Who are the Cossacks?
Article written in 1971 year.
From the Editor (Dear Edge): When people with a similar question are addressed to the Russian people, both to non-Cossacks, and to many Cossacks, the answers are very diverse: Cossacks are a class or kind weapons, or people, etc. Regiment. S.V. Boldyrev, in his Cossack Historical Calendar for 1956, posted an article on this topic, which is given below. Later it was reprinted in the 2-th volume of "Kaz. Dictionary-Directory".
To this question, some will say: "The Cossacks are the people," others will answer in the spirit of Russian textbooks. stories after 1835, the "this class", the third - "the Cossacks are the best cavalry in the world," while regular cavalrymen will clarify that the Cossacks are "the fourth regiments of our divisions." Some believe that the Cossacks are a type of weapon, a military community, an ethnic group, etc., while the Yenisei governor Stepanov calls us a “guide” in his book “Description,” ed. 1835
In addition, these answers depend on the time and situation. For example, during the war, “the Cossacks are superheroes,” and the war ended - “the Cossacks are rude and uneducated people.” After the 1905 revolution, looking at anyone you ask: "The Cossacks are a stronghold of the throne and order," the monarchists will answer, the socialists will say: "They are Black Hundreds, royal guardsmen, gendarmes," etc. During the civil war, the Bolsheviks said: national power, "and now in emigration, if the Cossacks do not pursue their policies," "the Cossacks are Russian people," for some even "the best Russian people." When the Cossacks are engaged in their social and political work, they immediately fall into the "independent supporters". If at the same time they publish their newspapers and magazines, where they write about the old Cossack identity and independence of the past and the future, then these immediately fall into the "Cossacks". Such conclusions are due to the fact that all these people have never been interested in and do not want to be interested in genuine Cossack history.
Let us briefly review these provisions.
Suppose that the Cossacks are a kind of weapon, cavalry.
Many say: "In Russia, there were: infantry, cavalry, artillery ..., well, there were Cossacks." To this we can answer that the Cossacks, because, in addition to the horse regiments, there was their own Cossack infantry - the scouts, first from the Kuban and Zabaykaltsevs, and in the Great War of the 1914-18. and Dontsov. And besides this, Dontsov, Kubantsev, Tertsev, Orenburgtsev, Uraltsy and Zabaykaltsev had their own artillery. It already turns out - three kinds of weapons.
Whoever reads the Cossack story knows that in the old Cossacks had their own boat rowing flotilla. Even the chieftain Yermak in the Livonian war at Ivan the Terrible stood in "ship rati". In 1696, the Don flotilla at Azov gave Tsar Peter the first naval victory. Therefore, Admiral Kedrov, the naval writer Tereshchenko, and others recognized the Cossacks as the first Russian teachers in maritime affairs. It turns out that there are already four types of weapons, and whoever reads the story knows that during the capture of Kazan (1552) and near Azov in 1637, the Cossacks had subversive teams.
This is a distant past. But recall the civil war 1917-20's. "The Cossacks then had not only their own infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineering units, armored vehicles and trains, but also a small air flotilla. We ourselves read about the heroism of the Don pilots Bogatyryov, Baranov, Popov and others. In the newspapers of that time. When Ataman Krasnov The Don Flotilla was also formed, led by Admirals Gerasimov and Kononov. From the above, we see that the Cossacks cannot be referred to as weapons of any kind in the military sense, because this is about the whole army and navy. - People!
Were the Cossacks an estate?
Not to mention the Russians and Ukrainians, some Cossacks, for whom the conclusions of the textbooks of Ilovaisky, Platonov, and other Russian historians, who consider the Cossacks as a real estate, are quite authoritative, are of little interest. But we all know that the estates in Russia are regulated by patterns of Western Europe only by Peter I and Catherine II. Prior to this, in the Moscow kingdom, indeed, there was a division into different social strata, like boyars, nobles, townspeople, serfs, black-nosos, bonded, etc., but these are not estates in our understanding. But the Cossacks historically existed for several centuries and before the regulations of Peter I. What were they then considered?
We know that the Cossacks took part in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380), and Karamzin, the "father of Russian history," takes even earlier, saying: "The Cossacks, in any case, are more ancient than the Batu invasions" (1237). A Russian historian Tatischev reports that the Cossacks existed during the Khazar Empire. What class did they belong to then? What class belonged to the well-known stories of the Cossacks-chieftains Sarah Azman, Susar, Melih, Ermak, Semyon Dezhnev and others?
Generally, about the estates: can we count in several at once? Everyone knows that in every state-state its citizen can belong to only one estate. For example the Russian peasant belonged to the peasant class; but he got rich on the ground, abandoned his farm, bought a shop, got the rights to trade and the "guild". Now he is a merchant, not a peasant. Then his son graduated from the seminary and, becoming a priest, was transferred from the merchant to the ecclesiastical estate; the brother of this, as the son of a merchant, could get an officer’s rank from a military school and, after a career increase, he was enrolled in the nobility, and was excluded from the merchant's office, since at the same time it was impossible to consist in two classes that were different in rights.
How did the Cossacks deal with this estate question? Cossacks in free societies never had class divisions. They were equal among themselves, as the citizens of their Cossack land. Whatever position each of them occupied, it remained equal between equals. But the Russian government, wanting to break the Cossack people's monolith, based on their full equality, as well as in order to complete Russification and general imperial leveling, began to introduce class distinctions. Thus, the nobility was established under Catherine II, under "Alexander Cossacks", under Alexander I, and so on. If we consider the Cossacks as a class, then the only two-syllable positions in the world are: each Cossack, consisting in his Cossack class, at the same time as if he were a nobleman, spiritual, merchant, etc. The absurdity of such a situation was understood even in Soviet Russia and there, after the decrees destroying all class distinctions, after a series of years of revengeful persecution of the Cossacks, in the end, their existence was formally revived, but already as half-recruits, not as a class.
What answers can be found on the following questions:
1) Where and in what state was it so that the "estate", "kind of weapon" had its specific territory? But in the foreign atlases on the French, Italian, German maps of the XVII century, the words “Country of the Don Cossacks”, “Cossack Country”, and “Cossack Territory” are repeatedly found. Also in the Russian training atlases of Linberg, Ilyin and others, according to which we ourselves studied in schools, we find in the Don river basin the inscription “Don Cossacks”, in the Urals - “Ural Cossacks”, etc. And in the atlases of senior publications, on the site of the current Region of the Don Army, we read "Land of the Don Cossacks". So this territory was officially called from the time of Empress Catherine II to 1870. And in the era of Tsar Peter I on the map of 1696, the gene. J. Bruce wrote: "Yurts of the Don Cossacks", and even earlier in the Book of the Great Drawing from the times of Tsar Feodor Alekseevich in that place it is indicated "Ownership of the Don Cossacks". Is this a class? kind of "weapons"? "Community"? It would even be interesting to see a map of Russia with a designation by type of weapon or class. For example "Land of Kaluga nobles" or "Land of Penza burghers" ...
2. Where and when classes waged independent wars, marched land and sea? And how many battles recorded in the Cossack history even before Russia conquered them! And how many times their rowing flotillies have crushed the shores of the Crimea, Persia and powerful Turkey already at a time when there was no fleet in Moscow. Is it the "estate", "community", "ethnic group"?
3. What class has its civil and military history? But the Cossacks have it!
4. What class has its folk clothes, its own hairstyle, its own special songs and dances, its own special style of buildings - “kureny” and, if not its own language, then, in any case, special Cossack dialects, in which many words are found Turkic and highland.
5. When and where did the estates have their standing army, with all kinds of weapons?
6. When and where did the estate, the arms, the community, the ethnic group, etc., have their own territory, their own laws, parliaments (Circles and Rada), the autocephalous Church (before Peter the Great), conducted their policies?
But about the Cossacks, in a completely official edition of the Centenary of the Military Ministry, we read: "Until the last quarter of 17 in. Don Cossacks were completely independent of Moscow and pursued their policies regarding Moscow and other neighbors."
7. Finally, where, when and in what state was it so that the estate, kind of weapon, etc. themselves became the state?
But Don, Kuban, and others. The troops in 1918, as it was in the old days, revived their Cossack republics and their parliaments (Circles, Rada), their constitutions, coat of arms, flags and other attributes of state independence. Don also had his own state bank, which issued the “Don” banknotes, and the Don Senate.
Only the people, not the estate, could carry out all this.
From the Editor (Dear Edge): When people with a similar question are addressed to the Russian people, both to non-Cossacks, and to many Cossacks, the answers are very diverse: Cossacks are a class or kind weapons, or people, etc. Regiment. S.V. Boldyrev, in his Cossack Historical Calendar for 1956, posted an article on this topic, which is given below. Later it was reprinted in the 2-th volume of "Kaz. Dictionary-Directory".To this question, some will say: "The Cossacks are the people," others will answer in the spirit of Russian textbooks. stories after 1835, the "this class", the third - "the Cossacks are the best cavalry in the world," while regular cavalrymen will clarify that the Cossacks are "the fourth regiments of our divisions." Some believe that the Cossacks are a type of weapon, a military community, an ethnic group, etc., while the Yenisei governor Stepanov calls us a “guide” in his book “Description,” ed. 1835
In addition, these answers depend on the time and situation. For example, during the war, “the Cossacks are superheroes,” and the war ended - “the Cossacks are rude and uneducated people.” After the 1905 revolution, looking at anyone you ask: "The Cossacks are a stronghold of the throne and order," the monarchists will answer, the socialists will say: "They are Black Hundreds, royal guardsmen, gendarmes," etc. During the civil war, the Bolsheviks said: national power, "and now in emigration, if the Cossacks do not pursue their policies," "the Cossacks are Russian people," for some even "the best Russian people." When the Cossacks are engaged in their social and political work, they immediately fall into the "independent supporters". If at the same time they publish their newspapers and magazines, where they write about the old Cossack identity and independence of the past and the future, then these immediately fall into the "Cossacks". Such conclusions are due to the fact that all these people have never been interested in and do not want to be interested in genuine Cossack history.
Let us briefly review these provisions.
Suppose that the Cossacks are a kind of weapon, cavalry.
Many say: "In Russia, there were: infantry, cavalry, artillery ..., well, there were Cossacks." To this we can answer that the Cossacks, because, in addition to the horse regiments, there was their own Cossack infantry - the scouts, first from the Kuban and Zabaykaltsevs, and in the Great War of the 1914-18. and Dontsov. And besides this, Dontsov, Kubantsev, Tertsev, Orenburgtsev, Uraltsy and Zabaykaltsev had their own artillery. It already turns out - three kinds of weapons.
Whoever reads the Cossack story knows that in the old Cossacks had their own boat rowing flotilla. Even the chieftain Yermak in the Livonian war at Ivan the Terrible stood in "ship rati". In 1696, the Don flotilla at Azov gave Tsar Peter the first naval victory. Therefore, Admiral Kedrov, the naval writer Tereshchenko, and others recognized the Cossacks as the first Russian teachers in maritime affairs. It turns out that there are already four types of weapons, and whoever reads the story knows that during the capture of Kazan (1552) and near Azov in 1637, the Cossacks had subversive teams.
This is a distant past. But recall the civil war 1917-20's. "The Cossacks then had not only their own infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineering units, armored vehicles and trains, but also a small air flotilla. We ourselves read about the heroism of the Don pilots Bogatyryov, Baranov, Popov and others. In the newspapers of that time. When Ataman Krasnov The Don Flotilla was also formed, led by Admirals Gerasimov and Kononov. From the above, we see that the Cossacks cannot be referred to as weapons of any kind in the military sense, because this is about the whole army and navy. - People!
Were the Cossacks an estate?
Not to mention the Russians and Ukrainians, some Cossacks, for whom the conclusions of the textbooks of Ilovaisky, Platonov, and other Russian historians, who consider the Cossacks as a real estate, are quite authoritative, are of little interest. But we all know that the estates in Russia are regulated by patterns of Western Europe only by Peter I and Catherine II. Prior to this, in the Moscow kingdom, indeed, there was a division into different social strata, like boyars, nobles, townspeople, serfs, black-nosos, bonded, etc., but these are not estates in our understanding. But the Cossacks historically existed for several centuries and before the regulations of Peter I. What were they then considered?
We know that the Cossacks took part in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380), and Karamzin, the "father of Russian history," takes even earlier, saying: "The Cossacks, in any case, are more ancient than the Batu invasions" (1237). A Russian historian Tatischev reports that the Cossacks existed during the Khazar Empire. What class did they belong to then? What class belonged to the well-known stories of the Cossacks-chieftains Sarah Azman, Susar, Melih, Ermak, Semyon Dezhnev and others?
Generally, about the estates: can we count in several at once? Everyone knows that in every state-state its citizen can belong to only one estate. For example the Russian peasant belonged to the peasant class; but he got rich on the ground, abandoned his farm, bought a shop, got the rights to trade and the "guild". Now he is a merchant, not a peasant. Then his son graduated from the seminary and, becoming a priest, was transferred from the merchant to the ecclesiastical estate; the brother of this, as the son of a merchant, could get an officer’s rank from a military school and, after a career increase, he was enrolled in the nobility, and was excluded from the merchant's office, since at the same time it was impossible to consist in two classes that were different in rights.
How did the Cossacks deal with this estate question? Cossacks in free societies never had class divisions. They were equal among themselves, as the citizens of their Cossack land. Whatever position each of them occupied, it remained equal between equals. But the Russian government, wanting to break the Cossack people's monolith, based on their full equality, as well as in order to complete Russification and general imperial leveling, began to introduce class distinctions. Thus, the nobility was established under Catherine II, under "Alexander Cossacks", under Alexander I, and so on. If we consider the Cossacks as a class, then the only two-syllable positions in the world are: each Cossack, consisting in his Cossack class, at the same time as if he were a nobleman, spiritual, merchant, etc. The absurdity of such a situation was understood even in Soviet Russia and there, after the decrees destroying all class distinctions, after a series of years of revengeful persecution of the Cossacks, in the end, their existence was formally revived, but already as half-recruits, not as a class.
What answers can be found on the following questions:
1) Where and in what state was it so that the "estate", "kind of weapon" had its specific territory? But in the foreign atlases on the French, Italian, German maps of the XVII century, the words “Country of the Don Cossacks”, “Cossack Country”, and “Cossack Territory” are repeatedly found. Also in the Russian training atlases of Linberg, Ilyin and others, according to which we ourselves studied in schools, we find in the Don river basin the inscription “Don Cossacks”, in the Urals - “Ural Cossacks”, etc. And in the atlases of senior publications, on the site of the current Region of the Don Army, we read "Land of the Don Cossacks". So this territory was officially called from the time of Empress Catherine II to 1870. And in the era of Tsar Peter I on the map of 1696, the gene. J. Bruce wrote: "Yurts of the Don Cossacks", and even earlier in the Book of the Great Drawing from the times of Tsar Feodor Alekseevich in that place it is indicated "Ownership of the Don Cossacks". Is this a class? kind of "weapons"? "Community"? It would even be interesting to see a map of Russia with a designation by type of weapon or class. For example "Land of Kaluga nobles" or "Land of Penza burghers" ...
2. Where and when classes waged independent wars, marched land and sea? And how many battles recorded in the Cossack history even before Russia conquered them! And how many times their rowing flotillies have crushed the shores of the Crimea, Persia and powerful Turkey already at a time when there was no fleet in Moscow. Is it the "estate", "community", "ethnic group"?
3. What class has its civil and military history? But the Cossacks have it!
4. What class has its folk clothes, its own hairstyle, its own special songs and dances, its own special style of buildings - “kureny” and, if not its own language, then, in any case, special Cossack dialects, in which many words are found Turkic and highland.
5. When and where did the estates have their standing army, with all kinds of weapons?
6. When and where did the estate, the arms, the community, the ethnic group, etc., have their own territory, their own laws, parliaments (Circles and Rada), the autocephalous Church (before Peter the Great), conducted their policies?
But about the Cossacks, in a completely official edition of the Centenary of the Military Ministry, we read: "Until the last quarter of 17 in. Don Cossacks were completely independent of Moscow and pursued their policies regarding Moscow and other neighbors."
7. Finally, where, when and in what state was it so that the estate, kind of weapon, etc. themselves became the state?
But Don, Kuban, and others. The troops in 1918, as it was in the old days, revived their Cossack republics and their parliaments (Circles, Rada), their constitutions, coat of arms, flags and other attributes of state independence. Don also had his own state bank, which issued the “Don” banknotes, and the Don Senate.
Only the people, not the estate, could carry out all this.
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