Old Cossack ancestors
While in Moscow, Napoleon interrogated a captive, wounded Cossack and asked him: how could the war against Russia started if the Cossack units were in the ranks of the French army. Donets grinned: “Then, the French emperor would have been a Chinese emperor long ago.”
“We need to give justice to the Cossacks, - it was they who brought the success of Russia in this campaign. Cossacks are the best light troops among all existing ones. If I had them in my army, I would have passed with them the whole world. ”
Napoleon
Stendhal
1. You can speak last, but you must always shoot first
2. Not the Cossack that overcame, but the one that wriggled out
3. Checker, horse and wife do not trust anyone
4. Like war - so brothers, like peace - so sons of bitches
5. Pima, sheepskin coat and malachai - the most reliable and trouble-free weapon siberian cossack
6. Cossacks are not crayfish - they don’t back down
Cossack sayings
Cossacks - a unique phenomenon on the planet Earth, which arose in the process of natural historical selection, established on the basis of military fraternity and the Orthodox faith. The unique military glory of the Cossacks caused many states to create their own Cossack troops: hussars appeared in Hungary, dragoons in France, and Cossack hundreds in England and Prussia. The practice of their combat use led to the inevitable conclusion: Cossack not first-class dzhigitovka, not masterly possession of cold and firearms, not even the ability to fight and a rare fearlessness, but the "special state of mind" inherent in the best representatives of the Eastern Slavs. They amazed with their fearless dzhigitovka, they admired with the dexterity and beauty of their system, they struck the intricate game of enticing cavalry lava. They, according to all the foreigners who saw them in peacetime, were the only inimitable and incomparable cavalry in the world. They were natural horsemen. The Hessian German, the heroic partisan of the Patriotic War, Adjutant-General Wintzingerode wrote in 1812 year: “I’m accustomed to always consider the Hungarian cavalry as the first in the world, I must give the Cossacks an advantage over the Hungarian hussars”.
The beauty of their regimental life, with their coming songs from the depths of the centuries, with a dashing dance, with a close and friendly army comradeship, captivated. To serve the Cossacks, to serve with the Cossacks was the dream of all truly military people. Cossacks themselves have become so. They created and tempered in the battles on the border itself story. Yes, in the XIX century, the Cossacks to everyone who saw them seemed “natural horsemen”. But we remember the formidable Zaporozhye infantry and the traditions of the fearless Kuban elas who adopted it. And when the Cossacks in their light strugus or "seagulls" went out to sea, the coast of sultan Turkey and Shah's Iran fluttered. And rarely galleys and "hard labor" could resist the Cossack flotilla, bringing the matter to a cruel and merciless boarding battle. Well, and when the Cossacks, surrounded by many times superior enemy, were under siege, they showed themselves to be true masters of the mine war. The art of foreign siege masters was broken about their Cossack tricks. Excellent descriptions of the defense of the city of Azov were preserved, which nine thousand Cossacks managed to capture almost without loss, and then hold on for several years, fighting off the 250-thousandth Turkish army. They were not only “natural horsemen”, they were natural warriors, and they managed in military affairs everything they took on.
The last in all of Russia, the Cossacks retained the old knightly principle of "service for the land" and were going to serve at their own expense "horse and arms." This is the last Russian knights. Silently, in the greatest consciousness of their duty to the Motherland, the Cossacks bore all their burdens and deprivations for their service and were proud of their Cossack name. They had a natural sense of duty.
Many Russian historians explain, albeit without proof, the origin of the Cossacks from walking, homeless people and runaway criminals from different regions of the Moscow and Polish-Lithuanian states, "who were searching for wild will and booty in the empty uluses of the horde of Batu." At the same time, the very name "Cossack" will be of relatively recent origin, which appeared in Russia not earlier than the XV century. The name was given to these fugitives by other nations, as the name is called, identifying with the concept of "free, beyond the control of anyone, free." Indeed, for a long time it was customary to think that the Cossacks were Russian peasants who had fled to the Don from the horrors of the oprichnina. But you can not withdraw the Cossacks only from the serfs. Different classes ran away, not contented and not reconciled with the authorities. They fled to war, to Cossack democracy, artisans, peasants, noblemen, warriors, robbers, thieves, all who waited for Russia in Russia, all who are tired of living in peace, all who had a riot in their blood fled. It was they who replenished the Cossacks. This is true, a significant part of the Cossacks was formed in this way. But the fugitives, coming to the Don, did not fall into the desert. That is why the famous proverb was born: "There is no issue from the Don." Where did the Cossacks come from?
Kaisaki, Saklabs, Wanderers, Cherkasy, Black hoods
In the 1st millennium of our era, the Black Sea steppe became, as it were, a gateway from Asia to Europe. None of the people, led by the waves of the great migration, did not linger here for a long time. In this epoch of the “Great Migration of Peoples” in the steppes, as in a kaleidoscope, the dominant nomadic tribes changed, creating tribal nomadic states, the kaganates. These nomadic states were ruled by powerful kings - kagans (khaans). At the same time, most often, the large borders of the Kuban, Dnieper, Don, Volga, Ural and others were the natural boundaries of the habitats of nomadic tribes, respectively, and kaganates. The borders of states and tribes always demanded special attention. To live in the frontier was always difficult and dangerous, especially in the era of medieval steppe lawlessness. For frontier, serf, postal and postal services, maintenance, defense, fords, ferries and dredges, collection of duties and navigation control, the steppe kagans from the ancient times inhabited the banks of border rivers with semi-settled militant North Caucasian tribes of Circassians (Cherkas) and Kasogs (or more precisely Kaisaks). Iranian-speaking peoples called Saki Scythians and Sarmatians. Kaisaks were called the royal, chief Sakas, who made up all sorts of guard detachments, as well as the bodyguards of the khans and their nobles. These military inhabitants of the lower reaches of the rivers, many of the then chronicles are also called wanderers. About the Cossacks (Kaisaks) living in the Azov region, along the banks of the Don and Kuban, is mentioned in the fourth-century Arab and Byzantine chronicles. er as a warlike people practicing Christianity. Thus, the Cossacks became Christians almost five hundred years before the baptism of Russia by Prince Vladimir. From different chronicles it is clear that the Cossacks originated in Russia no later than the 5th century AD. and, before the epoch of the rise and flourishing of Kievan Rus (Russian Kaganate), the Cossacks long-time ancestors were often called rodents, and later also black hoods or Cherkasy.
Wanderers - a tribe of old Cossack ancestors who lived on the Don and the Dnieper in the first half of the Middle Ages. The Arabs also called them Sakaliba, the white people, mainly of Slavic blood (more precisely, this Persian word sounds saklaby - coastal Saki). So, in 737, the Arabian commander Marwan passed with the troops all the indigenous Khazars and between Don and Volga behind Perevoloka met the semi-nomadic horse breeders of Sakalib. The Arabs took their horse herds and took with them up to 20 thousands of families who were moved to the eastern border of Kakheti. The presence of such a mass of horse breeders in this place is far from accident. Perevoloka is a special place in the history of both the Cossacks and the steppes as a whole. In this place, the Volga comes closest to the Don, and at all times there was a portage there. Of course, no one dragged tens of kilometers of merchant ships. The transshipment of goods from the Volga basin to the Don basin and back was carried out by horse-drawn and pack transport, which required a large number of horses, horse breeders and guards. All these functions were performed by vagrants, in the Persian Saklabs - coastal Sakas. Perevoloka during the period of navigation gave a stable and good income. The steppe kagans greatly valued this place and sought to give it to the closest members of their clan. Most often, these were their mothers (widowed queens) and beloved wives, mothers of the heirs to the throne. From early spring to late autumn, for personal control Perevoloki, tsarina kept their tents on the banks of the picturesque and full-flowing river then, the right tributary of the Volga. And it is not by chance that this river has been called the Queen for centuries, and the fortress at its mouth, founded already in the new history as governor Zasekin, was named Tsaritsyn. The famous legend about the mother and wife of Batu, who owned Perevoloka, is only the visible and audible part of this centuries-old phenomenon of the steppe civilization. Many lords dreamed of making Perevoloku navigable, several unsuccessful attempts were made to build a canal. But it was only in the era of Joseph Stalin, whose all-Russian glory also began with the battles against whites in the Tsaritsinsky shift, did this project succeed.
And in those days, rodents were filled up with newcomers, fugitives and expelled people from the surrounding tribes and peoples. Wanderers taught aliens to serve, keep fords, portages and borders, make raids, taught their relations with the nomadic world, and taught them to fight. The rodents themselves gradually disappeared into the newcomers and created a new Slavic Cossack nation! Interestingly, the prowlers in their trousers wore stripes in the form of a leather band. This custom has been preserved among the Cossacks and subsequently, in different Cossack Forces, the color of the lanterns became different (the Don people - red, the Urals - blue, the Transbaikalians - yellow).
Later, around 860, the Byzantine emperor Michael III ordered that the Slavonic alphabet be compiled and the liturgical books translated into Slavic. According to biographical data, Kirill (Konstantin Philosopher, 827 – 869) went to Khazaria and, preaching Christianity there, studied the local Slavic dialects. Obviously, as a result of the preaching of this envoy of Byzantium, among the Azov Khazarites, the New Faith finally triumphed. At his request, the Khazar Khakan (Kagan) allowed the episcopal chair to be restored in Kaisak Land on Taman.
Figure.1,2 Legendary Wanderer and Black Cowl
In 965, the great Russian warrior, the prince (Kagan of the Rus) Svyatoslav Igorevich, together with the Pechenegs and other steppe peoples, defeated the Khazars and conquered the Black Sea steppe. I act in the best traditions of the steppe kagans, part of the Alans and Cherkas, Kasogs or Kaisaks, to protect Kiev from the raids of the steppe people from the south, moved from the North Caucasus to the Dnieper and in Porosye. This decision was promoted by an unexpected and treacherous raid on Kiev by his former Pecheneg allies in 969. On the Dnieper, along with other Turkic-Scythian tribes who had previously arrived and subsequently arrived, mingling with rodents and the local Slavic population, assimilating their language, the settlers formed a special nation, giving it their Cherkasy ethnic name. Until today, this region of Ukraine is called Cherkasy, and the regional center is Cherkasy. Approximately by the middle of the XII century, according to the chronicles around 1146, on the basis of these Cherkas from different steppe peoples, an alliance gradually formed, called the black hoods. Later, a special Slavic people formed from these Cherkas (black hoods) and then the Dnieper Cossacks were formed from Kiev to Zaporozhye.
On the Don was a little different. After the defeat of the Khazars, Prince Svyatoslav Igorevich divided her possessions with the Pechenegs allies. On the basis of the Black Sea Khazar port city of Tamatarkha (in Russian Tmutarakan, and now Taman), he formed the Tmutarakan principality on the Taman Peninsula and in the Azov region. The connection of this enclave with the metropolis was carried out by the Don, which was controlled by Don rodents. The former Khazar fortress city Sarkel (in Russian, Belaya Vezha) became the stronghold of this medieval transit along the Don. The Tmutarakan principality and fordsters became the ancestors of the Don Cossacks, which, in turn, later became the ancestors of other Cossack Troops (Siberian, Yaik, or Ural, Greben, Volga, Terek, Nekrasov). The exception - the Kuban Black Sea - are the descendants of the Cossacks.
Ris.3,4 Russian prince (kagan of Rus) Svyatoslav Igorevich before the battle and at the negotiations with the Byzantine emperor John Tzimischius on the Danube
The great warrior Prince Svyatoslav Igorevich, for his services to the Cossacks, can rightly be considered one of the founding fathers of this phenomenon. He loved the look and boldness of the North Caucasian Cherkas and Kaisaks. Brought up by the Vikings from early childhood, nevertheless, under the influence of Cherkas and Kaisaks, he willingly changed his appearance and most of the later Byzantine chronicles describe him with a long mustache, shaved head and with a black-saddle.
In the middle of the 11 century, the Black Sea steppes captured the Polovtsy. These were the Turkic-speaking Europeans, blond and light-eyed. Their religion was the veneration of Tengri - the Blue Sky. Their arrival was cruel and merciless. They defeated the principality of Tmutarakan, fragmented and torn by princely feuds Russia could not help their enclave. Some residents of the steppe part of the Russian state submitted to the Polovtsy. The other part went to the forest-steppe and continued to fight against them together with Russia, adding to its federates, black hoods, which received the name of the Rus in appearance - black felt hats. In the Moscow chronicle of the XV century, a provision dated 1152 is given: “All Black Klobuks are called Cherkasy.” The continuity of Cherkas and Cossacks is obvious: both capitals of the Don Cossacks have this name, Cherkassk and Novocherkassk, and the Cossack region of Ukraine to this day is called Cherkasy.
Fig. 5,6 Polovtsi and Black hoods XII - XIII centuries
In the Russian chronicles there are also the names of smaller peoples and tribes, known under the common nickname of the black hoods, or Cherkasy, which became part of the Cossack nationality. These are bonds, Torks and Berendeis with the cities of Thor, Torchesk, Berendichev, Berendeevo, Izeslavs with the town of Izeslavts, toropes and sakas with the cities of Voin and Sakon, Kovui in Severshchina, bologovtsy in the Southern Bug, wanderers on the Don and Azov, Chigi (jigi) with the city of Chigirin and sary and azman on the Donets.
Later, another great Russian warrior and prince Vladimir Monomakh managed to consolidate the Russian principalities, brutally suppressed the princely and boyar civil strife and, together with black hoods, inflicted a series of cruel and decisive defeats to the Polovtsy. After that, the Polovtsy were for a long time compelled to peace and alliance with Russia.
In the 13 century, Mongols appeared in the Black Sea steppes. In 1222, around 30, thousands of Mongols left the Transcaucasus in the Black Sea steppe. This was a reconnaissance detachment of the Mongol horde sent by Genghis Khan under the command of the legendary commanders Subadei and Chebe. They defeated the Alans in the North Caucasus, and then attacked the Polovtsy and began to crowd them over the Dnieper, seizing the entire Don steppe. Polovtsian khans Kotyan and Yuri Konchakovich asked for help from their relatives and allies, the Russian princes. Three princes - Galician, Kiev and Chernigov - came with their troops to help the allies Polovtsy. But in 1223, on the Kalka River (a tributary of the Kalmius River), the combined Russian-Polovtsian army was utterly defeated by the Mongols, Cherkasy and roved.
Fig. 7 The tragic ending of the Battle of Kalka
About this episode should be said separately. Wanderers, tired of endless feuds and oppression of the Russian and Polovtsian princes, perceived the Mongols as allies in the fight against arbitrariness and Polovtsian oppression. The Mongols knew how to persuade and recruit warlike, but offended tribes. Caucasian Cherkasy and Don Brodniki formed the basis of the new, third Mongolian army, provided Subadei with tactical and strategic intelligence, and before the battle took an active part in embassies and negotiations. After the battle, the ataman of the Ploskinya balkins, kissing the cross, persuaded the remnants of the Russian army to surrender. Surrender for the purpose of subsequent redemption is quite common for that time. But the Mongols treated with contempt the commanders who had surrendered to captivity and the captured Russian princes were placed under the “dastarkhan” of boards on which a feast was organized by the victors.
After the bloody battles, the Mongols went back to the Zavolzhskaya steppe, and for some time nothing was heard about them. The Mongol leader, Genghis Khan, soon died, dividing the empire he created between his descendants. The grandson of Genghis Khan Batu led the western limits of the Mongolian possessions (Ulus Juchi) and, fulfilling the precepts of his grandfather, had to expand them as far as possible to the west. By order of the Kurultay 1235 of the year, held in the capital of the Mongolian Empire, Karokorum, the all-Mongolian Western campaign to the coast of the Atlantic Ocean (campaign to the “last sea”) was appointed to 1237. Dozens of tumens from the entire Mongolian empire were mobilized on the campaign, with 14 Tsarevich-Chingizids, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Genghis Khan taking the lead. Khan Batu was appointed commander-in-chief; a veteran of the Western campaigns Subeyi was in charge of the training. The whole 1236 year went on for training and training. In the spring of 1237, the Mongols and the nomadic tribes under their control concentrated on the territory of the Bashkirs who were recently subdued by Subedei and again attacked the Polovtsi, now because of the Volga. In the area between the Volga and the Don, the Polovtsi were defeated, their commander Bachman was killed. Khan Kotyan led the Polovtsian troops to the Don and temporarily stopped the further advance of the Mongols along this river. The second large detachment of Mongols, led by Batu, defeated Volga Bulgaria, in the winter of 1237 / 38, invaded the territory of the northern Russian principalities, destroyed many cities, and in the summer of 1238, left the Russian territory to the steppe, to the rear of the Polovtsy. In a panic, part of the Polovtsian troops rolled back to the foothills of the Caucasus, some went to Hungary, many soldiers died. Polovtsian bones covered the entire Black Sea steppe. In 1239 - 1240, smashing the southern Russian principalities, Batu sent his tumens to Western Europe. The warriors from southern Russia, including the Cherkasy and vagabonds, readily took part in the campaign of the Mongolian troops against their ancient enemies, the “Ugrians” and “Lyakhs”. Numerous European chronicles and chronicles of that time draw a completely non-Mongolian image and language of the Tatar-Mongolian troops who came to Europe.
Fig. 8,9,10 Commander Subedey and participants in a grand battle under the Polish city of Legnitz, a European knight and "Mongol" horsemen
Until 1242, Batu led the all-Mongolian Western campaign, as a result of which the western part of the Polovtsian steppe, Volga Bulgaria, Russia were conquered, all countries to the Adriatic and Baltic were conquered and conquered: Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria and dr. The defeat of the European armies was complete. During this time, the Mongols did not lose a single battle. The Mongolian army reached Central Europe. Frederick II, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, tried to organize resistance, however, when Batu demanded obedience, he answered that he could become a falconry of the khan. The salvation of Europe came from no waiting. In the summer of 1241, the great Mongol khan Ogedei fell ill and withdrew his children and grandchildren from the front, and in December 1241 died. The first all-Mongol turmoil was brewing. The numerous Tsarevich-Chingizids, in anticipation of a fight for power, one after another left the front with their troops and returned to their ulus. Batu did not have the strength to attack alone with only his ulus and completed his campaign against the West in 1242. The troops retreated to the Lower Volga, the city of Sarai-Batu was founded, which became the new center of the Juchi Ulus. After these battles, the Kuban, the Don and the Black Sea steppes were incorporated by the Mongols into their state, the surviving Polovtsy and Slavs became their subjects. Gradually the nomads who came along with the Mongols, called “Tatars,” merged with the local Slavic-Polovtsian population, and the resulting state was called the Golden Horde.
Fig. 11,12 Ulus Juchi (Golden Horde) and Batu Khan
With its new revival, the Cossacks owed to the custom of the tamga, which was available during the time of the Golden Horde, live tribute, that is, tribute by people whom the Russian principalities supplied to the horde to replenish the Mongolian troops. The Mongol khans who ruled in the Polovtsian steppes loved to raid the coastal Byzantine and Persian lands, i.e. to smuggle over the sea "for zipuns." For these purposes, the Russian warriors were especially suitable, since the rule of the Varyags in Russia, they had successfully mastered the tactics of the Marines (in Russian, “rook's ratification”). And the Cossacks themselves turned into a universal mobile army, capable of fighting on land both on foot and in equestrian ranks, making river and sea raids, and also conducting boarding battleships in boats and struga. Being foreigners not connected to the clan, kinship and ethnically with the local steppe population, they were also valued by Mongolian nobles for personal loyalty, loyalty and diligence in the service, including in terms of police and punitive functions, tax evasion and debt relief. By the way, there was a counter process. Since the “rook rati” was constantly lacking, the khans requested replenishment. Russian princes and boyars went for it, but in return for their service, they requested detachments of dashing foreign steppe horsemen, no less faithful and zealous in service in a foreign land. These Russified princely and boyar military servants gave root to many noble and boyar families. L.N. Gumilev and other Russian historians constantly paid attention to the Turkic origin of the majority of Russian noble families.
Fig. 13,14 Campaign “for zipuns”
In the first century of the existence of the Golden Horde, the Mongols were loyal to the preservation of subjects of their religions, including the people who were part of their military units. There was even a Saraisko-Podonsky bishopric formed in 1261. Thus, those driven from Russia retained their originality and self-identification. Many ancient Cossack legends begin with the words: “From the blood of the Sarmatian, clan-tribe of Cherkasy, allow the Cossack brothers to say a word not about the death of Vidar the Great and the campaigns of his son Kudi Yarogo, the glorious thousandaire and the favorite of Batu. And about the affairs of our fathers and grandfathers, who shed blood for Mother Russia and laid down their heads for the tsar-father ... ”. Subdued by the Tatars, so to speak, stripped away, the Cossacks, caressed and showered with the mercies of the khans, began to constitute a dashing invincible cavalry in the advanced detachments of the conquering hordes of the Tatars - the so-called horsemen (from the name of the Cherkasy tribes of chigov and the Goths), as well as detachments of bodyguards of the khans and them. Russian historians of the XVIII century. Tatishchev and Boltin write that Tatar Baskaks, sent to Russia by the Khans to collect tribute, always had with them troops of these Cossacks. At this time, the Cossacks formed as a purely military estate in the Horde khans and their nobles. “God feeds us the good fellows: like birds we do not sow and do not collect bread in the breadbaskets, but always full. And if anyone plows the land, mercilessly whip them with rods. ” In this way, the Cossacks jealously made sure that nothing distracted them from the main occupation - military service. At the beginning of the Mongol-Tatar domination, when internecine wars were forbidden inside the Golden Horde on pain of death, the nomadic population of the Black Sea region increased many times over. In gratitude for the service of the Horde, the Cossacks owned the lands of the entire Black Sea strip with Kyivshchina inclusive. This fact is reflected in numerous medieval maps of Eastern Europe. The epoch from 1240 to 1360 was the best for the life of the Cossack People under the auspices of the Mongolian Power. Noble Horde Cossacks of that time looked very formidable and impressive and all had the sign of belonging to the social leaders of the Cossack society. This chub is an oseledets, based on the custom long accepted from Cherkasov in the Caucasus. Foreigners wrote about them: “They carry the longest mustache and the darkness of the weapon with them. On the belt in a leather handbag, made and embroidered by the hands of his wife, they always have a razor and razor with a wheelbarrow. She shaves each other's head, leaving a long tuft of hair in the form of a pigtail on its crown. ”
Fig. 15,16,17 Horde Cossacks
At the beginning of the 14 century, the Mongolian empire, created by the great Genghis Khan, began to disintegrate, in its western ulus, the Golden Horde, dynastic unrest (jam) occurred from time to time, in which Cossack detachments subject to individual Mongol khans participated. Under Khan Uzbek, Islam became the state religion in the Horde, and in subsequent dynastic distempers it became aggravated and the religious factor also became actively present. The adoption of one state religion in a multi-confessional state certainly accelerated its self-destruction and disintegration. The Cossacks also participated in the distemper of the Horde temnik Mamai, including on the side of the Russian princes. It is known that in the 1380 year, the Cossacks presented Dmitry Donskoy with the icon of the Don Mother of God and participated against Mamaia in the Kulikovo battle. The troops who died in the troubles of the Khans often became abandoned, "free." It was then, in the 1340-60 years, a new type of Cossack appeared in the Russian frontier, who was not in the service and who lived mainly raids on the nomadic hordes surrounding them and neighboring peoples or robbing merchant caravans. They were called “thieves” Cossacks. Especially many of these “thieves'” patrols were on the Don and the Volga, which were the most important waterways and the main trade routes connecting the Russian lands with the steppe. At that time, there was no sharp separation between Cossacks, servicemen and volunteers, often free men were hired for service, and servicemen, on occasion, robbed caravans. After the final collapse of the unified Mongolian state, the Cossacks who remained and settled on its territory retained the military organization, but at the same time found themselves in complete independence both from the fragments of the former empire and from the Muscovy kingdom that appeared in Russia. The runaway peasants only replenished, but were not the root of the rise of troops. The Cossacks themselves always considered themselves to be a separate people and did not recognize themselves as fleeing men. They said: “we are not Russians, we are Cossacks”. These opinions are clearly reflected in fiction (for example, in Sholokhov). Historians of the Cossacks, give detailed excerpts from the chronicles of the XVI-XVIII centuries. describing conflicts between Cossacks and alien peasants, whom the Cossacks refused to recognize as equal to themselves.
In the XV century, the role of the Cossacks in the border areas increases dramatically due to the incessant raids of nomadic tribes. In the 1482 year, after the final collapse of the Golden Horde, the Crimean, Nogai, Kazan, Kazakh, Astrakhan and Siberian Khanates emerged. They were in constant hostility between themselves, as well as with Lithuania and with the Moscow state and did not want to recognize the power and authority of the Moscow prince. Since that time, a new, three-century period of Eastern European history begins - the period of the struggle for the Horde inheritance. At that time, few could have imagined that the state-of-the-art, although dynamically developing, Moscow principality would ultimately prove to be the winner in this titanic struggle. But already less than a century after the collapse of the Horde, with Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible, Moscow will unite around itself all the Russian principalities and conquer part of the Horde. At the end of the XVIII century. under Catherine II, the entire territory of the Golden Horde would be under Moscow authority. Having defeated the Crimea and Lithuania, the victorious grandees of the Queen-German put a fat and final point in the centuries-old dispute over the Horde inheritance. Moreover, in the middle of the 20th century, under Joseph Stalin, for a short time the Soviet people would create a protectorate over almost the entire territory of the Great Mongolian Empire, created in the 13th century. the work and genius of the Great Genghis Khan, including China. But it will be later.
Fig. 18 Disintegration of the Golden Horde
And in all this postordyn history the Cossacks took the most lively and active part. Moreover, the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy believed that "the whole history of Russia was made by the Cossacks." And although this statement is certainly an exaggeration, but, taking a close look at the history of the Russian state, it can be stated that all significant military and political events in Russia did not go without the active participation of the Cossacks.
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