Cossacks: on land and at sea
A. Telenin. Lieutenant of the Registered Cossacks
In the previous article ("Don Cossacks and Cossacks") we talked a little about stories the emergence of the Cossacks, its two historical centers, some of the differences between the Cossacks of the Don and Zaporozhye regions. Let's continue this story.
So, in spite of everything, the Cossack communities survived in a hostile environment - between the hammer of the Islamic world and the anvil of the Christian world. Over time, they became an important factor in geopolitics. As auxiliary troops, they began to be hired by the aristocrats of the border regions, and then by the governments of various states. Cossacks usually went to such a service willingly, since, on the one hand, they acquired powerful patrons, and on the other, they received the supplies they needed.
Cossacks in the service of Glinsky and Vishnevetsky
The first successful experience of using "Cherkasy Cossacks" was noted in 1493, when the Cherkasy governor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Bogdan Fedorovich Glinsky, nicknamed Mamai, with their help captured the fortress of Ochakov. A retaliatory raid of the Tatars of Khan Mengli-Girey followed, the overly proactive Glinsky was transferred to Putivl. In 1500, this city was taken by the Russians, Glinsky was captured, where he died either in 1509 or in 1512.
The next tycoon who decided to use the Cossacks against the Tatars was Prince Dmitry Vishnevetsky (Baida), who in the middle of the XNUMXth century built a fortress on the Dnieper island of Malaya Khortitsa, which belonged to the Crimean Khanate, using his personal funds.
The nickname of the prince is also associated with this island: Baida is one of the names of Malaya Khortitsa. He did not limit himself to protecting his possessions, constantly disturbing the Crimean lands. The siege of this fortress in 1557 was unsuccessful, but the following year, with the help of the Turks, Khan Devlet-Girey managed to capture it. Vishnevetsky with a part of the Cossacks broke free from the encirclement and entered the service of Ivan the Terrible, having received from him the city of Belev. The prince continued to fight the Tatars and reached Azov and Perekop, but after the start of the Livonian War, not wanting to fight against relatives, in 1561 he went into the service of King Sigismund II Augustus. From Poland he embarked on an expedition to Moldova, where he was defeated, captured and executed in Istanbul in 1564.
D. Vishnevetskiy on the Ukrainian stamp
Some Ukrainian historians consider D. Vishnevetsky the founder of the Zaporizhzhya Sich, which, of course, is not true. On Malaya Khortitsa, not a Cossack fortification was built, but a castle of a sovereign magnate, and, of course, there were no chieftains and other elected officials. And Sigismund II, in one of his letters to Vishnevetsky, on the contrary, demanded from him:
"Do not let the Cossacks make leads to the shepherds and harm the uluses of the Turkish king."
The Sich was nevertheless built on this place - later, and on the neighboring island of Bolshaya Khortitsa, but it turned out to be the second in a row: the first real Sich was Tokmakovskaya (1563-1593), located on an island within the boundaries of the modern city of Manganets (most of this the island is now flooded). Khortitskaya Sich was wedged between two Tokmakovs. It was in the Tokmakovskaya Sich that the uprising of the Cossacks began in 1591 under the leadership of Krishtof Kosinsky. After the destruction of this slash by the Tatars (1593), the catchers moved to the island of Bazavluk. The Bazavluk Sich became the base of the sea campaigns of Sagaidachny and Doroshenko, as well as several anti-Polish uprisings, the largest of which was led by Severin Nalivaiko.
Zaporizhzhya Sich in different years, map. The time of the existence of the Khortitskaya Sich is indicated here incorrectly, but the map gives an idea of the location of the Sich in different years
Registered Cossacks and the Grassroots Host Zaporozhye
In 1572, another significant event took place in the history of the Zaporozhye Cossacks: some of them were recruited into the Polish service and entered in the register, so they received the name of the Registered Cossacks, although they were officially loudly called the “Zaporozhye Army”.
A. Telenin. Registered Cossacks
They received a salary from the royal treasury and were equated in rights with the "no-stamp gentry". Their first commander was the Polish gentry Jan Badovsky. In 1578 the city of Terekhtemyrov on the right bank of the Dnieper was transferred to the registered Cossacks, and their number was increased to 6000. They were divided into six regiments: Pereyaslavsky, Cherkassky, Kanevsky, Belotserkovsky, Korsunsky and Chigirinsky. Each regiment was divided into hundreds, kurens and outskirts.
The Cossacks who were not included in the register, according to the plan of the Polish authorities, were to become peasants, but in the overwhelming majority they left for the islands located below the Dnieper rapids, and began to call themselves the "Zaporozhian Nizov Troops".
Everyone associates the Zaporozhian Cossacks with the Sichs, but around the Sich there were also winter Cossacks who could marry and run a household, joining the Sichs during their campaigns - such was their “out-of-the-box trade”. Taras Bulba, who was married, had sons, and had his own rich estate, can be considered a Winter Cossack. Only periodically he came to Cossack in the Sich. The same can be said about Bohdan Khmelnytsky. But not all winter ones were rich like Bulba: most of the Cossacks who were not included in the register were called golutvenny - from the word "gollytba".
The number of grassroots Zaporizhzhya Cossacks rapidly increased due to the numerous fugitives. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, their number had already reached 40 thousand people.
Don Army
And what happened on the Don? At the turn of the XVI-XVII centuries, there were from 8 to 10 thousand Cossacks. But even here it was cramped for them, and in 1557 ataman Andrei Shadra took three hundred to the Terek - this is how the history of the Terek Cossacks began. However, in 1614, due to participation in hostilities, first on the side of the impostors, and then on the side of the Russian militia, according to the list drawn up to receive a salary, only 1888 people remained. But the Don people quickly recovered their numbers, and in 1637 they were already so strong that they were able to capture Azov, and then withstand an exhausting siege (Azov sitting). The rapid growth in the number of the Don people took place after the Schism and the beginning of the persecution of the Old Believers, many of whom fled to the Don. In the second half of the 20th century, there were already about 30-100 thousand Cossacks, they lived in XNUMX towns on the Don and its tributaries.
Relations between the Don people and the Cossacks were friendly, with their own charter neither one nor the other did not climb into a foreign monastery, preferring cooperation in wars with common enemies. Together they went on sea voyages, the story of which is ahead, and in 1641-1642, during the siege of Azov taken by the Don by the Turkish-Tatar troops (the Azov seat), the fortress was defended by 5 thousand Don Cossacks, a thousand Cossacks and 800 Cossack wives.
Of course, friction also happened. For example, in 1625, during a joint campaign to Trebizond, the Donets, without waiting for the approach of the Cossacks, attacked this rich city. It was possible to take only the outskirts, and when the Cossacks approached, the Turks received help, and the Cossacks, having suffered heavy losses, were forced to leave. The Zaporozhian Cossacks justifiably blamed the Donets for this failure, saying that they went for a premature assault so as not to share the booty. There was a quarrel between the allies, during which many Cossacks were killed on both sides, including the Don chieftain Isai Martemyanov. And in November 1637, the Cossacks, who had visited Azov, captured by the Don Cossacks, drove off a herd of horses when they left. As revenge, the Donets killed other "Cherkas" when they arrived "with bargaining."
But such incidents were still the exception to the rule.
Zaporizhzhya Sich
Chertomlytskaya Sich, scheme
In the XNUMXth century, there was a tendency to idealize the Cossacks and the Sich. This trend continued and intensified in the USSR and especially in modern Ukraine. The Zaporozhye Sich was described either as an analogue of the knightly orders of Europe, or as an example of democracy and democracy: two extremes, equally far from the truth. The state of affairs with the discipline of the "Sich knights" would have hanged the most patient grand master of any of the orders, and democracy, in fact, turned out to be the power of a drunken crowd, skillfully directed by representatives of different parties of the Cossack foreman.
The Zaporozhians were often represented as spokesmen for the will of the masses and defenders of the oppressed population of Little Russia. Here, too, not everything is simple, because the Sich and the Sich Cossacks have always pursued only their own interests, if necessary concluding alliances with both the Polish authorities and the Crimean Tatars. And hetmans Vygovsky, Doroshenko and Yuri Khmelnitsky did swear allegiance to the Sultan of Turkey. The peasants, on the other hand, under their banners, the Zaporozhians called not out of a sense of justice and sympathy for the oppressed masses, but to solve their own problems. So, in 1592, the nobleman Krishtof Kossinsky, who had gone to the Cossacks, addressed the peasants with an appeal, from whom Prince Ostrozhsky seized the estate. And in 1694, a new anti-Polish uprising was led by the former centurion of the same prince Severin Nalivaiko.
Monument to Severin Nalivaiko, Gusyatin, Ternopil region
The Cossacks of the Bazavluk Sich, part of the registered Cossacks, took part in this uprising, and after Nalyvayko released a station wagon with an appeal to the Orthodox population to beat the magnates and gentry, Catholics and Uniates, and many peasants.
That is, it was not the Cossacks who came to the aid of the rebellious peasants, but, on the contrary, the Cossacks, who called on the Khlops to support them during the mutiny. And note that more and more often at the head of the Cossacks were the gentry offended by the royal authorities. That in the least did not prevent the Sichs from fighting under their leadership against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
The famous Peter Sagaidachny, first elected by the koshev chieftain in 1605 (several times he was appointed hetman of the registered Cossacks), received the rights of the gentry and a very strange and even insulting coat of arms from the Polish king Sigismund III.
Coat of arms of Hetman Petr Sagaidachny. At the top of this coat of arms, we see a dog on a leash and with a collar. Was this hero of Ukraine really considered a chain dog by his Polish masters?
Actually, the name of this person is Konashevich. Sagaidachny is a Zaporozhye nickname that was given to well-aimed archers.
Petr Sahaidachny-Konashevich
He was born in the Russian Voivodeship of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - in the village of Kulchitsy near Lviv. In modern Ukraine, he is considered a cult figure, while in the people's memory he remained the hero of a single song, in which he is reproached for having exchanged his wife for tobacco and a pipe. Researchers believe that the pipe in this song symbolizes the Sich, tobacco - Crimea and Turkey, wife - Ukraine. The song ends with an appeal to quit the pipe and tobacco and return to his wife: the fact is that the campaigns against the Crimea and Turkey, which Sahaidachny went on both by order of the Polish kings and on his own, led to retaliatory raids by the Crimeans, from which they suffered mostly in nothing innocent peaceful Ukrainians. But now little is remembered about this, the famous Black Sea campaigns of Sagaidachny, the Khotin battle and the campaign to Moscow lands (in 1618) are heard. In memory of the naval merits of the ataman and hetman, the flagship of the Ukrainian Navy was named Hetman Sagaidachny. They say that the Ukrainian sailors immediately gave him the nickname "Dacha saiga".
In order not to be offended by Ukrainian readers, I will explain that such alterations of names are quite in the tradition of sailors of all countries. The imperial destroyers "Frisky" and "Zealous" were all called "Sober" and "Drunk", respectively. The cruiser "Kaganovich" in the Pacific navy was known to everyone as "Kaganovich's Lazaret" (Kaganovich's name is Lazar), even when it was renamed "Petropavlovsk". And the British sailors changed the name of their dreadnought "Agincourt" into "A Gin Court" - "The yard where the gin is poured."
Black Sea campaigns of the Don and Zaporozhye Cossacks
The sea campaigns, in which both the Don and the Cossacks took part, often uniting their flotillas, literally shook both the Crimea and the Ottoman Empire. Let's talk a little about them.
The southern neighbor of the Sich turned out to be the Crimean Khanate, a predatory "state with a raid economy." Both the Moscow regions and the lands of the Commonwealth suffered, and the Sich found itself on the way of the Tatars, who were going on another predatory campaign, for whom it made no difference who to sell in the slave markets - Russian or Little Russian peasants, or lower Zaporozhye Cossacks.
Crimean Tatars drive prisoners
I had to fight back. And then the Cossacks realized that the game of dashing raids on peaceful towns and villages can be reciprocal: the Tatars have fast and tireless horses, and they have small light ships, which the Cossacks called "seagulls", and the Don Cossacks - plows.
Zaporozhye canoe "Seagull" of the XVI-XVII centuries. The length of such ships did not exceed twenty meters, they had a mast with a square sail and ten to fifteen pairs of oars. The crew of one "seagull" was approximately 50 people
The enemies also had a huge coastline, which was very problematic to adequately defend along its entire length. And the draft of the "seagulls" is so small that you can come close to the shore and land troops anywhere.
There is information that some of the "gulls" had a double bottom: ballast was placed here, because of which the ship sank deep into the sea and became unobtrusive. And then the ballast was dropped and the seagulls literally floated up in front of the amazed opponents.
In general, it was a sin not to try to "touch" the Tatars, and even the Turks, and the first attempts were made back in the seventies of the 1574th century. One of the first leaders of the Black Sea expeditions was the ataman Samoilo Koshka, who was captured in 25 and for 1588 years was a slave rower in the Ottoman gallery. But more and more squadrons of the Cossacks went out to sea and headed for the Crimea and the Turkish coast. In 17, 1589 villages between Gezlev (now Evpatoria) and Perekop were plundered, and in 30 they managed to break into Gezlev, but in a fierce battle they were defeated and left, leaving XNUMX people captive to the Tatars, including the chieftain Kulaga.
The tactics used by the Cossacks in these raids on the Muslim coasts can be judged, for example, by the story of the Ottoman writer and traveler Evliya elebi. This is how he describes the attack of the Don Cossacks on the city of Balchik, located on the western coast of the Black Sea in 1652: having landed after midnight, they set it on fire from four sides and attacked with battle cries, sowing panic among the defenders and townspeople.
In 1606, the Cossacks attacked the Danube fortresses of Kiliya and Belgorod and captured Varna. Then there were raids on Perekop, Kiliya, Izmail and Belgorod-Dnestrovsky.
Contrary to expectations, the Turkish fleet in several battles did not manage to defeat the Cossack flotillas. And the Cossacks had already reached the cities of the southern coast of the Black Sea, and then began to enter the Bosphorus Strait, threatening the capital of the empire.
In August 1614, Peter Sagaidachny led the two thousandth detachment, which managed to capture and burn the city of Sinop. The shock in Turkey was so great that the grand vizier was executed by order of the sultan. But the Cossacks were not destined to bring huge booty to the Sich: not far from the mouth of the Dnieper, the returning Cossacks were overtaken by the Ottoman fleet and in the ensuing battle they were defeated. The very next year, about five thousand Cossacks struck at the outskirts of Istanbul - and again on the way back, they were overtaken by the Ottoman fleet, now at the Danube. This time the Cossacks won the naval battle.
In 1616, a Turkish squadron tried to lock the mouth of the Dnieper - and was defeated in the Dnieper estuary, losing 20 galleys. And the Cossacks went further and captured Kafa.
Cossacks on seagulls under the command of Hetman Sagaidachny destroy the Turkish fleet and capture Kafa in 1616. Engraving in 1622
Since that time, the sea campaigns of the Cossacks have become permanent.
The Dominican Abbot Emilio Dascoli, in his Description of the Black Sea and Tartary, reports:
“At sea, no ship, no matter how large and well-armed, is safe if, unfortunately, it encounters seagulls, especially in calm weather. The Cossacks are so brave that not only with equal forces, but also with twenty "seagulls" are not afraid of thirty galleys of the padishah. "
Things got to the point that Ottoman soldiers sent against the Cossacks sometimes had to be driven aboard galleys with sticks.
Joint sea campaigns of the Donets and Cossacks
The grassroots Don Cossacks went on sea voyages no less willingly than the Cossacks. Often they coordinated their actions and united their flotillas (I recall the attacks on the Spanish possessions of the combined squadrons of Tortuga and Port Royal). Let's talk about the most significant of these trips.
The first joint expedition was recorded in 1622: the allied fleet of 25 ships (crew of 700 people), led by the Zaporozhye ataman Shilo, plundered the Turkish coast, but was defeated by the Ottoman galley squadron. The Turks then captured 18 Cossack ships and took 50 prisoners.
The Allies responded with a campaign of 150 gulls and plows in 1624, striking the Bosphorus. A fleet of 500 large and small ships had to repel their attack. In order to prevent a breakthrough to the capital, the Ottomans even stretched an iron chain through the Golden Horn, which has been preserved since Byzantine times.
The following year, 300 Don and Zaporizhzhya ships sailed to sea, which attacked Trebizond and Sinop. They entered into a sea battle with the Turkish fleet of Redshid Pasha and withdrew, having lost 70 ships.
The next large joint expedition took place in 1637 - 153 seagulls went out to sea.
And there were also campaigns of the smaller forces of the Don and Sich Cossacks.
If necessary, the Cossacks could return to the Sich through the Sea of Azov and the Don, and then - on dry land:
"They came to the Don to the Cossacks from the sea and from the Zaporozhye Cherkas with five hundred people, they spent the winter with the Cossacks on the Don."
Cossacks in the Baltic
In 1635, Zaporozhye gulls appeared on the Baltic Sea. During the Polish-Swedish war, King Vladislav IV (the failed tsar of the Muscovite state) ordered Colonel Konstantin Volk to bring a thousand registered Cossacks, who had previously gone on gulls, to fight the enemy fleet. In the city of Jurburg (Lithuania), 15 gulls were built, another 15 were made by the Cossacks themselves, having altered suitable boats of local fishermen. On the night of August 31, their flotilla attacked the Swedish squadron stationed in the port of Pillau. One ship was taken on board, while the other shocked Swedes managed to take them out to sea.
Khotyn battle
One of the most important and significant battles in which the Cossacks took part took place in 1621, when their thirty-thousandth army near Khotin, united with the thirty-five thousandth army of the Commonwealth, defeated the two hundred thousandth Ottoman army. However, modern historians estimate the strength of their opponents more modestly: up to 80 thousand Turks and from 30 to 50 thousand Crimean Tatars.
This war began back in 1620, when in Moldavia near the village of Tsetsory the Turks defeated the Polish army under the command of the crown hetman Stanislav Zholkiewski, the one who came to the Russian lands during the Troubles and became famous for his victory at Klushin.
Valerie Eliash-Radzikovsky. "The death of the crown hetman Zolkiewski near Tsetsora"
In September of the following year, the opposing armies met again. The Ottoman army was commanded by Sultan Osman II himself. The general command of the Polish-Lithuanian-Cossack army was carried out by Jan Chodkiewicz, an experienced commander who fought a lot with Sweden and went to Moscow twice during the Time of Troubles. The Cossacks were commanded by Peter Sagaidachny.
Considering the balance of forces, Chodkiewicz chose a defensive tactic: he deployed his troops on the western bank of the Dniester so that on one side his camp was protected by a river, on the other - by a steep edge of a hill. It is difficult to say how events would have developed if Osman II was not in a hurry, but simply besieged the camp, especially since he managed to seize the crossings across the Dniester, the Tatars at that time plundered the lands of the Commonwealth with impunity, and the Swedish king Gustav Adolf captured Northern Livonia. However, the young sultan, inspired by last year's victory, was eager to fight and therefore threw his army to storm Chodkiewicz's camp.
The Khotin battle lasted from September 2 to October 9, 1621. During this time, Chodkiewicz managed to become famous for the attack of several banners of the hussars (600 people) of a ten-thousandth cavalry detachment of the Turks, and then die of some kind of illness, and the Poles - to eat all the horses. As a result, the Turks retreated, losing about 40 thousand people. The losses of their opponents turned out to be much less - about 14 thousand.
In the next article we will talk about the inglorious end of the Zaporizhzhya Sich and the fate of the Sich Cossacks.
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