If you believe the professional Ukrainians, of whom so many have proliferated in our land, then almost all the actions of the Russian state were directed exclusively to the detriment of the Ukrainians. Especially “svidomye” curses come up when it comes to Empress Catherine the Second. What did the great queen have done to these gentlemen? Maybe by adding the Black Sea region and the Crimea, stopping the devastating raids of the Tatars on the southern Russian cities? Or by the fact that it brought Poland away forever from among the great European powers, wresting Orthodox pans from the yoke of the Orthodox on the right bank of the Dnieper and in White Russia, and then completely abolished the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth? No, they hate her for dissolving Zaporizhska Sich in 1775. After all, according to natsvidomykh, Sich was almost the main center of Ukrainians of that time. For this her and destroyed the damned Muscovites. What can be answered?
Catherine II, Empress of Russia
First of all, the Zaporozhye army cannot be called Ukrainian, since its principle was based on the principle of cosmopolitanism and Cossacks were representatives of almost all the peoples of Eastern Europe, up to the baptized Tatars.
Secondly, it is worth remembering the attitude of the Cossacks to the peasants, who constituted the overwhelming majority of the population of Little Russia. Cossacks despised the peasants and were not averse to plunder them. The farmers of the Cossacks loved, to put it mildly, not much. Maybe a little more than the Tatars, but not by much. Therefore, to say that the Sich was perceived by the peasants as something absolutely positive, it is impossible.
By the way, shedding crocodile tears over the ruins of the Sich, the Ukrainians for some reason forget to tell about the fate of the Zaporozhians themselves, who even after the abolition of the Sich under the name of the Loyal Cossack Troops continued to serve the Russian throne, for which they were granted possession of the Kuban River valley. The Cossacks, who remained loyal to the Russian Empire, created the present Kuban Cossacks! And now, the descendants of the allegedly destroyed Zaporozhian cossacks continue in Kuban to prosper happily and heartily laugh at the descendants of swine-breeders in pseudo-clothes, creating various Cossack troops in Ukraine and declaring each other hetmans and Cossack generals. Well, like Pan Yushchenko, don't remember the night, suddenly after Maidan became a hetman.
KE Makovsky. Zaporizhia Cossack
To understand why Sich was eliminated, you need to remember that the lands of the Zaporozhian Forces, in essence, were the border between the Slavic lands and the Wild Field. And the Sich itself was a frontier fortification, which prevented the breakthrough of the Tatar hordes to the north. But after the conclusion of Kuchuk-Kaynardzhsky world 1774, with the Turks, the need for Cossack defense of the border from the Tatar raids fell away: after all, the Crimean Khan took Russian citizenship. Accordingly, the very meaning of the existence of the Zaporozhian army disappeared. Moreover, it became simply dangerous, since without a threat from the Tatars, the army quickly morally decomposed, losing any combat value. Cossack officers wove intrigue, plundered the money allocated by the government, and the poor at every opportunity banally robbed the neighborhood. Yes, and on the very Sich was restless. The constant embezzlement of money expelled from St. Petersburg for the maintenance of troops led to the uprisings of the Sich poor. Things reached the point that the ataman Kalnyshevsky, the atagonist, had to flee the Sich twice and suppress the uprising with the help of regular Russian troops. So the government was soon to take measures to either disarm the Cossacks and take up productive labor, or resettle them to a new frontier, where their combat experience would be in demand. Especially since the first alarm bell for the authorities sounded in 1773, when many Cossacks joined the Pugachev uprising. There is no doubt that if Emelyan Pugachev, as planned, broke into the Dnieper, then many of the Sich would join his adventure, especially from among the poor.
Vasily Perov "The Court of Pugachev"
5 June 1775, the commander of the Russian forces in No-vorossii, Lieutenant-General Peter Tekelli, approached the Sich, which was located on Chertomlyk Island. The sudden appearance of regular regiments literally stunned the Cossacks, and they offered no resistance. Having taken key points around the Sich and installing artillery, Tekelli demanded a Cossack sergeant, and when she arrived, the general read the empress's manifesto about the destruction of the Sich and the abolition of the Zaporozhye army. Tekelli did not force events, giving the Cossacks a week to think about. How the Cossacks themselves reacted to such a turn of events can be judged by the fact that the Cossack petty officer spent the entire time allotted for thought for a week together with officers Tekelli. Of course, not all the Cossacks were pleased. Fifty Cossacks received permission to sail for fishing on the Ingul River, and taking advantage of this, the dissenters, led by regimental foreman Lyakh, departed into the possession of the Turkish sultan. Thus arose the Transdanian Sich.
What was waiting for the Cossacks who accepted the government ultimatum? Do not rush to mourn their fate, nothing terrible has happened. Of course, it was not without repressions, however, it was extremely mild - a part of the foreman guilty of plundering the treasury was sent into exile, but the remaining leader was equated with the Russian nobility and endowed with land. Moreover, the plots were quite big ones: from one and a half thousand to thirteen thousand acres (tithe is approximately equal to modern hectares). Simple Cossacks were invited to join the pussy and hussar regiments. And already in 1783, the Most High Prince Potemkin issued a “proclamation” of the following content: “I declare, through these from those who are in the Azov province, the Slavic and Elizabeth provinces, who, in the former Zaporozhian army, served, to invite from them hunters to serve in the Cossack rank under my leadership. "
That is, just eight years after the liquidation of the Sich, the Zaporozhye Cossacks were revived by the efforts of the Russian government. In 1787, the government provided Zaporozhians with a place in the Vasilkovo gorge near the Bugsky estuary for the establishment of a military kosh. At this time, the Cossacks received the name of the Loyal Cossacks (Zaporizhia) Army, and a year later the Army was renamed the "Loyal Black Sea Cossacks Army". The active participation of the Black Sea Cossacks in the next Russian-Turkish war again returned to them the favor of the Russian government, because the role of the Cossacks in defeating the Ottoman armies was enormous. It was the Cossacks who captured the Khadzhibey fortress by night storming, in the place of which Odessa stands now. They promptly captured the island Berezan. Therefore, when the Black Sea people turned to Ekaterina with a request to provide them with the vast and uninhabited shores of the Kuban for settlement, the answer was not long in coming. 30 June 1 7 9 2 c. Catherine II signed a decree on the relocation of the Cossacks to the land near the Kuban and the chartered letter of eternal possession of them. In total, about 25 of thousands of people distributed to 40 smokers moved to Kuban, from which 38 received the old Zaporozhye names. And under Emperor Nicholas I, in 1828, they returned to their homeland and brought repentance to the Russian Tsar, the Cossacks of the Danubian Sich. These prodigal sons of the fatherland also settled in the Kuban.
The Black Sea (renamed Kuban in 1861) army faithfully served Russia, with glory participating in all the wars of our Motherland. AT "Stories General Potto’s Caucasian Wars (1911) describes the enormous role that the former Zaporozhian Cossacks, who had become Kubanians, played in the conquest of the Caucasus and in the wars with the Turks. Having settled in the Kuban, the Cossacks quickly adopted clothing and weapons from the mountaineers. Recall that in Kuban 1945 entered into Berlin. And today, the glorious sons of Kuban have contributed to the war against Chechen separatism. The speech of the Kubanians and still at its core is Malorossiysk.
In Ukraine, a peculiar “Zaporozhye myth” was formed, according to which, in 1775, the “Moskali” because of the eternal hatred of Ukrainians destroyed the last stronghold of Ukraine, Zaporizhzhya Sich. And on the revival of the Cossacks and its subsequent glorious history, the svidomies keep quiet because this completely destroys the myth of the destruction of the Zaporozhye army. And not a single textbook on the First Zaporizhia Empress Catherine the Great Regiment of the Kuban Cossack Army can be found in any modern history textbook, which for its valor was awarded almost all the highest differences of the empire. So, for the capture of Kars, the regiment was awarded the silver pipes of St. George, after the war 1877-1878. received St. George's standard, and for the conquest of the Western Caucasus on the head of the Cossacks were awarded special commemorative signs. Empress Catherine the Great until the very 1 9 1 7 of the year was considered the eternal chef in this heroic regiment.
So now believe the stories about mutual hatred of Zaporizhzhya Cossacks and the Russian Tsarina.