URAL COSSACKS

On the edge of vast Russia,
Along the Ural coast,
Lives peacefully
An army of blood Cossacks.
Everyone knows the caviar of the Urals
And Ural sturgeons,
Only know very little
About the Ural Cossacks.

Ural Cossack song.

So it was in reality. The purpose of my essay is to tell the reader who the Ural Cossacks were, where they lived, how they lived and how they lived.

N. S. Samokish. Ural Cossacks.

The land of the Ural Cossack army was located on the right bank of the Ural River, it started from the borders of the Orenburg Cossack army and stretched to the shores of the Caspian Sea. From the west, the Urals had the neighbors of the Samara province and the Bukeev Kirghiz, along the left bank of the Ural River, the Cossacks owned a narrow strip of meadows. There was a country of transural Kirghiz.

A. O. Orlovsky. The battle of the Cossacks with the Kirghiz. 1826.

The Ural Cossacks lived in a dead end among their vast steppes, surrounded by two-thirds of the Kirghiz tribes. Thanks to this isolation, the Urals, more than other Cossack troops, preserved the life and customs of the old Cossacks. From the very beginning, the Ural army showed itself as a rebellious army. It always had great friction with the central Russian government, which throughout history tried to completely subordinate it to its will.

The banner that was with the Yaik Cossacks near Azov in 1696/97

Carrying out the outfits of the Russian state in its own way, the army participated in literally all external wars and enjoyed great well-deserved military glory. But as soon as the State began to introduce any changes in the life of the Cossacks, the Cossacks saw this as an encroachment on freedom, they rebelled, and their “unwilling” brought a lot of trouble, and the Cossacks themselves always cost a lot.

In one of the next uprisings, Peter the Great only miraculously did not destroy the Yaik army at that time. He was saved from death by the reformer of the southeastern region Neplyuev, an associate of Peter.

He proved that such an energetic, close-knit people, useful for the state, cannot be destroyed. Later there were great troubles because of the elected atamans and because of religion.

There were a lot of Old Believers in the Yaik army who fled from persecution from Russia, and so they wanted to forcefully transfer them to the Nikon faith at all costs.

Government troops from Orenburg were almost continuously introduced into the Army.

And in 1772, when General Traubenberg came to Yaik, with artillery and infantry, the Cossacks attacked him, killed the artillerymen, tore to pieces Traubenberg himself and the military ataman Tambovtsev, who was on the side of the government. This event was followed by the fact that, on the orders of Catherine, a detachment of 3,000 people came, under the command of General Freiman, and severely punished the Cossacks, executed many, flogged and imprisoned many, and sent many to Siberia to settle.

It was at such an alarming time that the Don Cossack Emelyan Pugachev came to Yaik. The Yaik Cossacks, doubting that he was really the emperor, nevertheless found that the moment was right and decided to shake Moscow.

It is not in my plans to describe this rebellion, we can say that the Army, after the suppression of this rebellion, suffered greatly and completely depopulated.

And the Yaik Army, by order of Catherine II, became known as the Ural Army, the Yaik River as the Ural River, and the Yaitsky Town - the city of Ural. The Cossacks strongly disliked Catherine the Great and, on the contrary, Paul I enjoyed great sympathy, probably because he consigned the Pugachev rebellion to oblivion and expressed a desire to have a hundred guards of the Urals with him.

A hundred was formed under the command of Sevryugin and was in great favor with the emperor.

When it was decided in the palace to strangle Pavel, Count Panin prudently sent the Ural hundred to Tsarskoye Selo, fearing that the Urals would intercede for him. And until recently, many cherished Paul's inexchangeable silver ruble with the saying "Not to us, not to us, but to Your name."

In the future, the Cossacks had a stubborn opinion that all insults and injustices came from the Tsar's henchmen and that the Tsar did not know anything about this, so they often sent delegates to the Tsar, but they were always intercepted and punished.

In 1803, a new position and forms were introduced. There was an uprising, and when Prince Volkonsky, sent to pacify, began to interrogate the instigator Yefim Pavlov, a Cossack, the latter, as the song says, kept such an answer:

In 1837, the heir to the throne Alexander visited Uralsk.

During this period, the Urals had great dissatisfaction with the ataman. On a square crowded with people, a group of old Cossacks, on a signal, grab the wheels of the royal carriage and stop it. They fall on their knees and serve a petition to the frightened heir who looks out. The result was disastrous. All these old men were ordered to be flogged and sent to Siberia. The hundred that escorted the Heir was disbanded.

The last turmoil occurred with the introduction of universal military service in 1874. This year, various reforms were introduced into the life of the Urals people, concerning their military service and self-government. By the way, military service was introduced for each Cossack, which radically changed the previous order of serving military service. The Ural Cossacks grew up with distrust of the central government and, like fire, were afraid of its interference in their internal affairs. When the authorities found out that there was discontent among the Cossacks, mainly among the elderly, who always played a big role among the Old Believer patriarchal population, they ordered to select without exception a “signature” for the adoption of a new provision, and they offered to sign on blank sheets.

It was here that the porridge was brewed, which the authorities had to disentangle for ten years and as a result of which there was a mass exile of the Cossacks with their families in an administrative order to a settlement in the desert parts of the Syrdarya and Amu Darya regions of the Turkestan region.

The Urals resolutely refused to give subscriptions, motivating their refusal with two reasons: firstly, they do not know what they are signing on white sheets, and secondly, because of their religious convictions, which forbid them to make oaths, etc. This second reason, based on religious superstition became widespread. The threats and violent measures of the authorities only increased the passive resistance, which took on the character of martyrdom for faith! Women forbade their sons and husbands to obey the new position and give a subscription, considering this a great sin. Fathers threatened their sons with curses and were the first to go under arrest, the processions of arrested, respectable bearded old men, under the escort of military guards, only added fuel to the fire, and almost everyone had to be arrested.

To intimidate, they decided to exile the first parties. This was in 1875. The arrested resisted, they had to be dragged by force, which, with hundreds of arrested people, was not an easy task for the convoy. The old people were tortured and then dragged by force onto carts and taken away. In general, the picture of all this violence was wild and outrageous.

These Ural Cossacks, who went into exile, were called "departants". The link was permanent. About three thousand Cossacks were deported, and in 1875 their families were sent to them, a total of about 7 and a half thousand. There was no railroad then, so this unprecedented horde marched in marching order, of course, quite a few old people and children died on the road. A lot of grief and need endured the Cossacks in a foreign land. The governor of the region repeatedly appealed to the government to improve their situation, but to no avail. In 1891, on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Ural Cossack army, the chief ataman General Shipov, who had great sympathy for the Urals, petitioned the government for the return of the Cossacks to the Urals. The government agreed on the condition that the Cossacks submit a statement of complete repentance for their deeds. The departures neglected this royal mercy. Only when the revolution happened in 1917 did the Urals send an invitation to the departed and many returned to the Urals. Of course, of those who were deported in 1875, almost no one was left alive, but their children and grandchildren returned, and they immediately had to take part in the civil war.

In 1914, when the German war began, in addition to the three regiments of active service, 6 more preferential ones were mobilized.

When the privileged division was announced that the division would be commanded by the gene. Kaufman-Turkestansky, - the Cossacks said they did not want to have a German commander. The ataman was forced to ask the government, from which an explanation followed who Kaufman-Turkestan was, and only then the Cossacks calmed down.

Cossacks of the Ural Hundred of the Consolidated Life Guards of the Cossack Regiment

As I said, the Urals. despite all the troubles, they were faithful servants of the Sovereign and, on their steppe mastaks, were on all the battlefields of the Russian state, and the glory of the soldiers was magnificent.

The sovereign splendidly rewarded a hundred and a monument was erected to those who died at the battlefield.

Monument erected on a mass grave on the battlefield near Ikan

In the wide steppe under Ikan
We were surrounded by an evil Kokandian
And three days with a basurman
We had a bloody fight...

As already mentioned, among the Urals there were many Old Believers of various persuasions, and they were mainly zealots of antiquity and were always against any innovations. Religious questions among them were of great importance.

Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

In the sixties of the last century, after one of the religious oppressions by the government, the Cossacks decide to leave for another land where there is real Orthodoxy. To find this holy country, called the Belovodsk kingdom, they send the Cossack Baryshnikov. The Cossack traveled all over the world, but did not find such a country. A second attempt was made by the Old Believers in 1898. They sent three Cossacks, led by Khokhlov, to finally find this land. They visited many countries, but again found nothing. This event is described with great sympathy by the writer Korolenko. Until very recently, missionaries from the Holy Synod came to Uralsk every year for Great Lent, who held disputes in one of the churches in order to convert the Old Believers to the Nikonian faith. From the Old Believers, the old man Miroshkhin, a blind man, spoke annually, who answered the speeches with theses from the Holy Scriptures, and this happened in this way, there was a young man with him, to whom Miroshkhin ordered: “Open such and such a stranger and read from such and such a line.” His memory was phenomenal and he always had great success with the Old Believers.

Despite. that in all clashes with the government, the government was the winner, yet the Urals managed to preserve some Cossack customs.

The Urals is the only army of the Russian Empire that until the last day retained its communal structure and had a common land, the protected river Ural, which within the Army belonged exclusively to the Urals and fishing was carried out exclusively by the Urals. And the Urals themselves used it only during certain periods of the year. In winter, bagreniye, in spring and autumn, marshes and some other fisheries. Since the Urals have been fishermen from time immemorial, they have developed the strictest rules and techniques for these fisheries.

When the German scientist Pallas visited the Yaik army in 1769, during the reign of Catherine II, he described in detail some of the Cossack fisheries, they have remained unchanged since then. The rest of the time, the Urals were heavily guarded, preventing poachers. This is due to necessity, since the bottom line of the earth had, one might say, a desert, a former seabed, where nothing grew; fishing among the grassroots Cossacks was almost the only means of subsistence.

The Cossacks also put into practice the equation in the benefits of their land. Since the villages located above Uralsk had good land and, being engaged in arable farming, they could do without fishing, the Cossacks decided not to let red fish go above Uralsk. For this purpose, they often lowered iron bars from a narrow wooden bridge spanning the Urals to the bottom. The fish, going upstream, reaches this barrier, stops and comes back, looking for other places. This building is called "uchug".

New iron rod

Above, the Ural fishing is free and whatever.

Each stanitsa used the land as it wanted, in its own way, even the congress elected from the stanitsa societies, the so-called Military Congress, or otherwise the Military Circle, did not interfere in the resolutions of the stanitsa gatherings, it freely approved them. By the way, this Military Congress existed among the Urals until the very end, but only the functions were of an exclusively economic nature, and even the ataman had no right to interfere in his affairs.

The only property the Urals could have was an orchard. The Cossack submitted a request to the stanitsa gathering to allocate him a place for a garden. Usually there were no obstacles, the meeting decided, the Military Congress approved, a land surveyor came from Uralsk, measured out the five due tithes, and this was the property of the Cossack forever and even of his descendants. But surprisingly, very few planted these gardens.

The Cossacks were so jealous of the fact that the land was common that they did not want to sell it to anyone or even rent it out.

During the period when General N. Shipov, who, by the way, was an exceptional chieftain, was the chief ataman, there were no others before and after him. Having been appointed to this post, he undertook with zeal to improve the life of the Cossacks and, among other things, decided to organize an exemplary farm and an agricultural school with it. From this farm, each Cossack, if desired, could take improved producers for livestock. It cost General Shipov a lot of work to obtain permission from the Congress to alienate land for this farm.

As the reader can see from my historical note, among the Urals all the time there was a great decrease in people, but they did not accept new ones, the population was dense only in the upper villages, where there were good lands. Below Uralsk, even by 1914, the population was sparse - this probably also influenced the fact that the issue of land division was never raised. There was a lot of land, and everyone plowed where he liked, and everyone grazed their shoals of horses, herds of cattle and hens of sheep, where the stanitsa assembly allotted them a place.

Ural Cossack from a wealthy family

The Urals lived richly, and some Cossacks had a very large number of horses, cattle and sheep.

The upbringing of horses by horse breeders was special. In summer, the horses were always in the steppe, where they grazed and spent the night. In winter, there were rooms for them, but they were fed with hay, which was scattered on clean snow and they were not given water: together with hay, they took snow; and at the very beginning of winter, when the snow was not deep, they were not yet given hay, they, as they say, “tebenevali”, that is, tearing the snow with their hooves, found food for themselves. And the horses were like wild ones; they were only taught at the age of four. When the repair commission for the army came, it was a spectacle when these horses were caught with a lasso and brought to the veterinarian by force and, after acceptance, a brand was applied. And such and such horses were handed out to Cossack recruits and how much knowledge, patience, dexterity and courage were needed to accustom such a horse to the ranks. The result of such upbringing was hardy horses, not afraid of either snowstorms or rains.

For sheep there were, only for winter, reed fences without a roof. The hen of rams numbered 500 pieces, and rams were driven into the fence or yard in such a way that when they lie down, they lie so close to each other that it is impossible to step between them. And in this form, no frost and rain took them, they were very warm there. They, like horses, were fed in the snow in winter and not watered.

The Urals have never served on mares.

Despite the fact that the Urals were very conservative and shunned innovations, the mower had already replaced the scythe; threshing of wheat was no longer carried out by horses, but by steam threshing machines, the plow had long been replaced by a plow.

And even before the war of 1914, cars were already visible. But the patriarchal way of life sat firmly among the Cossacks.

I will take for example my village Chizhinskaya. In my village, for example, my father and uncle, on Christmas and Easter holidays, always sent many poor Cossacks half a mutton carcass, tea and sugar to break the fast, and for some, fabrics for new clothes. Also, as usual, on the day of some kind of commemoration, a sweet pie with a candle and money was sent - but this was done secretly. For this, my mother sent me when it was already completely dark, and I had to put it on the window and quickly run away.

In the spring, some Cossacks came to take bulls for all summer work and returned them only in late autumn. I don’t know how other rich Cossacks helped, for the reason that all these good deeds were done without publicity. There were many curiosities among the Old Believers; some kind of such person would come to his father on business. You go up to him to say hello, but he does not stretch out his hand, because I am not of his faith. Among the Cossacks of the Old Believers there were those who, having traveled somewhere far away, asked someone to spend the night along the way, and this was done in this way: they would knock on the window and read the prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ. Son of God, have mercy on us!" From home they answer: “Amen!” “Let me spend the night for Christ’s sake.”

They let them spend the night, but they don’t take tea from your samovar, because we are not of their faith. They make a fire in the yard and boil water in the kettles they brought with them. Some do not recognize the samovar at all, believing that there is something from the devil in it. The Old Believers did not allow smoking in the houses, and if, out of ignorance, you decided to smoke, then the Cossack unceremoniously knocked the cigarette out of your mouth.

My family was also Old Believer, and my parents told me how in late autumn they took me on horseback in a sleigh to be baptized 400 miles to the Volga, where our priest was hiding at that time.

As a curiosity, I can point out to the reader that the Urals all wore a beard. It was worn not only by the Old Believers, who considered it a great sin to shave it, but also by the Nikonians. Some officers left their mustaches, shaved their beards, and there is a playful poem by our poet officer A. B. Karpov.

Morning, the sun is shining
Hundred in the field acts,
At least skip the whole hundred,
There are bearded men everywhere.
I'm the only one who shamed them -
Shaved his beard.

In the war of 14, there were big troubles with these beards when they had to put on a gas mask.

Among the Urals, all surnames ended in the letters -ov, -ev and -in, there were no -ich, -sky and so on. Therefore, when they accepted someone into the Cossacks for military distinctions or for services to the Army, they changed their surnames in their own way.

And one more curiosity. Some historians, and even Pushkin, in his "History of the Pugachev Rebellion", believe that the Yaik Cossacks descended from the Don Cossacks. Uralians categorically disagree with this. The Urals believe that such ancient free troops - the Don, Tersk, Volga and Yaitsk formed independently, but that in the course of history some Cossacks passed from army to army.

That the Don army was the oldest and largest, and the Yaik Cossacks were in close connection with it, the Urals admit, but for what reason the Don people had a desire to go over to the Yaik Cossacks, they do not know. One must think that they left for the reason that they did not like something. As an example, one can point to the ataman Gugnya - he was an ushkuynik and fled from Novgorod at the time when Ivan the Terrible destroyed the Novgorod Veche. He ran to the Don, but he did not like something on the Don, and he moved to Yaik.

By the way, on Yaik he didn’t show himself in any way, he is only known for breaking the former custom of the Yaik Cossacks, who, leaving on a campaign, abandoned their wives, and brought new ones from the campaign. He saved his wife, but did not bring a new one, and from this very Gugnikha permanent wives appeared. The Cossacks call her great-grandmother Gugnikhoy and at any convenient or inconvenient occasion raise a glass to her.
__________

In Uralsk, equality was complete and no service to the Army gave the right to have more.

There were no privileged estates, as was the case in the Don army, when the sovereigns gave titles to the Don people with grants of land and peasants, in the Ural army.
__________

The Urals were Great Russians, there was no Ukrainian blood. There were also full-fledged Cossacks Tatars, Kalmyks, and they were magnificent Cossacks. There were even officers from the Tatars.

ALIEN POPULATION

The city of Uralsk by the war of 1914 had 50 thousand people; half of them were foreigners.

All commercial enterprises and all trade were in the hands of non-residents. The Cossacks did not like to engage in trade. All these commercial enterprises grew rich at the expense of the Cossacks. All artisans, all employees of post offices, banks, etc. were from other cities.

In Uralsk there was a Cossack real school and a women's gymnasium, as well as government men's and women's gymnasiums. All staff were foreigners. All watchmakers and pharmacists were Jews. There were up to 40 families of Jews and they lived richly.

There were few newcomers in the villages. They were mainly artisans and merchants.

Russian-Kyrgyz School of Craft Students

Throughout the territory of the Army there were many Kirghiz of the Bukeev Horde. They were powerless, they served as shepherds among the Cossacks and worked in the field, and, it must be confessed, the Cossacks exploited them greatly. Some lent them tea, sugar, flour, and money during the winter at high interest; they were supposed to work in the summer.

There were many horse thieves among them, one of them gained great fame and was elusive, as he was sheltered by the Kirghiz. His name was Aidan-Galiy. He managed to choose the best horses in the school, of course, his relatives helped him, and drove them beyond the Urals or to the Samara province. Once he even stole a whole herd of horses of 300 heads, but it was not possible to covertly transport them across the Urals, and the overtaken one was forced to leave the herd and hide. It was not possible to catch him, according to rumors, he fled to Turkey.

The Cossacks unceremoniously evicted the Kirghiz, who were seen in unseemly acts, to the Bukeev Horde. All this alien population did not like the Cossacks and the Cossacks did not interfere with them. Cossacks married only Cossack women, with the exception of the rarest cases. Never married Kyrgyz women.

Now, with the permission of the reader, I will offer a description of the bagrenia among the Ural Cossacks by B. Kirov.

BAGRENIE

It seems to me that those who have never been to the Urals or have not met the Ural Cossacks have not even heard such a word, and, meanwhile, bagreniye is a whole event in the life of the Urals.

Bagrenye is a special type of winter fishing. I think that I will not be mistaken if I say that it existed only in the Urals.

Bagrenye is a celebration, a Cossack holiday.

Since autumn, with the beginning of the first cold weather, red fish - sturgeon, stellate sturgeon - go to winter. She gathers in machines (herds) and, having chosen a place for herself, sinks to the bottom, where she spends time until warm days. The Cossacks follow the Urals and notice these places.

Usually, around the Christmas holidays, a special commission of old people watching the Urals determined that the ice was strong enough to withstand the entire Army. The day was set. Haffs, chokers, ice picks were prepared in advance, the harness was cleaned, the sleigh was renewed, the bagren vitushki were baked, and on the eve, at night, the Cossacks rode on the best horses to the bagreni. The wives and children also went there.

The Cossacks and the Cossacks are dressed in a special purple suit: a hat with a raspberry top, a black cloth jacket tucked into white canvas trousers. Cossack women are dressed in a festive way - in velvet, fox-fur coats and expensive shawls.

They went out in whole villages, and went alone, but they all merged into one stream of sledges and moved without disturbing the order where the leader was leading. They put the horses in strict regular rows. The Cossacks lined up on both banks of the Urals in a long front, and waited. Cossack women crowded behind in merry groups.

A Kyrgyz wagon stood on the shore, and the senior ranks of the Army and their families gathered around it.

At about nine o'clock, in the distance, against the background of the snowy steppe, a troika appeared, escorted by mounted Cossacks. Ataman rode.

The troika rolled up to the wagon, and the ataman, getting out of the sleigh, greeted the villagers loudly. The unanimous loud answer of the Troops rushed through the frosty air.

Then there was a solemn silence. On the ice, in the middle of the Urals, a crimson ataman came out and gave a sign to the beginning of the crimson.

The ranks of the Cossacks swayed and ran towards the Urals. With long hooks in their hands, the Cossacks jumped from the ravine into deep snow, rolled down it and ran across the ice to the stirrup of the Urals. They stopped and began to punch small holes in the ice with the ice picks. Several seconds passed. The thick ice has been broken. Almost simultaneously, the shafts of the gaffs rose, forming a whole forest, and immediately plunged into the hole. The rampage began.

The fish, frightened by the noise, rose and walked under the ice, but met hooks on their way and, hooked by a hook, pulled themselves up to the ice. At once a large hole was breaking through, and in a moment the fish, caught by several more pods, thrashed on the ice and froze. A sleigh with a flag drove up, the Cossacks, often with difficulty, put huge fish on them and took them to a hut on the shore, where the whole catch was added up.

With great attention and interest, the crowd on the shore followed what was happening on the ice, and the appearance of each new fish was met with an enthusiastic roar.

On the first day, according to custom, they made the best yat not far from Uralsk; the bagreni was special. Royal bagreni. According to tradition, the whole catch was sent to the Tsar as a gift by the Army. Large carts, and recently several wagons loaded with fish, went annually to St. Petersburg, in the "present".

By noon they started to leave.

The horses, stagnant in the frost, rushed forward, and the Cossacks, satisfied with a good catch, gave them full rein. The jump began. On a flat wide road, overtaking each other, Cossacks rushed in sledges. Well-fed horses trotted at a big trot, throwing snow dust at their riders.

A couple in a small sled flies past you in a whirlwind. Bending slightly to the front and putting one foot out of the sleigh, sits a Cossack. His hat, eyebrows, mustache and beard are white with hoarfrost, and he, gradually lowering the reins, gives the horses more and more progress. slightly on bumps, and her black eyes laugh from under sable brows and white teeth sparkle in the sun. And behind them, catching up or already overtaking, another pair rushes, there is a third, a fourth ... and, looking at them, you feel that today is a holiday, a special, Ural holiday.

Cheerful and cheerful, the Cossacks return home. They are waiting for pies, cakes and a merrily boiling samovar. After a frost, it is pleasant to indulge in a cup of tea and, in a warm comfort, remember and tell what happened in the morning.

And in the evening, preparations began again, and early in the morning, often at night, the Cossacks left again to crimson, this time for themselves, to other lines. And so it went on for several days.

The yards of fish merchants were littered with fish and work was in full swing there. Huge fish ripped open and sacks of caviar fell into sieves. Immediately it was butchered, salted and filled with large and small jars. Right there they put the fish on balyks and teshka.

Each fishmonger has guests, and he proudly leads them around the yard. And yes, there was a lot to be proud of. There were Belugas in 60 pounds. If you sit on it astride, then you can’t get the ground with your feet. After going around the yard and examining the fish, everyone went to the rooms to try new caviar and drink tea. Caviar was served in large bowls, one bowl replaced another, and the hospitable host persuaded me to try from each:

— This one might be better, the salting is different.

When the guests left, a jar of caviar was placed in each sleigh, and no one dared to refuse it.

Merchants sent Ural caviar and Ural sturgeon all over the world, and the whole world ate them.

But how many knew how the Cossacks got these treasures from the "Yaik, the golden bottom"?

B. Kirov
Renaissance newspaper, Paris

TSARSKOYE BAGRENE

The first day of purple was set aside for the king. All the fish caught that day were taken to the royal table. This custom has existed since the time of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, the first of the Romanov dynasty, when the Yaik Cossacks came to the tsar with a fish gift and a bow with a request to "accept" them under a high hand. And then it so happened that every year the Cossacks took this present to the royal table. It was not difficult in the old days, when Yaik was very rich in fish and was not otherwise called in songs as “golden bottom”, and he fed the whole Army. But when Yaik gradually began to become impoverished, it became more difficult for the Cossacks to do this, and, by the way, this custom turned into a duty and existed until the 1917 revolution. It happened like this: the military treasury released the amount of money to buy red fish from the Cossacks right on the ice, during the crimson. But, the rates were as follows: 3 rubles barren and 15 rubles caviar sturgeon. The real price of caviar sturgeon was 120-150-200 or more rubles, depending on the size. Imagine now a Cossack who was successful on the king's purse and unsuccessful on his own. How much money did he lose? They tried to somehow hide the fish, but this became completely impossible, because the authorities forbade bringing horses and sleighs to the ice on the royal horn. Special yatovs were allotted for the royal bagren, and sometimes it turned out that there were no deposits of fish on it; then they broke another and so on until they caught enough fish.

During the period of the atamanship of General Shipov, at the end of the last century, an unfortunate incident occurred. They broke three yatovs and there were no fish. It was necessary to break more, but the rest of the lines were not prepared, and the Cossacks refused to continue. Despite the threats and orders of the ataman, the Cossacks flatly refused, citing the fact that there were no barriers at other lines and the frightened fish would go to sea. About 60 people were arrested, and some were sent to Siberia.

One has to wonder how the tsarist government did not abolish this ancient custom.

This fish was carried to the king by an honorary delegation of three or four people from the honored Cossacks. The king gave someone a gold watch with his portrait, someone a golden cigarette case or something like that.

But, probably, the emperor distributed this fish, since there were a lot of them, but the Urals never received gratitude from anyone.

Recognized text: http://kazachiy-krug.ru

See also:
Ural Cossacks and the city of Uralsk (A. K. Gaines),
Uralsk and Orenburg as administrative centers (F. I. Lobysevich),
Bagrenie in the Urals (I.F. Blaramberg).

"Everyone knows the caviar of the Urals and the Ural sturgeons, only little has everyone heard about the Ural Cossacks"

This is how the words of an old Ural Cossack song sound. Indeed, today there is almost no literature that would allow you to get acquainted with the history of the Civil War on the territory of the Ural Cossack army. Meanwhile, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the struggle of the Ural (Yaitsky) Cossack army against Bolshevism can serve as one of the clearest examples of resistance in Russian military history.

Soviet historians, with rare exceptions, shyly hushed up the history of the Civil War on the land of the Ural Cossack army. The reason is simple - the struggle against the Ural Cossacks was filled with almost nothing but the defeats of the Bolsheviks, despite the colossal superiority of the latter both in quantitative and technical terms. Until now, few people know that the Ural separate Cossack army was not defeated by the Bolsheviks, but almost completely died from a terrible epidemic of typhus, specially brought into the region of the Ural Cossacks by the Bolsheviks, who were not able to fight the Cossacks simply by military force.

Today, it is all the more difficult to recreate the history of the struggle of the Ural Cossacks against the Bolsheviks. Firstly, most of the documents of the Ural Cossack army were destroyed or are still inaccessible to historians. And secondly, almost all the Ural Cossacks either died during the civil war or emigrated - there is simply no one to take up writing the history of the struggle of the Ural Cossacks against Bolshevism.

Having arisen among the first Cossack troops, from the end of the 16th century. The Yaik Cossacks begin to play a special role in the life of Russia, covering themselves with unfading glory in the fight against its enemies. However, over time, the Yaik army was deprived of all its significant privileges. In many ways, the reason for this was his "rebellious" disposition. So, from 1670 to 1874. on the territory of the Ural Cossacks, dozens of large and dozens of small uprisings were undertaken against the tyranny and tyranny of the nobility, the most prominent of which was the active participation in the Cossack-peasant wars of Razin and Pugachev.

Until 1917, the Ural army lived a very closed life, in a humbled position compared to other Cossack troops, and did not receive the forgiveness of the emperor. It may seem to a person unfamiliar with the life of the Ural Cossacks that the Urals, who retained their proud rebellious spirit, should have supported the Bolsheviks, however, the Ural Cossacks resolutely did not accept the Bolshevik commissar power - and fought against it to the last Cossack. In many ways, this explains the reason why the Ural Cossacks - from 15-year-old boys to 80-year-old elders - bravely fought against the hordes of the 3rd International until the very end.

The policy of decossackization of the Bolsheviks in relation to the Ural Cossacks, in fact, was reduced to the total destruction of the Cossack population, which, by the way, was not typical for other regions. The Communists uprooted entire villages, threw the Cossacks to their death in the Arctic, brought farms to the "black boards", completely destroyed the Cossacks during the Holodomor in the 20-30s, rotted in concentration camps those who dared to resist during the period of Stalinism.

Ural Cossack army

Excerpt from the book by Alexei Vasilyevich Shishov "Cossack troops of Russia", 2007

The emergence of free Cossack communities on the banks of the Yaik (Ural) River dates back to the first half of the 16th century. According to a completely reliable legend, between 1520 and 1550 a detachment of about 30 people appeared there under the leadership of ataman Vasily Gugni, who came from the Don and “from other cities”. Free Cossacks were looking for new fishing places, and therefore the banks of the steppe river, almost not developed economically, immediately liked them. Here one could not be afraid of either the raids of the Crimean Tatars, or the willfulness of the tsarist governors.

The fact that the Russian Cossacks appeared on Yaik was evidenced by the Nogai Murzas after the defeat by the Volga Cossacks in 1571-1572. their capital, the city of Saraichik: “Now the sovereign orders de Cossacks to take away the Volga and Samara and Yaik from us, and we de on this abyss from the Cossacks: our uluses and wives and children will take.”

In 1605, the army of the Crimean Khan still managed to destroy the Yaitsky town. The Cossacks tried several times to restore it, but in each such case they were attacked by Krymchaks and Nogais.

In the second half of the 16th century, “many Cossack towns” appeared on the banks of the Yaik and Emba rivers, the population of which, in all likelihood, was not permanent, since the Cossacks at that time were not engaged in arable farming. The life of the army was controlled by a circle - a collection of full-fledged Cossack warriors of the "entire river". The Cossacks went on military campaigns and fishing for sturgeon fish, led by marching and flooded elected chieftains.

It is known that the influential Nogai prince Urus repeatedly demanded in his letters to Tsar Ivan the Terrible to demolish the city, where 600-700 Yaik Cossacks lived, who caused a lot of anxiety to the Nogais. The fact that such a fortified town of free Cossacks existed at the mouth of the Yaik is evidenced by the following fact. In 1637, taisha (prince) Danchin, at the head of several thousand cavalry soldiers from Kalmyks and Altyul Tatars, tried to capture the Cossack settlement. However, this attempt ended in complete failure and with heavy losses for the attackers.

The first chronicle mention of the Yaik Cossacks refers to July 9, 1591. The chronicle spoke of the "service" of the free Cossacks from the banks of the Yaik to Tsar Fedor Ioannovich. That year, 500 Yaik Cossacks, together with the archers of various Moscow regiments, participated in a campaign in the North Caucasus against the troops of the ruler of Southern Dagestan, Shamkhal Tarkovsky.

The chronicle evidence was an order of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich to the Astrakhan governors who went on a campaign across the Terek River to the foothills of the Caucasus: send his disobedient to Shevkalsky, for seven years, from Terka his army, and for that service the Sovereign ordered the Yaitsky and Volga atamans and Cossacks to go to Astrakhan to the camp ... gather all the Cossacks in Astrakhan for Shevkalsky service: Volga 1000 people, yes Yaitsky 500..."

This date - July 9, 1591 and became the basis for determining the seniority of the Ural Cossack army.

In 1613, the Yaik Cossacks, by their own "petition", were accepted into the citizenship of the Moscow state, while retaining almost all their "freedom". The military affairs of the Cossacks were decided in a circle. The discussion began with the fact that the captains went out into a circle, took off their checkers, laid their rods on the ground and read a prayer. After that, they are addressing the audience with the words: “Be quiet, atamans, well done, and all the great army of Yaitsky ...”

Two years later, in 1615, the army was granted a royal charter for "eternal" possession of the Yaik River, "but no one will remember from what Order." By that time, the Yaik Cossacks already had their own capital, or, in other words, the main, largest fortified town at the confluence of the Chagan River with Yaik. It was called by the river - Yaik, or Yaitsky. In 1622, the settlement was moved to the territory of modern Uralsk, located on the territory of Kazakhstan,

The Yaik army proved to be a well-organized military force. In 1629, the Cossacks from Yaik under the command of Prince Solntsev-Zasekin and the governor Blagov took part in the fighting against the cavalry of the Crimean Khanate.

In 1634, 380 Yaitsky Cossacks fought in the ranks of the tsarist army of the famous governor boyar Mikhail Shein against the Poles near the fortress city of Smolensk.

The Yaik Cossacks also left their mark on the history of the Livonian War. It is known that in 1655-1656 a detachment of free Cossacks from the banks of the Yaik under the command of Prince Khovansky fought against the Livonians and Poles in Poland and near the fortress city of Riga.

The Yaik Cossack army carried out border and guard service along the Yaik River. Separate Cossack gangs raided nomads, went “for zipuns” along with the Volga and Don Cossacks. Their main economic activity was fishing.

... In 1670, the Yaik Cossacks fell into royal disgrace for the first time, since the army almost in its entirety took part in the uprising of Stepan Razin. The rebellion of Stenka Razin cost the Yaik Cossacks dearly. After the capture of Razin, they were "forgiven" in Moscow. But the disobedience of the Yaik Cossacks to the golden-domed Moscow did not end there. In 1677, part of it, led by ataman Vaska Kasimov, raised a new rebellion. However, the sent royal troops defeated the rebels and "pacified" the free Yaik. The remnants of the rebels, fleeing from the royal commanders, went down the Volga to the Caspian Sea on plows. From the Volga mouth they went on a campaign "for zipuns" to the Persian shores. However, attempts to attack the Caspian coast of Persia ended unsuccessfully, most of them were captured and agreed to change Orthodoxy to the Muslim faith. After that, by the will of the Shah, the prisoners were settled in the city of Shamakhi.

After the “pacification” of Yaik, the Cossacks again began to be attracted to the royal service. In 1681, a horse hundred was summoned from the Yaitsky army by the sovereign's command. She entered the detachment of Prince Bulat-Cherkassky and ended up on the banks of the Dnieper near the Chigirin fortress, which the Turks and their allies, the Crimean Tatars, so much wanted to take possession of.

Two years later, the Boyar Duma “sentenced” to use the Yaik Cossacks to suppress the “indignation” of the Bashkirs. 500 Cossacks were included in that expedition near the city of Ufa.

In 1684-1685, the Yaik Cossacks participated in the Crimean campaigns of Prince Vasily Golitsyn.

... The sovereign of "All Russia" Peter 1 did not forget about this army of free Cossacks. According to his will, in 1695-1696, five thousand Cossacks were involved in the siege, assault and capture of the Turkish fortress of Azov.

The Yaik Cossacks also took part in the Northern War of 1700-1721 against the Kingdom of Sweden. So, in 1701, 2,100 Yaitsky horsemen were part of the young Peter's regular army.

In 1719, the Yaik Cossack army came under the jurisdiction of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs, and in 1721, by Peter's decree, it was subordinated to the Military Collegium.

The Yaik Cossacks fought not only against the Swedes. In 1711, a thousand of them participated in the Kuban campaign of General Apraksin, and in 1717, 1,500 Cossacks acted as part of the army of Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky in a campaign against the Khiva Khanate. The campaign turned out to be unsuccessful. The Yaik army then lost all its banners, which the Khiva people took over partly with battle, and partly with deceit: "... And these banners, when they were on a campaign with the prince, the enemy people took them with people in full."

Peter the Great responded to this misfortune of the Yaik Cossacks, who, faithfully and without sparing their lives, served him both near the Azov fortress and in the war with the Swedes. On May 31, 1721, an imperial decree was issued with the following content: “Give to the Yaik Cossacks, according to their petition to the entire Yaik army, 3 banners from Moscow from the former archery banners found there, choosing which are newer and lighter, with a list.”

In the same 1721, the army, as noted above, was subordinated to the Military Collegium. Prior to this, Moscow communicated with the Yaik Cossacks through the Kazan and Posolsky orders. The autonomy of the troops came to an end, which the Cossacks could not accept and revolted. The government suppressed it, the main instigators were executed, others were severely whipped and sent into exile.

Since 1723, military chieftains were approved by the highest authorities, and there could no longer be “random” chieftains on Yaik.

The main state task of the army was to protect the steppe border of the Russian state from the predatory raids of the steppe peoples. In 1720, a thousand Cossacks served on the Irtysh fortified border line. In 1723-1724, the Yaik Cossacks took part in battles with the cavalry troops of the Nogais and Karakalpaks on the Utva River.

Since 1724, the Caucasian service of the Yaik army began. That year, by decision of the Military Collegium, the equestrian Cossack hundred was included in the Grassroots Corps. From that time on, throughout the rest of the 18th century, the army annually sent from 100 to 400 fully equipped cavalry fighters to the Caucasus.

In St. Petersburg, they did not forget to encourage the army from the banks of the Yaik with awards. So, in 1726, it received a granted notch - a symbol of ataman power. In December 1749, he received 15 new banners and 15 stanitsa badges.

In 1740, the Military Collegium tried to replace the hiring with the general service of the Cossacks in turn, but the Urals did not comply with this order.

By 1743, the Yaik lower border line was finally formed, on which the army constantly kept garrisons. The embassy duty fell on him - to allocate several hundreds of horsemen to accompany the Russian embassies to "Bukharia" (Emirate of Bukhara).

In 1748, the Military Collegium divided the entire staff of the Ural Cossack army into seven horseshoes - 500 Cossacks and 8 officers each. At the same time, the construction of the Nizhne-Yaitskaya border line was completed. It began in the north of the Loose Fortress and stretched to Guryev town. Then the construction of the Verkhne-Yaitskaya border line was completed. It was again made up of outposts (earthen fortresses) Zzhimny, Kindelinsky, Irtitsky, Yanvartsev, Rubizhny and Pilovsky.

Since the territory of residence of the Yaitsky army was not far from the Siberian land, his Cossacks began to be attracted to carry out border service and on the Siberian fortified line. Such business trips began in 1758.

In the same year, Colonel Shipelev "for respectable and diligent service with the thousandth team of Yaik Cossacks entrusted to him," Major General Weymarn presented the regimental banner. In March 1760, the army was granted two new regimental banners and 23 stanitsa badges.

In 1765, the Military Collegium again tried to replace hiring with active service, but this time, too, the military population showed steadfastness in defending their ancient rights.

... The second time the Yaik Cossack army fell into royal disgrace during the Peasants' War led by the Don Cossack Emelyan Pugachev. In 1773, almost all of them fell under the banner of Pugachev, remaining faithful to him almost to the end. The "Pugachev rebellion", like the "rebellion of Stenka Razin", cost dearly to people who dreamed of "free will". Empress Catherine poured out the full force of her royal wrath on the rebellious Yaik Cossacks. By decree of January 15, 1775, she ordered "to continue to call this army the Urals, the Yaik River - the Urals, and the city of Yaik - the Urals."

The empress tried to do everything to completely destroy the memory of the "treacherous incident on Yaik." So in 1775, the names of the ancient Cossack army, the Yaik River and the Yaitsky town disappeared from geographical maps and from state documents. It was forbidden to mention the former names anywhere.

The empress gave the "new" Ural army to the direct subordination of the Astrakhan (or Orenburg) governor-general. The governor was entrusted with the issues of ensuring the “loyalty” of the troops of the central government. The Empress knew that there were a lot of schismatics among the Ural Cossacks. Direct control of the army passed into the hands of the commandant of the Uralsk garrison.

During the long reign of Empress Catherine, 11 big wars were fought a lot - with the Turks, and with the Poles, and with the Swedes, and with the Persians, and with their loyal subjects too. The first act of their forgiveness can be considered the fact that in 1790 120 selected Ural Cossacks became part of the personal escort of Field Marshal His Serene Highness Prince G.A. Potemkin-Tauride, the all-powerful temporary worker, the de facto ruler of the South of Russia. He did a lot to improve the position of the Ural Cossacks. In particular, he made sure that he retained the exclusive right to engage in fishing on the Ural River, which was the main source of reproach for the stanitsa and military capital.

The temptation of "guilt" was also participation in establishing internal order in the state. In 1797, 500 Ural Cossacks served on the Volga, where the "thieves' people" - the Volga robbers - roamed.

The Ural Cossack army was entrusted with other tasks of national importance. In the same year, 1797, 500 Cossacks were engaged in escorting transports with salt from the town of Troitsk to the Ust-Uysk fortress. Salt was intended, in particular, for barter with the peoples of the Kirghiz-Kaisatsky (Kazakh) steppe. Income, and considerable, from the salt trade, which was a state monopoly, has always significantly replenished the Russian treasury.

Since 1798, the service of the Ural Cossacks in the Russian guard began. The day of September 4 became the day of the formation of the Life-Ural Cossack Hundred, which was a great event. Emperor Paul I handed over to the Hundred a banner “on the model (or from among?) of the former Life Guards in the Preobrazhensky Regiment.” In the same year, the appointment of military atamans began, the first of which was Major General David Martemyanovich Denisov, who ruled the army in Uralsk until 1830. Since April 1799, the ranks of officers of the Ural Cossack army were equated with the general army ranks.

Generalissimo Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov-Rymniksky highly appreciated the fighting qualities of the Ural Cossacks. Under his command, two cavalry regiments of colonels Borodin and Litsinov took part in the Italian and Swiss campaigns of 1799. Together with the regiments of the Don Cossacks, they were under the general command of the marching ataman Adrian Karpovich Denisov and more than once distinguished themselves in cases against the French troops.

In 1799, the team of the Life-Ural Hundred (60 people) participated in the secret Dutch expedition against the French.

In 1803, the “Regulations on the Ural Cossack Host” was approved and its composition was determined: one Life Guards Ural Hundred and 10 cavalry Cossack regiments. The regiments were numbered - from No. 1 to No. 10. By that time, the number of the male population of the army had reached 20 thousand people.

Emperor Alexander 1 for the first time introduced a uniform form of uniform for the Urals: a raspberry-colored caftan (chekmen), beshmet and trousers. Everything, like the Donets, their uniforms were blue.

In the steppe region, with its dry summers and lack of water, the life of the Cossacks was financially difficult. The main wealth of the military land was represented by river and Caspian fish, but it did not give much prosperity to the families of the Cossacks. This circumstance largely explained their request to change the form of crimson to blue, since cloth dyed crimson was much more expensive than blue. The old color uniform was left only for the Guards Hundred. Such a decision at the highest level followed in 1806.

In 1809, for the second time in the history of the army, the Ural Cossacks had a chance to participate in the war against Sweden. The Cossacks were part of the troops that made an 8-hour transition across the ice of the Gulf of Bothnia to the territory of the Swedish kingdom and distinguished themselves in the capture of the Aland Islands. The Urals, as good shooters who had long-barreled guns, in that war often had to act on foot.

... Two Cossack regiments, No. 1 and No. 2, took part in the Russian-Turkish war of 1806-1812, being part of the Moldavian army. The Urals fought valiantly on the banks of the Danube against the Turks, earning more than one commendable word from the future commander-in-chief of the army, Field Marshal M.I. Golenishchev-Kutuzov. So, they distinguished themselves in the assault on the Ruschuk fortress, in the Battle of Batino.

Two other Ural Cossack regiments - No. 3 and No. 4 took part in the Patriotic War of 1812. They were part of the Danube army of Admiral P.V. Chichagov and more than once were in combat clashes with the Napoleonic troops during their expulsion from Russia. The Urals, consisting of 5 cavalry regiments (over 2 thousand people), distinguished themselves by participating in the foreign campaigns of the Russian army in 1813-1814, especially in the Leipzig "Battle of the Nations", in battles with the French on German soil near the cities of Dresden, Hamburg and Palatinate, in battles near Paris. In battles with the French, the Ural Cossacks suffered heavy losses. So, the 4th Ural Regiment in December 1813 had only 186 fighters in its combatant strength.

In 1817, the Cossacks from the Urals more than once carried out border service on the Siberian fortified line, where they replenished the garrisons of a number of fortresses.

The government continued to attract the Cossacks of the Ural army for internal service. From 1818 to 1862, one Cossack cavalry regiment was sent to Moscow annually to perform police functions (from 1837 - until

450 people in the combined Ural-Orenburg regiment). As a rule, a new regiment replaced it a year later. From 1822 to 1870, the army kept one horse hundred in the city of Kazan for similar purposes.

In 1819, the Cossacks of the Ilek and Sakmarskaya villages were added to the army. Because of this, two new cavalry regiments were formed - No. 11 and No. 12.

With the beginning of the advancement of the state borders of Russia in the steppes of the Turkestan region, the service of the Ural Cossacks was increasingly associated with campaigns in the Asian south. In 1825-1826, regiments No. 1 and No. 2 with six field guns were part of the expedition of Colonel Berg, sent to the shores of the Aral Sea. Since the line of the state border advanced to the Akhtuba River, one cavalry regiment was sent there during 1827-1836 for a period of one year.

In the Russian-Turkish war of 1828-1829, one regiment of the Ural Cossack army took part in the siege of the Danube fortress of Silistria and fought under the fortress of Shumla. Another regiment of the Urals during the suppression of the Polish rebellion in 1831 distinguished itself in the assault on the fortress of Zamosc.

In 1830, the Life Guards Ural Hundred was assigned to the Young Guard and was renamed the Life Guards Ural Hundred. Two years later, she was assigned to the Don Ataman Regiment. After that, a hundred was transformed into a guards squadron, then into divisions, then again into a squadron and a hundred.

... Service in the Trans-Caspian Territory began for the Urals in 1833. Two hundred Cossacks formed the garrison of the Novo-Petrovsky fortification. In 1839, it was moved to the shores of the Caspian Sea, to the Mangyshlak peninsula, and received the name "Fort Alexandrovsky". The Cossacks formed its garrison until 1870, when the fort was transferred to the control of the Caucasian governorship.

In 1837, the government called four regiments into service at once. They were sent to the Caucasian war, to Bessarabia, Finland and to the Lower Ural border line.

The recognition of Russian citizenship by Kazakh families and zhuzes led to the fact that the government became responsible for the calm in the Kazakh steppe. And there was no peace there from time immemorial: there was constant civil strife between the khans and clans, raids on neighbors, whose cattle were stolen, did not stop. The Ural Cossacks throughout almost the entire 19th century were constantly attracted to fight against local rebels. So, in 1837, a Cossack detachment of 600 horsemen was on a business trip in the Bukey Horde, fighting against the robber gangs of Sultan Nitai Taishanov. The following year, a Cossack hundred was sent to the Trans-Ural steppe in pursuit of the robbers. In 1843, a detachment of 700 Ural Cossacks was in the Kirghiz steppe "to capture Sultan Kanisara Kasimov." In 1855, three Cossack hundreds were engaged in the capture of the robber detachment of Iset Kegubaev in the Trans-Ural steppe.

Two regiments of Ural Cossacks took part in the Khiva campaign in 1839-1840. The following year, one cavalry regiment was part of the troops of the Separate Caucasian Corps in Georgia. And four hundred Ural Cossacks made up the convoy of the Russian diplomatic mission to Khiva and Bukhara.

In 1845, the Ural Cossacks took part in the construction of fortifications in the Transcaspian region: Novo-Petrovsky, Embensky, Chumkakul and Ural. Two or three Cossack hundreds of Uralians were included in their garrisons.

By the beginning of the reign of Alexander II, the military population was estimated at 72 thousand people of both sexes. There were now 6,870 Cossacks in active service.

In 1853, the Urals took part in the Turkestan Ak-Mechet expedition. 300 Cossacks distinguished themselves in the assault and capture of the Ak-Mechet fortress, repelling the attack on it by the troops of the Kokand Khanate, in battles near the fortress in the Kum-Suat tract.

The Crimean War of 1853-1856 called up two cavalry regiments from the Ural Cossack army to the army system. They fought the British and French on the Crimean land, distinguished themselves at Balaklava and on the Black River, and carried out sentinel duty near the besieged Sevastopol.

During that war, Turkestan affairs became the main concern of the troops. Three hundred Ural Cossacks participated in the capture of the Kokand fortress Ak-Mechet (Perovsk), a well-known robber nest in the Kazakh steppe. The Cossacks repelled the attempts of the Khan of Kokand to recapture the fortress from the Russians.

The Urals took part in the Central Asian campaigns of 1860 and 1864. The Cossacks, who made up the cavalry of the expeditionary detachment, stormed the Kokand fortresses of Yan-Kurgan, Dzhin-Kurgan, Arkulek and Turkestan.

In 1864, a separate Ural Cossack hundred, which constituted the garrison of Turkestan, under the command of Yesaul V.R. Serova withstood a three-day battle near the village of Ikan against an army of 10-12 thousand under the command of the Kokand Khan Alimkul, which was moving towards Turkestan. Cossacks were a little over a hundred people with one gun. Having lost half of the detachment and all the horses, the Urals on foot made their way to the fortress through the enemy ranks.

All the "Ikan" heroes became St. George Knights, and Serov (the future Cossack general) received the rank of centurion and the Order of St. George IV degree. Since then, the 4th hundred of the 2nd Ural Cossack regiment began to be called "Ikan". A song was composed about that heroic deed:

In the wide steppe under Ikan

We were surrounded by an evil Kokandian,

And three days with a basurman

We were in a bloody battle.

We retreated ... he is behind us

Crowds of thousands walked;

He strewn our path with bodies

And blood streamed on the snowy valley.

We lay down... Bullets whistled.

And the cores tore everything into pieces,

But we didn't blink an eye

We stood... We are Cossacks!

We held on for three days, three nights,

Three nights are as long as a year

In blood and without closing your eyes,

Then we rushed forward...

In 1865, two hundred Urals took part in the capture of the city of Tashkent and the fortress of Niazbek. The following year, three Cossack hundreds distinguished themselves in the battle against the army of the Emir of Bukhara Muzzafar at the Irjar tract and the capture of the fortified cities of Khojent, Ura-Tyube and Dzhizak.

In 1868, two hundred Ural Cossacks became famous in the storming of the city of Samarkand and in the battle against the army of the Emir of Bukhara on the Zera-Bulak heights, which ended in the complete defeat of the enemy.

In 1869, the Sakmara village was transferred from the Ural army to the Orenburg Cossack army, and the number of cavalry regiments exhibited was reduced by one.

... The new "Regulations on the Ural Cossack Host" was approved on March 9, 1874. It preserved the ancient custom of the Urals - the so-called "hiring". This army practiced a different way of performing military service from other Cossack troops of Russia: all Ural Cossacks were taxed without exception, and for the collected - considerable - amount it was possible to hire hunters (volunteers) for active service. The custom of "hiring" was preserved until 1917. This custom of the Ural Cossacks had its own reasons: the matter was partly that the Cossack troops had an extended service life - from 19 years to 41 years. Naturally, this could not but affect the family well-being.

However, despite the "hiring", each Ural Cossack was obliged in peacetime to be on active duty for one year. Cossack guardsmen received from the total amount but 200 rubles, those who served in army units - 250-300 rubles each, in the fire brigade and in the training hundred - 100-160 rubles each, instructors for training young Cossacks - 100 rubles a year.

According to the new Regulations, the army consisted of the life guards of the Ural Cossack squadron, 9 numbered cavalry regiments and a training hundred, which was disbanded during the war. The established military administrative division also changed at a distance. Now it was replaced by division into villages.

The new Regulation caused discontent among thousands of Ural Cossacks. The government, taught by bitter historical experience, took the most severe measures against the recalcitrant Urals. An army infantry battalion was brought into the city of Uralsk. In July 1875, over 2,500 Cossacks were expelled from the ranks of the Ural army (and from the Cossack class too) for "resistance". They were evicted with their families to the Turkestan region, on the shores of the Aral Sea. Most of the exiles turned out to be part of the Kazalinskogs) military worker battalion. In May 1881, up to 500 families of "repentant" Cossacks were returned to the banks of the Urals.

In 1875-1876, three hundred Ural Cossacks participated in the Kokand campaign. In the battle near Mahram, they took a battery of Kokandans on horseback. This was followed by participation in the capture of the fortress cities of Kokand, Andijan (twice), Namangan, Turakurgan, in the battle near the village of Balyuchi.

In the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, a separate Ural Cossack hundred of military foreman Kirillov fought on Bulgarian soil. In the battle near Kazanlak, during a cavalry attack, commander Kirillov lost his horse, and he was threatened with death from Turkish sabers. But the fearless constable Rannev arrived to help him. He shouted: "Your honor, grab the stirrup," and the Cossack horse carried the officer out of the enemy ranks into the quarry.

The Urals fought on the Shipka Pass and near the village of Sheinovo. They participated in a raid near Constantinople (Istanbul), during which they defeated an enemy army convoy.

The Ural Cossacks took an active part in the Khiva campaign of 1873 and in the Skobelev Akhal-Teke expedition. In 1880, one of the hundreds distinguished themselves during the assault on the Geok-Tepe fortress.

... By the beginning of the reign of Emperor Alexander III, the military population was over 116 thousand people. More than 3,200 Cossacks were in active service in the units of the first stage. In 1882, the army was obliged to supply, not counting the guards squadron and training hundreds, in peacetime - 15 horse hundreds, in wartime - 45 horse hundreds.

In 1894, by the beginning of the reign of Nicholas II, the population of the Ural Cossack army reached 145 thousand people. In peacetime, more than 2,500 people were in active service, making up a hundred guards, two 6-hundred regiments, one 4-hundred regiment, a separate hundred and two teams of steppe fortifications to maintain law and order in the Kyrgyz steppe.

In the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, the 4th and 5th Ural Cossack regiments (almost a thousand people), which became part of the Ural-3-Abaikal Cossack division, took part. It was commanded by the famous cavalry commander General P.I. Mishchenko, who led the raids on the Japanese rear. He became famous primarily for the famous raid on Yingkou, when his detachment had to travel more than 500 kilometers.

The Urals distinguished themselves in many battles with the Japanese, including horse raids on enemy rear lines. The future commander-in-chief of the white armed forces of the South of Russia, Lieutenant General A.I. Denikin, who during the war acted as chief of staff of the Ural-Transbaikal Cossack division, wrote in his memoirs: “... Our Cossacks, especially the Urals, considered it a dishonor to be captured by the Japanese and preferred to risk their lives to save themselves and their comrades from him. Moreover, I remember the case, in one battle the Urals were replaced by the Transbaikalians, and 8 Ural Cossacks, not prompted by anyone, remained until night in a chain that was subjected to heavy shelling, wanting to carry out the body of their murdered officer, who was lying 100 steps from the Japanese positions, so as not to be left without an honest burial, and they carried it out.

During the Russo-Japanese War, Pavel Zheleznov, the cavalier of the 4th Ural Regiment, and Avton Zelentsov, the cavalier of the 5th Ural Regiment, became cavaliers of the Order of St. George, 4th degree.

In addition to raids on enemy rear lines on Honghe, Nyuzhozhuanan and Yingkou, the Urals distinguished themselves in other matters. At Sandepu, they operated behind Japanese lines. In the battle of Mukden, the enemy was deprived of an artillery battery. In the spring of the second military campaign, they again participated in raids near Jingjiangtun, Tsyulyushu, Chantufu and Fakumen.

During the First World War, the Ural Cossack army mobilized 9 cavalry regiments, 2 cavalry artillery batteries, 6 hundreds and 2 escort fifty. The Ural Cossack division (4th, 5th, 6th and 7th regiments) was formed, which, as part of the 4th army, successfully operated in the Battle of Galicia. For heroism and valor, every hundred Ural Cossacks were awarded five St. George's Crosses.

The Urals also distinguished themselves during a five-month siege of the enemy fortress Przemysl. Commander of the 1st Ural Cossack Regiment Colonel M.N. Borodin was appointed the first commandant of the captured fortress. The Ural Cossack division participated in the Brusilov breakthrough in 1916, which was carried out by the armies of the Southwestern Front.

The 3rd Ural Cossack Regiment defeated the German infantry in the battle near the village of Zelena. One of the hundreds of the 5th Ural Cossack Regiment on June 25, 1915 near the village of Borkovizny took three lines of trenches in succession, putting to flight the Austrian infantry battalion defending here.

Nevertheless, the 1st regiment became the most famous regiment in that war. On May 27, 1916, on horseback, he attacked an enemy position near Porkhovo-Zubzhets, capturing two guns and 483 prisoners.

The most high-profile case of the 1st Ural Cossack Regiment was the battle on June 2 of the same year near the village of Gnilovody. On that day, 24 officers and 120 lower ranks were captured among the Austrians, and 600 people from the German 20th Jaeger Reserve Battalion. In that battle, the Cossacks took three guns and two machine guns as trophies.

In total, in the First World War, the army fielded 13,175 Cossacks and 320 officers. 5333 Ural Cossacks by the beginning of December 1916 were awarded St. George's Crosses and St. George's medals "For Courage", 35 officers - the Order of St. George and St. George's weapons. During this time, 335 Urals were killed in battles, 1793 were injured and 92 were listed as missing.

The Ural Cossack army is located in the Ural region on the right bank of the Urals in 30 villages, 450 farms and settlements. It was subdivided into three military departments: Guryevskiy, Lbischenskiy and Uralskiy. These are the former Ural and Guryev regions of present-day Kazakhstan and the southwestern part of the Russian Orenburg region. The military territory was 76 million hectares. Only a third of it was convenient for managing. The Ural Cossack army, unlike others, did not allocate a reserve land fund, capital was not divided into military and stanitsa, the leasing of state lands to non-residents was prohibited.

For the Ural army, as you know, the territory that the Cossacks themselves occupied and which, until their appearance on the banks of the Yaik River, remained uninhabited was legally assigned. Today, however, some historians from Kazakhstan claim that the government of the Russian Empire once took away from the nomadic Kazakhs their best camps on this river, and gave them to the Ural Cossacks as a reward for "colonial conquests."

As is known, for the first time the nomad camps of the Younger Zhuz with Khan Nurali came to winter on the left bank of the Urals in 1785, and with the written permission (“open sheet”) of the Orenburg Governor-General. He also allowed 17 foremen of the Kazakh clans next year in winter to camp on the right (internal for Russia) bank of the Ural River.

In 1917, there were about 174 thousand people in the Cossack class here. A distinctive feature of the Ural Cossacks was that 42 percent belonged to the Old Believers. This gave the military soldering a special character. Two percent of the Cossacks were Tatars and Kalmyks.

During the years of the Civil War, the mass repressions of the Bolsheviks against the Cossack population, including the surrendered Cossacks, allowed Major General V.S. Tolstov, elected in March 1919 as a military ataman, to bring the composition of the Ural army to 25 thousand people.

After the retreat of the Kolchak troops to the east, the White Cossacks held the line for several more months, but in the fall of 1919, their army was struck by a typhus epidemic. So, in one of its two corps - in the 1st Ural (two cavalry divisions) - only 230 sabers and bayonets remained in service. This fact has not been written about before. The White Cossack Ural army was eventually defeated, and its remnants laid down their arms on the Mangyshlak peninsula near Fort Alexandrovsky. Part of the Cossacks went to Iran.

In 1920, by a decree of the Soviet government, the Ural Cossack army was abolished. The civil war "decimated" most of the male population of the Cossack settlements on the banks of the Ural River.

... According to the antiquity of the pedigree among the Cossack troops of the Russian Empire, the Ural Cossack army was comparable only to the Donskoy. The Ural Cossacks celebrated their military holiday on November 8, the day of the Holy Archangel of God Michael. On that day, a military circle was going.

The merits of the troops before the Russian state were noted in May 1884 by awarding him the St. George banner. The inscriptions on the banner read: “To the valiant Ural army for the excellent, diligent service marked by military exploits” and “1591-1884”.

The most famous regiment of the army was the 2nd Ural Cossack regiment. The Cossacks of his 1st and 3rd hundred wore on their headdresses the insignia "For difference in the Khiva campaign of 1873", and the 4th hundred "For difference in affairs near Ikan on December 4, 5 and 6, 1864". The regimental banner was simple with the inscription "1591-1891" with the Alexander jubilee ribbon. The regiment was part of the troops of the Turkestan military district and was stationed in the city of Samarkand. He met the First World War under the command of Colonel Palenov.

The 1st Ural Cossack Regiment had a simple banner with the inscription "1591-1891" with the St. Andrew's jubilee ribbon. The personnel of his first hundred wore a badge on their headgear: "For distinction in the Turkish war of 1877 and 1878." These signs were granted to the hundred in 1892.

Before the First World War, the regiment was stationed in Kiev. The Urals were part of the 9th Cavalry Division of the 9th Army Corps. In 1914 the regiment was commanded by Colonel Borodin.

The 3rd Ural Cossack Regiment was formed in 1882 at its core from the hundreds that made up the garrisons of the steppe fortifications - Temirsky, Uilsky and Nizhne-Embensky. The banner had a simple one with the inscription "1591-1891" with the Alexander jubilee ribbon. The Cossacks of the first hundred had insignia on their headdresses: "For the assault on the Geok-Tepe fortress on January 12, 1881."

In 1914, the regiment was stationed in the city of Wlotslavsk, Warsaw province. Organizationally, he was part of the 15th Cavalry Division of the 15th Army Corps of the Warsaw Military District. The First World War for the subordinates of Colonel Zheleznov, the Knight of St. George, began with battles with the Germans.

The chief chieftains of the Ural Cossack army (from 1798 to 1906) were:

Major General

Borodin David Martemyanovich

Major General

Pokatilov Vasily Osipovich

Colonel

Kozhevnikov Matvey Lvovich

Major General of the retinue

His Imperial Majesty

Stolypin Arkady Dmitrievich

Major General

Dandeville Viktor Desiderievich

Major General

Tolstoy Mikhail Nikolaevich

Major General

Romanovsky Dmitry Ilyich

Lieutenant General

Verevkin Nikolai Alexandrovich

Lieutenant General

Prince Golitsyn Grigory Sergeevich

Major General

Shipov Nikolai Nikolaevich

Lieutenant General

Maksimov Konstantin Klavdievich

Lieutenant General

Stavrovsky Konstantin Nikolaevich

THE LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORK
Normative legal acts in relation to the Russian Cossacks

Strategy for the development of the state policy of the Russian Federation in relation to the Russian Cossacks until 2020 (download)

The concept of the state policy of the Russian Federation in relation to the Russian Cossacks (download)

• Federal Law of the Russian Federation of May 31, 2011 No. 101-FZ "On Amendments to the Federal Law "On the Civil Service of the Russian Cossacks" (download)
• Federal Law of the Russian Federation of June 3, 2009 No. 107-FZ "On Amending the Federal Law "On Non-Commercial Organizations" and Article 2 of the Federal Law "On the Public Service of the Russian Cossacks" (download)
• Federal Law of the Russian Federation of December 3, 2008 No. 245-FZ “On Amendments to the Federal Law “On the Civil Service of the Russian Cossacks” (download)
• Federal Law No. 154 of 05.12.2005 - Federal Law "On the Public Service of the Russian Cossacks" (download)
• Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated July 31, 2012 "352-rp" On the composition of the Council under the President of the Russian Federation for Cossack Affairs "(download)
• Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of 03.05.2007 No. 574 - "On approval of the Charter of the military Cossack society" Central Cossack army "(download)
• Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 341 "On the reform of military structures, border and internal troops on the territory of the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation and state support for the Cossacks" (download)
• Decree of the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation "On the rehabilitation of the Cossacks", No. 3321-1 (download)

Ural Cossacks

Ural Cossacks (Urals) or Ural Cossack army(before 1775 and after 1917 - Yaik Cossack army listen)) - a group of Cossacks in the Russian Empire, II in seniority in the Cossack troops. The historical self-name of the Urals - barracks comes from the self-name of the local population of the Cossacks. They are located in the west of the Ural region (now the northwestern regions of Kazakhstan and the southwestern part of the Orenburg region), along the middle and lower reaches of the Ural River (up to - Yaik). Seniority from July 9, 1591. The military headquarters is Uralsk (until 1775 it was called the Yaitsky town). Religious affiliation: co-religionists, Old Believers, partially Muslims (up to 8%) and Lamaists (1.5%) Military holiday, military circle November 8 (21 according to a new style), St. Archangel Michael.

Story

Early history

There is no surviving evidence of written sources about the time of the first appearance of the Cossacks on Yaik. However, the coastal strip of the Yaik at the mouth of its right tributary, the river. Chagan from ancient times was a zone of continuous settlement. The remains of material culture testify that the Kureni on the site of modern Uralsk have been inhabited since the Bronze Age. The first of the known predecessors of the city was a small settlement of the Srubnaya archaeological culture. There are also finds related to the material culture of the Proto-Slavs - fragments of ceramics of the Imenkovskaya culture. Finds of ceramics from the Romeno-Borshevsky culture testify to the presence of an ancient Slavic settlement here at least from the 10th century. In the pre-Mongolian period, the Ural Kureni were settled by the Volga Bulgars and Slavs. Numerous objects of material culture left by the Russian population, dating back to the 13th-16th centuries, may indicate the permanent habitation of the settled Slavic-Bulgarian population in the town on Yaik. In the Golden Horde time, towns with a mixed population stood in the vicinity of Uralsk and on its territory - in Kureny, a neighboring settlement on Krasny Yar, as well as settlements on three settlements on the left (Bukhara) side of the river. Ural. In 1584, several hundred Volga Cossacks settled on the Yaik River, along the banks of which the Nogai Horde roamed. Among their leaders are called Matvey Meshcheryak and Ataman Barabosha. Another version deepens the history of the Yaik Cossacks for a century, but connects their ancestors with the Don and ataman Gugnya. The original center of the Cossack settlements on Yaik was Kosh-Yaik, located at the mouth of the Ilek River. Unlike local nomads, the Cossacks were mainly engaged in fishing, as well as salt mining, hunting. The army was controlled by a circle, which was going to the Yaitsky town. All Cossacks had a per capita right to use the land and participate in the elections of atamans and military foremen.

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Ural Cossacks on a campaign

According to the historical legend cited in all studies about the Ural Cossack army, it is said that in the 16th century the Yaik Cossacks did not have permanent families. The Cossack brought his wife from a raid, and going to another, he left her, “getting” a new one for himself. But one day, Gugnya appeared among the Cossacks on Yaik, he came either from the Don, or from other places, but the main thing is that he came with his wife and did not agree to leave her. With this Gugnihi, the supposedly old custom was abandoned. Most likely, this legend had a real basis, until the 19th century, the Ural Cossacks put candles in churches in memory of grandmother Gugnikh.

In May 1772, the Governor-General of Orenburg, Reinsdorp, equipped a punitive expedition to suppress the rebellion. General Freiman scattered the Cossacks, led by the future Pugachev generals I. Ponomarev, I. Ulyanov, I. Zarubin-Chika, and on June 6, 1772 occupied the Yaitsky town. Then followed executions and punishments, the instigators, whom they managed to capture, were quartered, the nostrils were torn to the rest, their tongues and ears were cut off, their foreheads were branded.

The region at that time was deaf, so many managed to hide in the steppe on remote farms. A decree of Catherine II followed - "It is forbidden by this highest command until our future decree to converge in circles as usual."

Cathedral of the Archangel Michael (1741) in Uralsk - a witness to the Pugachev rebellion

The house of the Cossack Kuznetsov - the "tsar's" father-in-law

In March 1774, near the walls of the Tatishcheva fortress, the troops of General P. M. Golitsyn defeated the rebels, Pugachev retreated to the Berdskaya Sloboda, Ovchinnikov, who remained in the fortress, covered the withdrawal until the cannon charges ran out, and then, with three hundred Cossacks, broke through the enemy chains and retreated to Lower Lake Fortress. In mid-April 1774, the Cossacks, led by Ovchinnikov, Perfilyev and Dekhtyarev, set out from the Yaitsky town against the brigade of General P. D. Mansurov. In the battle on April 15 near the Bykovka River, the Pugachevites suffered a heavy defeat (Ataman Dekhtyarev was among the hundreds of Cossacks who fell in battle). After this defeat, Ovchinnikov gathered scattered Cossack detachments and went out to Pugachev at the Magnetic Fortress through the deaf steppes. Either a campaign followed, or a flight across the Urals, the Kama and Volga regions, Bashkiria, the capture of Kazan, Saratov, Kamyshin. Pursued by Michelson's troops, the Cossacks lost their chieftains, some captured - like Chiku-Zarubin near Ufa, some killed. The army then turned into a handful of Cossacks, then again filled with tens of thousands of peasants.

After Catherine the Great, concerned about the duration of the rebellion, sent troops from the Turkish borders led by Suvorov, and heavy defeats rained down one after another, the top of the Cossacks decided to get forgiveness by surrendering Pugachev. Between the steppe rivers Uzen, they tied up and handed over Pugachev to government troops. Suvorov personally interrogated the impostor, and after that he led the escort of the "tsar" put in a cage to Moscow. The main associates from among the Yaik Cossacks - Chika-Zarubin, Perfilyev, Shigaev were sentenced to death along with Pugachev. After the suppression of the uprising, in 1775 Catherine II issued a decree that, in order to completely oblivion of the unrest that had occurred, the Yaitsky army was renamed the Ural Cossack army, the Yaitsky town in Uralsk, and the army lost the remnants of its former autonomy.

Ural Cossack army

Ural Cossacks (second half of the 19th century)

The head of the Ural Cossacks was appointed chief ataman and military administration. From 1782, it was ruled by either Astrakhan or Orenburg governor-general. In 1868, a new "Temporary Regulation" was introduced, according to which the Ural Cossack Host was subordinate to the Governor-General (aka Ataman) of the newly formed Ural Oblast. The territory of the Ural Cossack army was 7.06 million hectares and was divided into 3 departments (Uralsky, Lbischensky and Guryevsky) with a population of 290 thousand people (in 1916), including the Cossack - 166.4 thousand people in 480 settlements, united in 30 stations. 42% of the Cossacks were Old Believers, a small part consisted of Kalmyks, Tatars, Kazakhs and Bashkirs. In 1908, the Iletsk Cossacks were attached to the Ural Cossack army.

Medal for campaigns in Central Asia

For the first time, the Yaik Cossacks went on a joint campaign with the regular army to Khiva with the expedition of Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky in -1717. The Yaik Cossacks were 1,500 people from a four thousandth detachment that set off from Guryev along the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea to the Amu Darya. The campaign, which was one of the adventures of Peter I, was extremely unsuccessful. More than a quarter of the detachment died due to illness, heat and thirst, the rest either died in battle or were captured and executed, including the head of the expedition. Only about forty people were able to return to the Yaik shores.

After the defeat of Astrakhan, Governor-General Tatishchev began to organize garrisons along the Khiva border. But the Cossacks were able to convince the tsarist government to leave Yaik under their control, in return they promised to equip the border at their own expense. The construction of fortresses and outposts along the whole of Yaik began. Since that time, the border service of the Yaik army began, the time for free raids was over.

The Urals went on the next campaign to Khiva in 1839 under the command of the Orenburg Governor-General V. A. Perovsky. The winter campaign was poorly prepared, and although it was not so tragic, nevertheless it went down in history as an “unfortunate winter campaign”. From starvation, the detachment lost most of the camels and horses, during winter snowstorms, movement became impossible, constant hard work led to exhaustion and illness. Halfway to Khiva, half of the five thousandth detachment remained, and Perovsky decided to return.

Participants of the Ikan battle

Since the mid-1840s, a confrontation with the Kokand Khanate began, since having taken the Kazakh zhuzes under its rule, Russia actually went to the Syr Darya. Under the pretext of protecting the wards of the Kazakhs, as well as preventing the abduction of their subjects into slavery, the construction of garrisons and fortresses began from the mouth of the Syr Darya to the east, and along the Ili to the southwest. Under the command of the Orenburg governor-generals Obruchev, Perovsky, the Urals stormed the Kokand fortresses Kumysh-Kurgan, Chim-Kurgan, Ak-Mechet, Yana-Kurgan, after the construction of the Turkestan border line was completed, they participated in numerous battles under the command of Chernyaev, stormed Chimkent and Tashkent, then under the command of von Kaufmann, they take part in the conquest of Bukhara and the successful Khiva campaign of 1873.

One of the most famous episodes during the conquest of Kokand is the Ikan affair - a three-day battle of hundreds of Cossacks under the command of Yesaul Serov near the village of Ikan near the city of Turkestan. Sent for reconnaissance to check information about the noticed gangs of Kokand, a hundred met with the army of the Kokand Khan, who was heading to take Turkestan. For two days, the Urals held a circular defense, using the bodies of dead horses as protection, and then, without waiting for reinforcements, lined up in a square, made their way through the Kokand army until they connected with a detachment sent to the rescue. In total, the Cossacks lost in the battle more than half of the people killed, almost all the survivors were seriously wounded. All of them were awarded the soldier's Georges, and Serov was awarded the Order of St. George 4th class.

However, active participation in the Turkestan campaigns did not save the Urals from tsarist repressions. And the ataman Verevkin, with the same zeal with which he took Khiva with the Urals in 1873, in 1874 flogged and sent the Old Believer Cossacks to the Amu Darya, whose convictions did not accept the provisions on military service he had written.

The era of Central Asian conquests was completed by campaigns to Khiva in -1881.

Ural Cossacks in the First World War and the Civil War

In the 1930s, many of the Cossacks who remained at home or returned were subjected to Bolshevik repressions. Unlike the Don, Kuban or Terek troops, parts of which Stalin restored just before the war, the Ural army was not restored and went down in history forever.

The descendants of the Ural Cossacks, since the late 1980s, have made attempts to restore the Ural Cossacks, but the state, represented by its representatives, refused to support, which generally led to the disruption of the festive events to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the army. The Urals were among the first to create their own organization as a legal entity - the Ural City Historical and Cultural Society, whose first leader was Y. Baev. At the same time, if many other Cossack troops in Russia managed to gain recognition from the authorities and successfully create a parallel administration and even their own military units, then the success of the Ural, Siberian and Semirechye Cossacks in Kazakhstan was limited to only some public cultural and historical organizations

Exiled Ural Cossacks

Ural Cossack woman in festive clothes

The most complete culture, rituals and dialect of the Ural Cossacks were preserved not in their historical homeland, but in Karakalpakstan, where they were partially exiled in the 19th century. The reason for this is isolation from the Russian people and the Old Believer tradition strictly observed by the exiles, which does not allow mixing with non-Christians.

The reasons for the deportation of the Urals were disobedience to the new "Regulations on military service, public and economic management of the Ural Cossack Host" and the unrest in 1874 of the Cossacks-Old Believers of the Ural Cossack Host. The expulsion took place in two stages. In 1875 - the resettlement of the Ural Cossacks-Old Believers, and in 1877 - the families of the exiled Urals.

Now the Urals-Old Believers (departants) of Karakalpakstan represent a separate ethno-confessional group (sub-ethnos), which has:

• ethnic identity(considers itself a separate people);
• self-name- Ural Cossacks or Uralians(this self-name was preserved, despite the indication in official documents and passports in the nationality column - Russians);
• a certain area of ​​settlement and compactness;
• Confessional feature - old believers;
• feature dialect;
• specificity traditional culture(households, dwellings, clothes, food, household, calendar and religious rituals).

A similar group of Old Believers is also known at the mouth of the Syr Darya (see Kazalinsk).

Territorial location

1st Ural military department

Ural Trekinskaya Rubezhinskaya Kirsanovskaya Irtetskaya Blagodnovskaya Krasnoumetskaya Sobolevskaya Krugloozernovskaya Iletskaya Studenovskaya Mukhranovskaya Mustaevskaya

Podstepny Novo-Derkulsky Gnilovsky Darya Trebushinsky Dyakovsky Yanvartsevsky Rannevsky Borodinsky Tashlinsky Boldyrevsky Dirty-Irtesky Vyazovsky Tsarevsky Chuvashsky Ozernovsky Talovy Pylaevsky Gryaznovsky Mantsurovsky Atamansky Tsarevo-Nikolsky Serebryakovsky Schapovsky Derkulsky Livkinsky Transitional Sukhorechensky Ozersky Zatonny Kindelinsky Kindelsky

2nd Lbischensky military department

Kamenskaya Chizhinskaya Chaganskaya Skvorkinskaya Budarinskaya Lbischenskaya Mergenevskaya Sakharnovskaya Kalmykovskaya Karmanovskaya Glinenskaya Slamihinskaya

Paniksky Asserichev Zelenovsky Ermolichev Shilinsky Bogatyrevsky Podtyazhensky 1st Chizhinsky 2nd Chagansky Kushumsky Vladimirsky Dzhemchinsky Yanaykinsky Bogatsky Prorvinsky Kolovetinsky Baranovsky Kozheharovsky Goryachinsky Karshensky Kalenovsky Lebyazhinsky Antonovsky Kruglovsky Boiler Krasnoyarsky Kyzyl-Abinsky Kisyk-Kamyshensky Mukhorsky Mokrinsky Abinsky Berezovsky Talovsky 1

3rd Guryev military department

Kulaginskaya Orlovskaya Yamankhalinskaya Saraychikovskaya Guryevskaya

Kharkinsky Gorsky Grebenshchikovsky Zelenovsky Topolinsky Karmanovsky Baksaysky Sorochinsky Bogatsky Redutsky Kondaurovsky

Anthem of the Ural Cossack Host

On the edge of vast Russia, Along the Ural coast, Lives quietly, peacefully, An army of blooded Cossacks. Everyone knows the caviar of the Urals And the Ural sturgeons, Only they know very little About the Ural Cossacks. It’s a pity that we don’t have forty thousand, We are no worse than the Don people. ““ The golden one is even small, but dear,” - The saying of the old people. Our ancestors and grandfathers, Until the time of Peter, Were on the fields of victory, It was terrible their “cheers!” We beat the restless Poles more than once, And the Frenchman, shameless, Didn't see any good from us. Colonel, It is not visible, like a drop in the sea, A handful of Ural Cossacks And interferes with our glory Only one quantity, And in quality, we have the right to deserve Glory for a long time. See Khiva suffered from us; Who will say: "this is a lie"? Could our Nechay brave, As with the Tartars Ermak, Cope with Khiva. And an important He already took a step towards the goal. Few of us, but part of the border We took away for Russia; We guarded not only our villages From the Kirghiz, From raids, ruins, We saved the whole region, For neighboring villages And now we have paradise, And We appointed Yaik as a cherished feature, Even though for this we had a hard and great dispute with the horde. At least two centuries black cloud Evil predators curled, We are kindred oh Ural stubbornly Defended from the Kirghiz. A lot of blood, anxiety Cost our fast Ural; But a Cossack of such a nature: It's nice that he took it from the battle. It was difficult for us to mess around, But now kaisak And the name is afraid: Terrible for them "Jaik-Cossack." There were many unfortunate days, The old people will tell: And in captivity and in hand-to-hand fights, the Cossacks died. To know, nowhere else do they write about the deeds of the Cossacks; About everything that our people hear From the stories of the old people.

Words by N. F. Savichev. Folk music.

Who are the Ural Cossacks

Strong and reliable harness harness,
My dashing horse argamak,
Pike red-hot, saber damask,
I myself am a Ural Cossack!

The Ural Cossack Army is rightfully considered one of the oldest, and perhaps the most original of all the Cossack Troops of pre-revolutionary Russia. The Urals were among those few Cossacks who themselves formed on the borders of Russia, being "natural" Cossacks, and not peasants and soldiers settled by royal decree and called "Cossacks".

The time of settlement of the territories of the lower reaches of the Ural River (Yaik) by gangs of free people has not been precisely established. Historians call different time frames for the appearance of the Cossacks in the Urals: from the XIV to the XVI centuries. For the first time in official documents, the Yaik Cossacks were mentioned in the 30s of the 16th century. It is believed that their detachments participated in the capture of Kazan in 1550, however, the documented first service of the Yaik Cossacks is 1591, when, by the “order of Fyodor Ioanovich”, they participated together with the archery regiments in hostilities against Shamkhal Tarkovsky, the ruler of Dagestan. From this year, the seniority of the Ural (Yaitsky) Cossack Host is considered.

Equally different are the opinions of researchers as to where the Yaik Cossacks came from. Someone deduces their genealogy from the Turkic tribes, others talk about detachments of Cossacks who moved to Yaik from the Volga or the Don. This question still remains open, but it is obvious that the Yaik Cossack community was formed by free people who, having settled on Yaik, set up a number of towns along the river, on its right bank. From the very beginning of their existence, the Yaik Cossacks clashed with their restless neighbors, first it was the Nogais, then the Kirghiz-Kaisaks. Their hordes, wandering along the left bank of the Yaik, crossed the river and attacked Cossack towns and outposts, stole cattle, set fire to houses, and took people into slavery. Therefore, the Yaik Cossacks from the beginning of their existence were all warriors, from childhood they learned to ride a horse, hold a weapon in their hands and protect their home and their household. Fighting skirmishes with nomads continued until the middle of the 19th century. With the beginning of the service of the Cossacks to the Moscow sovereigns, the functions of protecting their own territories grew into the functions of protecting the entire Moscow state. For the protection of the borders, the kings paid the Cossacks a salary, sent gunpowder, weapons, etc. to Yaik. The Nizhne-Yaitskaya line was built along the Yaik from the Yaik town to Guryev down the river, consisting of a number of fortresses and outposts erected at the places of possible crossings over the Yaik by nomads and performing protective functions. The Verkhne-Yaitskaya line was built up the river from Yaitsky town to Iletsky. Subsequently, when the need to defend their lands disappeared, these fortresses and outposts turned into Cossack villages and settlements.

So, the Yaik (Ural) Cossacks from the very beginning of their settlement on Yaik were, first of all, warriors. Therefore, it is not surprising that they participated in almost all the wars waged by the Russian Empire. They fought against the Crimean Tatars, Poles, Swedes, Turks, French, Germans and many other peoples, fought bravely near Smolensk, Poltava, Zurich, Leipzig, Balaklava, Ikan, Mukden, etc., took Silistria, Paris, Samarkand, Geok -Tepe, Przemysl and other strongholds, repeatedly went to war against the Khiva and Kokand khanates. Many Cossack bones are scattered from the Caucasus to Turkestan, hundreds of Cossacks died in the First World War, thousands - in the Civil.

It is a paradox, but, despite the fact that the Urals were faithful servants of the tsar and the throne, who more than once proved their loyalty on the battlefield, the Yaik (Ural) Cossack Army was considered the most "rebellious". The disobedience of the Urals was manifested at the slightest intention of the authorities to infringe on their rights and freedoms. Free people could not come to terms with this. Unrest and unrest, sometimes turning into open disobedience, and into armed confrontation with the tsarist troops, occurred regularly on the lands of the Ural Cossacks. Everyone knows that the Yaik Cossacks were the driving force behind the uprising of E.I. Pugachev in 1773-1775, and after his suppression they wanted the whole Army, like the Don ataman Ignat Nekrasov, who took away K.A. Bulavin part of the Don Cossacks to Turkey, go abroad. For the edification of posterity, and in order to forever eradicate the memory of the Pugachev uprising on Yaik, Catherine II ordered in 1775 to rename the Yaik River into the Urals, the Yaitsky town - into the Urals, and the Yaik Cossack Army - into the Urals. So the Yaik Cossacks became Ural Cossacks.

Among peaceful professions, first of all, the Ural Cossacks were engaged in fishing. This is not surprising, knowing what gifts the Ural (Yaik) concealed in itself, which the Cossacks worshiped as a deity. They guarded and cherished the river, protected it, cherished it like their own child and loved it endlessly. And the river paid the Cossacks for this with its treasures. Since 1732. every year, the Ural Cossacks sent summer and winter “villages” (embassies) to the capital to the royal court with gifts from the Urals - sturgeon and black caviar. It is not for nothing that a sterlet is depicted on the ancient coat of arms of the Ural Cossacks, and under it is the legendary Ural warrior Ryzhechka, who defeated the Swedish hero in the Battle of Poltava. In addition to fishing, the Urals were engaged in hunting and animal husbandry, while the land in the Army was in general, communal use.

The Ural Cossacks have always been famous and proud of their originality. They always sought to emphasize their own characteristics, their difference from the "Russian people", their superiority over other classes. Until 1917, more than half of the troops were Old Believers. Orthodoxy in the Cossack environment took root extremely slowly and reluctantly, there were always much fewer Orthodox churches on the Cossack territory than the Old Believers.

Repeated, at different times, "persecution of the faith" also served as a catalyst for unrest and discontent among the Cossacks, to suffer for the "true" faith was considered among them a "charitable deed." In this regard, it becomes clear why they met the apostates of the Bolsheviks as the coming of the Antichrist, and almost without exception took up arms. For two whole years the Army fought heroically for their freedom, for the right to be called "Cossacks". The history of this heroic struggle, full of feats and courage, has not yet been written and practically not studied. Many Urals died in the winter of 1919-1920. retreating with families, cattle and property along the Urals to the Caspian Sea. It was not the bullets of the Reds who defeated the Urals, but the typhus and frost that raged in those years. The Ural Cossack Army, betrayed by its allies, chose not to surrender, but to die in an unequal struggle.

Now the remaining descendants of the Ural Cossacks live on the territory of the state of Kazakhstan. The territory of the Ural Cossack Army was shredded by the Bolsheviks - a small part was given to the Orenburg region, everything else was given to the Kazakh SSR, including the richest Urals, the large city of Guryev with access to the Caspian Sea, and numerous oil fields. The new owners of the land started from the main thing, they wanted to erase all the memory of the Cossacks, as if they had never been on these lands. They renamed the Urals for the third time in a short time, now it is in the Kazakh style - Oral, there is no more the city of Guryev - there is Atyrau, there is no Ural region - there is West Kazakhstan. In Uralsk, there are still streets named after the executioners of the Cossacks - Chapaev, Furmanov, Petrovsky (chairman of the local Cheka). Monuments to a new hero are erected on them - Abay, Srym Datov and the like. The existing Ural Cossack community is split, there are two chieftains, two newspapers, several Cossack organizations, each of which solves different goals and objectives. But no matter how we are called, no matter how we are humiliated and put on our knees, we have something to be proud of, because we are the descendants of the glorious Ural Cossack Host, and, as you know, “there is no translation for the Cossack family.”

Both in tsarist times and today, the Ural Cossacks remain the most deprived in terms of information. There is neither a partial, nor even a complete history of the Army, there is practically no description of military service, campaigns and exploits of the Cossacks, there is practically no memoir literature. There is no reference literature about Ural heroes, there are no biographical publications. The most ancient Army seems to be forgotten, and many do not even know that such a thing existed. Our task is to eradicate this injustice, to restore the names of the forgotten Ural heroes - "Gorynychi", to remember their exploits and to pass on the Ural Cossack spirit to future generations.

There are many amazing facts and events in Russian history that require study and knowledge, and among them there is one, less studied, but full of mysteries that requires careful study - this is the history of the Cossacks.

The history of the Cossacks recalls either an ancient tragedy, or an adventurous romance, or a fairy tale about strong-willed people, brave and brave warriors who, not sparing their lives, defended our Fatherland.

Cossack means a freedom-loving and rebellious person. He will not tolerate injustice and oppression, he will not tolerate violence against himself. It is no coincidence that the word "Cossack" in the minds of Russian people is consistently combined with the word "free".

Folk legends and epics put the Cossacks on a par with the heroes. The most popular hero of the Russian epic - Ilya Muromets - is often called a Cossack bylina.

The history of the Cossacks was considered by such domestic historians as Karamzin, Solovyov, Klyuchevsky, it is reflected in the literary works of our writers and poets Pushkin and Lermontov, Tolstoy and Sholokhov.

But the history of the Cossacks has not been fully studied, scientists are still arguing about the very origin of the word “Cossack”, questions about the history of the Cossacks of the Urals and Siberia have not been sufficiently considered, the history of the Cossacks is not studied in the educational institutions of the country.

The birth of the Ural Cossacks

The history of the Cossacks is full of mysteries. And the first of them is the origin of the word "Cossack". For many decades, scientists have been arguing about the origin of the word "Cossack", about what the Russians, Tatars or Polovtsy meant. There are different versions and approaches to explaining the origin of this word.

In the Polovtsian dictionary of 1303, the word "Cossack" meant a watchman. Among the Tatars, it meant something like “free man”, “daring man” and this term was used to refer to “familyless and homeless lonely warriors who served as the vanguard during the campaigns and movements of the Tatar hordes”.

According to another version, the word "Cossack" is of eastern, most likely Turkic origin. A number of tribes and peoples have been called and are called by this or similar-sounding words today. The Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus wrote back in the 10th century that there was a country in the Caucasus called "Cossackia". Before the Mongol invasion, Russians, apparently, called the Turks, Berendeys and other tribes resettled in the 11th century to the southeastern border of the Old Russian state, Cossacks. These tribes served the princes of Kiev, Chernigov, Pereyaslav, Tmutarakan guard service. Eventually they merged with the Russians.

In Russian chronicles, the word "Cossack" or "Cossack" began to be used quite widely in the XIV-XVI centuries to designate two related, but not coinciding phenomena. On the one hand, the chronicles call "Cossacks" the service people who were stationed in the principalities bordering on the Golden Horde, who were used to prevent nomadic raids. They were sent to guard patrols and guards, they settled border fortified towns. And these Cossacks were called "policemen". At the same time, chronicles note the existence of artels of the Cossacks and another type. They were not constantly in the public service, replenished almost exclusively by fugitive or declassed people, their main occupation was raids on the tribes and peoples surrounding them, attacks on merchant caravans. They lived, not only at the expense of military booty, but often hunted and fished.

In real life, serving city Cossacks often went to free Cossacks or took part in their enterprises, at the same time, gangs of free Cossacks sometimes entered the service of the princes, moreover, this kind of service was paid directly from the state treasury.

In the XV-XVI centuries, the term "Cossacks" became more and more widespread. Large Cossack communities formed first of all on the Dnieper, Don, then in the Volga region. In the Urals, the formation of such communities took place later.

Ural Cossack

The first Cossacks came to the stone belt, as the Urals were called in the ancient Russian chronicles, apparently over five hundred years ago. First of all, of course, to those lands that directly bordered on the Russian state. Of these, the most important and richest was Biarmia - the legendary country of the Scandinavian sagas, behind which, as the Vikings believed, lies the land of Notanheim - the birthplace of the horrors of nature and evil sorcery. The Russians called Biarmia the Great Perm.

Inhabited by Finno-Ugric tribes and ruled by local princes, Great Perm paid tribute to Russian princes as early as the 10th-11th centuries.

The collapse of the Old Russian state and the Tatar-Mongol invasion weakened, but did not completely interrupt the connection between Russia and Great Perm. Novgorod and Rostov principalities, as well as the ever-increasing Grand Duchy of Moscow, competed for influence on this land in the 13th-15th centuries.

In 1472, Ivan III sent a squad against Prince Mikhail of Perm, which defeated the Permians, captured the prince, and in fact annexed Great Perm to the Russian state. Along with the Moscow warriors, serving Cossacks also come to the Urals.

Serving Cossacks

Almost simultaneously with this, the process of developing the areas along the Yaik River by free Cossacks is underway. Traditions and legends have been preserved, which speak of free people who settled since the time of Tamerlane on the banks of the Yaik, i.e. at the end of the 14th - beginning of the 15th centuries.

A gang of daring men, led by ataman Vasily Gugnya, settled on Yaik. Different things were told about his origin - some considered Gugnya a Don Cossack, others - a Novgorod earpiece who fled to the Don to the Cossacks.

At first, he and his gang hunted on the Volga and in the Caspian Sea, attacking merchant ships and caravans, then he made the base of the Yaik coast, where he only wintered, going every spring to his usual fishing. This gang, which consisted of three dozen people, laid, according to legend, the beginning of the settlement of Yaik by the Cossacks.

Legends and documents relating to the beginning of the 18th century - a report to the Military Collegium of Ataman Rukavishnikov, a petition addressed to Peter I Yaitsky by the village ataman Fyodor Mikhailov and some others, in a few words, but quite expressively, depict the life and life of the first Russian settlers on Yaik. The first Cossack gangs were small - several dozen people each. They were ruled by elected chieftains, whose power was limited, because. almost all the main issues were resolved at the general meeting of the Cossack artel.

The first Cossack settlements were usually built on the islands - for safety. These were temporary dwellings like dugouts, intended only to spend the winter.

According to the tradition that has been established since the time of Vasily Gugni, in the spring the Cossacks went to hunt on the Volga or the Caspian Sea, and returning to Yaik in the fall, they often chose a new place for parking.

Permanent Cossack "towns" appear later, at the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th centuries.

Semi-dugout in a Cossack town

The banks of the Yaik were very sparsely populated. The Tatars who lived here - first subjects of the khans of the Golden Horde, and then the Nogai princes, of course, were not happy with such a close proximity to the Cossack gangs. Minor armed clashes between the two were not uncommon, especially since the Cossacks had a custom for quite a long time to get wives for themselves by attacking the surrounding villages.

The khans of the Golden Horde, seeing the courage of the Cossacks, wanted to attract them to their service, promising to give them uluses and make them murzas in return. The Cossacks refused. The Tatar army surrounded the Cossack town on all sides, hoping to starve its inhabitants to death. The famine among the Cossacks was terrible. They “ate soles and skins, and roots, and all sorts of other impurities from hunger,” one of the documents says in this regard.

Nevertheless, the Cossacks did not give up. They made wooden cannons for themselves, loaded them with bones and stones for lack of cores, and hit the enemy. Ultimately, the Tatars were forced to give in, leaving the Cossack town alone. It is difficult to say when this battle took place. Judging by the fact that it was about the khans of the Golden Horde - no later than the 15th century.

It should be noted that the Cossacks were not always at enmity with the local Tatars. Some of them, apparently, joined the Cossack artels, participated in their campaigns. Such a detail is also characteristic: literally all the traditions and legends about the first Cossacks who settled on Yaik note that there were also Tatars in their artels. Tradition tells that already in the gang of Vasily Gugni there was at least one Tatar. In a petition addressed to Peter I Yaitsky stanitsa ataman Fyodor Mikhailov with his "comrades" it is directly stated that the ancestors of the Yaitsky Cossacks are free people from the Don, as well as Tatars "from the Crimea, from the Kuban, from other Muslim peoples." But the Russians, the Orthodox, still made up the overwhelming majority.

The Yaik Cossacks maintained constant contacts with the Volga and Don Cossacks, often united with them to organize joint military expeditions. Apparently, the Yaik Cossacks did not have permanent ties with the Moscow government, at least until the end of the 16th century. They did not consider themselves subjects of Moscow princes and tsars. The borders of the Muscovite state were then more than a thousand miles away from Yaik.

At the turn of the 15th-16th centuries, two events predetermined the development of political processes in Eastern Europe: the gain of independence by the Russian state and the collapse of the Golden Horde, which finally ended by the end of the 15th century. The connection between them is obvious. As Russia grew stronger, the influence of the Mongol khans, who used to rule in Eastern Europe, as in their own ulus, fell.

The Kazan, Astrakhan, Siberian and Crimean khanates, as well as smaller Mongol states that arose on the ruins of the Golden Horde, were at enmity with each other, and this significantly weakened them. Already at the end of the 15th century, some of them were dependent on the Grand Dukes of Moscow.

Paying tribute to the Muscovite state, at the same time, the Kazan princes and murzas robbed the Russian border villages. In 1551, up to one hundred thousand Russian prisoners were kept in the Kazan Khanate.

In 1552 Ivan the Terrible organizes a campaign against Kazan. This campaign in the memory of the people and in the annals is considered as the most important event in the struggle for their Fatherland from foreign enemies, a direct continuation of the struggle against the Tatar-Mongol yoke. In this campaign, an important role was given to the Cossacks. Reporting on the actions of the Russian troops, the chronicles note that Ivan the Terrible ordered Prince Peter Serebryany to go from Nizhny Novgorod to Kazansky Posad; "and with him the children of the boyars and the archers, and the Cossacks." Cossack detachments were sent by the tsar to block the transportation along the rivers Vyatka, Kama and Volga in order to cut off Kazan from the northern and northeastern regions of the khanate. Two and a half thousand foot Cossacks were sent from Meshchera to the Volga under the command of atamans Saverga and Elka. They were ordered, having made ships, to go up the Volga, conquering the villages subject to the Kazan khans.

In general, according to the most minimal estimates, at least ten thousand Cossacks took part in the Kazan campaign of Ivan the Terrible, who contributed a lot to the success of the campaign. This circumstance is quite firmly imprinted in the memory of the people. It is no coincidence that many historical songs, epics and legends call Yermak Timofeevich among the participants in the Kazan campaign, and some of them even draw the case in such a way that Kazan was actually taken not even by Ivan the Terrible, but by the Cossack ataman Yermak, although on behalf of the Moscow sovereign .

The accession of the Kazan Khanate to the Russian state, and in 1556 the Astrakhan Khanate, radically changed the situation in the east of Europe. More than three hundred years of domination of the Tatars in the Volga region was put to an end. The influence of the Muscovite kingdom increased sharply. The Siberian Khan sent tribute to Ivan the Terrible and a letter of wool, testifying to his transition under the patronage of Moscow.

At the same time, Bashkiria, previously dependent on the Kazan khans, joins the Russian state. Immediately after the Bashkirs declared their allegiance to the Russian Tsar, Ivan the Terrible sent a rather large detachment of Moscow troops to Bashkiria, consisting of mounted Cossacks and a foot company of archers, led by the governor Ivan Nagim. In 1574 they founded a small prison on the Belaya Volozhka River, which was the first Russian settlement in Bashkiria. Ostrozhek was occupied by a garrison consisting mainly of city Cossacks. This is where the history of the Ufa Cossacks begins, which later joined the Orenburg Cossack army. From the time of the foundation of the prison, and hence the first service of the Cossacks to the state, later the seniority of the Orenburg army began to be calculated.

Ostrozhek on Belaya Volozhka, not much different from the usual "outposts", "zasek" and similar structures on the southeastern border. It was not easy to defend such fortifications in the event of an attack by nomads. They withstood the onslaught of the enemy, often only thanks to the desperate courage of the garrisons that occupied them, in which every Cossack, every inhabitant perfectly understood: if the fortress fell, they would not be spared.

In the 70s of the 16th century in Bashkiria, the construction of other Russian fortresses, outposts, prisons and prisons was launched, which were supposed to block the way for the nomads who plundered Bashkiria. The Moscow government is strengthening its political and military presence in the area: sending Russian troops here and building Russian fortresses. Carrying out measures to strengthen its eastern borders, it resettles the city Cossacks here, but along with this, north and south of Bashkiria, at the same time, in the 70s - 80s of the 16th century, the free colonization of the Urals by the Cossacks unfolded.

Cordon

It is traditionally believed that the impetus for the development of Yaik by the Russians was the repressive measures taken by Ivan the Terrible against the Volga Cossacks. The Volga Cossacks were especially numerous at that time and were so successful in their "concerns" about merchant caravans that they practically threatened the entire eastern trade of the Moscow kingdom. Daring daring men in their light boats and plows robbed not only merchant ships, but often attacked embassy caravans, even the ambassadors of the Tsar of Moscow. Out of patience by the numerous complaints of Russian and foreign merchants, as well as neighboring states, Ivan the Terrible ordered to clear the Volga from the Cossacks. On October 1, 1577, the steward Ivan Murashkin was given a very categorical decree by the tsar: wherever he found those “Cossack thieves”, they would be tortured, executed and hanged there.

However, it was certainly much easier to give such an order than to carry it out. Indeed, only Ataman Ermak, who at that time hunted on the Volga, had at least five thousand Cossacks under his command. And Yermak, after all, was far from the only ataman who mined “zipuns” here. In any case, the tsarist troops, if they were not able to “execute and hang” all the Cossacks, then seriously hampered their fishing. We had to look for new places, safer and just as profitable. And in 1579, large detachments of the Volga Cossacks set off to explore new places. Some of them went with Yermak to the Chusovoy towns of the Stroganovs, another to the Terek, and a third to Yaik.

The Cossacks who appeared on Yaik in 1580 bore little resemblance to fugitives fleeing the tsar's wrath. Rather the opposite. They had a formidable military force and thought less about escaping than about conquering new territories. They captured in battle a number of towns belonging to the Nogai Tatars, including Saraichik, which was then a rather large trading center.

According to the customs of that time, the victorious assault on the city was followed by its subsequent thorough plunder. The Nogai prince Urus wrote about this to Ivan the Terrible: “The de Sovereign Cossacks of this summer came and the Shed fought and burned; not only that living people were flogged, and the dead were taken out of the earth and the coffins were plundered.

On a halt

In this message of the Nogai prince, in addition to specific facts related to the capture of Saraichik by the Cossacks, the following detail is especially interesting: Urus, apparently, is quite sure that the Cossacks attacked not at their own peril and risk, but with the knowledge and on behalf of the Moscow government. The Cossacks are directly named by him sovereign. Ivan the Terrible replied that he had nothing to do with it. The Cossacks were declared state criminals and thieves. However, Ivan Vasilyevich, who repeatedly and solemnly denied his connection with the Cossacks, in a polemic with the Urus, shortly before that, in alliance with the Crimean Tatars, who invaded Russian lands and decently plundered them, wrote: “For such your lies and rudeness, we will order you to fight ... Cossacks of Astrakhan and Volga, and Don, and Kazan, and Meshchersky. And they will inflict not such annoyance on you, on yourselves, and it is already impossible for us to appease our Cossacks now.

The idea that the connection between the Cossacks who captured Saraichik and the Moscow government still existed is also suggested by the following circumstance: it was in the 80s of the 16th century, simultaneously with the actions of the Cossacks on Yaik, that the Moscow state was taking measures to strengthen its positions in neighboring Bashkiria , helps Yermak in the conquest of Siberia, seeks to more firmly consolidate the lower reaches of the Volga. And in all these cases, he relies on the Cossacks.

It is also important that this time the Cossacks sought not just to capture this or that prey, but to settle on Yaik seriously and for a long time. A few years later, Urus was again forced to complain to Grozny that the Cossacks, who acted in the number of 600-700 people, set up a “big city” on Yaik. At the same time, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, the boyar Blagov, reported to Moscow that, according to the Nogai ambassadors Kutlaberdey and Tulupar, "the Cossacks on the Volga and on the Yaik and on the Emmy River set up many towns." Of course, all the complaints of the Nogai ambassadors, and even Prince Urus himself, were very similar to a voice crying in the desert. The Moscow government believed that the Cossacks were doing an important and necessary work for the Russian state.

Let us also note this fact. In 1591, i.e. only eleven years after the capture of Saraichik, the Yaik Cossacks, then still formally independent from Moscow, take part in the campaign of the royal squads against the Tatar prince Shakhmal. Judging by the surviving data, the detachment of the Yaik Cossacks was quite large - 500 people. This indicates that the Yaik Cossacks already represented a serious military force.

Participation in the campaign against Shakhmal was officially considered the first, firmly established service of the Yaik Cossacks to the Russian state. Since 1591, the seniority of the Cossack army was calculated later.

Along with Bashkiria and Yaik, one of the main areas of Cossack colonization at the end of the 16th century was the Middle Urals. Great Perm, finally annexed to the Muscovite state, was already quite well settled by the Russians. The further expansion of Russian lands to the east is largely due to the activities of eminent people, industrialists and merchants, the Stroganovs, who received enormous privileges from Ivan the Terrible and, in particular, the right to develop new lands, attracting Cossacks to their service.

Yaik Cossacks on the march

They used this right, hiring bands of free Cossacks even before Yermak Timofeevich came to the Urals. The Stroganovs turned to Yermak because they had heard about the courage shown by the ataman and his Cossacks in numerous skirmishes with the Nogai Tatars, as well as during attacks on merchant caravans. In April 1579, the Stroganovs sent Yermak and his comrades "many gifts" along with a letter in which they were called to their Chusovskie towns and prisons for military service.

Yermak's Cossacks stayed in the Urals before going to Siberia, according to various estimates, from two to four years. They defended the Stroganov towns from the attack of neighboring tribes, they themselves made trips to these tribes, and even rather distant ones - beyond the Ural Range.

There is quite convincing evidence that the Cossacks who came to the Urals to the Stroganovs considered their settlements here not just as temporary dwellings, where they only needed to spend the winter so that in the spring they could go “for zipuns”. They seemed to want to settle in the Urals for a long time. The Cossacks built a small town, which even later was called Ermakov settlement. In this town, the Church of St. Nicholas was built and consecrated, in which the Cossacks performed divine services, since there were three priests among them.

Preserved detailed descriptions depicting the life of the Cossacks Yermak during their stay in the Urals. Judging by this information, the chieftain and his closest assistants: Ivan Koltso, Yakov Mikhailov, Nikita Pan, Matvey Meshcheryak established a fairly strict discipline in their artel, not inferior, and perhaps even superior to discipline in the Moscow archery regiments and squads. Even for relatively minor offenses, the guilty were punished, chained in iron for three days. For disobedience or an attempt to escape arbitrarily from the camp, the guilty were drowned in the river, previously tied in bags filled with sand and stone. More than 20 people were executed in this way.

The role of Ermak's Cossacks in the defense of the towns of the Stroganovs located in the Urals was so great that when they went east to Siberia and the Pelym prince, taking advantage of their departure, attacked the Russian towns, the Stroganovs received an extremely angry letter from Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich. Grozny demanded the immediate return of Yermak's Cossacks to defend the Russian settlements on Kamen. True, this letter had no practical significance, since when it arrived, Yermak "and his comrades" were far away in Siberia. But this document shows that Grozny, who quite recently considered the Cossacks as “thieves” and “robbers”, ordered them to be caught and hanged, already before Yermak conquered Siberia, considered the chieftains and Cossacks who entered the service of the Stroganovs as a very important force necessary for the defense of the eastern the borders of the state. The execution of these "thieves" was out of the question.

It should be noted that not all of Yermak's associates who came with him to the Urals from the Volga went to conquer Siberia. Part of the Cossacks and atamans remained with the permission of Yermak in the Stroganov towns and settlements founded by the Cossacks along the Sylva River. Also, after the death of Yermak, not all of his Cossacks went back to Russia. Most of those who survived, led by Ataman Meshcheryakov, either remained in Siberia or returned to the Urals. They firmly settled down over time in these areas. Letters of Ivan the Terrible and his immediate successors - Fedor Ioannovich, Boris Godunov, addressed to the Siberian governors, who then controlled a significant part of the Urals, constantly mention the settlements of the Cossacks in the Perm land along the rivers Chusovaya, Iset, Sylva and other places.

In the service of the Tsars of Moscow

At the beginning of the 17th century, the most acute social and class conflicts arose in the country, which, combined with the Polish-Lithuanian and then Swedish intervention, created a real threat to the very existence of the Russian state. These turbulent and tragic years were called the Time of Troubles by contemporaries and posterity.

The role of the Cossacks during the Time of Troubles is very great, but usually we are talking about the Don, Ukrainian, Volga Cossacks, whose communities were very numerous and located closer to the theater of operations than the Ural Cossacks.

Yaik Cossacks from the very beginning of their settlement on Yaik were, first of all, warriors. Therefore, it is not surprising that they participated in almost all the wars waged by the Russian Empire. They fought against the Crimean Tatars, Poles, Swedes, Turks, French, Germans and many other peoples, fought bravely near Smolensk, Poltava, Zurich, Leipzig, Balaklava, Ikan, Mukden, etc., took Silistria, Paris, Samarkand, Geok -Tepe, Przemysl and other strongholds, repeatedly went to war against the Khiva and Kokand khanates.

And in the Time of Troubles, they did not stand aside. The Yaik Cossacks, together with the Don, Cossacks, Cossacks of the Terek, supported and quite actively opposed Boris Godunov. Later, they participated in the campaign against Moscow Bolotnikov, posing as a governor, the son of Tsar Fedor Ioanovich, Tsarevich Peter. The Cossacks played an important role in the battles near Tula, they showed themselves to be bold, courageous warriors. “The bravest of the villains,” N.M. called them. Karamzin, who did not sympathize with the rebels in general and fought on the side of I.I. Bolotnikov to the Cossacks - in particular. Surrounded on all sides, they fought for two days, and only on the third day those who were still alive were captured by force. All of them are right there, except for seven people who were pardoned at the request of nobles loyal to Shuisky, who were saved some time ago by the Cossacks, when these nobles were captured by the rebels of False Peter.

After the defeat of I.I. Bolotnikov and the surrender of Tula, the Cossacks who survived the battles, supported either False Dmitry II, or a new candidate for the Moscow throne - Vladislav. They were considered so dangerous by the Moscow government that in the negotiations between the boyars and the Polish senators on the conditions under which Vladislav could become the Tsar of Moscow, it was specially stipulated: Cossacks are needed or not.

The fight

The Yaik Cossack Army was considered the most "rebellious". The disobedience of the Urals was manifested at the slightest intention of the authorities to infringe on their rights and freedoms. Free people could not come to terms with this. Unrest and unrest, sometimes turning into open disobedience and armed opposition to the tsarist troops, occurred regularly on the lands of the Ural Cossacks.

The Great Troubles are over. Having withstood the struggle against the Polish-Swedish interventionists, against the centrifugal destructive forces inside the country, the Russian state gradually restored its former power, returned the previously lost territories, annexed new ones. By this time, the transition of the Yaik Cossacks to the citizenship of the Russian tsars dates back. In 1613, the Yaik Cossacks were accepted into the citizenship of the Moscow state, and in 1615 the army was granted a royal charter for the possession of the river. Yaik.

The acceptance of Russian citizenship by the Yaik Cossacks created more favorable conditions than before for the use of the military force of the Cossacks in the public service.

In 1629, the Yaik Cossacks, as part of the detachment of voivode Blagov and Prince Solntsev-Zasekin, took part in a campaign against the Crimean Tatars. In 1634, 380 Cossacks from Yaik defend Smolensk as part of the troops of the boyar M.B. Shein. In 1655, one hundred Cossacks were sent as part of the troops of Prince Khovansky to Poland and near Riga. This hundred carried military service here for seven years.

In 1681, one hundred Yaik Cossacks with ataman Prokofy Semyonov fought against the Poles near Chigirin in the detachment of Prince Bulat-Cherkassky. The following year, another two hundred Cossacks under the command of Ataman Belousov were sent there.

In 1684, one and a half hundred Yaik Cossacks, led by Ataman Prokofy Tagaevsky, fought as part of the Russian troops in a large-scale but unsuccessful Crimean campaign, undertaken on the initiative and under the command of Princess Sophia's favorite, Prince V.V. Golitsyn. In 1685, two hundred more Cossacks were sent to the war against the Crimean Tatars, led by Ataman Yakov Vasiliev.

But, the main task that the Moscow government set before the Cossacks of the Urals was the task of protecting the southeastern borders of the Russian state from nomads from the steppes, then called the Kirghiz-Kaisak. In the XVI-XVII centuries, the Russian state spread far to the east up to China and the Pacific Ocean. However, these conquests were very fragile, because from the south, from the Kirghiz-Kaisak steppes, the Russians were constantly threatened by warlike Kirghiz tribes, Dzhungars, Karakalpaks, as well as Kalmyks who migrated between the Yaik and Volga rivers from China. Although they accepted Russian citizenship, every time they had the opportunity to do so, they attacked Russian villages. So unreliable subjects were the Nogai Tatars and the constantly rebellious Bashkirs. As a result, vast territories from the Caspian Sea to Western Siberia became, in fact, the scene of a border war that lasted more than three centuries.

Border Defenders

The border line stretching for thousands of kilometers was defended not so much by regular military units as by Cossack detachments. The border line formed a special warehouse of people. It was impossible to survive here without being fluent in weapons, without fulfilling the customs of the Cossack communities. The defense of the southeastern border then had a focal character. The Cossacks, and indeed the armed formations of the Russian state in general, could not cover the border sufficiently. Therefore, fortifications were created in the most dangerous areas. There were three of them then: Bashkiria, the region along the Iset River with its tributaries, and, finally, the Yaik.

The Yaik Cossack army carried out border and guard services along Yaik. Separate Cossack gangs raided nomads, went “for zipuns” together with the Volga and Don Cossacks. The policy of the government to eliminate the Cossack liberties, depriving the Cossacks of autonomy repeatedly caused riots and uprisings. Most of the Yaik Cossack army took part in the Cossack-Peasant War led by S.T. Razin 1667–71. After the end of the war and the defeat of the rebels, the tsarist government deprived the Cossacks of many rights.

In 1677, part of the Yaik Cossacks under the command of ataman V. Kasimov again raised an uprising, but was defeated by the tsarist troops. In 1721, the Yaik Cossack army was subordinated to the Military Collegium, and in 1723 the election of atamans and foremen was abolished.

In 1748, the Yaik Cossack army received a permanent organization consisting of seven cavalry regiments with artillery. The ataman led the army. From the middle of the 18th century, the Yaik Cossack army was involved in the protection of the Nizhneyaitskaya fortified line. The policy of the government towards the Cossacks caused in 1772 a major uprising of the Yaik Cossacks, which lasted about six months, and was brutally suppressed.

The Yaik Cossack troops participated in the Cossack-Peasant War under the leadership of Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev, a fined and fugitive Don Cossack, who pretended to be the miraculously saved Emperor Peter III in 1773-75. And after its suppression, they wanted the whole Army, like the Don ataman Ignat Nekrasov, who led away after the uprising K.A. Bulavin part of the Don Cossacks to Turkey, go abroad. The government brutally cracked down on the most active participants in the uprising, and as an edification to posterity, and in order to forever eradicate the memory of the Pugachev uprising on Yaik, Catherine II, by Decree of January 15, 1775, ordered the Yaik River to be renamed the Ural River, the Yaitsky town - to Uralsk, and the Yaik Cossack The army - in the Ural Cossack army. So the Yaik Cossacks became Ural Cossacks.

At the head of the troops were the chief ataman and the military administration, from 1782 subordinate to the Astrakhan or Orenburg governor-general, from 1868 to the governor-general of the newly formed Ural region.

The territory of the Ural Cossack army in military-administrative terms since 1868 was divided into three departments, each department - into villages and settlements. The departments were headed by chieftains appointed by the governor, while stanitsa and settlement chieftains were elected by the Cossack communities. The order of service of the Urals was determined by the Regulations on the military service of the Cossacks of the Ural Cossack army of 1874. The entire population of the Ural Cossack army was taxed, from which the Cossack troops were equipped for service.

The Cossacks carried out their service regularly. They participated in the Azov campaign of Peter I in 1695 and 1696, in battles they showed endurance, courage, resourcefulness, they were always at the forefront of the army. The Northern War with Sweden, which began in 1700, required a significant increase in the Russian army. Accordingly, the need for Cossack troops increased sharply. In 1701, shortly after the defeat of the Russian troops near Narva, to the Baltic states in the corps of Field Marshal B.P. Sheremetyev, six hundred Yaik Cossacks were sent with Ataman Vitoshov. In 1703, five hundred Cossacks were additionally sent there under the command of ataman Matvey Mironov, in 1704 another five hundred Cossack regiment led by ataman Matvey Rekunov, in 1706 another five hundred people under the command of Mitrofan Pimenov. These 2100 Yaik Cossacks fought in the Russian army until the very end of the Northern War.

Surikov. Cossack history

In 1711, during the Prut campaign of the Russian army, two regiments of Yaik Cossacks, led by Konon Nikeev, participated under the command of the boyar P.M. Apraksin on a military expedition to the Kuban. The main goal of the expedition was to prevent the Crimean Khan from providing sufficient support to the Turks.

If we consider the history of the participation of the Ural Cossacks in wars and military campaigns of the 18th - 19th centuries, then it can be noted that the Ural Cossacks took part in all these enterprises, but still their main task was to protect the border territories of the Russian state in the southeast.

The Ural Cossacks also served under the command of Colonel Suvorov, participated in the Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon, units of the Ural Cossacks were not only part of the Russian army, but also participated in partisan detachments during the difficult war years. So, for example, in the detachment of D.B. Davydov, consisting of 130 people, there were 50 hussars and 80 Cossacks. And always in battle they showed courage, courage, resourcefulness. Among the winners, who entered Paris on March 19, 1814, were the Cossacks of the Urals. Orenburgers, Uralians, Bashkirs and Kalmyks watered their plain-looking horses in the Seine and in Parisian fountains. Having lost the means to resist, Napoleon was deposed. The war was victoriously ended by the Russians. The Ural Cossacks, who, like all participants in the capture of Paris, were awarded medals established on this occasion, returned to Russia in 1814.

The Ural Cossacks, who did not participate in wars, but served in the border regions of the Russian state, were also noted more than once in orders for the Yaitsky and Orenburg army for courage and courage shown in the fight against the constant raids of nomads. More than once, the Cossacks, even seemingly the most provincial fortresses and redoubts, received awards, and not only from their own superiors, but also from the government.

On February 19, 1861, Emperor Alexander II signed a manifesto on the abolition of serfdom in Russia. Following this, other reforms were carried out that advanced the country along the path of bourgeois development. These included: zemstvo, city, judicial, military, financial reforms, reforms in the field of education. Significant transformations also took place in the life of the Cossacks. They were aimed at bringing the Cossacks closer to the rest of the population, leading to a renewal of the internal life of the Cossacks.

Economy and life of the Cossacks

Mastering the Ural region, the Cossacks initially did not lead a sedentary lifestyle, coming to the Urals, they settled on small islands, where they built dugouts, semi-dugouts and huts, which corresponded to the Cossacks' camping lifestyle, they wintered here. With the onset of the warm season, they made trips "for zipuns" to the Volga and the Caspian Sea, and returning from the campaign, they settled in a new place.

Having entered the service, guarding the southeastern borders of the Russian state, they build fortresses and outposts. On the lower Yaitskaya line, 10 fortifications and 15 outposts were created. Fortresses and outposts were located 20–30 versts from each other. The garrison of the fortress was about 1000 people, and the outpost 100 people.

At the request of the government, strict discipline was maintained in the outpost garrisons. Each Cossack had to be ready: a saddled horse, serviceable weapons and the necessary supply of gunpowder and lead. The Cossack had no right to leave the outpost. For unauthorized leaving, the perpetrator was imprisoned for a period of 1-2 months.

Cossack towns, settlements, prisons also lose the features of temporary settlements. The Cossacks really settle in the areas they inhabit. The economy of the Cossacks is becoming more stable, versatile.

The well-being of the Cossacks depended primarily on the size of government salaries, as well as rights and privileges. The most important privilege of the Cossacks was - exemption from any taxes and duties, except for military service. This privilege was fully preserved in the 18th century. The Cossacks, to a much greater extent than the Ural and Siberian peasants, were endowed with land, agricultural land in general. The land allotments of the Cossacks on average 4-6 times, and sometimes 10 times, exceeded the allotments of the neighboring peasants. The main agricultural crops were: rye, spring wheat, millet. Arable implements almost everywhere - a plow, a Saban, for loosening the soil they used a scarf with wooden and iron teeth, harrows. They harvested bread with sickles and scythes. When threshing, stone and wooden rollers were used, grain was threshed with the help of animals - bulls and horses were driven along the sheaves spread out on the current. Since the end of the 19th century, harvesting machines have been used on the farms of wealthy Cossacks, often several Cossacks jointly rented or bought agricultural machinery. The development of agriculture was held back by the constant military danger from the nomads, who especially willingly attacked the Cossacks who worked in the fields, away from the fortress or outpost of the Cossacks.

On the other hand, animal husbandry, especially horse breeding, was well developed. Animal husbandry was commercial. The leading industries were horse breeding and sheep breeding; cows, poultry and pigs were also bred. Camels were bred in the south of the Ural Cossack army.

One of the main sources of income for the Cossacks was hunting, since in the Ural forests and steppes there was a lot of the most diverse game, it was also important, in addition to owning allotments, for the Cossacks the right to use lakes rich in fish, the right to conduct river fishing of the most valuable species of fish. Fishing for the Cossacks was a much more profitable business than even campaigns "for zipuns", not to mention military service. It is not surprising that the Cossacks fought Guryev's fishermen for so long. Ultimately, with the help of the government, a compromise solution was found. In 1743, the government obliged the farmer of the Guryev state-owned fisheries at the mouth of the Yaik to open gates from each bank of 8 fathoms for the free passage of fish up the Yaik.

Later in 1752, at the request of I.I. Neplyuev, the Cossacks received state-owned uchug for a certain annual fee and thus became full owners of the lower reaches of the Yaik River with its richest fish stocks. Every year, the Cossacks caught and sold to the central regions of Russia several hundred thousand fresh and salted sturgeon, beluga, stellate sturgeon, a large amount of caviar, receiving money for this that significantly exceeded the cost of their payments to the treasury for the operation of fisheries. The fish caught in Yaik was valued much higher than, for example, the Volga fish.

The Cossacks most jealously guarded this privilege of theirs - the right to hang. Only exclusively serving Cossacks were allowed to bagren. Those of the serving Cossacks who did not want or could not make a bagri themselves could sell this right for a significant amount. Successful bagrenie brought the Cossack a profit many times greater than the size of the salary.

The Cossacks were also engaged in fishing on the numerous lakes of the Ural Territory. In the Southern Urals, the Cossacks of the village of Verkhnee-Miassskaya were widely famous for this art. Back in the 17th - early 18th centuries, they practiced fish farming in neighboring lakes on a fairly large scale, which also gave considerable income.

In general, the Cossacks in the Urals were quite prosperous, especially in comparison with the peasants of the central provinces of Russia, this higher standard of living was achieved at the cost of constant, very hard work of peace and military.

For settlements, the Cossacks chose strategically advantageous places: steep river banks, elevated areas protected by ravines and swamps. The villages were surrounded by a deep moat and an earthen rampart. There were frequent cases of change of the original location. A sharp increase in the number of settlements in the XVIII - early XIX centuries is associated with the creation of military defense lines.

Special government orders regulated the nature of development and the layout of settlements, the distance between them, etc. The main types of settlements were villages, fortresses, outposts, redanki and pickets. The construction of fortifications intensified during periods of aggravation of military-political relations between Russia and the Central Asian states. After the “pacification”, the fortifications around the settlements also disappeared, their layout changed. Farms, winter huts, koshas and settlements - temporary settlements in which the Cossacks kept livestock, changed their appearance - crops were located next to them.

The average size of the Cossack villages far exceeded the size of peasant villages. Initially, the Cossack settlements had a circular building, which facilitated the defense in the event of an unexpected attack by the enemy. In the 18th-19th centuries, the layout of Cossack villages and outposts was regulated by the government and local military authorities: street-quarter planning and division into quarters were introduced, within which the Cossacks allocated plots for the estate, and the facade line was strictly observed.

In the center of the Cossack village there was a church, a village or settlement administration, schools, trading shops, etc. Most of the Cossack settlements were located along rivers, sometimes stretching for 15–20 kilometers. The outskirts of the villages had their own names, their inhabitants sometimes differed according to ethnic or social characteristics. The houses of non-residents were located both among the Cossack estates, and at some distance from them.

The estates of the Cossacks were usually surrounded by deaf high fences with tightly closed gates, which emphasized the isolation of the Cossack life. Often the house was located in the back of the courtyard or was turned to the street with a deaf side.

The estates of medium and wealthy Cossacks were distinguished by a relatively large size of the yard, several back yards). Outbuildings were most often built from local building materials. In the Cossack estate, a summer kitchen was always built, in which the family moved in the warm season.

The interior of the hut of wealthy Cossacks was distinguished by an accentuated decorative effect. The walls of the Cossack hut were decorated with weapons and horse harness, pictures depicting military scenes, family portraits, portraits of Cossack chieftains and members of the royal family.

Old Cossack

The traditional clothes of the Cossacks are characterized by the early displacement of homespun textiles, the use of purchased fabrics since the middle of the 19th century. In the second half of the 19th century, urban clothing almost completely replaced the traditional costume. Men's jackets, trousers, vests, and coats were widely used everywhere, while women wore skirts with a jacket and a dress. In the Cossack environment in the late XIX - early XX centuries, hats, shoes and factory-made jewelry were very popular.

The ethno-symbolizing functions of clothing were also manifested in the special attitude of the Cossacks to the military uniform and its components. The uniform and cap were kept as family heirlooms. Modern descendants of the Cossacks often place a Cossack cap in a prominent place in the living room.

The traditional men's clothing of the Cossacks of various troops had similar features associated with the commonality of the paramilitary lifestyle and household way of life. In the 19th century, the complex of traditional clothing included a shirt and trousers. Bloomers were sewn from canvas, cloth, plush, velvet, silk, leather, etc. At the end of the 19th century, in addition to tunic-shaped shirts with a straight slit, blouses and shirts with a yoke became widespread. Characteristic of the Cossacks was the custom of tucking their shirt into their pants.

Ancient clothes of the Yaik Cossacks

The Ural Cossacks in the 18th - the first half of the 19th centuries wore a robe, chekpen, beshmet and malakhai, soft boots - ichigi, the cut of which is similar to the cut of the boots of the Tatars, Bashkirs, Nogais, etc. casing, coat, zipun, cloak. Two- and three-layer clothing was worn on the road. During fishing or hunting, shortened clothes were preferred. In such cases, the Ural Cossacks tucked the floors of their outerwear into trousers. Boots were the most common type of footwear. Work shoes - Porsches, shoe covers. In winter they wore felt boots, in summer - boots, boots. Bast shoes were almost non-existent.

Women's clothing was very diverse. The main set of women's clothing at the end of the 19th century was a skirt with a jacket. In the 18th - the first half of the 19th centuries, the Ural Cossacks had a slanting sundress, decorated with galloon ribbons, lace, embroidery, the sundress was necessarily girded. At the end of the 19th century, a sundress is rare, mainly as a festive and ceremonial-ritual clothing. Among the Ural Cossacks, the traditional women's shirt had shoulder inserts. Since the second half of the 19th century, a faceless shirt has spread, as well as a shirt with a yoke. A feature of the Ural shirt was very puffy, colorful sleeves, decorated with galloon, embroidery with gold or silver thread. Skirts with a jacket were sewn from fabric of the same or different colors. In accordance with the cut, cuirasses, hussars, geisha, matene, etc. were distinguished. The skirt and jacket were decorated with ribbons, lace, cord, glass beads.

The ancient headdress of the Ural Cossack woman consisted of a kichka, a kokoshnik, over which a scarf was tied. The disappearance of ancient headdresses, the change in traditional forms in the second half of the 19th century is associated with the influence of the city. Girl's headdress: most often, a ribbon decorated with a beaded bottom, pearls, beads, embroidery, was tied around the head.

The clothes of the Old Believers were generally more conservative, with a predominance of dark tones, and the preservation of archaic cut details and ways of wearing. The ancient Cossack costume also existed as festive, stage clothing along with modern.

The basis of the Cossacks' diet was the products of agriculture, animal husbandry, fishing, vegetable growing and horticulture. Everywhere the most common was bread made from sour dough with yeast or sourdough. Bread was baked in a Russian oven, pies, pies, shangas, rolls, pancakes, pancakes, etc. were baked from sour dough. The Ural Cossacks baked eggs into bread intended for the journey. Pies are a festive and everyday dish stuffed with fish, meat, vegetables, cereals, fruits, berries, including wild ones.

Flatbreads, bursaks, koloboks, knyshes, makantsy, nuts, rozantsy were baked from unleavened dough. They were cooked in a Russian oven or fried in oil. Rolls and pretzels were prepared from sour choux pastry. Dishes from flour brewed in boiling water - zatiruha, djurma, balamyk, salamat formed the basis of the lean diet, they were prepared during fishing, on the road, in haymaking. Dumplings, dumplings, dumplings were among the dishes of the everyday and festive table. They also cooked kulaga, jelly for funeral and Lenten meals from flour. Cereals, cereals with water and milk played an important role in the diet, vegetables were added to them. On the basis of cereals, dishes were prepared like pudding - wheat, with the addition of eggs and butter. "Porridge with fish" was known among the Ural Cossacks.

Dairy meals were an important part of the daily diet. The basis for the preparation of many dishes was sour milk. Aryan was made from it - a drink to quench thirst, skimmed milk, suzbe, like cheese, dried cheese. Kaymak was added to many dishes, giving them a special taste. Remchuk, sarsu are sour milk dishes borrowed from nomadic peoples. Varenets, fermented baked milk, sour cream, cottage cheese were made from milk.

Fish dishes are the basis of the diet of the Ural Cossacks. The fish was boiled, fried, languished in the oven. Fish fillets were used to make meatballs and meatballs. Fish pies, jellied and stuffed fish were served on the festive table. Cutlets and meatballs were made from caviar of partial fish. The fish was dried, smoked, dried.

First courses, second courses, stuffing for pies were prepared from meat.

Dishes from vegetables and fruits were very diverse. The most popular vegetable dish among the Ural Cossacks was cabbage soup made from meat, cabbage, potatoes and cereals. Carrots, pumpkin, stewed cabbage, fried potatoes were included in the daily diet. The Ural Cossacks made melon dumplings in the same way as the Turkmens, only after drying in the sun they were languishing in a Russian oven. Vegetable dishes with kvass were popular. Gourds - watermelons, melons and pumpkins dominated the food of the Cossacks in the summer. Salted watermelons and melons. Salted tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage were poured with the pulp of watermelon. Bekmes was a widespread dish made from watermelon and melon molasses.

The wild ones were used everywhere.

Drinks were varied: kvass, compote, sour milk, diluted with water, full of honey, buza from licorice root, etc. Intoxicating drinks were served at the festive table: braga, sour, chikhir - young grape wine, moonshine. Tea was very popular among the Cossacks. It penetrated into the everyday life of the Cossacks quite early - in the second half of the 19th century. All festive, often daily meals of the Cossacks ended with tea drinking.

Until the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, the Cossacks were characterized by the existence of a large undivided family. The special social position of the Cossacks and the specific way of life contributed to its long-term preservation: the need to cultivate large land plots, the impossibility of separating a young family during service or before it began, and the isolation of family life. The Cossacks of the Ural army had 3-4 generation families, the number of which reached 25-30 people. Along with large families, small families were also known, consisting of parents and unmarried children.

The intensive development of commodity-money relations at the beginning of the 20th century accelerated the disintegration of a large family. The class and confessional isolation of the Cossacks in the 19th century significantly limited the range of marriage ties. Marriages with non-residents and representatives of local peoples were extremely rare even at the beginning of the 20th century.

The head of the family was the sovereign leader of the entire family: he distributed and controlled the work of its members, all income flowed to him, he had sole power. A similar position in the Cossack family was occupied by the mother in the absence of the owner. The peculiarity of the family structure of the Cossacks was the relative freedom of a Cossack woman in comparison, for example, with a peasant woman. The youth in the family also enjoyed greater rights than the peasants.

The long coexistence of the Cossack agricultural, fishing and military community determined many aspects of their life, way of life and spiritual life. The customs of collective labor and mutual assistance were manifested in the association of working livestock and equipment for the period of urgent agricultural work, fishing gear and vehicles during fishing, joint grazing of livestock, voluntary non-refundable assistance during the construction of a house, etc. .

The Ural Cossacks are characterized by traditions of joint leisure activities: societies, meals after the end of agricultural or fishing work, seeing off and meeting the Cossacks from the service. Almost all holidays were accompanied by competitions in felling, shooting, horse riding. A characteristic feature of many of them were "death" games that staged military battles or Cossack "freemen". Games and competitions were often held at the initiative of the military administration, especially equestrian competitions.

At the christening, the boy was “consecrated to the Cossacks”: they put a saber on him and put him on a horse. The guests brought arrows, cartridges, a gun as a gift to the newborn and hung them on the wall. The initiation of older children into Cossacks was called tonsure.

tonsured

The most significant religious holidays were Christmas and Easter. Patronal feasts were widely celebrated. A combined-arms holiday was considered the day of the saint - the patron saint of the army. Agrarian-calendar holidays were an important part of the entire festive ritual, they reflected traces of pre-Christian beliefs. Among the Ural Cossacks in the 19th century, among the festive amusements was entertainment known among the Turkic peoples, without the help of hands from the bottom of the boiler with flour stew it was supposed to get a coin.

The originality of the everyday way of life of the Cossacks determined the nature of oral-poetic creativity. Songs were the most widespread folklore genre among the Cossacks. The traditions of choral singing had deep roots. The wide existence of the song was facilitated by living together on campaigns and at training camps, and the performance of agricultural work all “in peace”.

The military authorities encouraged the Cossacks' passion for choral singing, creating choirs, organizing the collection of old songs and publishing collections of texts with notes. Musical literacy was taught to schoolchildren in village schools, the basis of the song repertoire was made up of old historical and heroic songs associated with specific historical events, as well as those that reflected military life. Ritual songs accompanied the holidays of the calendar and family cycle, love and comic songs were popular. Of the other genres of folklore, historical legends, epics, and toponymic stories are widely spread.

The power of the Cossacks was considered the Circle. When people from different lands come together, bearers of different cultures and keepers of different faiths, in order to get along, they have to retreat in their communication to the level of the simplest, tested for millennia, accessible to any understanding. Armed people stand in a circle and, looking into each other's faces, decide. Decisions are taken unanimously. The circle was considered incompetent if it was attended by less than 2/3 of the payroll of the society, there was no council of the elderly and a priest. In a situation where you risk your life every moment, the armed majority will not tolerate the armed minority. Either exile or simply kill. Dissenters may break away, but subsequently they will not tolerate dissent within their group either.

When a decision was made, a leader called "ataman" was chosen for the period of its implementation. They obeyed him implicitly. And so on until they do what they have decided.

Cossacks in the XX century

The turbulent beginning of the 20th century was a difficult test for the Cossacks. A large number of Ural Cossacks participated in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. In the revolution of 1905-1907. Cossack troops as part of the Russian army were involved in restoring and maintaining order in the country, for which they received solemn imperial letters, again confirming the household and land benefits of the Cossacks. The tense socio-political atmosphere contributed to the manifestation of negative sentiments among the Cossacks. World War I 1914–1918 brought huge human losses to the Cossacks.

On the eve of World War I, there were 11 Cossack Troops in Russia: Don, Kuban, Terek, Astrakhan, Ural, Orenburg, Siberian, Semirechensk, Transbaikal, Amur, Ussuri and two separate Cossack regiments. They occupied 65 million acres of land with a population of 4.4 million people. , including 480 thousand service personnel. Among the Cossacks in the national sense, Russians prevailed, Ukrainians were in second place, and Buryats were in third. Most of the Cossacks professed Orthodoxy, there was a large percentage of Old Believers, and national minorities professed Buddhism and Islam.

More than 300 thousand Cossacks took part on the battlefields of the First World War. The war showed the inefficiency of using large cavalry masses 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 when performing sabotage and reconnaissance missions. The Cossacks, as a significant military and social force, participated in the Civil War. The combat experience and professional military training of the Cossacks was once again used to resolve acute internal social conflicts.

The February events of 1917 and the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II, the Cossacks, tired of the bloody war, met without much resistance and took a neutral wait-and-see position. The successive compositions of the Provisional Government, demonstrating their loyalty to the Cossacks in words, did not take real measures to solve their problems. The Bolsheviks, seeing in the Cossacks a significant military force capable of influencing the military-political situation in the country, tried to neutralize him during the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917, and then make him an ally.

By the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of November 17, 1917, the Cossacks as an estate and Cossack formations were formally abolished. The redistribution of land on an equalizing basis according to the Soviet law on the socialization of land, which unfolded in early 1918 in the Cossack regions, affected the share plots of ordinary Cossacks, which, together with the excesses of the revolutionary detachments in the Cossack villages, pushed the Cossacks to resistance in the ranks of the White movement. In the spring of 1918, the Civil War engulfed the entire territory of Russia. During the Civil War, the Cossack territories became the main bases of the White movement and it was there that the most fierce battles were fought. The Cossack units were numerically the main military force of the Volunteer Army in the fight against Bolshevism. The Cossacks were pushed to this by the policy of decossackization pursued by the Reds.

The Red Army also had Cossack units. The Red Cossacks played a very significant role in the famous raid of the partisan army under the command of V.K. Blucher, I.D. and N.D. Kashirin. Many of the participants in the raid later became fighters and commanders of the Red Army, and some, including the Kashirin brothers, made a brilliant career in it.

At the end of the Civil War, a large number of Cossacks aged 20 to 40 found themselves in exile, mainly within Turkey, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, China, from where they subsequently settled around the world. The huge losses suffered by the Cossacks during the First World War and the Civil War significantly weakened the Cossacks. Soviet transformations in the villages and the abolition of estates significantly deformed the Cossack worldview.

The revolution and civil war actually completely split the Cossacks. During the fratricidal war, it suffered irreparable losses. The most active part of the Ural and Orenburg Cossack troops, primarily officers and a significant part of the Cossack intelligentsia in general, was physically destroyed. Many Cossacks with their families ended up abroad. Cossack villages, through which the front line swept more than once from east to west and from west to east, were seriously destroyed, the farms of many Cossack families were ruined. The Cossack estate was formally abolished, like all estates in general, in fact, special Cossack governing bodies and other institutions were completely liquidated. Speaking for the most part on the side of the counter-revolution, the Cossacks became politically suspicious of the Soviet government. And this also affected the further fate of the Cossacks of the Urals, and the Cossack country as a whole.

In Soviet times, the official policy of decossackization actually continued, although in 1925 the plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP recognized as 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 were created, which proved to be excellent during the Great Patriotic War. In a difficult time for the country, the overwhelming majority of the Cossacks stood up for the defense of the Motherland. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945. For military merit, most of the cavalry units and formations were awarded honorary titles and orders.

Thousands of Ural and Orenburg Cossacks who fought as part of the cavalry, rifle units and formations of the Red Army were awarded orders and medals for their courage. Cossacks G.M. Gubarev, N.M. Dmitriev, F.M. Zankin, I.A. Kuznetsov, S.P. Labuzhinskiy, P.I. Orekhov, G.T. Chumakov, N.V. Chernenko, F.K. Chegodaev, V.A. Sorokin and a number of others were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

The “abolished” and formally long ago “liquidated” Cossacks of the Urals gave the Fatherland not only many glorious warriors, but also heroes of labor who built the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant and Magnitogorsk, the mines of Kopeisk and Korkino, who grew bread. Among the Cossacks there are many scientists, teachers, figures of literature and art. The famous Ural poet Boris Ruchev, who built Magnitogorsk and carried through the camps of the Gulag, faith in his homeland, his people, also comes from a hereditary Cossack family, was proud of this origin, although he could not always say it out loud.

Of course, for many years, when the Cossacks were actually banned, they suffered enormous human losses. Many cultural values ​​have been destroyed, the most interesting traditions that should have been protected and preserved have been violated. And yet, in spite of everything, the Ural Cossacks survived, continued and continues to serve the Fatherland.

The turbulent nineties opened a new stage in the history of the Ural Cossacks. In a difficult time for the Motherland, the Cossacks revived again. On April 14, 1990, a constituent assembly of the descendants of the Cossacks of the Orenburg army took place in the premises of the Orenburg Writers' Union. There were relatively few attendees. Yes, and it was mainly about the revival of the cultural traditions of the Orenburg Cossacks. At this meeting, it was decided to create a community "Orenburg Cossack Host". A local young writer I. Pyankov was elected as the ataman of the community. At about the same time, similar communities appeared in Uralsk, Magnitogorsk, and a little later in Chelyabinsk and a number of other cities in the Urals. The movement for the revival of the Cossacks went on in the Urals from below, covering an increasing number of people.

In this movement, especially at first, there was a lot of inconsistency and inconsistency. Many of its participants, including the most influential at that time, had a rather vague idea of ​​the very goals of the movement, its organizational forms. The founding Grand Circle of the Union of Cossacks, which took place on July 22-30, 1990 in Moscow, was of great importance for resolving these issues. The Urals took part in the work of the circle. The delegation of the Ural Cossack army, headed by Vodolazov and Kachalin, was one of the largest in the circle. From the Orenburg army, Vostryakov, Knyazev, Pyankov were delegated to the circle. The decision of the circle, as well as the discussion that took place on it, helped to develop common approaches to approaches to the problems of reviving the country's Cossacks.

Soon after the Moscow founding Great Circle, the Orenburg Cossack Army community was officially registered with the Orenburg Regional Council as a regional public organization. But practically already at this time, the descendants of the Orenburg Cossacks, whom fate scattered throughout the country, and even the Cossacks abroad, establish contact with her. On December 23, 1990, the circle of the community adopted its new charter and regulation on chinoproizvodstvo. Due to the fact that on the circle I. Pyankov resigned, the head of the scientific archival commission of the troops V. Semenov was temporarily entrusted with the duties of the chieftain. Three months later, at the next round of the community, V.I. was elected ataman. Kosyanov, a hereditary Cossack, candidate of pedagogical sciences, who then worked at the Orenburg Pedagogical Institute.

On March 24, 1991, the circle approved the program of the community of the Orenburg Cossack army "For the revival of the Cossacks", which formulated the goals and objectives of the organization, ways to achieve them.

In the process of recreating the Orenburg Cossack army, one of the most difficult problems was the problem of developing the principles of its organization and structure. Life has shown from the very beginning that in this sense it was impossible to simply confine ourselves to restoring the old structures that existed before 1919. Conditions have changed, the Cossacks themselves have changed, the former villages and villages - some have disappeared from the face of the earth, others have turned into large cities - for example, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk. Changed the geography of the settlement of the Cossacks, the administrative division. All this must be taken into account.

In extremely difficult conditions, the Ural Cossack army is being revived. The fact is that the territory of the army was once transferred to Kazakhstan. It didn't matter as long as the USSR existed. But after its collapse, the Ural Cossacks, as well as the Semirechye, found themselves outside the borders of the Russian state.

In September 1991, the 400th anniversary of the Ural Cossack army was celebrated, which Kazakh nationalists tried to prevent, but the holiday took place. It was attended by the Cossacks of Orenburg, Don, Siberia and other regions of the country. Now the Ural Cossack army, recreated, despite all the obstacles and difficulties, plays a very significant role in the struggle for the revival of the Russian Cossacks.

The Cossack movement in the Urals is growing, gaining strength. The social nature of the modern Cossacks is distinguished by a wide variety of ethnic, class and other elements that make it up, which leads to the existence of various approaches to the revival of the Cossacks. The most difficult are the issues related to the reconstruction of the Cossack national-state formations, the Cossack structures of local self-government, the return to the Cossacks of lands illegally taken away from them, etc. self-government of places for representatives of Cossack structures, the use of the traditions of communal land use when choosing forms of land tenure in places where Cossacks densely reside. There are projects of Cossack formations based on the principles of cultural-national regional autonomy within the framework of the existing administrative-territorial division. This means that on the territory of a particular region, region, republic where the Cossacks live, zones of life and being, centers of Cossack culture and education, departments of the history of the Cossacks in educational institutions, Cossack newspapers, etc., can be created. Other solutions are also possible. problems of the revival of the Cossacks, taking into account the interests of both the Cossacks themselves and the rest of the population, including the revival of the Cossacks in the Urals.

Of particular importance is the adoption of the Federal Law "On the Cossacks", designed to legislatively determine the status of the Cossacks, the order of formation of the Cossack communities, relations with local authorities and other issues.