russian people. From a people who lived completely differently, being subjugated and oppressed by the Russian aristocracy. Actually, this was the reason for the emergence of a whole group of theories that isolated the Cossacks from the entire Russian people, if not into a separate ethnic group, then at least into a separate service class. Moreover, this isolation of the Cossacks rather looked in official historiography as a deficiency of the Cossacks, and not as the Cossack will, suffered and won by the Cossacks.
2 group of theories:
This group of theories that explains precisely the Russian and Ukrainian origin of the Cossacks. I believe that the authors of such theories cannot be suspected of either separatism or extremism, and it is useless to look for any political background in their works.
- AND I. Kutsenko believes that the Cossacks are a unique and “original people’s democracy... that has turned into a service class.”
- L.M. Galutvo considers the Cossacks to be a single population with a certain economic and everyday way of life, traditions and culture.
- A.I. Kozlov sees (not without reason) extremism in attempts to revive the Cossacks as an ethnic group, finding new arguments to substantiate the “class” theory.
N.I. Kostomarov, considered the Cossacks to be the townspeople who went to the south first to fish, and then, due to living conditions, they were forced to arm themselves and lead a military lifestyle. Karpov and Tumasov connect the Cossacks with the princely squads, Professor P.V. Golubovsky - with wanderers, who occupied steppe places even in pre-Mongol times (XI - XII centuries).
Professor V.B. held a special point of view on the origin of the Cossacks. Antonovich and the largest and most authoritative historian of the Kuban Cossacks F.A. Shcherbina. They connected the origin of the Cossacks with ancient Russian veche communities. “There is no doubt that the Cossacks appeared to replace the veche way of people’s life, although, of course, under the influence of economic reasons. The thirst for freedom and the desire for democracy were a direct legacy of the veche order...”
A.S. Pushkin and M.K. Lyubavsky considered the Cossacks to be part of the Russian people, which had developed their own identity: “The Cossacks are not the remnants of some ancient Slavic free communities on the borderlands of the Russian Pale, but armed artels of industrialists, drawn from the boundaries of this Pale by the emptiness of the steppes.” . A.P. Pevnev sees in the Cossacks the descendants of the Ryazan and Meshchera guards who defended Russian settlements from Tatar raids during the era of the rule of the Golden Horde.
It is quite obvious that the history of the Cossacks can be divided into two periods. The period “before the recognition of the Cossacks by the Russian authorities”, and the period “after recognition”.
The period “before recognition” is the period of the birth of the Cossacks, about which there are no documents due to the fact that the Cossacks did not have their own centralized power that would issue regulations and write history. It is this circumstance that now allows the most incredible speculations regarding the origin and existence of the Cossacks to exist. However, if the Cossacks had the described history, this would prevent their recognition by the authorities. I believe that the appearance of the Cossacks can be attributed to the time after the baptism of Rus' and before the complete enslavement of the peasantry, after the abolition of “St. George’s Day”.
The period “after recognition” is more understandable to us because information about the Cossacks appears in the official history of Russia. They are cropped and inaccurate, but they are there. There are later regulations of the Russian government related directly to the Cossacks. These are real documents, based on which concrete conclusions can be drawn.
However, it is the history of the Cossacks “before” that is of the greatest interest. I repeat that tsarist historiography traditionally reduced the history of the origins of the Cossacks to the fact that the Cossacks were a completely different ethnic group, at best, somehow connected with Russian culture. With the same success, we can say about a people who did not have their own historical written monuments that they were aliens who accidentally landed on Earth.
What speaks in favor of the hypothesis that the Cossacks are the descendants of those free Russian communities that lived according to veche laws?
1. The Novgorod veche was abolished by Ivan the Terrible in 1570. It was the last large veche city in Rus'. He survived the power of many princes using the charter of Yaroslav the Wise, which he granted to Novgorod for help in his struggle for power in Kyiv. However, subsequently in Rus' the veche power was brutally destroyed, as it successfully competed with the centralized power. However, attempts to destroy it have not stopped since the emergence of some kind of individual, strong princely power. In fairness, it must be admitted that the sole power of the monarch, for all its shortcomings, had one important advantage over the veche way of life. This is the speed of decision making. It doesn't matter whether they are correct or not. This mobility of power made it possible to set tasks for society that ordinary people had not even thought about. (Mastering new technologies, political claims, strengthening the army, building strategically important cities, capturing Novgorod...)
2. The Cossacks retained all the features of veche government. After all, all issues in the villages were resolved publicly. However, the society was unipolar. During veche discussions in Novgorod, entire battles broke out with those who were “against”. The interests of different groups of people collided on the square. Rich and poor are mentioned more often, but people in Novgorod were also divided according to their guild affiliation. There were interests of merchants, artisans, warriors, townspeople, etc. Cossacks were not divided into classes. Each Cossack family had the same living conditions as everyone else. That is why the interests of the community members did not intersect.
3. Did the Cossacks leave any prospects for the development of society as a whole? Judge for yourself.
Reviews
"This word is found in the Turkic language. It is translated as - thief, robber."
It’s strange to read something like this, especially if it was written by a historian. I know of three versions of the translation of the Turkic word “Cossack”: 1. Separated (separated) from his kind. 2. Free person. 3. Guard, security guard on guard duty.
"maybe this word appeared in the Turkic languages after the Cossacks began to instill fear and horror in their neighbors with their military victories and, accordingly, robberies."
This is speculation. The word “Cossack” may not be ancient Turkic, but borrowed and reinterpreted by the Turks. The documents of the Hittite Empire mention the worst enemy of the Hittites - certain helmets, which in the 13th century. BC. dealt the final blow that led to the death of this state. Judging by the meager linguistic data, the helmets are the ancestors of modern Adygeis and Circassians. In the Middle Ages, these people were called by their neighbors as “kesheks” (among the Persians), “kashags” (among the Georgians), kasakhs (among the Byzantines), and kasogs (among the Russians). The PVL and the Tale of Igor’s Campaign indicate that several thousand Kasogs served in the squads of Russian princes and received from them possession of lands in the Chernigov land and the Rostov-Suzdal principality. Together with the “black hoods,” they were vassals of the southern Russian princes and fought in their troops on horseback. Perhaps this is where the term “Cossack” came from, later adopted by the Slavs and Tatars. Let us also remember that the Ukrainian Cossacks were called “Cherkasy” in Russian sources. Perhaps this name is associated with the Adyghe ethnonym “Cherges” - mountain eagle. After the establishment of the Tatar-Mongol yoke, at the request of the Tatars, young Russian people of both sexes were resettled to the Black Sea steppes from most principalities (approximately 10 percent of all Russian youth after the census organized by the Tatars). The settlers were forbidden to engage in farming; they carried out border and postal service and fought as part of the khan's troops. Atamans from among the Tatar-Mongols trained young men to fight on horseback and lead a life similar to a nomadic one. This, as far as I know, is another factor in the formation of the Ukrainian and Don Cossacks. The language of the Cossacks (among the Don Cossacks it was called "gutor", i.e. "talk") - in general refers to the southern Russian dialects (colloquial, according to Russian officials, was poorly understood by them back in the 19th century). One of the descendants of the Yaik (Ural) Cossacks once told me that on their farm they did not know such Russian words of Iranian origin as “axe”, “good”, “dog”. Instead, they used the common Slavic “axe” (he pronounced it in the Ukrainian way - sekira), “dog” (pes), “good”. Well, the Don and Ural Cossacks were like Ukrainians. According to genetic data, all Cossacks, except the Terek Cossacks, are indistinguishable from the Eastern and Western Slavs (more than 50% have the R1a1 haplogroup).
It's always a pleasure to read your reviews. Firstly, there is no doubt that you have read my work that you are reviewing. Secondly, it is always clear that my work inspired you to do your own research work. I am pleased with this, especially since your reviews encourage me to make additions to my work.
I'll be honest. The further I go, the more it seems to me that I need to improve the history of the origins of the Cossacks. But this is the same time. You have to find him somewhere.
About the Kosogs, I’ll say right away that these are not Cossacks. These are obliques. In my work I used a number of similar versions, which I rejected as unfounded. In my opinion, the Kosogi are a completely established ethnic group, or even more than one ethnic group united by this name. These are the ancestors of the Circassians. But this is what I think, although I have not independently studied this issue. And why7 Yes, because I consider the appearance of the Cossacks to be a later and longer-lasting event.
I can still somehow accept the version about allocating 10% of the youth and deporting them to strengthen the Mongol-Tatar borders, but it seems to me that this version is not tenable for several reasons. The Mongol-Tatars did not have boundaries of their possessions as such. They did not need this, but they did need slaves. The borders of their possessions were those states that paid them tribute. They were buffer zones. Constant wars did not give the M-Tatars the opportunity to constantly establish new borders. More than this, they were concerned about the constant division of territories between the heirs. This is logical. Khan Batu was the grandson of Genghis Khan, but Khan Mamai was already a khan in Crimea. And he even hired Fryag infantry for the campaign against Rus'. There, some border guards could not be reasonably used.
Black hoods are truly a mystery. Before the M-Tatar invasion, they lived compactly not far from Kyiv and took such an active part in the public life of the city that in well-known veche decisions on written sources found by scientists, it is written something like: “we, the Kiev people and the black hoods...” . Those. they were singled out, but they had equal rights with the people of Kiev. It is known that the M-Tatars resettled them somewhere after the capture of Kyiv. Where and why is still unknown. It is known that at that time they could already be Christians. If they were Russians, they would not be distinguished from the rest. But the version is as interesting as it is mysterious.
As for haplogroups, I can only say that this doesn’t say much. Here is the language and phonetics, yes. This is passed down from generation to generation and can be reliable. But different Cossacks have different language acquisitions. Who lived where? At what times? One thing is absolutely clear. The Cossacks carry unusually powerful information in their history, which was not beneficial for all previous authorities of our country to preserve. Actually, this is the main leitmotif of my work. The achievements of the Cossacks, their capabilities, were taken advantage of, but the Cossack community itself, which I do not separate from the Russian ethnic group, was humiliated in every possible way.
I consider your reviews, Alexey, the best. I add your additions to my works reviewed by you with a mention of your authorship. If it suddenly happens that you want to read my science fiction novel “A Butterfly from the Past”, and even write about your unbiased impressions, I will consider it a great gift for myself.
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Cossacks
COSSACKS -A; Wed
1. Cossack class.
2. collected Cossacks. K. settled along the Don.
Cossacksmilitary class in Russia in the 18th - early 20th centuries. In the XIV-XVII centuries. free people who worked for hire, persons who performed military service in the border areas (city and guard Cossacks); in the XV-XVI centuries. beyond the borders of Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian state (on the Dnieper, Don, Volga, Ural, Terek), self-governing communities of the so-called free Cossacks (mainly from runaway peasants) arose, which were the main driving force of the uprisings in Ukraine in the 16th-17th centuries. and in Russia in the 17th-18th centuries. The government sought to use the Cossacks to protect borders, in wars, etc. in the 18th century. subjugated it, turning it into a privileged military class. At the beginning of the 20th century. there were 11 Cossack troops (Don, Kuban, Orenburg, Transbaikal, Terek, Siberian, Ural, Astrakhan, Semirechenskoe, Amur and Ussuri). In 1916, the Cossack population was over 4.4 million people, over 53 million acres of land. About 300 thousand people fought in World War I. In 1920, the Cossacks were abolished as a class. In 1936, Don, Kuban and Terek Cossack cavalry formations were created and took part in the Great Patriotic War (disbanded in the second half of the 40s). Since the late 1980s. The revival of traditions, culture and life of the Cossacks began, Cossack organizations appeared.
COSSACKSCOSSACKS, an ethnic, social and historical community (group), which, due to their specific characteristics, united all Cossacks, primarily Russians, as well as Ukrainians, Kalmyks, Buryats, Bashkirs, Tatars, Evenks, Ossetians, etc., as separate subethnic groups of their peoples into a single whole. Until 1917, Russian legislation considered the Cossacks as a special military class that had privileges for performing compulsory service. The Cossacks were also defined as a separate ethnic group, an independent nationality (the fourth branch of the Eastern Slavs) or even as a special nation of mixed Turkic-Slavic origin. The latest version was intensively developed in the 20th century by Cossack emigrant historians.
Origin of the Cossacks
The social organization, life, culture, ideology, ethnopsychic structure, behavioral stereotypes, and folklore of the Cossacks have always been noticeably different from the practices established in other regions of Russia. The Cossacks originated in the 14th century in the uninhabited steppe spaces between Muscovite Russia, Lithuania, Poland and the Tatar khanates. Its formation, which began after the collapse of the Golden Horde (cm. GOLDEN HORDE), took place in constant struggle with numerous enemies far from developed cultural centers. There are no reliable written sources preserved about the first pages of Cossack history. Many researchers tried to find the origins of the Cossacks in the national roots of the ancestors of the Cossacks among a variety of peoples (Scythians, Cumans, Khazars (cm. KHAZARS), Alan (cm. ALANS), Kyrgyz, Tatars, Mountain Circassians, Kasogs (cm. KASOGI), brodniks (cm. BRODNIKI), black hoods (cm. BLACK hoods), torques (cm. TORQUAY (people)) etc.) or considered the original Cossack military community as the result of genetic connections of several tribes with the Slavs who came to the Black Sea region, and this process was counted from the beginning of the new era. Other historians, on the contrary, proved the Russianness of the Cossacks, emphasizing the constant presence of the Slavs in the regions that became the cradle of the Cossacks. The original concept was put forward by the emigrant historian A. A. Gordeev, who believed that the ancestors of the Cossacks were the Russian population of the Golden Horde, settled by the Tatar-Mongols in the future Cossack territories. The long-dominant official point of view that Cossack communities arose as a result of the flight of Russian peasants from serfdom (as well as the view of the Cossacks as a special class) were subjected to reasoned criticism in the 20th century. But the theory of autochthonous (local) origin also has a weak evidence base and is not confirmed by serious sources. The question of the origin of the Cossacks still remains open.
There is no unanimity among scientists on the question of the origin of the word “Cossack” (“Kozak” in Ukrainian). Attempts were made to derive this word from the name of the peoples who once lived near the Dnieper and Don (Kasogi, Kh(k)azars), from the self-name of modern Kyrgyz people - Kaysaks. There were other etymological versions: from the Turkish “kaz” (i.e. goose), from the Mongolian “ko” (armor, protection) and “zakh” (frontier). Most experts agree that the word “Cossacks” came from the east and has Turkic roots. In Russian, this word, first mentioned in Russian chronicles in 1444, originally meant homeless and free soldiers who entered service to fulfill military obligations.
History of the Cossacks
Representatives of various nationalities took part in the formation of the Cossacks, but the Slavs predominated. From an ethnographic point of view, the first Cossacks were divided according to their place of origin into Ukrainian and Russian. Among both, free and service Cossacks can be distinguished. In Ukraine, the free Cossacks were represented by the Zaporozhye Sich (cm. ZAPORIZHIA SECH)(existed until 1775), and the service ones were “registered” Cossacks who received a salary for their service in the Polish-Lithuanian state. Russian service Cossacks (city, regimental and guard) were used to protect abatis and cities, receiving a salary and land for life in return. Although they were equated “to service people according to the apparatus” (streltsy, gunners), unlike them they had a stanitsa organization and an elected system of military administration. In this form they existed until the beginning of the 18th century. The first community of Russian free Cossacks arose on the Don, and then on the Yaik, Terek and Volga rivers. In contrast to the service Cossacks, the centers of emergence of the free Cossacks were the coasts of large rivers (Dnieper, Don, Yaik, Terek) and steppe expanses, which left a noticeable imprint on the Cossacks and determined their way of life. Each large territorial community, as a form of military-political unification of independent Cossack settlements, was called an Army.
The main economic occupations of the free Cossacks were hunting, fishing, and animal husbandry. For example, in the Don Army, until the beginning of the 18th century, arable farming was prohibited under penalty of death. As the Cossacks themselves believed, they lived “from grass and water.” War played a huge role in the life of Cossack communities: they were in constant military confrontation with hostile and warlike nomadic neighbors, so one of the most important sources of livelihood for them was military booty (as a result of campaigns “for zipuns and yasir” in the Crimea, Turkey, Persia , to the Caucasus). River and sea trips on plows, as well as horse raids, were carried out. Often several Cossack units united and carried out joint land and sea operations, everything captured became common property - duvan (cm. DUVAN).
The main feature of Cossack social life was a military organization with an elected system of government and democratic order. Major decisions (issues of war and peace, elections of officials, trial of the guilty) were made at general Cossack meetings, village and military circles (cm. MILITARY CIRCLE), or Radakh, which were the highest governing bodies. The main executive power belonged to the annually replaced military (koshevoy) (cm. KOSHEVY ATAMAN) in Zaporozhye) ataman. During military operations, a marching ataman was elected, whose obedience was unquestioning.
Diplomatic relations with the Russian state were maintained by sending winter troops to Moscow (cm. WINTER STATION) and light villages (embassies) with an appointed chieftain. From the moment the Cossacks entered the historical arena, their relationship with Russia was characterized by duality. Initially, they were built on the principle of independent states that had one enemy. Moscow and the Cossack Troops were allies. The Russian state acted as the main partner and played a leading role as the strongest party. In addition, the Cossack Troops were interested in receiving monetary and military assistance from the Russian Tsar. Cossack territories played an important role as a buffer on the southern and eastern borders of the Russian state, protecting it from attacks by the steppe hordes. Cossacks also took part in many wars on the side of Russia against neighboring states. To successfully perform these important functions, the practice of the Moscow tsars included annual sendings of gifts, cash salaries, weapons and ammunition, as well as bread to individual Troops, since the Cossacks did not produce it. All relations between the Cossacks and the Tsar were conducted through the Ambassadorial Prikaz (cm. AMBASSADOR'S ORDER), i.e. as with a foreign state. It was often beneficial for the Russian authorities to present the free Cossack communities as completely independent of Moscow. On the other hand, the Moscow state was dissatisfied with the Cossack communities, which constantly attacked Turkish possessions, which often ran counter to Russian foreign policy interests. Often periods of cooling occurred between the allies, and Russia stopped all assistance to the Cossacks. Moscow's dissatisfaction was also caused by the constant departure of citizens to the Cossack regions. Democratic orders (everyone is equal, no authorities, no taxes) became a magnet that attracted more and more enterprising and courageous people from Russian lands. Russia’s fears turned out to be far from unfounded - throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the Cossacks were at the forefront of powerful anti-government protests, and the leaders of Cossack-peasant uprisings emerged from its ranks - Stepan Razin (cm. RAZIN Stepan Timofeevich), Kondraty Bulavin (cm. BULAVIN Kondraty Afanasyevich), Emelyan Pugachev (cm. PUGACHEV Emelyan Ivanovich). The role of the Cossacks was great during the events of the Time of Troubles (cm. TIME OF TROUBLES) at the beginning of the 17th century. Supporting False Dmitry I (cm. FALSE DMITRY I), they made up a significant part of his military detachments. Later, the free Russian and Ukrainian Cossacks, as well as Russian service Cossacks, took an active part in the camp of various forces: in 1611 they participated in the first militia, in the second militia the nobles already predominated, but at the council of 1613 it was the word of the Cossack atamans that turned out to be decisive in the election of Tsar Michael Fedorovich (cm. MIKHAIL Fedorovich) Romanova. The ambiguous role played by the Cossacks during the Time of Troubles forced the government in the 17th century to pursue a policy of sharply reducing the detachments of serving Cossacks in the main territory of the state. But in general, the Russian throne, taking into account the most important functions of the Cossacks as a military force in the border regions, showed long-suffering and sought to subordinate them to its power. To consolidate loyalty to the Russian throne, the tsars, using all levers, managed to achieve the oath of all Troops by the end of the 17th century (the last Don Army - in 1671). From voluntary allies, the Cossacks turned into Russian subjects. With the inclusion of the southeastern territories into Russia, the Cossacks remained only a special part of the Russian population, gradually losing many of their democratic rights and gains. Since the 18th century, the state has constantly regulated the life of the Cossack regions, modernized traditional Cossack governance structures in the right direction, turning them into an integral part of the administrative system of the Russian Empire.
Since 1721, Cossack units were under the jurisdiction of the Cossack expedition of the Military Collegium (cm. MILITARY COLLEGE). In the same year Peter I (cm. PETER I the Great) abolished the election of military atamans and introduced the institution of mandated atamans appointed by the supreme authority. The Cossacks lost their last remnants of independence after the defeat of the Pugachev rebellion in 1775, when Catherine II liquidated the Zaporozhye Sich. In 1798 by decree of Paul I (cm. PAVEL I Petrovich) all Cossack officer ranks were equal to the general army ranks, and their holders received the rights to nobility. In 1802, the first Regulations for the Cossack troops were developed. Since 1827, the heir to the throne began to be appointed as the august ataman of all Cossack troops. In 1838, the first combat regulations for Cossack units were approved, and in 1857 the Cossacks came under the jurisdiction of the Directorate (from 1867 Main Directorate) of irregular (from 1879 - Cossack) troops of the Ministry of War, from 1910 - to the subordination of the General Staff.
The role of the Cossacks in the history of Russia
For centuries, the Cossacks were a universal branch of the armed forces. They said about the Cossacks that they were born in the saddle. At all times, they were considered excellent riders who had no equal in the art of horse riding. Military experts assessed the Cossack cavalry as the best light cavalry in the world. The military glory of the Cossacks strengthened on the battlefields of the Northern (cm. NORTHERN WAR 1700-1721) and the Seven Years' War (cm. SEVEN YEARS' WAR), during the Italian (cm. ITALIAN CAMPAIGN OF SUVOROV) and Swiss campaigns of A.V. Suvorov (cm. SUVOROV'S SWISS CAMPAIGN) in 1799. The Cossack regiments especially distinguished themselves in the Napoleonic era. Headed by the legendary ataman M.I. Platov (cm. PLATOV Matvey Ivanovich) the irregular army became one of the main culprits in the death of the Napoleonic army in Russia in the campaign of 1812, and after the foreign campaigns of the Russian army, according to General A.P. Ermolov (cm. ERMOLOV Alexey Petrovich), “The Cossacks became the surprise of Europe.”
Not a single Russian-Turkish war of the 18th-19th centuries could have happened without Cossack sabers; they took part in the conquest of the Caucasus, the conquest of Central Asia, and the development of Siberia and the Far East. The successes of the Cossack cavalry were explained by the skillful use in battles of ancient tactical techniques that were not regulated by any regulations: lava (enveloping the enemy in a loose formation), an original system of reconnaissance and guard service, etc. These Cossack “turns” inherited from the steppe people turned out to be especially effective and unexpected in clashes with armies European states.
“For this reason, a Cossack is born so that he can be useful to the Tsar in the service,” says an old Cossack proverb. His service under the law of 1875 lasted 20 years, starting at the age of 18: 3 years in the preparatory ranks, 4 in active service, 8 years on benefits and 5 in the reserve. Each one came to duty with his own uniform, equipment, bladed weapons and riding horse. The Cossack community (stanitsa) was responsible for the preparation and performance of military service. The service itself, a special type of self-government and the land use system, as a material basis, were closely interconnected and ultimately ensured the stable existence of the Cossacks as a formidable fighting force. The main owner of the land was the state, which, on behalf of the emperor, allocated to the Cossack army the land conquered by the blood of their ancestors on the basis of collective (community) ownership. The army, leaving some for military reserves, divided the received land between the villages. The village community, on behalf of the army, periodically redistributed land shares (ranging from 10 to 50 dessiatines). For the use of the plot and exemption from taxes, the Cossack was obliged to perform military service. The army also allocated land plots to Cossack nobles (the share depended on the officer rank) as hereditary property, but these plots could not be sold to persons of non-military origin. In the 19th century, the main economic occupation of the Cossacks became agriculture, although different troops had their own characteristics and preferences, for example, the intensive development of fishing as the main industry in the Ural, as well as in the Don and Ussuri Troops, hunting in the Siberian, winemaking and gardening in the Caucasus, Don .
Cossacks in the 20th century
At the end of the 19th century, projects for the liquidation of the Cossacks were discussed within the tsarist administration. On the eve of the First World War (cm. FIRST WORLD WAR 1914-18) in Russia there were 11 Cossack Troops: Don (1.6 million), Kuban (1.3 million), Terek (260 thousand), Astrakhan (40 thousand), Ural (174 thousand), Orenburg (533 thousand). ), Siberian (172 thousand), Semirechenskoe (45 thousand), Transbaikal (264 thousand), Amur (50 thousand), Ussuri (35 thousand) and two separate Cossack regiments. They occupied 65 million dessiatines of land with a population of 4.4 million people. (2.4% of the Russian population), including 480 thousand service personnel. Among the Cossacks, Russians predominated in national terms (78%), Ukrainians were in second place (17%), and Buryats were in third place (2%). The majority of Cossacks professed Orthodoxy, there was a large percentage of Old Believers (especially in the Ural, Terek, Don Troops), and national minorities professed Buddhism and Islam.
More than 300 thousand Cossacks took part on the battlefields of the First World War (164 cavalry regiments, 30 foot battalions, 78 batteries, 175 separate hundreds, 78 fifty, not counting auxiliary and spare parts). The war showed the ineffectiveness of using large masses of cavalry (Cossacks made up 2/3 of the Russian cavalry) in conditions of a continuous front, high density of infantry firepower and increased technical means of defense. The exceptions were small partisan detachments formed from Cossack volunteers, which successfully operated behind enemy lines while carrying out sabotage and reconnaissance missions. Cossacks as a significant military and social force participated in the Civil War (cm. CIVIL WAR in Russia).
The combat experience and professional military training of the Cossacks were again used to resolve acute internal social conflicts. By the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of November 17, 1917, the Cossacks as a class and Cossack formations were formally abolished. During the Civil War, Cossack territories became the main bases of the White movement (especially the Don, Kuban, Terek, Ural) and it was there that the most fierce battles were fought. Cossack units were numerically the main military force of the Volunteer Army (cm. VOLUNTEER ARMY) in the fight against Bolshevism. The Cossacks were pushed to this by the Reds' policy of decossackization (mass executions, hostage-taking, burning of villages, pitting nonresidents against the Cossacks). The Red Army also had Cossack units, but they represented a small part of the Cossacks (less than 10%). At the end of the Civil War, a large number of Cossacks found themselves in exile (about 100 thousand people).
In Soviet times, the official policy of decossackization actually continued, although in 1925 the plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) declared unacceptable “ignoring the peculiarities of Cossack life and the use of violent measures in the fight against the remnants of Cossack traditions.” Nevertheless, the Cossacks continued to be considered “non-proletarian elements” and were subject to restrictions in their rights, in particular, the ban on serving in the Red Army was lifted only in 1936, when several Cossack cavalry divisions (and then corps) were created, which performed well during the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War. Since 1942, Hitler's command also formed units of Russian Cossacks (15th Wehrmacht Corps, commander General G. von Panwitz) numbering more than 20 thousand people. During hostilities, they were mainly used to protect communications and fight against partisans in Italy, Yugoslavia, and France. After the defeat of Germany in 1945, the British handed over the disarmed Cossacks and members of their families (about 30 thousand people) to the Soviet side. Most of them were shot, the rest ended up in Stalin's camps.
The very cautious attitude of the authorities towards the Cossacks (which resulted in the oblivion of their history and culture) gave birth to the modern Cossack movement. Initially (in 1988-1989) it arose as a historical and cultural movement for the revival of the Cossacks (according to some estimates, about 5 million people). By 1990, the movement, having gone beyond cultural and ethnographic boundaries, began to become politicized. The intensive creation of Cossack organizations and unions began, both in places of former compact residence and in large cities, where a large number of descendants escaping political repression settled during the Soviet period. The massive scale of the movement, as well as the participation of paramilitary Cossack detachments in conflicts in Yugoslavia, Transnistria, Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Chechnya, forced government structures and local authorities to pay attention to the problems of the Cossacks. The further growth of the Cossack movement was facilitated by the resolution of the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation “On the rehabilitation of the Cossacks” of June 16, 1992 and a number of laws. Under the President of Russia, the Main Directorate of Cossack Troops was created, and a number of measures to create regular Cossack units were taken by the power ministries (Ministry of Internal Affairs, Border Troops, Ministry of Defense).
encyclopedic Dictionary. 2009 .
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