Biography about Cossacks

Participants A brief history of the Cossacks with a gold thread is woven into the past of Russia the history of the Cossacks. Not a single more or less significant event took place without the participation of the Cossacks. Scientists are still arguing about who they are - the sub -ethnic group, a special military estate or people with a certain state of mind. As well as about the origin of the Cossacks and their name.

There is a version that a Cossack is a derivative from the name of the descendants of Kasogs or Torques and Berendeev, Cherkas or Brodniks. On the other hand, many researchers are inclined to the idea that the word “Cossack” is of Turkic origin. So called a free, free, independent person or military guard on the border. At various stages of the existence of the Cossacks, it included Russians, Ukrainians, representatives of some steppe nomads, the peoples of the North Caucasus, Siberia, Central Asia, the Far East.

By the beginning of the XX century. From an ethnographic point of view, the first Cossacks were divided by the place of occurrence in the Ukrainian and Russian. Among both of them can be distinguished by free and service Cossacks. In Ukraine, the free Cossacks were represented by the Zaporizhzhya Sichu existed before, and the servile-“register” Cossacks who received a salary for the service in the Polish-Lithuanian state.

Russian service Cossacks city, regimental and guard were used to protect the trash features and cities, receiving a salary and land in life possession for this. Although they were equated “to the service people according to the instrument” by Sagittarius, Pushkari, but unlike them they had a village organization and an election system of military management. In this form, they lasted until the beginning of the 18th century.

The first community of Russian free Cossacks appeared on the Don, and then on the Yaik, Terek and Volga rivers. Unlike the serving Cossacks, the centers of the emergence of the free Cossacks were the coast of the large rivers of the Dnieper, Don, Yaik, Terek and the steppe open spaces, which lay a noticeable imprint on the Cossacks and determined their life way. Each large territorial community as a form of military-political association of independent Cossack settlements was called an army.

The main economic occupation of free Cossacks was hunting, fishing, livestock. For example, in the Don army, until the beginning of the 18th century, the tutor was prohibited under the fear of death. As the Cossacks themselves believed, they lived "from grass and water." The war played great importance in the life of Cossack communities: they were in conditions of constant military confrontation with hostile and warlike nomadic neighbors, therefore, one of the most important sources of existence for them was military production as a result of campaigns “behind Zipuna and Yasyre” to the Crimea, Turkey, Persia, and the Caucasus.

River and sea campaigns were performed, as well as horse raids. Often, several Cossack units united and performed joint land and sea operations, everything captured became common - Duvan. The main feature of public Cossack life was a military organization with an elected management system and democratic orders. The main decisions of the war and peace, the elections of officials, the court of the guilty were accepted at common collection meetings, stanitsa and military circles, or radiations, which were the highest governing bodies.

The main executive branch belonged to the annual military koshevoy in Zaporozhye ataman annually. At the time of military operations, a camp ataman was elected, whose submission was unquestioning. Cossacks took part in many wars on the side of Russia against neighboring states. For the successful implementation of these important functions, annual parcels of gifts, cash salary, weapons and combat supplies, as well as bread, were included in the practice of Moscow kings, since the Cossacks did not produce it.

Cossack territories played an important role in the buffer on the southern and eastern borders of the Russian state, covered it from the raids of the steppe hordes. And despite the fact that the Cossacks were beneficial for monetary relations with Russia, the Cossacks always went to the forefront of powerful anti-government performances, the leaders of the Cossack-peasant uprisings-Stepan Razin, Kondraty Bulavin, Emelyan Pugachev came out of his ranks.

The role of the Cossacks was great during the events of the Time of Troubles at the beginning of the 17th century. Having supported False Dmitry I, they compiled a significant part of his military detachments. Later, the free Russian and Ukrainian Cossacks, as well as the Russian service Cossacks, took an active part in the camp of various forces: they participated in the first militia, the nobles already prevailed in the second militia, but it was the word of the Cossack chieftains that turned out to be decisive during the election of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov.

The ambiguous role that the Cossacks played in the Time of Time, forced the government in the 17th century to pursue a policy of sharply reducing detachments of servicemen in the main territory of the state. But appreciating their military skills, Russia was quite patiently related to the Cossacks, nevertheless, not leaving attempts to subjugate them to its will.Only by the end of the 17th century did the Russian throne achieved that all the troops took the oath of loyalty, which turned the Cossacks into Russian subjects.

Since the 18th century, the state has constantly regulated the life of the Cossack regions, modernized the traditional Cossack control structures in the right line, turning them into an integral part of the administrative system of the Russian Empire. From the Cossack units were under the jurisdiction of the Cossack expedition of the Military College. In the same year, Peter I abolished the election of military atamans and introduced the Institute of Passive Atamans appointed by the supreme authority.

Cossacks lost the last remnants of independence after the defeat of the Pugachevsky rebellion in, when Catherine II eliminated the Zaporizhzhya Sich. In the decree of Paul I, all Cossack officer ranks were equal to the general Army, and their owners received the rights to the nobility. B developed the first position for the Cossack troops. With the August Ataman of all Cossack troops, the heir to the throne began to be appointed.

The first drill charter for the Cossack units was approved, and the Cossacks transferred to the Cossacks with the Main Directorate of the Irregular S - Cossack Troops of the Military Ministry, with the subordination of the main headquarters. It’s not for nothing that they are born in the saddle about the Cossacks. Their skill and skills gained the glory of the best mild cavalry in the world.

It is not surprising that practically no war, not a single battle did without Cossacks. Suvorov’s northern and seven -year war, military campaigns, the Patriotic War of the year, conquering the Caucasus and the development of Siberia ...

You can list the great and small exploits of the Cossacks for a long time for the glory of Russia and on guard of its interests. In many ways, the success of the Cossacks was explained by the “original” methods of fighting, inherited from the ancestors and neighbors-steppasses. On the eve of the First World War, there were 11 Cossack troops in Russia: Donskoy 1.6 million.

They occupied 65 million. Most of the Cossacks professed Orthodoxy, there was a large percentage of the Old Believers especially in the Ural, Tersky, Don troops, and national minorities professed Buddhism and Islam. The First World War, in which more than thousands of Cossacks took part, showed the inefficiency of the use of large equestrian masses.

However, the Cossacks successfully acted in the rear of the enemy, organizing small partisan detachments. Cossacks as a significant military and social power participated in the civil war. Combat experience and professional military training of the Cossacks were again used in solving acute internal social conflicts. In the Civil War, the Cossack territories became the main bases of the White movement especially Don, Kuban, Terek, the Urals 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. To this, the Cossacks were pushed by the Red Policy of the testing of mass executions, taking hostages, burning the villages, setting nonresident against the Cossacks. At the end of the Civil War, a large number of Cossacks were in exile about thousand.

In Soviet times, the official policies of testing actually continued, although the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP B recognized the “ignoring the characteristics 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 -member elements” and were limited to rights, in particular, the ban on serving in the ranks of the Red Army was lifted only when they created several Cossack cavalry divisions and then corps, which showed themselves perfectly during the Great Patriotic War.

The very cautious attitude of the authorities towards the Cossacks the result of which was the oblivion of its history and culture gave rise to a modern Cossack movement. Initially, in the years it arose as a historical and cultural movement for the revival of the Cossacks according to some estimates, about 5 million. The decree of the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation “On the Rehabilitation of the Cossacks” of June 16 and a number of laws contributed to the further growth of the Cossack movement.

Under the President of Russia, the Main Directorate of the Cossack Troops was created, a number of measures to create regular Cossack units were taken by law enforcement officers, Border, Ministry of Defense.