Having supported the Don Cossack Emelyan Pugachev, the Yaik Cossacks pronounced a death sentence on their freemen. There was no mercy from the Mother Empress: Yaik became the Urals, and the Yaik army became the Ural. Thus began a new page in the history of the Yaik Cossacks, no less remarkable than the first...
New army, new rules
On April 10, 1798, the highest decree followed, which ordered “to accurately count the Bashkirs, Cossacks and Kalmyks who can serve, counting from 25 to 50 years in years, and to divide them into cantons...” According to the decree, the Ural army was divided into two cantons. Canton commanders were endowed with full military and economic power, were obliged to monitor the correctness of service, sort out quarrels, and appoint marching chieftains. They made sure that the farms of the serving Cossacks did not fall into decay.
A new step in the management of the Ural Cossack army was the Regulations on the management of the Ural Cossack army adopted on December 26, 1803. Similar decrees were adopted in relation to other Cossack troops. According to the Regulations, all Cossack officers, who from now on were enlisted for service only by the highest decree, were equal in rank to officers of the regular troops. In addition, a new staff of the military office was introduced. Moreover, one member and secretary of the chancellery were subordinate to the military ataman, and the rest were subordinate to the Orenburg civil governor. The chieftain was now entitled to a salary of 600 rubles a year.
For the authorities, the benefit of preserving and strengthening the Cossack troops was obvious, which, on the one hand, were a powerful military force, and on the other hand, were quite cheap for the treasury, since they supported themselves.
Emperor Nicholas I continued the work begun by his father to unify the structure of the Cossack troops of Russia. The decree of October 2, 1827 declared the crown prince the august chieftain of all Cossack troops in the country, which finally eliminated even nominal Cossack autonomy (the election of chieftains was finally replaced by appointment). At the same time, the government is increasing the number of Cossack troops. As a result of this, in 1835 the total number of Orenburg and Ural Cossack troops was 72 thousand people.
On March 9, 1874, a new regulation on the Ural Cossack Army was approved at the highest level, which determined the number of troops at 9,500 combatant Cossacks, while the neighboring Orenburg army numbered 19,278 Cossacks and officers. The service personnel of the Cossack troops were divided into three categories: preparatory, combat and reserve. A Cossack had to report for active service with his combat horse, a full set of saddles, a set of summer, winter and ceremonial uniforms, a saber and a pike of the established standards. The total cost of the equipment was above 200 rubles.
Pugachev's uprising tightened the authorities' policy aimed at the final elimination of Cossack liberties. During XIX century, the autonomy of the Cossacks was finally eliminated, and the heir to the imperial throne became the ataman of all Cossack troops.
In police service
Since the beginning of the 19th century, the government has been actively recruiting Ural Cossacks for military and police service in various provinces of the empire. Since 1818, the Ural Cossacks maintained public order in Moscow for almost 50 years (until 1865). As I. Zheleznov wrote, “which Muscovites don’t know that at almost every step of the ancient capital, where there is a police post... you can meet a Cossack? However, a Cossack can be found everywhere, not only in Moscow, but also in its environs...” The Cossacks performed their police service conscientiously, honestly and skillfully.
The Ural Cossacks were sent to other provinces; they were also sent to Perm and Kazan to perform military and police service. More often than others, the Ural Cossacks guarded the Nizhny Novgorod Fair. According to the recollections of contemporaries, there were few police at the fair, “but at every intersection one could see a Ural Cossack with an animal-like, tanned Kalmyk face, with a rifle over his shoulders and a whip in his hand.”
Despite the fact that the “police” service was less dangerous and restless as on the Line, the Cossacks perceived it as a burden that separated them from home and farming. This irritated the Cossacks, who often behaved “freely” in this service. The historian of the Nizhny Novgorod fair P. Melnikov wrote: “In general, the Cossacks behaved at the fair as if they were in some conquered enemy city. Cossacks...often helped to rob themselves. Why did the robbers share with them, or did they jump up and beat off both the robbers and the robbed with whips, and then demanded a ransom from both of them?”.
The free-spirited Cossacks perceived the police service as an unnecessary burden, but for almost fifty years it was the Cossacks who were the main guardians of order and peace for the citizens of the ancient capital - Moscow and other cities of the Russian Empire.
At war
Disgrace under Catherine II was replaced by the loyal attitude of Paul I, who not only consigned to oblivion the participation of the Ural Cossacks in the Pugachev rebellion, granted five imperial banners to the army, and also ordered the formation of the Ural Hundred as part of his Life Guards convoy.
Developed at the end of the 18th century. The storm in Europe (the French Revolution) also captured Russia, which in 1797 joined the anti-French coalition. Thus began a long series of European campaigns. In addition, Russia constantly had to fight smaller, but no less important wars with the Ottoman Empire, Iran, and Sweden.
In 1798, two regiments of Ural Cossacks (800 people) were sent to participate in the Italian Campaign, and the team of the Life Guards of the Ural Hundred proved itself in battles in Hanover. During the Russian-Swedish War of 1808-1809, the Urals took part in the capture of the Åland Islands, showing extraordinary courage: in 8 hours, the Ural Cossacks, as part of the detachment of Major General Ya.P. Kulneva crossed the ice of the Gulf of Bothnia and took a bridgehead on the Swedish coast, finding themselves in close proximity to the capital of Sweden.
Four regiments of Ural Cossacks took an active part in the Russian-Turkish War of 1806-1812, in the battles at the fortresses of Iskach, Brailov, Yantra, etc.
Participation in the Patriotic War of 1812 and in the foreign campaigns of the Russian army stands out among the heroic pages of the Russian Cossacks. During the era of Napoleon, a revolution took place in military affairs, when European armies abandoned fighting in close formations and switched to operating in separate columns. Under these conditions, wide opportunities opened up for the use of light Cossack cavalry, which could quickly attack the enemy’s flanks and rear, keeping him in constant tension. In the Patriotic War of 1812, all Cossack formations were led by the Don Cossack M.I. Platov. In the campaign of 1813-1814, 6 Ural regiments were mobilized, distinguished themselves near Dresden, Leipzig and during the capture of Paris. Moreover, the Ural Cossacks were among the first to enter Paris: “Cossacks, brothers, all of the Ural/As they entered Paris, into the French city,/They dismissed the royal banners.” Left on cordon duty along the Neman and Vistula rivers, the Ural Cossacks carried it out continuously for almost eight and a half years.
The Ural Cossacks were not spared the Russian-Turkish wars that happened so often in the 19th century. The Ural Cossack regiments of B. Khoroshkhin and his son P. Khoroshkhin, who participated in the war of 1828-1829 and in the Crimean War (1853-1856), covered themselves with heroic glory. In the Crimean War, the Urals fought near Sevastopol, where they overthrew the Cardigan brigade, Balaklava and at the Chernaya Rechka. In that war, the Ural Cossacks took part in 15 battles, and P. Khoroshkhin was awarded three orders and a golden saber with the inscription “For bravery.”
In the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, only a separate Ural Cossack hundred took part, which was partly due to the massive reluctance of the Ural Cossacks to accept the “new regulation” on the army (1874), but the main factor was that the war in the Balkans coincided with the end annexation of Central Asia, in which the Ural Army took a particularly active part.
For the services of the Ural Army to the Russian state, in May 1884 he was awarded the St. George Banner, the inscriptions on which read: “To the Valiant Ural Army for excellent, diligent service marked by military exploits” and “1591-1884.”
On the southern borders of the empire
The failures of the first campaigns of the Ural Cossacks in the Central Asian steppes temporarily stopped the activity of the Russian Empire in the southern direction. Here the main task of the Cossacks was to perform border service and build defensive lines. The Kazakhs, who until 1925 were officially called “Kirghiz”, were of particular concern.
On Yaik, the Nizhne-Yaitskaya line was built, consisting of fortresses and outposts where Cossacks and their families lived. In addition, the Ural Cossacks had to serve on the Orenburg and Siberian fortified lines. During the second half of the 18th century, the state gradually accumulated a population on the border lines, which was replenished by fugitive and sent peasants, by exiled Don and other Cossacks. Thus, in 1795, 141 families of Don Cossacks were exiled to the Orenburg Line for participating in the uprising. In July 1801, 175 male souls from the Tatars were enrolled in the Orenburg Cossacks. The Ural Cossacks guarded the border in small numbers, flatly refusing the help of “outsiders.”
Having accumulated significant strength and experience, from the beginning of the 19th century, the Cossacks, by order of the Highest and under the leadership of officers of the General Staff, began to organize reconnaissance expeditions to the “Wild Steppe”, and also guard convoys of merchant caravans heading to Bukhara and embassy missions. The Urals, along with the Orenburg Cossacks, formed the first garrisons of Russian fortresses in the Trans-Caspian region.
The first attempt at military penetration into Central Asia was the 1839 expedition in the direction of the Aral Sea, in which two Ural Cossack regiments took part. However, the campaign was unsuccessful: due to illness and cold, more than half of the detachment and almost the entire convoy were lost.
The next campaign, which was also led by Orenburg Governor-General V.A. Perovsky, took place in 1853 and was more successful. The Cossacks managed to take two Kokand border fortresses - Dzhulek and Ak-Mosque.
A short break in the advance into Asia, caused by the Crimean War and the change of emperor, ended in 1864 with a new military campaign against the Khanate of Kokand. Despite the capture of the Turkestan fortress, the most notable for the Ural Cossacks was the “Ikan feat”: during reconnaissance near the village of Ikan, 108 Cossacks were ambushed and surrounded by a 12,000-strong Kokand army; During the three-day battle, 57 Cossacks were killed, 12 more died from wounds, the rest managed to break through the enemy troops with sabers and pikes and return. The Kokand people lost about two thousand soldiers in that battle.
With the capture of Kokand (1865), Bukhara (1868) and Khiva (1873), the Russian Empire actually completed the annexation of Central Asia, in which the Ural Cossacks took the most active part. With the formation of the Turkestan Governor-General, the Ural Cossacks finally lost their border significance. However, the long period of relationships with nomadic neighbors was not in vain: nomads familiar with the Urals were more easily integrated into the Russian Empire.
On the fronts of the First World War
In 1894, by the beginning of the reign of Nicholas II, the number of the Ural Cossack army reached 145 thousand people. The Ural Cossacks, ready for military feats, showed themselves during the First World War. In total, almost 13.5 thousand Cossacks and officers took part in the war, more than 5 thousand of them were awarded St. George's crosses and St. George's medals.
The Ural Cossacks proved themselves in the Galician operation (August-September 1914), during which Russian troops entered Galicia and took part in the siege of the Przemysl fortress (1915). Cossack regiments often conducted rearguard battles, reconnaissance, and guarding headquarters and communications.
The speed and maneuverability of the Cossack cavalry were often used by the command: in May 1916, the Ural Cossacks on horseback took two guns and 483 Austrian prisoners from a raid; On June 2, the Ural regiment captured 24 Austrian officers, 1,200 soldiers, 400 lower ranks of the German reserve battalion, took three guns and two machine guns.
The speed and maneuverability of the Cossack troops made it possible to carry out diverse military tasks - from reconnaissance and rearguard battles to raids. However, the prolongation of the war had a painful effect on Cossack farms, and internal service was already causing dull murmurs from the Cossacks rushing to the front.
Power is changing...
The Cossacks greeted the February Revolution and the abdication of the emperor with rather restraint. The famous order No. 1 of the Petrograd Soviet, aimed at democratizing the army system, did not cause much excitement. The relationship between the Cossacks and their officers was already much closer than in the army environment. There was practically no desertion in the Cossack units. The Cossacks did not succumb to any political agitation at all.
However, the Ural Cossacks used new freedoms to restore previous liberties: portraits of members of the royal family were removed from the barracks, the army was renamed Yaitsky, in which they again began to speak with praise of Pugachev. On April 22, 1917, a new banner was approved: a red banner with two separate blue ribbons; on one side of the cloth was depicted St. George the Victorious and the inscription “Free Cossacks”, and on the other - “Long live free Russia”.
The ideas of the Ural Cossacks were very different from the freedom that the Bolsheviks brought. Having calmly accepted the October revolution (due to the Bolshevik peace decree) and the establishment of Soviet power, the Ural Cossacks accepted neither Lenin’s land policy nor the policy of “decossackization.” Facing the threat of physical destruction, the Ural Cossacks (like other Cossack units) were ready to fight to the last “For Faith, Motherland, Yaik and Freedom.” But the new government turned out to be stronger, destroying most of the male population in the Cossack settlements of the Urals and abolishing the Ural Cossack army in 1920.
***
Over the long history of the Yaitsk (Ural) Cossacks, they have repeatedly demonstrated examples of courage, love of freedom and willingness to selflessly serve the Russian state. Disgrace, oblivion, military failures did not break the fighting spirit of the Ural Cossacks, who with their military deeds proved their devotion to Imperial Russia... with which they disappeared into oblivion.
Even many years after Pugachev’s uprising, the Ural Cossacks believed that Pugachev was Emperor Peter III, and therefore they trusted his son Paul I.
URAL COSSACKSOn the edge of vast Rus',
Along the banks of the Urals,
Lives quietly and peacefully
An army of blood Cossacks.
Everyone knows the caviar of the Urals
And Ural sturgeons,
They just know very little
About the Ural Cossacks.
Ural Cossack song.
That's how it really was. The purpose of my essay is to tell the reader who the Ural Cossacks were, where they lived, what they lived with and how they lived.
N. S. Samokish. Ural Cossacks.
The land of the Ural Cossack army was located on the right bank of the Ural River, it began from the borders of the Orenburg Cossack army and stretched to the shores of the Caspian Sea. From the west, the Urals had the Samara province and the Bukey Kirghiz as neighbors; on the left bank of the Ural River, the Cossacks owned a narrow strip of meadows. There was a country of Trans-Ural Kyrgyz.
A. O. Orlovsky. The battle of the Cossacks with the Kirghiz. 1826.
The Ural Cossacks lived in a dead end among their vast steppes, surrounded two-thirds by Kyrgyz tribes. Thanks to such isolation, the Urals, more than other Cossack troops, preserved the life and customs of the ancient Cossacks. From its very inception, the Ural army showed itself as a rebellious army. It always had great friction with the central Russian government, which throughout history tried to completely subordinate it to its will.
The banner that the Yaik Cossacks had near Azov in 1696/97
Carrying out the orders of the Russian state in its own manner, the army took part in literally all foreign wars and enjoyed great well-deserved military glory. But as soon as the State began to introduce any changes in the life of the Cossacks, the Cossacks saw this as an encroachment on freedom, rebelled, and their “not wanting” brought a lot of trouble, and was always very costly for the Cossacks themselves.
In one of the next uprisings, Peter the Great only miraculously did not destroy the army of Yaitsk at that time. He was saved from death by the reformer of the southeastern region Neplyuev, an associate of Peter.
He proved that such an energetic, united people, useful for the state, cannot be destroyed. Subsequently, there were great unrest because of the elected chieftains and because of religion.
In the Yaitsk army there were a lot of Old Believers who fled from persecution from Russia, and so they wanted to forcibly convert them to the Nikon faith at all costs.
Government troops from Orenburg were almost continuously introduced into the Army.
And in 1772, when General Traubenberg came to Yaik, with artillery and infantry, the Cossacks attacked him, killed the artillerymen, tore apart Traubenberg himself and the military ataman Tambovtsev, who was on the side of the government. This event was followed by the fact that, by order of Catherine, a detachment of 3,000 people came, under the command of General Freiman, and brutally punished the Cossacks, executed many, flogged and imprisoned many, and sent many to Siberia to settle.
It was at such an alarming time that the Cossack Emelyan Pugachev came to Yaik-Don. The Yaik Cossacks, doubting that he was really an emperor, nevertheless found that the moment was right and decided to shake Moscow.
It is not my plan to describe this rebellion; we can say that the Army, after the suppression of this rebellion, suffered greatly and was completely depopulated.
And the Yaitsky Army, by order of Catherine II, began to be called the Ural Army, the Yaik River the Ural River, and the Yaitsky town - the city of the Ural. Catherine the Great was greatly disliked by the Cossacks and, on the contrary, Paul I enjoyed great sympathy, probably because he consigned the Pugachev rebellion to oblivion and expressed a desire to have with him a guard hundred of the Urals.
The Hundred was formed under the command of Sevryugin and was in great favor with the emperor.
When it was decided to strangle Pavel in the palace, Count Panin prudently sent the Ural hundred to Tsarskoye Selo, fearing that the Ural people would stand up for him. And until recently, many treasured Paul’s irreplaceable silver ruble with the saying “Not to us, not to us, but to Your name.”
Subsequently, the Cossacks had a persistent opinion that all insults and injustices came from the Emperor’s proteges and that the Emperor knew nothing about this, so they often sent delegates to the Emperor, but they were always intercepted and punished.
In 1803, a new position and form were introduced. An uprising occurred, and when Prince Volkonsky, sent to pacify, began to interrogate the instigator Efim Pavlov, a Cossack, the latter, as the song says, gave the following answer:
In 1837, the heir to the throne Alexander visited Uralsk.
During this period, the people of the Urals were very dissatisfied with the appointed ataman. In a square crowded with people, a group of old Cossacks, at a signal, grab the wheels of the royal carriage and stop it. They fall to their knees and submit a petition to the frightened heir who looks out. The result was disastrous. All these old men were ordered to be flogged and sent to Siberia. The hundred that escorted the Heir was disbanded.
The last turmoil occurred with the introduction of universal conscription in 1874. This year, various reforms were introduced into the lives of the Urals residents regarding their military service and self-government. By the way, military service was introduced for every Cossack, which radically changed the previous procedure for serving military service. The Ural Cossacks grew up with distrust of the central government and, like fire, were afraid of its interference in their internal affairs. When the authorities learned that there was discontent among the Cossacks, mainly among the elderly, who always played a large role among the Old Believer patriarchal population, they ordered that the “subscription” to accept the new position be taken from everyone, and they were asked to sign on blank sheets of paper.
This is where the mess started, which the authorities had to sort out for ten years and as a result of which there was a massive administrative exile of Cossacks with their families to the deserted parts of the Syrdarya and Amudarya regions of the Turkestan region.
The Ural residents resolutely refused to give signatures, citing two reasons for their refusal: firstly, they do not know what they are signing on the white sheets, and secondly, due to their religious beliefs, which prohibit them from making oath promises, etc. This second reason, based on religious superstition has become widespread. The threats and violent measures of the authorities only strengthened the passive resistance, which took on the character of martyrdom for the faith! Women forbade their sons and husbands to submit to the new position and sign a subscription, considering this a great sin. The fathers threatened their sons with curses and were the first to go under arrest; the processions of arrested, venerable bearded old men, escorted by military guards, only added fuel to the fire, and almost everyone had to be arrested.
To intimidate, they decided to exile the first parties. This was in 1875. The arrested resisted, they had to be dragged by force, which, with hundreds of arrestees, was not an easy task for the convoy. The old people were tortured and then forcefully dragged onto carts and taken away. In general, the picture of all this violence was wild and outrageous.
These Ural Cossacks who went into exile were called “departures.” The link was permanent. About three thousand Cossacks were deported, and in 1875 their families were sent to them, about 7 and a half thousand in total. There was no railway then, so this unprecedented horde marched in marching order; of course, quite a few old people and children died on the road. The Cossacks endured a lot of grief and need in a foreign land. The governor of the region has repeatedly appealed to the government to improve their situation, but to no avail. In 1891, on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Ural Cossack army, the appointed ataman, General Shipov, who had great sympathy for the Urals, petitioned the government for the return of the Cossacks who had left to the Urals. The government agreed on the condition that the Cossacks submit a statement of complete repentance for their actions. The departed people neglected this royal favor. Only when the revolution happened in 1917 did the Urals send an invitation to the refugees and many returned to the Urals. Of course, of those who were expelled in 1875, almost no one remained alive, but their children and grandchildren returned and immediately had to take part in the civil war.
In 1914, when the German War began, 6 more preferential regiments were mobilized in addition to the three active service regiments.
When the preferential division was announced that the division would be commanded by the general. Kaufman-Turkestansky, - the Cossacks said that they did not want to have a German commander. The ordered ataman was forced to ask the government, from where came an explanation of who Kaufman-Turkestansky was, and only then did the Cossacks calm down.
Cossacks of the Ural Hundred of the Consolidated Life Guards Cossack Regiment
As I already said, the Urals. despite all the troubles, they were faithful servants of the Emperor and on their steppe scales they were on all the battlefields of the Russian state and the glory of the soldiers was magnificent.
The Emperor magnificently rewarded the hundred and a monument was erected to those who died at the site of the battle.
Monument erected on a mass grave on the battlefield of Ikan
In the wide steppe near Ikan
We were surrounded by an evil Kokand
And three days with the infidel
A bloody battle was raging...
As already said, among the Urals there were many Old Believers of various persuasions, and they were mainly zealots of antiquity and were always against any innovations. Religious issues were of great importance among them.
Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
In the sixties of the last century, after one of the religious oppressions by the government, the Cossacks decide to go to another land where there is real Orthodoxy. To find this holy country, called the “Belovodsk Kingdom,” they send the Cossack Baryshnikov. The Cossack traveled all over the world, but did not find such a country. The Old Believers made a second attempt in 1898. They sent three Cossacks, led by Khokhlov, to finally find this land. They visited many countries, but again found nothing. This event is described with great sympathy by the writer Korolenko. Until very recently, missionaries from the Holy Synod came to Uralsk every year during Lent and held debates in one of the churches with the goal of converting the Old Believers to the Nikonian faith. The Old Believers were represented annually by the old man Miroshkhin, a blind man, who responded to his speeches with theses from the Holy Scriptures, and this happened in this way; with him was a young man, to whom Miroshkhin ordered: “Open such and such a stranger and read from such and such a line.” His memory was phenomenal and he always had great success with the Old Believers.
Despite. that in all clashes with the government, the government was the winner, yet the Urals managed to preserve some Cossack customs.
The Ural Army is the only army of the Russian Empire that until the last day retained its communal structure and had common land, the reserved Ural River, which within the Army belonged exclusively to the Urals and fishing on it was carried out exclusively by the Urals. And the Urals themselves used it only during certain periods of the year. In winter there is purple fishing, in spring and autumn there is flooding and some other fisheries. Since the Urals have been fishermen since ancient times, they have developed the strictest rules and techniques for these fisheries.
When the German scientist Pallas visited the Yaik army in 1769, during the reign of Catherine II, he described in detail some of the Cossack fisheries; they have remained unchanged since then. The rest of the time the Urals were heavily guarded, preventing poachers from entering. This was caused by necessity, since the lower line of the earth had, one might say, a desert, a former seabed, where nothing grew; Fishing among the lower Cossacks was almost the only means of subsistence.
The Cossacks carried out the equalization of the benefits of their land. Since the villages located above Uralsk had good land and, engaged in arable farming, could do without fishing, the Cossacks decided not to allow red fish above Uralsk. For this purpose, they quite often lowered iron rods from a narrow wooden bridge across the Urals to the bottom. The fish, going upstream, reaches this obstacle, stops and returns back, looking for other places. This structure is called “uchug”.
New iron iron
Above that, Ural fishing is free and whatever you like.
Each village used the land as it wanted, in its own way, even the congress of elected representatives of the village societies, the so-called Military Congress, or otherwise the Military Circle, did not interfere with the resolutions of the village gatherings, it approved them without hindrance. By the way, this Military Congress existed among the Urals until the very end, but its functions were exclusively of an economic nature and even the appointed ataman had no right to interfere in its affairs.
The only property the Ural residents could have was an orchard. The Cossack submitted a request to the village meeting to allocate space for his garden. Usually there were no obstacles, the assembly decided, the Military Congress approved, a land surveyor came from Uralsk, measured out the five dessiatines, and this was the property of the Cossack forever and even his descendants. But it is surprising that very few started these gardens.
The Cossacks were so jealous of the fact that the land was common that they did not want to sell it to anyone or even rent it out.
During the period when General N. Shipov was the appointed ataman, who, by the way, was an exceptional ataman, nothing like the others who were before and after him. Having received his appointment to this post, he began with zeal to improve the lives of the Cossacks and, among other things, planned to organize a model farm and an agricultural school with it. From this farm, each Cossack, if desired, could take improved breeders for livestock. It took General Shipov great difficulty to obtain permission from the Congress to alienate the land for this farm.
As the reader can see from my historical note, there was always a large loss of people among the Urals, but no new ones were accepted, the population was dense only in the upper villages, where there were good lands. Below Uralsk, even by 1914, the population was sparse - this probably also influenced the fact that the question of dividing up the land was never raised. There was a lot of land, and everyone plowed wherever he pleased, and everyone grazed their schools of horses, herds of cattle and chickens of rams, where the village gathering allocated a place for them.
Ural Cossack woman from a wealthy family
The Urals lived richly, and some Cossacks had a very large number of horses, cattle and sheep.
The training of horses among horse breeders was special. In the summer, the horses were always in the steppe, where they grazed and spent the night. In winter, there were rooms for them, but they were fed with hay, which was scattered on clean snow and they were not given water: along with the hay, they took the snow; and at the very beginning of winter, when the snow was not deep, they had not yet been given any hay; they, as they say, “fell”, that is, tearing apart the snow with their hoofs, they found food for themselves. And the horses were like wild ones; They only began to learn when they were four years old. When the repair commission for the army arrived, it was a spectacle when they caught these horses with a lasso and forcibly brought them to the veterinarian and, after acceptance, applied a brand. And such and such horses were distributed to Cossack recruits, and how much knowledge, patience, dexterity and courage was needed to accustom such a horse to the formation. The result of this upbringing was hardy horses that were not afraid of snowstorms or rain.
For the sheep there were reed fences without a roof, only for winter. The chicken of rams numbered 500, and the rams were driven into a fence or yard in such a way that when they lay down, they lay so close to each other that it was impossible to step between them. And in this form, no frost or rain affected them; it was very warm there. They, like horses, were fed in the snow in winter and not given water.
The Urals never served on mares.
Despite the fact that the Urals were very conservative and shunned innovations, the scythe was already being replaced by a mower; Wheat threshing was no longer carried out by horses, but by steam threshing machines; the plow was long ago replaced by a plow.
And even by the war of 1914, cars were already visible. But the patriarchal way of life was firmly established among the Cossacks.
I’ll take my village Chizhinskaya as an example. In my village, for example, for the holidays of Christmas and Easter, my father and uncle always sent half a lamb carcass, tea and sugar to many poor Cossacks to break their fast, and to some, cloth for new clothes. Also, as a custom, on the day of some kind of wake, a sweet cake with a candle and money was sent - but this was done secretly. To do this, my mother sent me when it was already completely dark, and I had to put it on the window and quickly run away.
In the spring, some Cossacks came to take bulls for all the summer work and returned them only in late autumn. I don’t know how other rich Cossacks helped because all these good deeds were done without publicity. There were many oddities among the Old Believers; someone like that would come to his father on business. You go up to him to say hello, but he doesn’t extend his hand, because I’m not of his faith. Among the Cossacks of the Old Believers there were those who, having gone somewhere far away, along the way asked someone to spend the night and this was done in this way: they would knock on the window and read the prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ. Son of God, have mercy on us!” From home they answer: “Amen!” - “Let me spend the night for Christ’s sake.”
They are allowed to spend the night, but they will not accept tea from your samovar, because we are not of their faith. They light a fire in the yard and boil water there in the kettles they brought with them. Some do not recognize the samovar at all, believing that there is something of the devil in it. The Old Believers did not allow smoking in their houses, and if, out of ignorance, you decided to smoke, the Cossack would unceremoniously knock the cigarette out of your mouth.
My family was also Old Believers, and my parents told me how in late autumn they took me on horseback in a sleigh to be baptized 400 miles to the Volga, where our priest was hiding at that time.
As a curiosity, I can point out to the reader that the Urals all wore beards. It was worn not only by Old Believers, who considered it a great sin to shave it, but also by Nikonians. Some officers left mustaches, shaved their beards, and there is a humorous poem by our poet officer A.B. Karpov.
Morning, the sun is shining,
A hundred appear in the field,
At least beat the whole hundred,
There are bearded men everywhere.
Only I disgraced them -
He shaved his beard.
During the war of 14 there were big troubles with these beards, when they had to put on a gas mask.
All the surnames of the Urals ended with the letters -ov, -ev and -in, there were no -ich, -sky, etc. Therefore, when they accepted someone into the Cossacks for military distinction or for services to the Army, they changed their surnames in their own way.
And one more curiosity. Some historians, and even Pushkin, in his “History of the Pugachev Rebellion,” believe that the Yaik Cossacks descended from the Don Cossacks. The people of the Urals categorically disagree with this. The Urals believe that such ancient free troops - Don, Tersk, Volzhskoe and Yaitsk were formed independently, but that over the course of history some Cossacks moved from army to army.
That the Don Army was the oldest and largest, and the Yaik Cossacks were in close connection with it, the Urals admit, but for what reason the Don people were drawn to go over to the Yaik Cossacks, this is unknown to them. You have to think that they left because they didn’t like something. As an example, we can point to Ataman Gugnya - he was an ushkuinik and fled from Novgorod at the time when Ivan the Terrible destroyed the Novgorod veche. He fled to the Don, but he didn’t like something about the Don, and he moved to Yaik.
By the way, he did not particularly show himself in any way on Yaik; he is known only for the fact that he violated the previous custom of the Yaik Cossacks, who, when going on a campaign, abandoned their wives, and brought new ones from the campaign. He saved his wife, but did not bring a new one, and from this very Gugnikha permanent wives appeared. The Cossacks call her great-grandmother Gugnikha and, on all convenient and inconvenient occasions, raise a glass to her.
__________
In Uralsk, equality was complete and no merit to the Army gave the right to have more.
There were no privileged classes, as there were in the Don Army, when the sovereigns gave titles to the Don people with the grant of lands and peasants, in the Ural Army.
__________
The Urals were Great Russians, there was no Ukrainian blood. The Tatars and Kalmyks were also full-fledged Cossacks, and they were magnificent Cossacks. Even the officers were from Tatars.
NEW POPULATION
By the war of 1914, the city of Uralsk had a population of 50 thousand; half of them were from other cities.
All commercial enterprises and all trade were in the hands of nonresidents. The Cossacks did not like to engage in trade. All these commercial enterprises grew rich at the expense of the Cossacks. All the artisans, all the employees of post offices, banks, etc. were from out of town.
In Uralsk there were a Cossack real school and a women's gymnasium, as well as government men's and women's gymnasiums. All the staff were from out of town. All watchmakers and pharmacists were Jews. There were up to 40 families of Jews and they lived richly.
There were few newcomers in the villages. These were mainly artisans and traders.
Russian-Kyrgyz school of craft students
Throughout the territory of the Army there were many Kirghiz of the Bukeev Horde. They had no rights, served as shepherds for the Cossacks and worked in field work, and, we must admit, the Cossacks greatly exploited them. Some lent them tea, sugar, flour and money at high interest rates during the winter; they had to work in the summer.
Among them there were many horse thieves, one of them gained great fame and was elusive, since he was being sheltered by the Kirghiz. His name was Aidan-Galiy. He managed to choose the best horses from the school, of course, his relatives helped him, and drove them beyond the Urals or to the Samara province. Once he even stole a whole school of horses, 300 head strong, but it was not possible to transport them secretly across the Urals, and the one caught was forced to abandon the school and hide. It was not possible to catch him; according to rumors, he fled to Turkey.
The Cossacks unceremoniously evicted the Kyrgyz who were found to have committed unseemly acts into the Bukeevskaya horde. All this newcomer population did not like the Cossacks and the Cossacks did not interfere with them. Cossacks married only Cossack women, with the exception of very rare cases. They never married Kyrgyz women.
Now, with the permission of the reader, I will offer a description of the purple coloration among the Ural Cossacks by B. Kirov.
BAGRENIE
It seems to me that anyone who has never been to the Urals or has not met the Ural Cossacks has not even heard such a word, and, meanwhile, crimson is a whole event in the life of the Uralians.
Bagrenye is a special type of winter fishing. I think I will not be mistaken if I say that it existed only in the Urals.
Bagrenye is a celebration, a Cossack holiday.
In the fall, with the onset of the first cold weather, red fish - sturgeon, stellate sturgeon - go to winter. She gathers in pens (herds) and, having chosen a place for herself, sinks to the bottom, where she spends time until warm days. The Cossacks are watching the Urals and notice these places.
Usually, around the Christmas holidays, a special commission of old people observing the Urals determined that the ice was strong enough to withstand the entire Army. The day was set. Hooks, cradles, and picks were prepared in advance, harnesses were cleaned, sleighs were renewed, crimson rounds were baked, and the night before, the Cossacks on their best horses rode out for crimson. Wives and children also went there.
Cossacks and Cossacks are dressed in a special crimson costume: a hat with a crimson top, a black cloth jacket tucked into white canvas trousers. The Cossack women are dressed in a festive way - in velvet fur coats lined with fox fur and expensive shawls.
They rode out in entire villages, and they also rode alone, but they all merged into one stream of sleighs and moved without disturbing the order where the lead one led. There the horses were placed in strict, regular rows. The Cossacks lined up on both banks of the Urals in a long front and waited. Cossack women crowded behind in cheerful groups.
There was a Kyrgyz tent on the shore, and the senior ranks of the Army and their families gathered around it.
At about nine o'clock, in the distance, against the backdrop of the snowy steppe, a troika appeared, escorted by mounted Cossacks. The ataman was riding.
The troika rolled up to the wagon, and the ataman, getting out of the sleigh, loudly greeted the village residents. A friendly loud response from the Troops rushed through the frosty air.
Then there was a solemn silence. A crimson ataman came out onto the ice, in the middle of the Urals, and gave a sign for the beginning of the crimson ataman.
The ranks of the Cossacks swayed and ran towards the Urals. With long hooks in their hands, the Cossacks jumped from the ravine into the deep snow, rolled down it and ran across the ice to the stirrup of the Urals. They stopped and started making small holes in the ice with their picks. Several seconds passed. Thick ice has been cut through. Almost simultaneously, the shafts of the hooks rose, forming an entire forest, and immediately plunged into the ice hole. It started to turn purple.
The fish, frightened by the noise, rose and walked under the ice, but encountered hooks on its way and, hooked, was pulled towards the ice. Now a large hole was breaking through, and a moment later the fish, caught by several more fishtails, was struggling on the ice and freezing. A sleigh with a flag arrived, the Cossacks, often with difficulty, put huge fish on them and took them to a barracks on the shore, where the entire catch was stored.
The crowd on the shore watched with great attention and interest what was happening on the ice, and the appearance of each new fish was greeted with an enthusiastic roar.
The first day, according to custom, they smelted the best yatovo near Uralsk; the purple was special. Royal purple. According to tradition, the Army sent all this catch as a gift to the Tsar. Large convoys, and recently several wagons loaded with fish, went annually to St. Petersburg as a “present”.
By noon they began to leave.
The horses, stagnant in the cold, rushed forward, and the Cossacks, satisfied with the good catch, gave them complete freedom. The race began. Along a flat wide road, overtaking each other, Cossacks rushed in sleighs. Well-fed horses walked at a fast trot, throwing snow dust at their riders.
A couple in a small sled flies past you like a whirlwind. A Cossack sits bending slightly towards the front and sticking one leg out of the sleigh. His hat, eyebrows, mustache and beard are white with frost, and he, little by little lowering the reins, gives the horses more and more speed. And next to him, leaning back, turning his head from the wind and the snow flying from under his hooves, sits a young Cossack woman, squealing slightly bumpy, and her black eyes laugh from under sable eyebrows and white teeth sparkle in the sun. And behind them, catching up or already overtaking, another couple is rushing, there is a third, a fourth... and, looking at them, you feel that today is a holiday, a special, Ural holiday.
Cheerful and cheerful, the Cossacks return home. Pies, flatbreads and a cheerfully boiling samovar await them. After the frost, it’s nice to indulge in some tea and, in the warm comfort, remember and tell about what happened in the morning.
And in the evening the preparations began again, and early in the morning, often at night, the Cossacks left again to hunt, this time for themselves, to other frontiers. And this went on for several days.
The courtyards of fish merchants were filled with fish and work was in full swing there. Huge fish were ripped open and bags of caviar tumbled into the sieves. They immediately cut it up, salted it and filled large and small jars with it. They immediately fished the fish into balyks and aunts.
Every fishmonger has guests, and he proudly leads them around the yard. And there was something to boast about. There were belugas weighing 60 pounds. If you sit astride it, you won’t be able to touch the ground with your feet. After walking around the yard and examining the fish, everyone went into the rooms to try new caviar and drink tea. Caviar was served in large bowls, one bowl followed another, and the hospitable owner persuaded him to try from each:
- This one may be better, the salting is different.
When the guests left, a jar of caviar was placed in each sleigh, and no one dared refuse it.
Merchants sent Ural caviar and Ural sturgeon all over the world, and the whole world feasted on them.
But how many knew how the Cossacks got these treasures from “Yaik, the Golden Bottom”?
B. Kirov
Newspaper "Renaissance", Paris
ROYAL BURNING
The first day of purple was reserved for the king. All fish caught that day were taken to the royal table. This custom has existed since the time of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, the first of the Romanov dynasty, when the Yaik Cossacks came to the tsar with a fish gift and a bow with a request to “accept” them under his high hand. And then it happened that every year the Cossacks took this gift to the royal table. This was not difficult in the old days, when Yaik was very rich in fish and was not otherwise called in songs as the “golden bottom”, and he fed the entire Army. But when Yaik gradually began to become scarce, it became more difficult for the Cossacks to do this, and, by the way, this custom turned into an obligation and existed until the 1917 revolution. It happened like this: the military treasury released a sum of money to buy red fish from the Cossacks right on the ice, during the crimson season. But the rates were as follows: 3 rubles for barn sturgeon and 15 rubles for caviar sturgeon. The real price of caviar sturgeon was 120-150-200 or more rubles, depending on the size. Now imagine a Cossack who was lucky in the royal scarlet and unlucky in his own. How much income did he lose? They tried to hide the fish somehow, but this became completely impossible, because the authorities forbade bringing horses and sleighs onto the ice on the royal scarlet day. Special yatovs were reserved for the royal scarlet, and sometimes it turned out that there were no deposits of fish on it; then they broke another and so on until they caught enough fish.
During the period of General Shipov's atamanship, at the end of the last century, a regrettable incident occurred. Three yatovs were broken and there were no fish. It was necessary to break more, but the remaining lines were not prepared, and the Cossacks refused to continue. Despite the threats and orders of the ataman, the Cossacks flatly refused, citing the fact that there were no barriers at other lines and the frightened fish would go into the sea. About 60 people were arrested, and some were sent to Siberia.
One has to wonder how the tsarist government did not abolish this ancient custom.
This fish was brought to the Tsar by an honorable delegation of three or four people from honored Cossacks. The king gave someone a gold watch with his portrait, someone a gold cigarette case or something like that.
But, probably, the emperor distributed this fish, since there was a lot of it, but the Urals never received gratitude from anyone.
Recognized text: http://kazachiy-krug.ru
See also:
Ural Cossacks and the city of Uralsk (A.K. Gaines),
Uralsk and Orenburg as administrative centers (F. I. Lobysevich),
Bagrenye in the Urals (I. F. Blaramberg).
“Wise hermits, even in those days, overgrown with their past,
they used to say - the Cossacks are the salt and honey of the Orthodox land, its
knights and defenders, God-loving warriors"
From the book of the Yaik Cossack A. Yalfimov
“Live, brothers, while Moscow doesn’t know”
Free communities of Cossacks formed on the river Yaik also in XIV—XV centuries. The Ural River, rich in sturgeon rocks (up to 1775 —Yaik) - “Egg-Golden Bottom” gave Tsarist Russia a rich catch of red fish and black caviar. The Ural fishery was considered advanced in Russia and was described many times in fiction - V. I. Dalem, V. G. Korolenko, K. Fedin, Urals I. I. Zheleznov And N. F. Savichev.
Other occupations of the Urals were horse breeding on steppe farms and hunting. Agriculture was poorly developed, the average plot per family was 22 hectares, and a significant part of the land was not used due to its unsuitability and remoteness. In addition to hunting and fishing, an important occupation of the Yaitsky Cossacks was trade with Central Russian cities and Central Asian merchants - the Yaitsky town lay on an ancient caravan route.
From the second half XVI century, the tsarist government began to attract Yaik Cossacks to guard the southeastern borders. IN end XVI V. The army was geographically the farthest Russian outpost - it closed the Caspian gates from the raids of nomads from Central Asia to the Lower Volga region.
The Ural Cossack army took part in almost all the wars waged by Russia. IN 1798 two regiments were in the Italian and Swiss campaigns A. V. Suvorova. IN Patriotic War 1812 Ural 3rd and 4th Cossack regiments - as part of the Danube Army of the Admiral Chichagova, in foreign campaigns - in the corps of generals F. K. Korfa And D. S. Dokhturova. Cossacks took part in the Russian-Turkish war 1828-1829 and suppression of the Polish uprising 1830. During the Crimean War, two regiments were sent from the Ural Cossack Army.
The Ural Cossacks regulated nomadic movements across the Ural River and back, took on the occasional raids of Kokand, Bukhara and Khiva detachments, and participated in the suppression of periodic uprisings. During the Central Asian campaigns, the Ural Cossacks were the main cavalry force; many songs about the capture of Tashkent and Kokand are still preserved. One of the most famous episodes during the conquest of Kokand is the Ikan affair - a three-day battle of hundreds of Cossacks under the command of the captain V. R. Serova near the village of Ikan near the city of Turkestan. The Ural hundred sent on reconnaissance met the army of the Kokand Khan, who was heading to take Turkestan. For two days the Urals held a perimeter defense, using the bodies of dead horses as protection, and then, without waiting for reinforcements, they lined up in a square and fought their way through the Kokand army until they connected with the detachment sent to the rescue. In the battle, the Ural Cossacks lost more than half of their people killed, almost all of the survivors were seriously wounded. All of them were awarded soldiers' Georges, and Captain V. R. Serov - Order of St. George 4th class.
The Ural Cossacks served the throne of the Russian Empire a lot, supplying hundreds of soldiers to guard borders and participate in military campaigns. The role of the Cossacks in the structure of the state and in the preservation of the Fatherland is special.
If the Chinese erected the Great Wall of China to protect their borders, the Ural Cossack people created a living Great Cossack Wall, and this is one of the feats of the Ural Cossacks in history.
Unlike a regular army soldier, from birth the Ural Cossack was formed in an environment with a high sense of military honor and the tradition of earnest service, and was distinguished by a more conscious attitude towards military affairs. The Urals did not need external discipline at all; they were an example of diligence and strict fulfillment of military duty. A more conscious attitude to service helped the Cossack become an excellent single fighter - proactive, quick-witted, and not lost in the most difficult situations. This was also facilitated by constant combat practice, as well as life full of dangers and anxieties on the border with the Kyrgyz steppe.
« The Ural people have a unique character, the central quality of which is a sense of independence and pride. Urals are smart - all ministers,- noted General K.N. Hagondokov, who met them during the Russian-Japanese War. — When giving an order, you need to be very precise, because anything left unsaid or erroneous will be immediately discovered by the Urals».
Orenburg Governor General V. A. Perovsky, who led the Khiva expedition, which included 2 regiments of Ural Cossacks, noted: “ Here are the miracle Cossacks: cold, snowstorms are nothing for them, there are very few sick people, the dead... no, while they walked forward, no matter what the weather was, they sang daring songs... they work more, better and more willingly than anyone else. Without them, it would be bad for the whole squad!»
Historically, during Nikon’s reforms, the Ural army had complete autonomy, and was also geographically very remote from the Muscovite kingdom, as a result of which the innovations of Patriarch Nikon never reached the shores of the Urals, and the Cossacks themselves kept their faith and rituals unchanged, such as they were in XIV—XV centuries, during the appearance of the first Cossacks on the banks of the Yaik. The firmness and tenacity of the Ural bearded Old Believers were hereditary traits. The Cossacks remained faithful to the pre-Nikon rites of the Orthodox Church, and the military way of life contributed to the defense of their religious beliefs.
All attempts by government and church authorities to introduce Nikon's innovations into the practice of worship ended in vain. IN XVII And XVIII For centuries, Old Believer monasteries on Irgiz and Yaik remained active, while on the Don and Medveditsa the monasteries had already been destroyed. The existence of Old Believer hermitages in the Urals became possible thanks to the fact that they were stubbornly defended and defended by the Yaik Cossacks. This made it possible to provide shelter for Old Believers who fled the Don and Ursa. The Cossacks were zealous about preserving the established order, both in military service and in observing Old Believer traditions.
Peter Simon Pallas- encyclopedist scientist and traveler who visited Yaik in 1769, noted that “ Cossacks rarely go to church, because they are Old Believers; for the most part they pray at home" The efforts of the government and the dominant church to introduce a new ritual in the Ural churches were perceived by the Cossacks as an attempt on their “ Cossack liberty“, which caused among them refusals to perform official duties in the performance of government service. Thus, in 1769, several hundred Yaik Cossacks refused to serve in Kizlyar, explaining the refusal “ incompatibility with the permanent deployment of the Yaitsky army».
IN 1770 The Yaik Cossacks did not comply with the orders of the authorities to forcefully return the Kalmyks to the North Caucasus, from where they voluntarily migrated to Central Asia, unable to withstand the unaffordable taxes levied by tsarist officials. The Kalmyks were returned with the help of army units, and 2000 Yaik Cossacks for " disobedience"were subjected to corporal punishment and exiled, 20 people are sentenced to hard labor.
The government deliberately attached political significance to religious matters, considering the speeches of the Old Believers as “blasphemy against the Tsar and God.” Senator, Prince M. Shcherbatov, inspecting the Yaitsky army after the suppression of the Pugachev uprising, in which the army took part " almost in full force", wrote about the Cossacks-Old Believers: " Wherever they can show their hatred against the sovereign and the Russian church, they do not miss the opportunity. This is evidenced by former riots... the uprising of 1772 on Yaik, of which the Cossacks, having been infected with this heresy, did not consider it a criminal act to arm themselves against the legitimate authorities».
Zealously defending their original customs, the Cossacks treated pain, physical suffering and even death with contempt. It was easier to destroy or resettle the Cossacks, as happened more than once in the history of the Yaitsk army, but it was impossible to overcome the power of the old faith, with which their ancestors had been armed since ancient times.
In the Yaik army, the Old Believers were firmly in their place and in their midst: there was no persecution here, they freely made the sign of the cross with two fingers, had old printed books and carried out service using them. The old Old Believers were the conservative force that prevented the transformation of the economic and social life of the army.
The foundation of the Cossack Old Belief was the old Cossacks, officers and atamans, constables and especially their wives - the main guardians of the Old Believers on the Ural River. There were reasons for this: they did not serve and did not leave the army, they were fluent in Church Slavonic literacy, read a lot of patristic books, they taught their children to read and write, they spent their days in work and prayer, waiting for their husbands from service.
Old Belief was firmly preserved in the army thanks to the social system, which sought to “ at all costs to support the former structure of the community, the former orders and customs of the country, the former spirit of the Cossacks».
Several measures on the part of the tsarist government and the autocrats themselves also contributed to the preservation of the Old Believers on Yaik. IN 1709 after the Battle of Poltava, where the Ural Cossacks showed their heroism, by a special decree Peter I they were given the right to wear a beard and remain in their faith. Tsar Peter I left all the Yaik Cossacks " cross and beard", thereby protecting them from persecution for their faith for a whole century.
Cossacks-Razin centurions Samuylo Vasiliev, Isai Voronin And Loggin were military leaders of the famous Solovetsky uprising and, together with the former confessor of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, archimandrite Nikonor They stood until the end, and after the treacherous capture of the monastery they together suffered terrible torment. They are canonized as saints by the Russian Orthodox Old Believer Church (ROC).
Empress Catherine II, having survived the Pugachevism, did not persecute the Yaik (Ural) Cossacks for their faith even after the riot 1773-1775, and in 1795 officially legalized the right of the Ural Cossacks to use old printed books and old rituals. However, she issued a decree that, in order to completely obliterate the Pugachev uprising, the Yaitsky army was renamed the Ural Cossack army, and the Yaitsky town was renamed Uralsk, and the army itself was losing its former autonomy. At the head of the Ural Cossacks were appointed ataman and military command.
Son Catherine II — Paul, having become emperor, he created a life hundred from the Ural Cossacks, thereby showing them his trust and mercy.
In fact, the religious freedom of the Ural Cossacks was a consequence of the government’s need to have in them a reliable military force in the northern Caspian region. Initially, the reasons for the appearance of a split in the army were the same as in other places in Russia, but later local conditions gave them a political character. Fearing that the true faith on Yaik would be exterminated, and the old veche system of the Cossack community destroyed, the Cossacks firmly and energetically defended their rights and privileges. Old Believers fugitives from all regions, seeking spiritual freedom and refuge, flocked to the Ural River.
IN 1868 a new one was introduced "Temporary position", according to which the Ural Cossack army was subordinated to the ataman of the newly formed Ural region. The territory of the Ural Cossack army was 7.06 million hectares and was divided into 3 sections ( Ural, Lbischensky And Guryevsky) with population 290 thousand people, including Cossack - 166,4 thousand people in 480 settlements united in 30 villages
In the middle of the last century, almost all Ural Cossacks were Old Believers, and the Ural governor A. D. Stolypin, father of the famous P. A. Stolypina, noted the unity and perseverance in the faith of the Ural and Orenburg Cossacks, comparing them for their devotion to old Russian ideals with contemporary Slavophiles, and even offered the Metropolitan Anthony do not exhort schismatics: “ With the Cossacks, Your Eminence, you have to be very careful: you have to bend, but you also have to soar, it’s very, very easy to incite Pugachevism!»
The missionaries of the Nikonian Church forgot for a while about the remote outskirts, surrounded by warlike uluses of Kalmyks and Bashkirs. The number of Yaik Cossacks-Old Believers in the Urals not only remained unchanged, but constantly grew due to fugitives who sought and found refuge in Cossack villages. A significant influx occurred after the defeat of the Kerzhensky monasteries in the Nizhny Novgorod province; Old Believers from those places settled in a special Old Believer settlement of the Cossack army - the Shatsky Monastery, where the Yaik Cossacks prayed.
Secret Old Believer monasteries in the Ural region have been known for a long time, and repressive measures have been taken against them more than once. So, in 1741, during the persecution of Old Believers hiding on Yaik and in the Irgiz monasteries, was destroyed Shatsky Monastery. Persecution and torture did not weaken faith, and in the second half XVIII V. The famous Irgiz monasteries appeared, leaving a huge mark on the history of the entire Old Believers. Since the establishment of the monasteries, active contacts have been established between them and the Old Believer centers of the Ural region.
IN 1756 at the request of the Orenburg governor I. I. Neplyueva, The Military Collegium ordered " stop all searches and persecutions of schismatics on Yaik" The borderline state of the Ural army lasted until the middle XIX century, that is, until Russia conquered the Central Asian khanates. The Sergius monastery was formed in the army, which became the founder of other monasteries along the Ural River. Sergius monastery could " its profitability surpasses any of the most ancient Orthodox monasteries in Russia" and was " the main breeding ground for Ural fugitive popovism", he was also repeatedly destroyed. IN 1830, together with the Gnilovsky women's monastery, it was destroyed, some of the monks and the abbot were imprisoned in the monastery of the dominant church.
However, the restoration of the monasteries occurred quite quickly, according to archival data, in 1848 in the Gnilovsky monastery there was already 16 cells, and in Sergievsky - 11 . This is also explained by the fact that the Old Believers were not only ordinary Cossacks, but also the Ural aristocracy, which was not always convenient to fight.
IN 1848 on the territory of the Ural army there was 7 monasteries They were located in close proximity to Cossack settlements, they had 6 prayer houses, as well as wooden huts-cells. The largest Sadovsky women's monastery consisted of 40 huts and 2 houses of worship, Kizlyarsky - from 20 residential buildings, the rest had from 10 before 15 cell. The total number of inhabitants was 151 person, of them 118 women and 33 men, there were novices and novices.
There was a close connection between the monasteries on the territory of the Ural Cossack army. Materials from interrogations of believers captured by the authorities on the way to a pilgrimage make it possible to trace the direction of their movements, as well as the approximate path from the starting point to the final point. The geography turns out to be extensive. The spiritual center for the Cossacks-beglopopovtsy was Irgiz, from it connecting threads stretched to the monasteries located in the Ural region, in the west of the Ufa province, and further to the Isetsky region.
In the middle XIX V. in the Orenburg and Ufa provinces appears " Austrian faith" At this time, the Simbirsk bishop visited the famous monasteries of the Ural region - Sergievsky and Budarinsky Sophrony (Zhirov), however, his missionary work was not successful. The new movement became widespread among the Ural Cossacks only after a bishop visited them Arseny (Shvetsov). IN 1898 he visited the village of Rassypnaya for missionary purposes, and “ Some of the schismatics reacted sympathetically to him, and when he left Rozsypnaya Stanitsa, he took with him the Cossack Nazariy Nikitin Sekretov with the intention of making ... priest».
The destruction of Old Believer monasteries led to an increase in the number of priestless concords, the appearance in the Urals of " Austrian faith", the other part switched to the same faith. On the territory of the Ural army there were various non-priest agreements - Fedoseevsky, Pomeranian, chapel, wandering. The self-identification of the Old Believers-bezpopovtsy always remained clear; they always separated themselves from those around them on a confessional basis, for example they said: “ We are Pomeranian true faith" For the purpose of self-preservation, priestless communities were as closed as possible; there was strict regulation of all aspects of life: “ We were called “clean” because we separated from everyone and never made peace».
In addition, among the Ural Cossacks there were the so-called “ no good" These are Old Believers who did not recognize the modern priesthood of the Greek-Russian Church and did not join any of the priestly Old Believers' agreements. At first XX V. in the Cossack villages there were 769 good-for-nothings.
Lieutenant Colonel of the General Staff, writer and geographer Alexander Dmitrievich Ryabinin, who used reports from local authorities, gave a comprehensive picture of the religious affiliation of the Ural Cossacks. IN 1865 A. D. Ryabinin was sent to the Urals, he wrote: “ There are three main types of Christian religion: Orthodoxy, Edinoverie and Schism. The mass of the Russian Cossack Christian population belongs to the last two types. A very small part of it adheres to Orthodoxy, mainly from the upper bureaucratic class. Old Believers belong to two schismatic factions: those who accept the priesthood and those who do not accept the priesthood. The last sect is completely insignificant in number».
However, as the Old Believer monasteries and chapels closed, the number of non-priests began to increase more and more.
IN 1853 in order to limit the influence of the Old Believers’ creed on other Cossacks, admission to the Orenburg Cossack army was prohibited “ schismatics from the tax-paying classes».
IN Ural And Orenburg By this time, the Cossack military departments already had an established system of control over the religious affiliation of military personnel. Every year the provincial administration was provided with “ Newsletter about the movement of the schism", where, in addition to the total number of Old Believers in the Cossack class, statistical reports on their movement - arrival and departure - were given in counties and individual villages. Columns were identified where natural increase and decrease (birth and death), change of religious beliefs (transition to the Old Believers or the Nikonian Church), marriage, resettlement to other places (migration, escapes, deportations to prison companies), newly discovered, unknown Previously, the authorities were Old Believers. There was also a section indicating errors in previous reports.
« Newsletter about the movement of the schism"have high information value, despite the fact that they have not been preserved in full. Analysis of these documents shows that in the second half of the 19th century. There is a gradual increase in the number of Old Believers. The rate of increase is small, but there are no declines either, which indicates the stable position of the Ural Old Believers. The increase, in addition to the natural factor, was due to resettlement, missionary activity of the Old Believers, as well as the discovery of previously unregistered adherents of the old faith.
IN " Vedomosti“The number of investigative cases opened during the year with a list of religious crimes of the Cossacks was also indicated. Only in 1848 was condemned " for apostasy - 20 Old Believers, persistence in not baptizing their children - 99 , for denying this signature, by which they pledged to be members of Orthodoxy - 18 , for deviation from Orthodoxy into schism - 290 , for disobedience to the government in accepting a priest of the same faith - 2 ».
IN 1851 more than one was under investigation 540 Yaik Cossacks-Old Believers. Old Believers were sent to the Spiritual Board so that they could “ make an admonition about leaving it».
Government decrees prohibited the construction of Old Believer prayer buildings, and the organization of prayer houses in private houses was also prohibited. The religious centers of the Ural Cossacks-Old Believers were monasteries and secret monasteries, which 1745 were also banned and subjected to constant destruction. Both the author’s historical evidence and later archival materials confirm the data on the belonging of the Yaik Cossacks to the Old Believers. IN " Report of the Orenburg province for 1832 regarding the Executive Police Department" it was said: " ... the Cossacks of the Ural Army, with their wives and children, are all Old Believers" Statistical reports for 1840 recorded the presence of more 30 000 Old Believers in 126 Cossack settlements of the Ural region (stanitas, outposts, villages and farmsteads).
The largest number of Old Believers were in the cities of Uralsk - 6465 and Guryev - 1433 , Sakmarskaya village - 2275 , Rubezhny outposts - 765 , Genvartsovsky - 699 , Large grain - 681 , Irtetsky - 561 , Round - 405 , Sugar fortress - 501 .
According to 1872, there were more Old Believers in the Ural Cossack army (!) than adherents of official Orthodoxy - 46347 And 32062 person accordingly. The Orenburg Cossack army, which arose much later than the Ural army, 1748, and formed mainly from the alien element, was less homogeneous in religious affiliation, and the Old Believers did not play a dominant role in it - in the same 1872 here on 61177 people of the Orthodox population accounted for only 8899 Old Believers.
A document has been preserved that describes a situation that clearly illustrates the attitude of the population towards the official church. From the report of Prince A.A. Putyatin to the Isetsky voivode Khrushchev it follows that the 1748 stone church in the Chelyab fortress " for failure to work people" even in 1764, after 16 years, was not built. The reason for this was known: “ Since the Cossacks there are inclined towards schism, it may turn out that they are not zealous about the construction of that church».
In addition to the absolute majority of Old Believers in the Ural army, the Ural Cossacks were independent in their spiritual affairs from the spiritual government in Orenburg. Such self-government was a source of special pride for the Cossacks; it also found support in the military college, to which the Cossack army was subordinate. Any attempt on the principles of Cossack self-government, any attempts to reorganize it, were met with rebuff from the entire army.
In accordance with this, the Military Collegium of the presentation, in the aforementioned Yaitsky army, does not now establish a Spiritual Board and the archpriest, priests and clerks appointed by Your Eminence should not be assigned there, and henceforth, until the consideration of that army for the priesthood, at the discretion of Your Eminence, worthy ones from there according to -to continue to produce, so that this army, as the said Military Collegium demands, can remain on the same basis. And for this purpose, if before those mentioned to Your Eminence, those who were taken from that army and, after being banned, were sent to the monasteries under the command of the archpriest and priest, of which there are no obvious contradictions to the holy church, release them to that army as before.
This decree was always considered by the Cossacks as confirming and protecting their rights and features of church order and governance. The Cossack army had to resort to this Decree more than once, in cases where attempts were made to change the previous church practice, which they stubbornly clung to.
Ural Cossacks
Ural Cossacks (Uralians) or Ural Cossack army(before 1775 and after 1917 - Yaitsk Cossack army listen)) - a group of Cossacks in the Russian Empire, II in seniority in the Cossack troops. The historical self-name of the Urals - kazara - comes from the self-name of the local population of Cossacks. They are located in the west of the Ural region (now the northwestern regions of Kazakhstan and the southwestern part of the Orenburg region), along the middle and lower reaches of the Ural River (up to Yaik). Seniority since 9 July 1591. Military headquarters - Uralsk (until 1775 it was called Yaitsky town). Religious affiliation: co-religionists, Old Believers, partially Muslims (up to 8%) and Lamaists (1.5%) Military holiday, military circle November 8 (21 according to the new style), St. Archangel Michael.
There is no surviving evidence from written sources about the time of the first appearance of the Cossacks on Yaik. However, the coastal strip of Yaik at the mouth of its right tributary of the river. Chagan has been a zone of continuous settlement since ancient times. The remains of material culture indicate that Kureni, on the site of modern Uralsk, has been inhabited since the Bronze Age. The first known predecessor of the city was a small settlement of the Timber Archaeological Culture. There are also finds related to the material culture of the Proto-Slavs - fragments of ceramics from the Imenkovo culture. Finds of ceramics from the Romeno-Borshev culture indicate the presence of an ancient Slavic settlement here at least from the 10th century. In the pre-Mongol period, the Ural Kureni were inhabited by the Volga Bulgars and Slavs. Numerous objects of material culture left by the Russian population dating back to the 13th-16th centuries may indicate the permanent residence of a settled Slavic-Bulgar population in the town on Yaik. In the Golden Horde time, towns with a mixed population stood in the vicinity of Uralsk and on its territory - in Kureny, a neighboring settlement on the Krasny Yar, as well as settlements on three settlements on the left (Bukhara) side of the river. Ural. In 1584, several hundred Volga Cossacks settled on the Yaik River, along the banks of which the Nogai Horde roamed. Among their leaders are Matvey Meshcheryak and Ataman Barabosha. Another version deepens the history of the Yaik Cossacks by a century, but connects their ancestors with the Don and Ataman Gugnya. The original center of Cossack settlements on Yaik was Kosh-Yaik, located at the mouth of the Ilek River. Unlike local nomads, the Cossacks were mainly engaged in fishing, as well as salt mining and hunting. The army was controlled by a circle that gathered in the Yaitsky town. All Cossacks had a per capita right to use land and participate in the elections of atamans and military foreman.
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| Cossacks |
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| History of the Cossacks |
| Registered Cossacks · Caucasian Linear Army · Sloboda Cossack Regiments · Marching for Zipuns · City Cossacks · Stanitsa Cossacks · Nekrasovtsy · Khopyor Cossacks · Decossackization · Cossack camp |
| Cossack ranks |
| Plastun · Prikazny · Pentecostal · Junior constable · Senior constable · Sergeant · Under-horunzhy · Cornet · Sotnik · Podesaul · Esaul · Military foreman · Cossack general |
| Organization of the Cossacks |
| Ataman · Hetman · Kosh · Circle · Maidan · Yurt · Palanka · Kuren · Stanitsa · Zimovnik |
| Cossack attributes |
| Papakha · Whip · Bloomers · Checker |
Ural Cossacks on a campaign
According to historical legend, cited in all studies about the Ural Cossack army, it is said that in the 16th centuries the Yaik Cossacks did not have permanent families. The Cossack brought his wife back from a raid, and when he went on another, he abandoned her, “getting” a new one for himself. But one day Gugnya appeared among the Cossacks on Yaik, he came either from the Don, or from other places, but the main thing is that he came with his wife and did not agree to leave her. With this Gugnikha, the old custom was supposedly abandoned. Most likely, this legend had a real basis; until the 19th century, Ural Cossack women lit candles in churches in memory of grandmother Gugnikha.
In May 1772, Orenburg Governor-General Reinsdorp equipped a punitive expedition to suppress the riot. General Freiman scattered the Cossacks, led by the future Pugachev generals I. Ponomarev, I. Ulyanov, I. Zarubin-Chika, and on June 6, 1772 he occupied the Yaitsky town. Then executions and punishments followed; the instigators, who were captured, were quartered, others had their nostrils torn out, their tongues and ears were cut off, and their foreheads were branded.
The region at that time was remote, so many managed to hide in the steppe in remote farmsteads. A decree from Catherine II followed: “By this highest command, it is forbidden until our future decree to gather in circles as usual.”
Cathedral of the Archangel Michael (1741) in Uralsk - a witness to the Pugachev rebellion
House of the Cossack Kuznetsov - the “Tsar’s” father-in-law
In March 1774, at the walls of the Tatishchevo fortress, the troops of General P. M. Golitsyn defeated the rebels, Pugachev retreated to the Berdskaya settlement, Ovchinnikov, who remained in the fortress, covered the retreat until the cannon charges ran out, and then with three hundred Cossacks he broke through the enemy chains and retreated to Nizhneozernaya fortress. In mid-April 1774, the Cossacks, led by Ovchinnikov, Perfilyev and Dekhtyarev, set out from the Yaitsky town against the brigade of General P. D. Mansurov. In the battle on April 15 near the Bykovka River, the Pugachevites suffered a heavy defeat (among the hundreds of Cossacks who died in the battle was Ataman Dekhtyarev). After this defeat, Ovchinnikov gathered scattered Cossack detachments and went through the remote steppes to Pugachev at the Magnetic Fortress. What followed was either a campaign or a flight through the Urals, the Kama region and the Volga region, Bashkiria, and the capture of Kazan, Saratov, Kamyshin. Pursued by Mikhelson's troops, the Cossacks lost their atamans, some captured - like Chiku-Zarubina near Ufa, some killed. The army either turned into a handful of Cossacks, then again filled with tens of thousands of men.
After Catherine the Great, concerned about the duration of the rebellion, sent troops from the Turkish borders led by Suvorov, and heavy defeats fell one after another, the top Cossacks decided to receive forgiveness by surrendering Pugachev. Between the steppe rivers Uzeni, they tied up and handed Pugachev over to government troops. Suvorov personally interrogated the impostor, and then led the escort of the caged “tsar” to Moscow. The main associates from among the Yaik Cossacks - Chika-Zarubin, Perfilyev, Shigaev were sentenced to execution along with Pugachev. After the suppression of the uprising, in 1775, Catherine II issued a decree that, in order to completely oblivion the unrest that had occurred, the Yaitsky army was renamed the Ural Cossack army, the Yaitsky town in Uralsk, and the army lost the remnants of its former autonomy.
Ural Cossacks (second half of the 19th century)
The head of the Ural Cossacks was appointed ataman and military command. Since 1782, it was governed either by the Astrakhan or by the Orenburg governor-general. In 1868, a new “Temporary Regulation” was introduced, according to which the Ural Cossack army was subordinated to the governor-general (aka ataman) of the newly formed Ural region. The territory of the Ural Cossack army amounted to 7.06 million hectares and was divided into 3 departments (Ural, Lbischensky and Guryevsky) with a population of 290 thousand people (in 1916), including the Cossack - 166.4 thousand people in 480 settlements, united in 30 pages. 42% of the Cossacks were Old Believers, a small part consisted of Kalmyks, Tatars, Kazakhs and Bashkirs. In 1908, the Iletsk Cossacks were annexed to the Ural Cossack Army.
Medal for campaigns in Central Asia
For the first time, the Yaik Cossacks went on a joint campaign with the regular army to Khiva with the expedition of Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky in -1717. The Yaik Cossacks made up 1,500 people out of a four-thousand-strong detachment that set off from Guryev along the eastern shore of the Caspian to the Amu Darya. The campaign, which was one of the adventures of Peter I, turned out extremely unsuccessfully. More than a quarter of the detachment died due to disease, heat and thirst, the rest either died in battle or were captured and executed, including the head of the expedition. Only about forty people were able to return to the shores of Yaik.
After the defeat, Astrakhan Governor-General Tatishchev began organizing garrisons along the Khiva border. But the Cossacks were able to convince the tsarist government to leave Yaik under their control, and in return they promised to equip the border at their own expense. The construction of fortresses and outposts began along the entire Yaik. From that time on, the border service of the Yaik army began, and the time of free raids ended.
The Urals went on their next campaign to Khiva in 1839 under the command of Orenburg Governor-General V. A. Perovsky. The winter campaign was poorly prepared, and although it was not so tragic, it nevertheless went down in history as an “unfortunate winter campaign.” Due to lack of food, the detachment lost most of its camels and horses; during winter storms, movement became impossible; constant hard work led to exhaustion and illness. Halfway to Khiva, half of the five thousand detachment remained, and Perovsky decided to return.
Participants of the Ikan battle
In the mid-1840s, a confrontation with the Kokand Khanate began, since by accepting the Kazakh zhuzes under its authority, Russia actually reached the Syr Darya. Under the pretext of protecting the Kazakh wards, as well as preventing the abduction of their subjects into slavery, the construction of garrisons and fortresses began from the mouth of the Syr Darya to the east, and along the Ili to the southwest. Under the command of the Orenburg governor-generals Obruchev, Perovsky, the Urals storm the Kokand fortresses of Kumysh-Kurgan, Chim-Kurgan, Ak-Mechet, Yana-Kurgan, after the completion of the construction of the Turkestan border line, they participate in numerous battles under the command of Chernyaev, storm Chimkent and Tashkent, then under the command of von Kaufmann, they took part in the conquest of Bukhara and the successful Khiva campaign of 1873.
One of the most famous episodes during the conquest of Kokand is the Ikan affair - a three-day battle of hundreds of Cossacks under the command of Yesaul Serov near the village of Ikan near the city of Turkestan. Sent on reconnaissance to check information about the spotted bands of Kokands, the hundred met with the army of the Kokand Khan, who was heading to take Turkestan. For two days the Urals held a perimeter defense, using the bodies of dead horses as protection, and then, without waiting for reinforcements, they lined up in a square and fought their way through the Kokand army until they connected with the detachment sent to the rescue. In total, the Cossacks lost more than half of their people killed in the battle, almost all of the survivors were seriously wounded. All of them were awarded soldiers' Georgies, and Serov was awarded the Order of St. George, 4th class.
However, active participation in the Turkestan campaigns did not save the Urals from tsarist repressions. And the punished ataman Verevkin, with the same zeal with which he took Khiva in 1873 with the Urals, in 1874 flogged and exiled the Old Believers Cossacks to the Amu Darya, whose beliefs did not accept the provisions on military service written by him.
The era of Central Asian conquests ended with campaigns in Khiva in -1881.
In the 1930s, many of the Cossacks who remained in their homeland or returned were subjected to Bolshevik repressions. Unlike the Don, Kuban or Terek troops, parts of which Stalin restored just before the war, the Ural army was not restored and went down in history forever.
The descendants of the Ural Cossacks, since the late 1980s, have made attempts to restore the Ural Cossacks, but the state, represented by its representatives, refused support, which generally led to the disruption of festive events celebrating the 400th anniversary of the army. The residents of the Urals were among the first to create their own organization as a legal entity - the Ural City Historical and Cultural Society, the first leader of which was Yu. Baev. At the same time, if many other Cossack troops in Russia managed to gain recognition from the authorities and successfully create a parallel administration and even their own military units, then the success of the Ural, Siberian and Semirechensk Cossacks in Kazakhstan was limited to only some public cultural and historical organizations
Ural Cossack woman in festive clothes
The culture, rituals and dialect of the Ural Cossacks were most fully preserved not in their historical homeland, but in Karakalpakstan, where they were partially exiled in the 19th century. The reason for this is isolation from the Russian people and the Old Believer tradition strictly observed by the exiles, which does not allow mixing with people of other faiths.
The reasons for the expulsion of the Urals were disobedience to the new “Regulations on military service, public and economic management of the Ural Cossack Army” and the unrest in 1874 of the Cossacks-Old Believers of the Ural Cossack Army. The deportation took place in two stages. In 1875 - the resettlement of the Ural Cossacks-Old Believers, and in 1877 - the families of exiled Uralians.
Nowadays, the Ural Old Believers (leavers) of Karakalpakstan represent a separate ethno-confessional group (subethnos), which has:
A similar Old Believer group is also known at the mouth of the Syr Darya (see Kazalinsk).
1st Ural Military Department
Ural Trekinskaya Rubezhinskaya Kirsanovskaya Irtetskaya Blagodarnovskaya Krasnoumetskaya Sobolevskaya Krugloozernovskaya Iletskaya Studenovskaya Mukhranovskaya Mustaevskaya
Podstepny Novo-Derkulsky Gnilovsky Darinsky Trebushinsky Dyakovsky Yanvartsevsky Rannevsky Borodinsky Tashlinsky Boldyrevsky Gryazno-Irtetsky Vyazovsky Tsarevsky Chuvashskinsky Ozernovsky Talovy Pylaevsky Gryaznovsky Mantsurovsky Atamansky Tsarevo-Nikolsky Serebryakovsky Shchapovsky Derkulsky Livkinsky Peremetny Suhore Chensky Ozersky Zatonny Kindelinsky Spitsynsky Golovsky Lopassky Gerasimovsky Alekseevsky
2nd Lbischensky military department
Kamenskaya Chizhinskaya Chaganskaya Skvorkinskaya Budarinskaya Lbischenskaya Mergenevskaya Sakharnovskaya Kalmykovskaya Karmanovskaya Glinenskaya Slamikhinskaya
Paniksky Asserichev Zelenovsky Ermolichev Shilinsky Bogatyrevsky Podtyazhensky 1st Chizhinsky 2nd Chagansky Kushumsky Vladimirsky Dzhemchinsky Yanaikinsky Bogatsky Prorvinsky Kolovetinsky Baranovsky Kozhekharovsky Goryachinsky Karshensky Kalenovsky Lebyazhinsky Antonovsky Kruglovsky Boiler Krasnoyarsk Kyzyl-Abinsky Kisyk- Kamyshensky Mukhorsky Mokrinsky Abinsky Berezovsky Talovsky 1st Glinensky
3rd Guryev Military Department
Kulaginskaya Orlovskaya Yamankhalinskaya Saraychikovskaya Guryevskaya
Kharkinsky Gorsky Grebenshchikovsky Zelenovsky Topolinsky Karmanovsky Baksaysky Sorochinsky Bogatsky Redutsky Kondaurovsky
Words by N. F. Savichev. Folk music.
“Everyone knows the caviar of the Urals and the Ural sturgeons, but few have heard about the Ural Cossacks”
These are the words of an ancient Ural Cossack song. Indeed, today there is almost no literature that would allow one to become familiar with the history of the Civil War on the territory of the Ural Cossack Army. Meanwhile, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the struggle of the Ural (Yait) Cossack army against Bolshevism can serve as one of the most striking examples of resistance in Russian military history.
Soviet historians, with rare exceptions, bashfully kept silent about the history of the Civil War on the land of the Ural Cossack Army. The reason is simple - the struggle against the Ural Cossacks was filled with almost nothing but defeats for the Bolsheviks, despite the colossal superiority of the latter both in quantitative and technical terms. Until now, few people know that the Ural Separate Cossack Army was not defeated by the Bolsheviks, but almost entirely died from a terrible epidemic of typhus, specially brought into the region of the Ural Cossacks by the Bolsheviks, who were unable to fight the Cossacks simply with military force.
Today, it is even more difficult to recreate the history of the struggle of the Ural Cossacks against the Bolsheviks. Firstly, most of the documents of the Ural Cossack army were destroyed or are still inaccessible to historians. And secondly, almost all the Ural Cossacks either died during the civil war or emigrated - there is simply no one to take on the task of writing the history of the struggle of the Ural Cossacks against Bolshevism.
Having emerged among the first Cossack troops, from the end of the 16th century. The Yaik Cossacks begin to play a special role in the life of Russia, covering themselves with unfading glory in the fight against its enemies. However, over time, the Yaik army was deprived of all its significant privileges. In many ways, the reason for this was his “rebellious” character. So, from 1670 to 1874. On the territory of the Ural Cossacks, dozens of large and dozens of small uprisings were undertaken against the tsarist and noble tyranny, the most outstanding of which was the active participation in the Cossack-peasant wars of Razin and Pugachev.
Until 1917, the Ural army lived a very secluded life, in a degraded position, compared to other Cossack troops, and never received the emperor’s forgiveness. To a person unfamiliar with the life of the Ural Cossacks, it may seem that the Uralians, who retained their proud rebellious spirit, should have supported the Bolsheviks, however, the Ural Cossacks resolutely did not accept the Bolshevik commissar power - and fought against it until the last Cossack. This largely explains the reason why the Ural Cossacks - from 15-year-old boys to 80-year-old elders - bravely fought against the hordes of the 3rd International until the very end.
The policy of decossackization of the Bolsheviks in relation to the Ural Cossacks, in essence, boiled down to the wholesale extermination of the Cossack population, which, by the way, was not typical for other regions. The communists uprooted entire villages, threw Cossacks to their deaths in the Arctic, put farmsteads on the “black boards”, completely destroyed the Cossacks during the Holodomor in the 20s and 30s, and rotted in concentration camps those who dared to resist during the period of Stalinism.
Excerpt from the book “Cossack Troops of Russia” by Alexey Vasilyevich Shishov, 2007.
The emergence of free Cossack communities on the banks of the Yaik River (Ural) dates back to the first half of the 16th century. According to a completely reliable legend, between 1520 and 1550 a detachment of about 30 people appeared there under the leadership of Ataman Vasily Gugni, who came from the Don and “from other cities.” Free Cossacks were looking for new fishing grounds, and therefore the banks of the steppe river, almost undeveloped economically, immediately attracted them. Here there was no need to fear either the raids of the Crimean Tatars or the willfulness of the tsarist commanders.
The fact that Russian Cossacks appeared on Yaik was evidenced by the Nogai Murzas after the defeat by the Volga Cossacks in 1571-1572. their capital city of Saraichik: “Now the sovereign orders the Cossacks to take away the Volga and Samara and Yaik from us, and for this we are devastated from the Cossacks: our uluses will kill our wives and children.”
In 1605, the army of the Crimean Khan still managed to destroy the Yaitsky town. The Cossacks tried several times to restore it, but in each case they were attacked by the Krymchaks and Nogais.
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In the second half of the 16th century, “many Cossack towns” appeared on the banks of the Yaik and Emba rivers, the population of which, in all likelihood, was not permanent, since the Cossacks at that time were not engaged in arable farming. The life of the army was controlled by a circle - a meeting of full-fledged Cossack warriors from “the entire river.” The Cossacks went on military campaigns and sturgeon fishing, led by marching and elected atamans.
It is known that the influential Nogai prince Urus more than once demanded in letters to Tsar Ivan the Terrible to demolish the city where 600-700 Yaik Cossacks lived, who caused a lot of trouble to the Nogais. The fact that such a fortified town of free Cossacks existed at the mouth of the Yaik is evidenced by the following fact. In 1637, Taisha (Prince) Danchin, at the head of several thousand mounted warriors from the Kalmyks and Altyul Tatars, tried to capture the Cossack settlement. However, this attempt ended in complete failure and with heavy losses for the attackers.
The first chronicle mention of the Yaik Cossacks dates back to July 9, 1591. The chronicle spoke of “the service” of the free Cossacks from the banks of the Yaik to Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich. That year, 500 Yaik Cossacks, together with archers from various Moscow regiments, took part in a campaign in the North Caucasus against the troops of the ruler of Southern Dagestan, Shamkhal Tarkovsky.
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The chronicle evidence was an order from Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich to the Astrakhan governors who went on a campaign across the Terek River to the foothills of the Caucasus: “... Yes, in memory of the boyar (Pushkin - A.Sh.) and the governors Prince Ivan Vasilyevich Sitsky and his comrades: pointed out the Sovereign ... to Send his disobedient man to Shevkalsky for seven years from Terka, and for that service the Sovereign ordered the Yaitsky and Volga atamans and Cossacks to go to Astrakhan to the camp... gather all the Cossacks in Astrakhan for Shevkalsky service: Volga 1000 people, and Yaitsky 500..."
This date is July 9, 1591 and became the basis for determining the seniority of the Ural Cossack army.
In 1613, the Yaik Cossacks, by their own “petition,” were accepted into the citizenship of the Moscow state, while retaining almost all of their “liberty.” Military affairs of the Cossacks were decided in a circle. The discussion began with the esauls going out into a circle, taking off their checkers, putting their staffs on the ground and reading a prayer. After this, they addressed those gathered with the words: “Be silent, well done atamans, and all the great army of Yaitskoe...”
Two years later, in 1615, the army was granted a royal charter for “eternal” possession of the Yaik River, “but no one remembers from which Order.” By that time, the Yaik Cossacks already had their capital, or, in other words, the main, largest fortified town at the confluence of the Chagan River with Yaik. It was called after the river - Yaik, or Yaitsky. In 1622, the settlement was moved to the territory of modern Uralsk, located on the territory of Kazakhstan,
The Yaik army showed itself to be a well-organized military force. In 1629, Cossacks from Yaik under the command of Prince Solntsev-Zasekin and governor Blagov took part in hostilities against the cavalry of the Crimean Khanate.
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In 1634, 380 Yaik Cossacks fought in the ranks of the royal army of the famous governor, boyar Mikhail Shein, against the Poles near the fortified city of Smolensk.
The Yaik Cossacks also left their mark in the history of the Livonian War. It is known that in 1655-1656 a detachment of free Cossacks from the banks of the Yaik under the command of Prince Khovansky fought against the Livonians and Poles in Poland and near the fortress city of Riga.
The Yaik Cossack army carried out border and guard duty along the Yaik River. Individual Cossack gangs carried out raids on nomads and went “for zipuns” together with the Volga and Don Cossacks. Their main economic activity was fishing.
... In 1670, the Yaik Cossacks for the first time fell into disgrace with the tsar, since the army, almost in full force, took part in the uprising of Stepan Razin. Stenka Razin's rebellion cost the Yaik Cossacks dearly. After Razin’s capture, they were “forgiven” in Moscow. But the disobedience of the Yaik Cossacks to golden-domed Moscow did not end there. In 1677, part of it, led by Ataman Vaska Kasimov, raised a new rebellion. However, the royal troops sent defeated the rebels and “pacified” the free Yaik. The remnants of the rebels, fleeing from the tsarist commanders, went down the Volga into the Caspian Sea on plows. From the Volga mouth they set off on a campaign “for zipuns” to the Persian shores. However, attempts to attack the Caspian coast of Persia ended unsuccessfully, most of them were captured and agreed to change their Orthodoxy to the Muslim faith. After this, by the will of the Shah, the prisoners were settled in the city of Shemakha.
After the “pacification” of Yaik, Cossacks again began to be recruited into the royal service. In 1681, a hundred cavalry was summoned from the Yaitsky army by order of the sovereign. She joined the detachment of Prince Bulat-Cherkassky and ended up on the banks of the Dnieper near the Chigirin fortress, which the Turks and their allies, the Crimean Tatars, so wanted to take possession of.
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Two years later, the Boyar Duma “sentenced” to use the Yaik Cossacks to suppress the “indignation” of the Bashkirs. That expedition near the city of Ufa included 500 Cossacks.
In 1684-1685, Yaik Cossacks took part in the Crimean campaigns of Prince Vasily Golitsyn.
... The sovereign of “All Rus'” Peter 1 did not forget about this army of free Cossacks. By his will, in 1695-1696, half a thousand Cossacks were involved in the siege, assault and capture of the Turkish fortress of Azov.
Yaik Cossacks also took part in the Northern War of 1700-1721 against the Kingdom of Sweden. So, in 1701, the young regular army of Peter the Great included 2,100 Yaik horsemen.
In 1719, the Yaitsk Cossack army came under the jurisdiction of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs, and in 1721, by Peter's decree, it was subordinated to the Military Collegium.
The Yaik Cossacks fought not only against the Swedes. In 1711, a thousand of them took part in the Kuban campaign of General Apraksin, and in 1717, 1,500 Cossacks acted as part of the army of Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky in a campaign against the Khiva Khanate. The campaign turned out to be unsuccessful. The Yaik army then lost all its banners, which the Khivans took over, partly through battle, and partly through treachery: “... And these banners, when they were on a campaign with the prince, the enemy people took from them in full.”
Peter the Great responded to this misfortune of the Yaik Cossacks, who faithfully and truly, not sparing their lives, served him both at the Azov fortress and in the war with the Swedes. On May 31, 1721, an imperial decree was issued with the following content: “To the Yaitsk Cossacks, upon their petition, to give 3 banners from Moscow to the entire Yaitsk army from the former Streltsy banners found there, choosing newer and lighter ones, with a painting.”
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In the same 1721, the army, as noted above, was subordinated to the Military College. Before this, Moscow communicated with the Yaik Cossacks through the Kazan and Ambassadorial orders. The autonomy of the army came to an end, which the Cossacks could not accept and rebelled. The government suppressed it, the main instigators were executed, others were brutally whipped and sent into exile.
Since 1723, military atamans were approved by the highest authority and there could no longer be “random” atamans on Yaik.
The main state task of the army remained to protect the steppe border of the Russian state from the predatory raids of the steppe peoples. In 1720, a thousand Cossacks served on the Irtysh fortified border line. In 1723-1724, Yaik Cossacks took part in battles with the mounted troops of the Nogais and Karakalpaks on the Utva River.
In 1724, the Caucasian service of the Yaitsk army began. That year, by decision of the Military Collegium, the mounted Cossack hundred was included in the “Lower Corps”. From that time on, throughout the rest of the 18th century, the army annually sent from 100 to 400 fully equipped mounted soldiers to the Caucasus.
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In St. Petersburg they did not forget to reward the troops from the banks of the Yaik with awards. So, in 1726 it received a granted insect - a symbol of the ataman power. In December 1749, he was granted 15 new banners and 15 village badges by the highest order.
In 1740, the Military Collegium tried to replace hiring with the universal service of the Cossacks in turn, but the Urals did not comply with this order.
By 1743, the Yaitskaya lower border line was finally formed, on which the army constantly maintained garrisons. He also had an embassy duty - to allocate several hundred horsemen to accompany the Russian embassies to “Bukhariya” (Bukhara Emirate).
In 1748, the Military Collegium divided the entire military personnel of the Ural Cossack Army into seven horseshoes - 500 Cossacks and 8 officers in each. At the same time, the construction of the Nizhnee-Yaitskaya border line was completed. It began in the north of the Rassypnaya Fortress and stretched to the Guryev town. Then the construction of the Verkhne-Yaitskaya border line was completed. It again consisted of outposts (earthen fortresses) Zhimny, Kindelinsky, Irtitsky, Yanvartsev, Rubezhny and Pilovsky.
Since the territory of residence of the Yaitsky army was not far from the Siberian land, its Cossacks began to be recruited to perform border service on the Siberian fortified line. Such business trips began in 1758.
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In the same year, Major General Weymarn presented the regimental banner to marching colonel Shipelev “for honorable and diligent service with the thousand-strong team of Yaik Cossacks entrusted to him.” In March 1760, the army was granted two new regimental banners and 23 village badges.
In 1765, the Military Collegium again tried to replace hiring with active service, but this time the military population showed steadfastness in defending their ancient rights.
... The second time the Yaitsk Cossack army fell into disgrace with the tsar during the Peasant War under the leadership of the Don Cossack Emelyan Pugachev. In 1773, almost all of it came under the banner of Pugachev, remaining faithful to him almost to the end. The “Pugachev rebellion,” like the “Stenka Razin revolt,” cost dearly to people who dreamed of “freedom.” Empress Catherine poured out the full force of her royal wrath on the rebellious Yaik Cossacks. By decree of January 15, 1775, she ordered “to henceforth call this army the Ural, the Yaik River the Ural, and the city of Yaik the Ural.”
The Empress tried to do everything to completely destroy the memory of the “treacherous incident on Yaik.” So in 1775, the names of the ancient Cossack army, the Yaik River and the Yaitsky town disappeared from geographical maps and from state documents. It was forbidden to mention the previous names anywhere.
The Empress placed the “new” Ural army under direct subordination to the Astrakhan (or Orenburg) governor-general. The governor was entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring the “loyalty” of the troops to the central government. The Empress knew that there were a lot of schismatics among the Ural Cossacks. Direct control of the army passed into the hands of the commandant of the Uralsk garrison.
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During the long reign of Empress Catherine, 11 major wars were fought - with the Turks, and with the Poles, and with the Swedes, and with the Persians, and with their loyal subjects too. The first act of their forgiveness can be considered that in 1790, 120 selected Ural Cossacks became part of the personal convoy of Field Marshal General, His Serene Highness Prince G.A. Potemkin-Tauride, the all-powerful temporary worker, the de facto ruler of the South of Russia. He did a lot to improve the situation of the Ural Cossacks. In particular, he ensured that he retained the exclusive right to engage in fishing on the Ural River, which was the main source of reproach for the village and military capital.
The temptation of “guilt” was also participation in establishing internal order in the state. In 1797, 500 Ural Cossacks served on the Volga, where the “thieves’ people” - the Volga robbers - were on the loose.
The Ural Cossack Army was also entrusted with other tasks of national importance. In the same 1797, 500 Cossacks were engaged in convoying transports with salt from the town of Troitsk to the Ust-Uy fortress. Salt was intended, in particular, for barter trade with the peoples of the Kyrgyz-Kaisat (Kazakh) steppe. Revenues, and considerable ones, from the salt trade, which was a state monopoly, always significantly replenished the Russian treasury.
In 1798, the Ural Cossacks began serving in the Russian Guard. The day of September 4 became the day of the formation of the Life-Ural Cossack hundred, which was a great event. Emperor Paul I personally presented the hundred with a banner “based on the model (or from the number?) of the previously former Life Guards in the Preobrazhensky Regiment.” In the same year, the appointment of military chieftains began, the first of whom was Major General David Martemyanovich Denisov, who ruled the army in Uralsk until 1830. Since April 1799, the ranks of officers of the Ural Cossack Army were equalized with the general army ranks.
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Generalissimo Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov-Rymniksky highly appreciated the fighting qualities of the Ural Cossacks. Under his leadership, two cavalry regiments of colonels Borodin and Litsinov took part in the Italian and Swiss campaigns of 1799. Together with the regiments of the Don Cossacks, they were under the general command of the marching ataman Adrian Karpovich Denisov and more than once distinguished themselves in cases against the French troops.
In 1799, the team of the Life-Ural Hundred (60 people) took part in the secret Dutch expedition against the French.
In 1803, the “Regulations on the Ural Cossack Army” were approved and its composition was determined: one Life Guards Ural Hundred and 10 cavalry Cossack regiments. The regiments were numbered - from No. 1 to No. 10. By that time, the number of the male population of the army had reached 20 thousand people.
Emperor Alexander 1 first introduced a uniform uniform for the people of the Urals: a crimson-colored caftan (chekmen), beshmet and trousers. Everything was like the Donets, their uniforms were blue.
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In the steppe region, with its dry summers and lack of water, life was financially difficult for the Cossacks. The main wealth of the military land was river and Caspian fish, but it did not provide much wealth to the Cossack families. This circumstance largely explained their request to change the crimson uniform to blue, since cloth dyed crimson was noticeably more expensive than blue. The old-colored uniform was reserved only for the Guards Hundred. This decision at the highest level followed in 1806.
In 1809, for the second time in the history of the army, the Ural Cossacks had the opportunity to participate in the war against Sweden. The Cossacks were part of the troops that made an 8-hour journey across the ice of the Gulf of Bothnia to the territory of the Kingdom of Sweden and distinguished themselves during the capture of the Åland Islands. The Urals, as good shooters who had long-barreled guns, often had to act on foot in that war.
... Two Cossack regiments, No. 1 and No. 2, took part in the Russian-Turkish War of 1806-1812, being part of the Moldavian army. The people of the Urals fought valiantly on the banks of the Danube against the Turks, earning more than one word of praise from the future Army Commander-in-Chief, Field Marshal General M.I. Golenishcheva-Kutuzova. Thus, they distinguished themselves in the assault on the Rushchuk fortress, in the Battle of Bata.
Two other Ural Cossack regiments - No. 3 and No. 4 took part in the Patriotic War of 1812. They were part of the Danube Army of Admiral P.V. Chichagova and more than once were in military clashes with Napoleonic troops during their expulsion from Russia. The Urals, consisting of 5 cavalry regiments (over 2 thousand people), distinguished themselves by participating in the foreign campaigns of the Russian army in 1813-1814, especially in the Leipzig “Battle of the Nations”, in battles with the French on German soil near the cities of Dresden, Hamburg and Palatinate, in battles near Paris. In battles with the French, the Ural Cossacks suffered heavy losses. Thus, the 4th Ural Regiment in December 1813 had only 186 soldiers in its line-up.
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In 1817, Cossacks from the Urals more than once carried out border service on the Siberian fortified line, where they replenished the garrisons of a number of fortresses.
The government continued to recruit Cossacks from the Ural Army to perform internal service. From 1818 to 1862, one Cossack cavalry regiment was sent annually to Moscow to perform police functions (from 1837 to
450 people in the combined Ural-Orenburg regiment). As a rule, after a year he was replaced by a new regiment. From 1822 to 1870, the army maintained one hundred cavalry for similar purposes in the city of Kazan.
In 1819, the Cossacks of the Ilek and Sakmara villages were included in the army. Because of this, two new cavalry regiments were formed - No. 11 and No. 12.
With the beginning of the advance of the state borders of Russia into the steppes of the Turkestan region, the service of the Ural Cossacks became increasingly associated with campaigns in the Asian south. In 1825-1826, regiments No. 1 and No. 2 with six field guns were part of Colonel Berg's expedition sent to the shores of the Aral Sea. Since the state border line advanced to the Akhtuba River, one cavalry regiment was sent there for a period of one year during 1827-1836.
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In the Russian-Turkish War of 1828-1829, one regiment of the Ural Cossack army took part in the siege of the Danube fortress of Silistria and fought near the fortress of Shumla. Another regiment of Uralians, during the suppression of the Polish rebellion in 1831, distinguished itself in the assault on the Zamosc fortress.
In 1830, the Life Ural Hundred was assigned to the Young Guard and was renamed the Life Guards Ural Hundred. Two years later she was assigned to the Don Ataman Regiment. After this, the hundred was transformed into a guards squadron, then into divisions, then again into a squadron and a hundred.
... Service in the Trans-Caspian region began for the Urals in 1833. Two hundred Cossacks formed the garrison of the Novo-Petrovsky fortification. In 1839, it was moved to the shores of the Caspian Sea, to the Mangyshlak Peninsula, and received the name “Fort Alexandrovsky”. Cossacks formed its garrison until 1870, when the fort was transferred to the control of the Caucasian governorship.
In 1837, the government called up four regiments for service at once. They were sent to the Caucasian War, to Bessarabia, Finland and to the Lower Ural border line.
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The recognition of Russian citizenship by Kazakh clans and zhuzes led to the fact that the government became responsible for peace in the Kazakh steppe. But from time immemorial there was no peace there: there was constant civil strife between the khans and clans, and raids on neighbors whose cattle were stolen did not stop. Throughout almost the entire 19th century, the Ural Cossacks were constantly recruited to fight local rebels. So, in 1837, a Cossack detachment of 600 cavalry was on a business trip in the Bukeyev Horde, fighting the bandits of Sultan Nitai Taishanov. The following year, a hundred Cossacks were sent to the Trans-Ural steppe in pursuit of the robbers. In 1843, a detachment of 700 Ural Cossacks was in the Kyrgyz steppe “to capture Sultan Kanisary Kasimov.” In 1855, three Cossack hundreds were engaged in capturing the robbery detachment of Iset Kegubaev in the Trans-Ural steppe.
Two regiments of Ural Cossacks took part in the Khiva campaign in 1839-1840. The following year, one cavalry regiment was part of the troops of the Separate Caucasian Corps in Georgia. And four hundred Ural Cossacks formed the convoy of the Russian diplomatic mission to Khiva and Bukhara.
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In 1845, the Ural Cossacks took part in the construction of fortifications in the Trans-Caspian region: Novo-Petrovsky, Embenskoye, Chumkakul and Ural. Their garrisons included two or three hundred Cossacks from the Urals.
By the beginning of the reign of Alexander II, the military population was estimated at 72 thousand people of both sexes. There were now 6,870 Cossacks in active service.
In 1853, the Urals took part in the Turkestan Ak-Mechetsky expedition. 300 Cossacks distinguished themselves in the assault and capture of the Ak-Mechet fortress, repelling an attack on it by the troops of the Kokand Khanate, and in battles near the fortress in the Kum-Suat tract.
The Crimean War of 1853-1856 called up two cavalry regiments from the Ural Cossack Army into the army. They fought with the British and French on the land of Crimea, distinguished themselves at Balaklava and on the Black River, and carried out patrol duty near besieged Sevastopol.
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During that war, Turkestan affairs became the main concern of the troops. Three hundred Ural Cossacks took part in the capture of the Kokand fortress Ak-Mechet (Perovsk), a famous robber nest in the Kazakh steppe. The Cossacks repelled the attempts of the Khan of Kokand to recapture the fortress from the Russians.
The Urals took part in the Central Asian campaigns of 1860 and 1864. The Cossacks, who made up the cavalry of the expeditionary detachment, stormed the Kokand fortresses of Yan-Kurgan, Dzhin-Kurgan, Arkulek and Turkestan.
In 1864, a separate Ural Cossack hundred, which formed the garrison of Turkestan, under the command of Captain V.R. Serova withstood a three-day battle near the village of Ikan against an army of 10-12 thousand under the command of the Kokand Khan Alimkul, which was moving towards Turkestan. There were a little more than a hundred Cossacks with one gun. Having lost half of the detachment and all the horses, the Urals made their way to the fortress on foot through the enemy ranks.
All the “Ikan” heroes became Knights of St. George, and Serov (the future Cossack general) received the rank of centurion and the Order of St. George, IV degree. Since then, the 4th hundred of the 2nd Ural Cossack Regiment began to be called “Ikanskaya”. A song was composed about that heroic deed:
In the wide steppe near Ikan
We were surrounded by an evil Kokand,
And three days with the infidel
A bloody battle was in full swing.
We were retreating... he was behind us
He walked in crowds of thousands;
He covered our path with bodies
And blood flowed onto the snowy valley.
We lay down... Bullets whistled.
And the kernels tore everything into pieces,
But we didn't blink an eye
We stood... We are Cossacks!
We held out for three days, three nights,
Three nights as long as a year
Covered in blood and without closing my eyes,
Then we rushed forward...
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In 1865, two hundred Ural residents took part in the capture of the city of Tashkent and the Niazbek fortress. The following year, three Cossack hundreds distinguished themselves in the battle against the army of the Bukhara Emir Muzzafar at the Irjar tract and the capture of the fortified cities of Khujand, Ura-Tyube and Jizzakh.
In 1868, two hundred Ural Cossacks became famous in the assault on the city of Samarkand and in the battle against the army of the Bukhara Emir on the Zera-Bulak Heights, which ended in the complete defeat of the enemy.
In 1869, the Sakmara village was transferred from the Ural army to the Orenburg Cossack army, and the number of mounted regiments deployed was reduced by one.
... The new “Regulations on the Ural Cossack Army” was approved on March 9, 1874. It preserved the ancient custom of the Urals - the so-called “hiring”. This army practiced a different method of military service from other Cossack troops in Russia: all Ural Cossacks were subject to a monetary tax, and with the collected - considerable - amount it was possible to hire hunters (volunteers) for active service. The custom of “hiring” continued until 1917. This custom of the Ural Cossacks had its reasons: the point was partly that the Cossack troops had an extended service life - from 19 years to 41 years. Naturally, this could not but affect family well-being.
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However, despite the “hire,” each Ural Cossack was obliged to serve in active combat service for one year in peacetime. Cossack guards received 200 rubles from the total amount, those who served in army units - 250-300 rubles, in the fire brigade and in the training squad - 100-160 rubles, instructors for training young Cossacks - 100 rubles per year.
According to the new Regulations, the army consisted of the Life Guards of the Ural Cossack squadron, 9 numbered cavalry regiments and a training hundred, which was disbanded during the war. The established military administrative division at a distance also changed. Now it was replaced by division into villages.
The new Regulations caused discontent among thousands of Ural Cossacks. The government, taught by bitter historical experience, took the most severe measures against the rebellious Urals. An army infantry battalion was introduced into the city of Uralsk. In July 1875, over 2,500 Cossacks were expelled from the ranks of the Ural Army (and from the Cossack class too) for “resistance.” They and their families were evicted to the Turkestan region, on the shores of the Aral Sea. Most of those exiled ended up as part of the Kazalinskogs) military labor battalion. In May 1881, up to 500 families of “repentant” Cossacks were returned to the banks of the Urals.
In 1875-1876, three hundred Ural Cossacks took part in the Kokand campaign. In the battle of Makhram, they captured a Kokand battery on horseback. This was followed by participation in the capture of the fortified cities of Kokand, Andijan (twice), Namangan, Turakurgan, and in the battle near the village of Balyuchi.
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In the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878, a separate Ural Cossack hundred of military foreman Kirillov fought on Bulgarian soil. In the battle near Kazanlak, during a cavalry attack, commander Kirillov lost his horse and was in danger of being killed by Turkish sabers. But the fearless police officer Rannev came to his aid. He shouted: “Your Honor, grab the stirrup,” and the Cossack horse carried the officer out of the enemy ranks into the quarry.
The Urals fought at the Shipkinsky Pass and near the village of Sheinovo. They took part in a raid near Constantinople (Istanbul), during which they defeated an enemy army convoy.
The Ural Cossacks took an active part in the Khiva campaign of 1873 and in the Skobelev Akhal-Teke expedition. In 1880, one of the hundreds distinguished itself during the storming of the Geok-Tepe fortress.
... By the beginning of the reign of Emperor Alexander III, the military population was over 116 thousand people. There were more than 3,200 Cossacks in active service in first-line units. In 1882, the army was obliged to supply, not counting the guards squadron and the training squadron, in peacetime - 15 cavalry squadrons, in wartime - 45 cavalry squadrons.
In 1894, by the beginning of the reign of Nicholas II, the population of the Ural Cossack army reached 145 thousand people. In peacetime, there were more than 2,500 people in active service, comprising a hundred guards, two 6-hundred regiments, one 4-hundred regiment, a separate hundred and two teams of steppe fortifications to maintain law and order in the Kyrgyz steppe.
The 4th and 5th Ural Cossack regiments (almost a thousand people), which became part of the Ural-Zabaikal Cossack division, took part in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. It was commanded by the famous cavalry commander General P.I. Mishchenko, who commanded raids on Japanese rear areas. He became famous primarily for the famous raid on Yingkou, when his detachment had to travel more than 500 kilometers.
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The Urals distinguished themselves in many battles with the Japanese, including horseback raids on enemy rear lines. The future commander-in-chief of the White armed forces of the South of Russia, Lieutenant General A.I. Denikin, who served as chief of staff of the Ural-Trans-Baikal Cossack division during the war, wrote in his memoirs: “... Our Cossacks, especially the Urals, considered it a dishonor to be captured by the Japanese and preferred to risk their lives in order to save themselves and their comrades from it. Moreover, I remember an incident: in one battle, the Uralians were replaced by Transbaikalians in position, and 8 Ural Cossacks, unprompted by anyone, remained until nightfall in a chain exposed to heavy shelling, wanting to carry out the body of their killed officer, who was lying 100 steps from the Japanese positions, so that he would not be left without an honest burial, and they carried him out.”
During the Russo-Japanese War, the mount of the 4th Ural Regiment, Pavel Zheleznov, and the mount of the 5th Ural Regiment, Avtonom Zelentsov, became holders of the Order of St. George, 4th degree.
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In addition to raids on enemy rear areas on Honghe, Niuchozhuanan and Yingkou, the Urals distinguished themselves in other matters. At Sandepu they operated behind Japanese lines. In the Battle of Mukden, the enemy was deprived of an artillery battery. In the spring of the second military campaign, they again took part in raids at Jingjiantun, Qiulushu, Chantufu and Fakumen.
In the First World War, the Ural Cossack Army mobilized 9 cavalry regiments, 2 cavalry artillery batteries, 6 hundreds and 2 escort fifty. The Ural Cossack Division (4th, 5th, 6th and 7th regiments) was formed, which successfully operated as part of the 4th Army in the Battle of Galicia. For heroism and valor, every hundred Ural Cossacks were awarded five Crosses of St. George.
The Urals also distinguished themselves during the five-month siege of the enemy fortress of Przemysl. Commander of the 1st Ural Cossack Regiment, Colonel M.N. Borodin was appointed the first commandant of the captured fortress. The Ural Cossack division took part in the Brusilov breakthrough of 1916, which was carried out by the armies of the Southwestern Front.
The 3rd Ural Cossack Regiment defeated the German infantry in a battle near the village of Zelena. One of the hundreds of the 5th Ural Cossack Regiment on June 25, 1915, near the village of Borkovizny, took successively three lines of trenches, putting to flight the Austrian infantry battalion defending here.
Yet the most famous regiment in that war was the 1st Regiment. On May 27, 1916, he attacked an enemy position at Porchowo-Zubrzeca on horseback, capturing two guns and 483 prisoners.
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The most notorious case of the 1st Ural Cossack Regiment was the battle on June 2 of the same year near the village of Gnilovody. On that day, 24 officers and 120 lower ranks were captured among the Austrians, and 600 people from the German 20th Jaeger Reserve Battalion. In that battle, the Cossacks took three guns and two machine guns as trophies.
In total, in the First World War the army fielded 13,175 Cossacks and 320 officers. By the beginning of December 1916, 5,333 Ural Cossacks were awarded the St. George's Cross and St. George's Medal "For Bravery", 35 officers were awarded the Order of St. George and the St. George's Arms. During this time, 335 Ural residents were killed in battles, 1,793 were injured and 92 were listed as missing.
The Ural Cossack army was located in the Ural region on the right bank of the Urals in 30 villages, 450 farms and villages. It was divided into three military departments: Guryevsky, Lbischensky and Ural. These are the former Ural and Guryev regions of present-day Kazakhstan and the southwestern part of the Russian Orenburg region. The military territory was 76 million hectares. Only a third of it was convenient for housekeeping. The Ural Cossack Army, unlike others, did not have a reserve land fund, capital was not divided into military and village capital, and the leasing of state-owned lands to non-residents was prohibited.
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As is known, the Ural army was legally assigned to the territory that the Cossacks themselves occupied and which, before their appearance on the banks of the Yaik River, remained uninhabited. However, today some historians from Kazakhstan claim that the government of the Russian Empire once took away their best nomadic camps on this river from the Kazakh nomads, and gave them to the Ural Cossacks as a reward for “colonial conquests.”
As is known, for the first time the nomads of the Younger Zhuz with Khan Nurali came to winter on the left bank of the Urals in 1785, with written permission (“open sheet”) of the Orenburg Governor-General. He also allowed 17 elders of the Kazakh clans next year in winter to camp on the right (internal for Russia) bank of the Ural River.
In 1917, there were about 174 thousand people in the Cossack class here. A distinctive feature of the Ural Cossacks was that 42 percent belonged to the Old Believers. This gave the military adhesive a special character. Two percent of the Cossacks were Tatars and Kalmyks.
During the Civil War, the Bolsheviks' massive repressions against the Cossack population, including the surrendered Cossacks, allowed Major General V.S. Tolstov, elected military ataman in March 1919, to bring the strength of the Ural Army to 25 thousand people.
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After Kolchak’s troops retreated to the east, the White Cossacks held the line for several more months, but in the fall of 1919 their army was struck by a typhus epidemic. So, in one of its two corps - in the 1st Ural (two cavalry divisions) - only 230 sabers and bayonets remained in service. This fact has not been previously written about. The White Cossack Ural Army was eventually defeated, and its remnants laid down their arms on the Mangyshlak Peninsula near Fort Aleksandrovsky. Some of the Cossacks went to Iran.
In 1920, by decree of the Soviet government, the Ural Cossack Army was abolished. The Civil War wiped out most of the male population of Cossack settlements on the banks of the Ural River.
... The Ural Cossack army, in terms of the antiquity of its pedigree among the Cossack troops of the Russian Empire, was comparable only to the Don. The Ural Cossacks celebrated their military holiday on November 8, the day of the Holy Archangel of God Michael. On that day, a military circle gathered.
The troops' services to the Russian state were noted in May 1884 by awarding him the St. George Banner. The inscriptions on the banner read: “To the valiant Ural army for excellent, diligent service marked by military exploits” and “1591-1884.”
The most famous regiment of the army was the 2nd Ural Cossack Regiment. The Cossacks of his 1st and 3rd hundreds wore badges on their headdresses “For distinction in the Khiva campaign of 1873,” and of the 4th hundred “For distinction in affairs near Ikan on December 4, 5 and 6, 1864.” The regimental banner was simple with the inscription “1591-1891” with the Alexander Jubilee Ribbon. The regiment was part of the troops of the Turkestan Military District and was stationed in the city of Samarkand. He faced the First World War under the command of Colonel Palenov.
The 1st Ural Cossack Regiment had a simple banner with the inscription "1591-1891" with St. Andrew's Jubilee Ribbon. The personnel of his first hundred wore the sign on their headdresses: “For distinction in the Turkish War of 1877 and 1878.” These marks were granted to the hundred in 1892.
Before the First World War, the regiment was stationed in Kyiv. The Urals were part of the 9th Cavalry Division of the 9th Army Corps. In 1914, the regiment was commanded by Colonel Borodin.
The 3rd Ural Cossack Regiment was formed in 1882, based on hundreds that formed the garrisons of the steppe fortifications - Temir, Uilsky and Nizhne-Embensky. The banner had a simple banner with the inscription “1591-1891” with the Alexander Jubilee Ribbon. The Cossacks of the first hundred had insignia on their headdresses: “For the assault on the Geok-Tepe fortress on January 12, 1881.”
In 1914, the regiment was stationed in the city of Włocławsk, Warsaw province. Organizationally, it was part of the 15th Cavalry Division of the 15th Army Corps of the Warsaw Military District. For the subordinates of Colonel Zheleznov, Knight of St. George, the First World War began with battles with the Germans.
The assigned atamans of the Ural Cossack Army (from 1798 to 1906) were:
Major General
Borodin David Martemyanovich
Major General
Pokatilov Vasily Osipovich
Colonel
Kozhevnikov Matvey Lvovich
Major General of the Retinue
His Imperial Majesty
Stolypin Arkady Dmitrievich
Major General
Dandeville Viktor Desiderievich
Major General
Tolstoy Mikhail Nikolaevich
Major General
Romanovsky Dmitry Ilyich
Lieutenant General
Verevkin Nikolay Alexandrovich
Lieutenant General
Prince Golitsyn Grigory Sergeevich
Major General
Shipov Nikolay Nikolaevich
Lieutenant General
Maksimov Konstantin Klavdievich
Lieutenant General
Stavrovsky Konstantin Nikolaevich
Strategy for the development of state policy of the Russian Federation regarding the Russian Cossacks until 2020 (download)
Concept of state policy of the Russian Federation regarding the Russian Cossacks (download)
