Cossacks are not some special nationality, they are the same Russian people, albeit with their own historical roots and traditions.

The word “Cossack” is of Turkic origin and figuratively means “free man.” In Rus', Cossacks were the name given to free people living on the outskirts of the state. As a rule, in the past these were runaway serfs, serfs and the urban poor.

People were forced to leave their homes by their lack of rights, poverty, and bondage. These fugitives were called "walking" people. The government, with the help of special detectives, tried to find those who had gone on the run, punish them and return them to their old place of residence. However, mass escapes did not stop, and gradually entire free regions with their own Cossack administration arose on the outskirts of Rus'. The first settlements of settled fugitives were formed on the Don, Yaik and Zaporozhye. The government eventually had to come to terms with the existence of a special class - the Cossacks - and try to put it at its service.

Most of the “walking” people went to the free Don, where the indigenous Cossacks began to settle in the 15th century. There were no duties, no compulsory service, no governor. The Cossacks had their own elected government. They were divided into hundreds and tens, led by centurions and tens. To resolve public issues, the Cossacks gathered in meetings, which they called “circles.” At the head of this free class was a chieftain elected by the circle, who had an assistant - the captain. The Cossacks recognized the power of the Moscow government, were considered to be in its service, but were not distinguished by great loyalty and often participated in peasant uprisings.

In the 16th century there were already many Cossack settlements, whose inhabitants, in accordance with the geographical principle, were called Cossacks: Zaporozhye, Don, Yaitsky, Grebensky, Terek, etc.

In the 18th century, the government transformed the Cossacks into a closed military class, which was obliged to perform military service in the general system of the armed forces of the Russian Empire. First of all, the Cossacks had to guard the borders of the country - where they lived. In order for the Cossacks to remain faithful to the autocracy, the government endowed the Cossacks with special benefits and privileges. The Cossacks were proud of their position; they developed their own customs and traditions that were passed on from generation to generation. They considered themselves special people, and residents of other regions of Russia were called “non-residents”. This continued until 1917.

The Soviet government put an end to the privileges of the Cossacks and liquidated the separate Cossack regions. Many of the Cossacks were subjected to repression. The state did everything to destroy centuries-old traditions. But it could not completely make people forget about their past. Currently, the traditions of the Russian Cossacks are being revived.

Exercise 6. Switching attention . The teacher gives commands:

visual attention - object is far away (door),

COSSACKS: ORIGIN, HISTORY, ROLE IN THE HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

The Cossacks are an ethnic, social and historical community (group), which, due to their specific characteristics, united all Cossacks, primarily Russians, as well as Ukrainians, Kalmyks, Buryats, Bashkirs, Tatars, Evenks, Ossetians, etc., as separate subethnic groups of their peoples into a single whole. Until 1917, Russian legislation considered the Cossacks as a special military class that had privileges for performing compulsory service. The Cossacks were also defined as a separate ethnic group, an independent nationality (the fourth branch of the Eastern Slavs) or even as a special nation of mixed Turkic-Slavic origin. The latest version was intensively developed in the 20th century by Cossack emigrant historians.

Origin of the Cossacks

The social organization, life, culture, ideology, ethnopsychic structure, behavioral stereotypes, and folklore of the Cossacks have always been noticeably different from the practices established in other regions of Russia. The Cossacks originated in the 14th century in the uninhabited steppe spaces between Muscovite Russia, Lithuania, Poland and the Tatar khanates. Its formation, which began after the collapse of the Golden Horde, took place in constant struggle with numerous enemies far from developed cultural centers. There are no reliable written sources preserved about the first pages of Cossack history. Many researchers tried to discover the origins of the Cossacks in the national roots of the ancestors of the Cossacks among a variety of peoples (Scythians, Cumans, Khazars, Alans, Kyrgyz, Tatars, Mountain Circassians, Kasogs, Brodniks, Black Klobuks, Torks, etc.) or considered the original Cossack military community as a result of genetic connections of several tribes with the Slavs who came to the Black Sea region, and this process was counted from the beginning of the new era. Other historians, on the contrary, proved the Russianness of the Cossacks, emphasizing the constant presence of the Slavs in the regions that became the cradle of the Cossacks. The original concept was put forward by the emigrant historian A. A. Gordeev, who believed that the ancestors of the Cossacks were the Russian population of the Golden Horde, settled by the Tatars - the Mongols in the future Cossack territories. The long-dominant official point of view that Cossack communities arose as a result of the flight of Russian peasants from serfdom (as well as the view of the Cossacks as a special class) were subjected to reasoned criticism in the 20th century. But the theory of autochthonous (local) origin also has a weak evidence base and is not confirmed by serious sources. The question of the origin of the Cossacks still remains open.

There is no unanimity among scientists on the question of the origin of the word “Cossack” (“Kozak” in Ukrainian). Attempts were made to derive this word from the name of the peoples who once lived near the Dnieper and Don (Kasogi, Kh(k)azars), from the self-name of modern Kyrgyz people - Kaysaks. There were other etymological versions: from the Turkish “kaz” (i.e. goose), from the Mongolian “ko” (armor, protection) and “zakh” (frontier). Most experts agree that the word “Cossacks” came from the east and has Turkic roots. In Russian, this word, first mentioned in Russian chronicles in 1444, originally meant homeless and free soldiers who entered service to fulfill military obligations.

History of the Cossacks

Representatives of various nationalities took part in the formation of the Cossacks, but the Slavs predominated. From an ethnographic point of view, the first Cossacks were divided according to their place of origin into Ukrainian and Russian. Among both, free and service Cossacks can be distinguished. In Ukraine, the free Cossacks were represented by the Zaporozhye Sich (lasted until 1775), and the service ones were represented by “registered” Cossacks who received a salary for their service in the Polish-Lithuanian state. Russian service Cossacks (city, regimental and guard) were used to protect abatis and cities, receiving a salary and land for life in return. Although they were equated “to service people according to the apparatus” (streltsy, gunners), unlike them they had a stanitsa organization and an elected system of military administration. In this form they existed until the beginning of the 18th century. The first community of Russian free Cossacks arose on the Don, and then on the Yaik, Terek and Volga rivers. In contrast to the service Cossacks, the centers of emergence of the free Cossacks were the coasts of large rivers (Dnieper, Don, Yaik, Terek) and steppe expanses, which left a noticeable imprint on the Cossacks and determined their way of life.

Each large territorial community, as a form of military-political unification of independent Cossack settlements, was called an Army. The main economic occupations of the free Cossacks were hunting, fishing, and animal husbandry. For example, in the Don Army, until the beginning of the 18th century, arable farming was prohibited under penalty of death. As the Cossacks themselves believed, they lived “from grass and water.” War played a huge role in the life of Cossack communities: they were in constant military confrontation with hostile and warlike nomadic neighbors, so one of the most important sources of livelihood for them was military booty (as a result of campaigns “for zipuns and yasir” in the Crimea, Turkey, Persia , to the Caucasus). River and sea trips on plows, as well as horse raids, were carried out. Often several Cossack units united and carried out joint land and sea operations, everything captured became common property - duvan.

The main feature of Cossack social life was a military organization with an elected system of government and democratic order. Major decisions (issues of war and peace, elections of officials, trial of the guilty) were made at general Cossack meetings, village and military circles, or Radas, which were higher authorities management. The main executive power belonged to the annually replaced military (koshevoy in Zaporozhye) ataman. During military operations, a marching ataman was elected, whose obedience was unquestioning.

Diplomatic relations with the Russian state were maintained by sending winter and light villages (embassies) to Moscow with an appointed ataman. From the moment the Cossacks entered the historical arena, their relationship with Russia was characterized by duality. Initially, they were built on the principle of independent states that had one enemy. Moscow and the Cossack Troops were allies. Russian state acted as the main partner and played a leading role as the strongest party. In addition, the Cossack Troops were interested in receiving monetary and military assistance from the Russian Tsar. Cossack territories played an important role as a buffer on the southern and eastern borders of the Russian state, protecting it from attacks by the steppe hordes. Cossacks also took part in many wars on the side of Russia against neighboring states. To successfully perform these important functions, the practice of the Moscow tsars included annual sendings of gifts, cash salaries, weapons and ammunition, as well as bread to individual Troops, since the Cossacks did not produce it. All relations between the Cossacks and the Tsar were conducted through the Ambassadorial Prikaz, i.e., as with a foreign state. It was often beneficial for the Russian authorities to present the free Cossack communities as completely independent of Moscow. On the other side, Moscow state was dissatisfied with the Cossack communities, which constantly attacked Turkish possessions, which often ran counter to Russian foreign policy interests. Often periods of cooling occurred between the allies, and Russia stopped all assistance to the Cossacks. Moscow's dissatisfaction was also caused by the constant departure of citizens to the Cossack regions. Democratic orders (everyone is equal, no authorities, no taxes) became a magnet that attracted more and more enterprising and courageous people from Russian lands. Russia's fears turned out to be far from unfounded - throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the Cossacks were in the vanguard of powerful anti-government protests, and from its ranks came the leaders of Cossack-peasant uprisings - Stepan Razin, Kondraty Bulavin, Emelyan Pugachev. The role of the Cossacks was great during the events of the Time of Troubles at the beginning of the 17th century. Having supported False Dmitry I, they made up a significant part of his military detachments. Later, the free Russian and Ukrainian Cossacks, as well as Russian service Cossacks, took an active part in the camp of various forces: in 1611 they participated in the first militia, in the second militia the nobles already predominated, but at the council of 1613 it was the word of the Cossack atamans that turned out to be decisive in the election of Tsar Michael Fedorovich Romanov. The ambiguous role played by the Cossacks during the Time of Troubles forced the government in the 17th century to pursue a policy of sharply reducing the detachments of serving Cossacks in the main territory of the state. But in general, the Russian throne, considering essential functions Cossacks as military force in the border regions, showed patience and sought to subjugate him to his power. To consolidate loyalty to the Russian throne, the tsars, using all levers, managed to achieve the oath of all Troops by the end of the 17th century (the last Don Army - in 1671). From voluntary allies, the Cossacks turned into Russian subjects. With the inclusion of the southeastern territories into Russia, the Cossacks remained only a special part of the Russian population, gradually losing many of their democratic rights and gains. Since the 18th century, the state has constantly regulated the life of the Cossack regions, modernized traditional Cossack governance structures in the right direction, turning them into an integral part of the administrative system of the Russian Empire.

Since 1721, Cossack units were under the jurisdiction of the Cossack expedition of the Military Collegium. In the same year, Peter I abolished the election of military atamans and introduced the institution of mandated atamans appointed by the supreme authority. The Cossacks lost their last remnants of independence after the defeat of the Pugachev rebellion in 1775, when Catherine II liquidated the Zaporozhye Sich. In 1798, by decree of Paul I, all Cossack officer ranks were equal to the general army ranks, and their holders received the rights to nobility. In 1802, the first Regulations for the Cossack troops were developed. Since 1827, the heir to the throne began to be appointed as the august ataman of all Cossack troops. In 1838, the first combat regulations for Cossack units were approved, and in 1857 the Cossacks came under the jurisdiction of the Directorate (from 1867 Main Directorate) of irregular (from 1879 - Cossack) troops of the Ministry of War, from 1910 - to the subordination of the General Staff.

The role of the Cossacks in the history of Russia

For centuries, the Cossacks were a universal branch of the armed forces. They said about the Cossacks that they were born in the saddle. At all times, they were considered excellent riders who had no equal in the art of horse riding. Military experts assessed the Cossack cavalry as the best light cavalry in the world. The military glory of the Cossacks was strengthened on the battlefields of the Northern and Seven Years' Wars, during the Italian and Swiss campaigns of A. V. Suvorov in 1799. The Cossack regiments especially distinguished themselves in the Napoleonic era. Led by the legendary ataman M.I. Platov, the irregular army became one of the main culprits in the death of the Napoleonic army in Russia in the campaign of 1812, and after the foreign campaigns of the Russian army, according to General A.P. Ermolov, “the Cossacks became the surprise of Europe.” Not a single Russian-Turkish war of the 18th-19th centuries could have happened without Cossack sabers; they took part in the conquest of the Caucasus, the conquest of Central Asia, and the development of Siberia and the Far East. The successes of the Cossack cavalry were explained by the skillful use in battles of ancient tactical techniques that were not regulated by any regulations: lava (enveloping the enemy in a loose formation), an original system of reconnaissance and guard service, etc. These Cossack “turns” inherited from the steppe people turned out to be especially effective and unexpected in clashes with armies European states. “For this reason, a Cossack is born so that he can be useful to the Tsar in the service,” says an old Cossack proverb. His service under the law of 1875 lasted 20 years, starting at the age of 18: 3 years in the preparatory ranks, 4 in active service, 8 years on benefits and 5 in the reserve. Each one came to duty with his own uniform, equipment, bladed weapons and riding horse. The Cossack community (stanitsa) was responsible for the preparation and performance of military service. The service itself special kind self-government and the land use system, as a material basis, were closely interconnected and ultimately ensured the stable existence of the Cossacks as a formidable fighting force. The main owner of the land was the state, which, on behalf of the emperor, allocated to the Cossack army the land conquered by the blood of their ancestors on the basis of collective (community) ownership. The army, leaving some for military reserves, divided the received land between the villages. The village community, on behalf of the army, periodically redistributed land shares (ranging from 10 to 50 dessiatines). For the use of the plot and exemption from taxes, the Cossack was obliged to perform military service. The army also allocated land plots to Cossack nobles (the share depended on the officer rank) as hereditary property, but these plots could not be sold to persons of non-military origin. In the 19th century, the main economic occupation of the Cossacks became agriculture, although different troops had their own characteristics and preferences, for example, the intensive development of fishing as the main industry in the Ural, as well as in the Don and Ussuri Troops, hunting in the Siberian, winemaking and gardening in the Caucasus, Don etc.

Cossacks in the 20th century

At the end of the 19th century, projects for the liquidation of the Cossacks were discussed within the tsarist administration. On the eve of the First World War, there were 11 Cossack Troops in Russia: Don (1.6 million), Kuban (1.3 million), Terek (260 thousand), Astrakhan (40 thousand), Ural (174 thousand), Orenburg (533 thousand), Siberian (172 thousand), Semirechenskoye (45 thousand), Transbaikal (264 thousand), Amur (50 thousand), Ussuriysk (35 thousand) and two separate Cossack regiments. They occupied 65 million dessiatines of land with a population of 4.4 million people. (2.4% of the Russian population), including 480 thousand service personnel. Among the Cossacks, Russians predominated in national terms (78%), Ukrainians were in second place (17%), Buryats were in third (2%). The majority of Cossacks professed Orthodoxy, there was a large percentage of Old Believers (especially in the Ural, Terek, Don Troops), and national minorities professed Buddhism and Islam.

More than 300 thousand Cossacks took part on the battlefields of the First World War (164 cavalry regiments, 30 foot battalions, 78 batteries, 175 separate hundreds, 78 fifty, not counting auxiliary and spare parts). The war showed the ineffectiveness of using large masses of cavalry (Cossacks made up 2/3 of the Russian cavalry) in conditions of a continuous front, high density of infantry firepower and increased technical means of defense. The exceptions were small partisan detachments formed from Cossack volunteers, which successfully operated behind enemy lines while carrying out sabotage and reconnaissance missions. The Cossacks, as a significant military and social force, participated in the Civil War. The combat experience and professional military training of the Cossacks were again used to resolve acute internal social conflicts. By the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of November 17, 1917, the Cossacks as a class and Cossack formations were formally abolished. During the Civil War, Cossack territories became the main bases of the White movement (especially the Don, Kuban, Terek, Ural) and it was there that the most fierce battles were fought. The Cossack units were numerically the main military force of the Volunteer Army in the fight against Bolshevism. The Cossacks were pushed to this by the Reds' policy of decossackization (mass executions, hostage-taking, burning of villages, pitting nonresidents against the Cossacks). The Red Army also had Cossack units, but they represented a small part of the Cossacks (less than 10%). At the end of the Civil War, a large number of Cossacks found themselves in exile (about 100 thousand people).

In Soviet times, the official policy of decossackization actually continued, although in 1925 the plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) declared unacceptable “ignoring the peculiarities of Cossack life and the use of violent measures in the fight against the remnants of Cossack traditions.” Nevertheless, the Cossacks continued to be considered “non-proletarian elements” and were subject to restrictions in their rights, in particular, the ban on serving in the Red Army was lifted only in 1936, when several Cossack cavalry divisions (and then corps) were created, which performed well during the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War. Since 1942, Hitler's command also formed units of Russian Cossacks (15th Wehrmacht Corps, commander General G. von Panwitz) numbering more than 20 thousand people. During hostilities, they were mainly used to protect communications and fight against partisans in Italy, Yugoslavia, and France. After the defeat of Germany in 1945, the British handed over the disarmed Cossacks and members of their families (about 30 thousand people) to the Soviet side. Most of them were shot, the rest ended up in Stalin's camps.

The very cautious attitude of the authorities towards the Cossacks (which resulted in the oblivion of their history and culture) gave birth to the modern Cossack movement. Initially (in 1988-1989) it arose as a historical and cultural movement for the revival of the Cossacks (according to some estimates, about 5 million people). By 1990, the movement, having gone beyond cultural and ethnographic boundaries, began to become politicized. The intensive creation of Cossack organizations and unions began, both in places of former compact residence and in large cities, where a large number of descendants escaping political repression settled during the Soviet period. The massive scale of the movement, as well as the participation of paramilitary Cossack detachments in conflicts in Yugoslavia, Transnistria, Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Chechnya, forced government structures and local authorities to pay attention to the problems of the Cossacks. The further growth of the Cossack movement was facilitated by the resolution of the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation “On the rehabilitation of the Cossacks” of June 16, 1992 and a number of laws. Under the President of Russia, the Main Directorate of Cossack Troops was created, and a number of measures to create regular Cossack units were taken by the power ministries (Ministry of Internal Affairs, Border Troops, Ministry of Defense).

Cossacks

Origin of the Cossacks.

 09:42 December 16, 2016

Cossacks are a people formed at the beginning of the new era, as a result of genetic connections between many Turanian (Siberian) tribes of the Scythian people Kos-Saka (or Ka-Saka), the Azov Slavs Meoto-Kaisars with a mixture of Asov-Alans or Tanaites (Donts). The ancient Greeks called them kossakha, which meant “white sahi,” and the Scythian-Iranian meaning “kos-sakha” was “white deer.” The sacred deer is the solar symbol of the Scythians; it can be found in all their burials, from Primorye to China, from Siberia to Europe. It was the Don people who brought this ancient military symbol of the Scythian tribes to the present day. Here you will find out where the Cossacks got their shaved head with a forelock and drooping mustache, and why the bearded prince Svyatoslav changed his appearance. You will also learn the origin of many names of the Cossacks, Don, Grebensky, Brodniks, Black Klobuks, etc., where the Cossack military paraphernalia, papakha, knife, Circassian coat, gazyri came from. And you will also understand why the Cossacks were called Tatars, where Genghis Khan came from, why the Battle of Kulikovo took place, Batu’s invasion and who really was behind all this.

“Cossacks, an ethnic, social and historical community (group), which, due to their specific characteristics, united all Cossacks... Cossacks were defined as a separate ethnic group, an independent nationality, or as a special nation of mixed Turkic-Slavic origin.” Dictionary of Cyril and Methodius 1902.

As a result of processes that in archeology are usually called “the introduction of the Sarmatians into the Meotian environment,” in the North. In the Caucasus and Don, a mixed Slavic-Turanian type of a special nationality appeared, divided into many tribes. It was from this mixture that the original name “Cossack” came about, which was noted by the ancient Greeks back in ancient times and was written as “Kossakhi”. The Greek style Kasakos remained until the 10th century, after which Russian chroniclers began to mix it with the common Caucasian names Kasagov, Kasogov, Kazyag. But from the ancient Turkic “Kai-Sak” (Scythian) meant freedom-loving, in another sense - a warrior, a guard, an ordinary unit of the Horde. It was the Horde that became the unification of different tribes under a military union - whose name today is Cossacks. The most famous: “Golden Horde”, “Pied Horde of Siberia”. So the Cossacks, remembering their great past, when their ancestors lived beyond the Urals in the country of Assov (Great Asia), inherited their name of the people “Cossacks”, from As and Saki, from the Aryan “as” - warrior, military class, “sak” - by type of weapon: from sak, sech, cutters. "As-sak" was later transformed into a Cossack. And the name Caucasus itself is Kau-k-az from the ancient Iranian kau or kuu - mountain and az-as, i.e. Mount Azov (Asov), like the city of Azov, was called in Turkish and Arabic: Assak, Adzak, Kazak, Kazova, Kazava and Azak.
All ancient historians claim that the Scythians were the best warriors, and Svydas testifies that from ancient times they had banners in their troops, which proves the regularity of their militias. The Getae of Siberia, Western Asia, the Hittites of Egypt, the Aztecs, India, Byzantium, had a coat of arms on their banners and shields depicting a double-headed eagle, adopted by Russia in the 15th century. as a legacy of their glorious ancestors.

It is interesting that the tribes of the Scythian peoples depicted on the artifacts found in Siberia, on the Russian Plain, are shown with beards and long hair on their heads. Russian princes, rulers, and warriors are also bearded and hairy. So where did the Oseledets come from, with a shaved head with a forelock and a drooping mustache?
The custom of head shaving was completely alien to European peoples, including the Slavs, while in the east it had been widespread for a long time and very widely, including among the Turkic-Mongolian tribes. So the hairstyle with the oseledets was borrowed from eastern peoples. In 1253 it was described by Rubruk in the Golden Horde of Batu on the Volga.
So, we can say with confidence that the custom of shaving the head of the Slavs in Rus' and Europe was completely alien and unacceptable. It was first brought to Ukraine by the Huns, and for centuries it was in use among the mixed Turkic tribes living on the Ukrainian lands - Avars, Khazars, Pechenegs, Polovtsians, Mongols, Turks, etc., until it was finally borrowed by the Zaporozhye Cossacks along with all the other Turkic-Mongol traditions of the Sich . But where does the word “Sich” come from? This is what Strabo writes. ХI.8,4:
“All southern Scythians attacking Western Asia were called Sakas.” The weapon of the Sakas was called sakar - ax, from slash, to chop. From this word, in all likelihood, came the name of the Zaporozhye Sich, as well as the word Sicheviki, as the Cossacks called themselves. Sich is the camp of the Saks. Sak in the Tatar language means careful. Sakal - beard. These words are borrowed from the Slavs, Masaks, and Massagets.

In ancient times, during the mixing of the blood of the Caucasians of Siberia with the Mongoloids, new mestizo peoples began to form, which later received the name Turks, and this was long before the emergence of Islam itself and their adoption of the Mohammedan faith. As a result of these peoples and their migration to the West and Asia, a new name appeared, defining them as the Huns (Huns). From the discovered Hunnic burials, a reconstruction was made from the skull and it turned out that some Hunnic warriors wore oseledets. The ancient Bulgars later had the same warriors with forelocks, who fought in the army of Attila, and many other peoples mixed with the Turks.

By the way, the Hunnic “devastation of the world” played an important role in the history of the Slavic ethnic group. Unlike the Scythian, Sarmatian and Gothic invasions, the invasion of the Huns was extremely large-scale and led to the destruction of the entire previous ethnopolitical situation in the barbarian world. The departure of the Goths and Sarmatians to the west, and then the collapse of Attila’s empire, allowed the Slavic peoples in the 5th century. begin mass settlement of the Northern Danube, the lower reaches of the Dniester and the middle reaches of the Dnieper.
Among the Huns there was also a group (self-name - Gurs) - Bolgurs (White Gurs). After the defeat in Phanagoria (Savernaya Black Sea region, Don-Volga interfluve and Kuban), part of the Bulgarians went to Bulgaria and, strengthening the Slavic ethnic component, became modern Bulgarians, the other part remained on the Volga - the Volga Bulgarians, now the Kazan Tatars and other Volga peoples. One part of the Hungurs (Hunno-Gurs) - the Ungars or Ugrians - founded Hungary, the other part of them settled on the Volga and, mixing with Finnish-speaking peoples, became Finno-Ugric peoples. When the Mongols came from the east, they, with the agreements of the Kyiv prince, went to the west and merged with the Ungars-Hungarians. That’s why we talk about the Finno-Ugric language group, but this does not apply to the Huns in general.
During the formation of the Turkic peoples, entire states appeared, for example, from the mixing of the Caucasoids of Siberia, the Dinlins, with the Gangun Turks, the Yenisei Kirghiz appeared, from them - the Kyrgyz Kaganate, after - the Turkic Kaganate. We all know the Khazar Kaganate, which became a union of the Khazar Slavs with the Turks and Jews. From all these endless unifications and separations of the Slavic peoples with the Turks, many new tribes were created, for example, the state unification of the Slavs suffered for a long time from the raids of the Pechenegs and Polovtsians.

For example, according to Genghis Khan's law "Yasu", developed by the cultural Central Asian Christians of the Nestorian sect, and not by the wild Mongols, the hair should be shaved, and only one braid should be left on the top of the head. High-ranking individuals were allowed to wear a beard, while others had to shave it off, leaving only a mustache. But this is not a Tatar custom, but of the ancient Getae (see Chapter VI) and Massagetae, i.e. people known back in the 14th century. BC and brought fear to Egypt, Syria and Persia, and then mentioned in the 6th century. according to R. X. by the Greek historian Procopius. The Massagetae - the Great Saki-Geta, who made up the advanced cavalry in Attila's hordes, also shaved their heads and beards, leaving a mustache, and left one pigtail on top of their head. It is interesting that the military class of the Russians always bore the name Het, and the word “hetman” itself is again of Gothic origin: “great warrior.”
The paintings of the Bulgarian princes and the Liutprand indicate the existence of this custom among the Danube Bulgarians. According to the description of the Greek historian Leo the Deacon, the Russian Grand Duke Svyatoslav also shaved his beard and head, leaving one forelock, i.e. imitated the Geta Cossacks, who made up the advanced cavalry in his army. Consequently, the custom of shaving beards and heads, leaving a mustache and forelock, is not Tatar, since it previously existed among the Getae more than 2 thousand years before the appearance of the Tatars in the historical field.

The already canonical image of Prince Svyatoslav with a shaved head, long forelock and drooping mustache, like a Zaporozhye Cossack, is not entirely correct and was imposed mainly by the Ukrainian side. His ancestors had luxurious hair and beards, and he himself was depicted in various chronicles as bearded. The description of the forelocked Svyatoslav was taken from the above-mentioned Leo the Deacon, but he became such after he became the prince not only of Kievan Rus, but also the prince of Pechenezh Rus, that is, southern Rus'. But why then did the Pechenegs kill him? Here it all comes down to the fact that after Svyatoslav’s victory over the Khazar Kaganate and the war with Byzantium, the Jewish aristocracy decided to take revenge on him and persuaded the Pechenegs to kill him.

Well, also Leo the Deacon in the 10th century, in his “Chronicles,” gives a very interesting description of Svyatoslav: “King of the Goths Sventoslav, or Svyatoslav, the ruler of Rus', and the hetman of their army, was of the origin of the Balts, the Rurikids (the Balts are the royal dynasty of the Western Goths. From this dynasty was Alaric, who took Rome.)... His mother, regentess Helga, after the death of her husband Ingvar, killed by the Greuthungs, whose capital was Iskorost, wanted to unite under the scepter of the Balts the two dynasties of the ancient Riks, and turned to Malfred, the Riks of the Greuthungs , to give her sister Malfrida for her son, giving her word that she would forgive Malfred for the death of her husband. Having received a refusal, the city of the Greuthungs was burned by her, and the Greuthungs themselves submitted... Malfrida was escorted to Helga’s court, where she was raised until. did not grow up and did not become the wife of King Sventoslav..."
In this story, the names of Prince Mal and Malusha, the mother of Prince Vladimir the Baptist, are clearly visible. It is curious that the Greek persistently called the Drevlyans Greuthungs - one of the Gothic tribes, and not Drevlyans at all.
Well, we’ll leave this to the conscience of the later ideologists, who did not notice these same Goths. Let us only note that Malfrida-Malusha was from Iskorosten-Korosten (Zhitomir region). Next - again Leo the Deacon: “Sventoslav’s mounted warriors fought without helmets and on light horses of Scythian breeds. Each of his Rus warriors had no hair on their heads, only a long strand that went down to the ear - a symbol of their military god. They fought furiously on horseback, descendants of those Gothic regiments that brought great Rome to its knees. These horsemen of Sventoslav were gathered from the tribes of the Greuthungs, Slavs and Rosomons allied to him, they were also called in Gothic: “kosaks” - “horseman”, that is, and among the Rus they were the elite themselves. The Russians, from their Gothic fathers, inherited the ability to fight on foot, hiding behind shields - the famous “turtle” of the Vikings. The Russians buried their fallen in the same way as their Gothic grandfathers, burning the bodies on their canoes or on the banks of the river, in order to then let the ashes fall. flow. And those who died by their own death were laid in mounds, and the Goths had such burial places in the ground that sometimes stretched for hundreds of stadia..."
We will not figure out why the chronicler calls the Rus Goths. And there are countless burial mounds throughout the Zhytomyr region. Among them there are also very ancient ones - Scythian, even before our era. They are mainly located in northern regions Zhytomyr region. And there are later ones, from the beginning of our era, IV-V centuries. In the area of ​​​​the Zhytomyr hydropark, for example. As we see, the Cossacks existed long before the Zaporozhye Sich.
And here is what Georgy Sidorov says about the changed appearance of Svyatoslav: “The Pechenegs chose him over themselves, after the defeat of the Khazar Kaganate, he becomes a prince here, that is, the Pecheneg khans themselves recognize his power over themselves. They give him the opportunity to control the Pecheneg cavalry, and the Pecheneg cavalry goes with him to Byzantium.

In order for the Pechenegs to submit to him, he was forced to take on their appearance, which is why, instead of a beard and long hair, he has an asshole and a drooping mustache. Svyatoslav was a Veneti by blood, his father did not wear a forelock, he had a beard and long hair, like any Veneti. Rurik, his grandfather, was the same, and Oleg was exactly the same, but they did not adapt their appearance to the Pechenegs. In order to control the Pechenegs, so that they would trust him, Svyatoslav had to put himself in order, to be outwardly similar to them, that is, he became the khan of the Pechenegs. We are constantly divided, Rus' is the north, the south is the Polovtsy, the wild steppe and the Pechenegs. In fact, it was all one Rus', steppe, taiga and forest-steppe - it was one people, one language. The only difference was that in the south they still knew the Turkic language, it was once Esperanto of the ancient tribes, they brought it from the East, and the Cossacks knew this language too, preserving it until the 20th century."
In Horde Rus', not only Slavic writing was used, but also Arabic. Until the end of the 16th century, Russians had a good command of the Turkic language at the everyday level, i.e. Turkic language was the second language until then spoken language in Rus'. And this was facilitated by the unification of the Slavic-Turkic tribes into a union whose name is the Cossacks. After the Romanovs came to power in 1613, they, due to the freedom and rebellion of the Cossack tribes, began to propagate a myth about them as the Tatar-Mongol “yoke” in Rus' and contempt for everything “Tatar”. There was a time when Christians, Slavs and Muslims prayed in the same temple; this was common faith. There is one God, but different religions, and then everyone was divided and taken in different directions.
The origins of ancient Slavic military vocabulary date back to the era of Slavic-Turkic unity. This still unusual term is provable: sources provide reasons for this. And first of all - a dictionary. A number of designations for the most general concepts of military affairs are derived from ancient Turkic languages. Such as - warrior, boyar, regiment, labor, (meaning war), hunting, roundup, cast iron, iron, damask steel, halberd, axe, hammer, sulitsa, army, banner, saber, brush, quiver, darkness (10 thousandth army ), hurray, let's go, etc. They no longer stand out from the dictionary, these invisible Turkisms that have been tested for centuries. Linguists notice only later, clearly “non-native” inclusions: saadak, horde, bunchuk, guard, esaul, ertaul, ataman, kosh, kuren, bogatyr, biryuch, jalav (banner), snuznik, kolymaga, alpaut, surnach, etc. And the common symbols of the Cossacks, Horde Rus' and Byzantium, tell us that there was something in the historical past that united them all in the fight against the enemy, which is now hidden from us by false layers. Its name is the “Western World” or the Roman Catholic world with papal rule, with its missionary agents, crusaders, Jesuits, but we’ll talk about that later.

As mentioned above, “Oseledets” was first brought to Ukraine by the Huns, and in confirmation of their appearance we find in the Name Book of the Bulgarian Khans, which lists the ancient rulers of the Bulgarian state, including those who ruled in the lands of present-day Ukraine:
“Avitohol lived 300 years, he was born Dulo, and for years I eat dilom tvirem...
These 5 princes reigned over the country of the Danube for 500 years and 15 shorn heads.
And then the prince Isperih came to the country of the Danube, the same as I have hitherto.”
So, facial hair was treated differently: “Some Russians shave their beards, others curl and braid it, like a horse’s mane” (Ibn-Haukal). On the Taman Peninsula, the fashion for Oseledets, later inherited by the Cossacks, became widespread among the “Russian” nobility. The Hungarian Dominican monk Julian, who visited here in 1237, wrote that local “men shave their heads bald and carefully grow their beards, except for noble people who, as a sign of nobility, leave a little hair above their left ear, shaving the rest of their head.”
And here is how contemporary Procopius of Caesarea described the lightest Gothic cavalry in fragments: “They have little heavy cavalry, on long campaigns the Goths go light, with a small load on the horse, and when the enemy appears, they mount their light horses and attack... Gothic cavalry is called themselves “kosak”, “owning a horse.” As usual, their riders shave their heads, leaving only a long tuft of hair, so they are likened to their military deity - Danaprus. When necessary, this cavalry also fights on foot, and here they have no equal... When stopping, the army places carts around the camp for protection, which hold the enemy in case of a surprise attack..."
Over time, the name “Kosak” was assigned to all these military tribes, whether with forelocks, beards or mustaches, and therefore the original written form of the Cossack name is still fully preserved in English and Spanish pronunciation.

N. Karamzin (1775-1826) calls the Cossacks a knightly people and says that their origins are more ancient than the Batu (Tatar) invasion.
In connection with the Napoleonic Wars, the whole of Europe began to become especially interested in the Cossacks. The English General Nolan states: “The Cossacks in 1812-1815 did more for Russia than its entire army.” The French general Caulaincourt says: “All of Napoleon’s numerous cavalry died, mainly under the blows of the Cossacks of Ataman Platov.” The generals repeat the same thing: de Braque, Moran, de Bart, etc. Napoleon himself said: “Give me the Cossacks, and with them I will conquer the whole world.” And the simple Cossack Zemlyanukhin, during his stay in London, made a huge impression on the whole of England.
The Cossacks retained all the distinctive features they received from their ancient ancestors, such as love of freedom, ability to organize, self-esteem, honesty, courage, love of horses...

Some concepts of the origin of Cossack names

Horsemen of Asia - the most ancient Siberian army, originating from the Slavic-Aryan tribes, i.e. from the Scythians, Saks, Sarmatians, etc. All of them also belong to the Great Turan, and the Turs are the same Scythians. The Persians called the nomadic tribes of the Scythians “Turas,” because for their strong physique and courage, the Scythians themselves began to be associated with the Tura bulls. Such a comparison emphasized the masculinity and bravery of the warriors. So, for example, in Russian chronicles you can find the following expressions: “Brave be, like a tur” or “Buy tur Vsevolod” (this is what is said about Prince Igor’s brother in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”). And this is where the most curious thing arises. It turns out that in the time of Julius Caesar (F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron refer to this in their Encyclopedic Dictionary), the wild bulls of Turov were called “Urus”! ... And today, for the entire Turkic-speaking world, Russians are “Uruses”. For the Persians we were "Urs", for the Greeks - "Scythians", for the British - "cattle", for the rest - "tartarien" (Tatars, wild) and "Uruses". Many originated from them, the main ones from the Urals, Siberia and ancient India, from where military teachings spread in a distorted form, known to us in China as oriental martial arts.
Later, after regular migrations, some of them populated the Azov and Don steppes and began to be called horse azas or princes (in ancient Slavic, prince - konaz) among the ancient Slavic-Russians, Lithuanians, Aryan peoples of the Volga and Kama, Mordovians and many others from ancient times became the head of the board, forming a special noble caste of warriors. Perkun-az among the Lithuanians and Az among the ancient Scandinavians were revered as deities. And what is konung among the ancient Germans and könig among the Germans, king among the Normans, and kunig-az among the Lithuanians, if not converted from the word horseman, who came out of the land of the Azov-Aces and became the head of the government.
The eastern shores of the Azov and Black Seas, from the lower reaches of the Don to the foot of the Caucasus Mountains, became the cradle of the Cossacks, where they finally formed into the military caste we recognize today. This country was called by all ancient peoples the land of the Az, Asia terra. The word az or as (aza, azi, azen) is sacred to all Aryans; it means god, lord, king or folk hero. In ancient times, the territory beyond the Urals was called Asia. From here from Siberia to time immemorial The people's leaders of the Aryans with their clans or squads reached the north and west of Europe, the Iranian plateau, the plains of Central Asia and India. For example, historians mention the Andronovo tribes or the Siberian Scythians as one of these, and the ancient Greeks note the Issedons, Sindons, Sers, etc.

Ainu - in ancient times they moved from the Urals through Siberia to Primorye, Amur, America, Japan, known to us today as the Japanese and Sakhalin Ainu. In Japan they created a warrior caste, recognized by everyone today as the samurai. The Bering Strait was formerly called Ainsky (Aninsky, Ansky, Anian Strait), where they inhabited part of North America.

Kai-Saki (not to be confused with Kyrgyz-Kaisak),wandering across the steppes, these are the Cumans, Pechenegs, Yases, Huns, Huns, etc., lived in Siberia, in the Piebald Horde, in the Urals, the Russian Plain, Europe, Asia. From the ancient Turkic "Kai-Sak" (Scythian), it meant freedom-loving, in another sense - a warrior, a guard, an ordinary unit of the Horde. Among the Siberian Scythians-Sakas, "kos-saka or kos-sakha", this is a warrior, whose symbol is a totemic animal deer, sometimes elk, with branched antlers, which symbolized speed, fiery tongues of flame and the shining sun.

Among the Siberian Turks, the Solar God was designated through his intermediaries - the swan and the goose; later the Khazar Slavs would adopt the symbol of the goose from them, and then the hussars would appear on the historical stage.
But Kirgis-Kaisaki,or Kyrgyz Cossacks, these are today's Kyrgyz and Kazakhs. They are descendants of the Ganguns and Dinlins. So, in the first half of the 1st millennium AD. e. on the Yenisei (Minusinsk Basin), as a result of the mixing of these tribes, a new ethnic community is formed - the Yenisei Kyrgyz.
In their historical homeland, in Siberia, they created a powerful state - the Kyrgyz Kaganate. In ancient times, this people was noted by the Arabs, Chinese and Greeks as blond and blue-eyed, but at a certain stage they began to take Mongolian women as wives and in just a thousand years changed their appearance. It is interesting that, in percentage terms, the R1A haplogroup among the Kyrgyz is greater than among the Russians, but one should know that the genetic code is transmitted through the male line, and external characteristics are determined through the female line.

Russian chroniclers begin to mention them only from the first half of the 16th century, calling them Horde Cossacks. The character of the Kyrgyz people is direct and proud. Kirghiz-Kaysak only calls himself a natural Cossack, without recognizing this for others. Among the Kirghiz there are all transitional degrees of types, from purely Caucasian to Mongolian. They adhered to the Tengrian concept of the unity of the three worlds and entities “Tengri - Man - Earth” (“birds of prey - wolf - swan”). So, for example, ethnonyms found in ancient Turkic written monuments and associated with totem and other birds include: kyr-gyz (birds of prey), uy-gur (northern birds), bul-gar (water birds), bash- kur-t (Bashkurt-Bashkirs - head-birds of prey).
Until 581, the Kyrgyz paid tribute to the Turks of Altai, after which they overthrew the power of the Turkic Kaganate, but gained independence for a short time. In 629, the Kyrgyz were conquered by the Teles tribe (most likely of Turkic origin), and then by the Kok-Turks. Continuous wars with related Turkic peoples forced the Yenisei Kyrgyz to join the anti-Turkic coalition created by the Tang state (China). In 710-711 the Turkuts defeated the Kyrgyz and after that they were under the rule of the Turkuts until 745. In the so-called Mongol era (XIII-XIV centuries), after the defeat of the Naimans by the troops of Genghis Khan, the Kyrgyz principalities voluntarily joined his empire, finally losing their state independence. Kyrgyz combat units joined the Mongol hordes.
But the Kyrgyz-Kyrgyz did not disappear from the pages of history; already in our times, their fate was decided after the revolution. Until 1925, the government of the Kyrgyz autonomy was located in Orenburg, the administrative center of the Cossack army. In order to lose the meaning of the word Cossack, the Judeo-commissars renamed the Kyrgyz ASSR to Kazakstan, which would later become Kazakhstan. By decree of April 19, 1925, the Kirghiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was renamed the Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Somewhat earlier - on February 9, 1925, by decree of the Central Executive Committee of the Kirghiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, it was decided to transfer the capital of the republic from Orenburg to Ak-Mechet (formerly Perovsk), renaming it Kyzyl-Orda, since one of the decrees of 1925, part Orenburg region was returned to Russia. So the ancestral Cossack lands, together with the population, were transferred to the nomadic peoples. Now, for today’s Kazakhstan, world Zionism demands payment for the “service” provided in the form of an anti-Russian policy and loyalty to the West.

Siberian Tartars - Dzhagatai,this is the Cossack army of the Rusyns of Siberia. Since the time of Genghis Khan, the Tatar Cossacks began to represent the dashing invincible cavalry, which was always on the forefront of aggressive campaigns, where its basis was made up of the Chigets - Dzhigits (from the ancient Chigs and Gets). They also served in the service of Tamerlane; today they are known among the people as dzhigit, dzhigitovka. Russian historians of the 18th century. Tatishchev and Boltin say that the Tatar Baskaks, sent to Rus' by the khans to collect tribute, always had detachments of these Cossacks with them. Finding themselves close to sea waters, some of the Chigs and Getae became excellent sailors.
According to the news of the Greek historian Nikephoros Gregor, the son of Genghis Khan, under the name Telepuga, in 1221 conquered many peoples who lived between the Don and the Caucasus, including the Chigets - Chigs and Gets, as well as the Avazgs (Abkhazians). According to the legend of another historian George Pachimer, who lived in the second half of the 13th century, a Tatar commander named Noga conquered all the peoples living along the northern shores of the Black Sea under his rule and formed a special state in these countries. The Alans, Goths, Chigs, Rosses and other neighboring peoples they conquered mixed with the Turks, little by little they adopted their customs, way of life, language and clothing, began to serve in their army and raised the power of this people to the highest degree of glory.
Not all of the Cossacks, but only part of them, accepted their language, morals and customs, and then along with them the Mohammedan faith, while the other part remained faithful to the idea of ​​Christianity and for many centuries defended their independence, dividing into many communities, or partnerships, representing from itself one common union.

Sinds, Myots and Tanaitesthese are Kuban, Azov, Zaporozhye, partly Astrakhan, Volga and Don.
Once upon a time from Siberia, part of the tribes of the Andronovo culture moved to India. And here is an indicative example of the migration of peoples and the exchange of cultures, when some of the proto-Slavic peoples had already moved back from India, bypassing the territory of Central Asia, passing the Caspian Sea, crossing the Volga, they settled on the territory of the Kuban, these were the Sinds.

Afterwards they formed the basis of the Azov Cossack army. Around the 13th century, some of them went to the mouth of the Dnieper, where they later began to be called Zaporozhye Cossacks. At the same time, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania subjugated almost all the lands of present-day Ukraine. The Lithuanians began to recruit these military men to their military service. They called them Cossacks and during the time of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Cossacks founded the border Zaporozhye Sich.
Some of the future Azov, Zaporozhye and Don Cossacks, while still in India, accepted the blood of local tribes with dark skin color - the Dravidians and among all the Cossacks, they are the only ones with dark hair and eyes, and this is what makes them different. Ermak Timofeevich was precisely from this group of Cossacks.
In the middle of the first millennium BC. in the steppes, the Scythian nomads lived on the right bank of the Don, displacing the Cimmerian nomads, and the Sarmatian nomads lived on the left bank. The population of the Don forests was original Don - all of them in the future will be called Don Cossacks. The Greeks called them Tanaitians (Donets). At that time, near the Sea of ​​Azov, in addition to the Tanaitians, there lived many other tribes who spoke dialects of the Indo-European group of languages ​​(including Slavic), to which the Greeks gave the collective name "Meotians", which translated from ancient Greek means "marsh people" (inhabitants swampy places). The sea where these tribes lived was named after the name of this people - “Meotida” (Meotian Sea).
Here it should be noted how the Tanaites became Don Cossacks. In 1399 after the battle on the river. Vorskla, the Siberian Tartars-Rusyns who came with Edigei, settled along the upper reaches of the Don, where Brodniki also lived, and they gave rise to the name of the Don Cossacks. Among the first Don Ataman recognized by Muscovy is Sary Azman.

The word sary or sar is an ancient Persian word meaning king, ruler, lord; hence Sary-az-man - the royal people of Azov, the same as the Royal Scythians. The word sar in this sense is found in the following proper and common nouns: Sar-kel is a royal city, but Sarmatians (from sar and mada, mata, mati, i.e. woman) from the dominance of women among this people, from them - Amazons. Balta-sar, Sar-danapal, serdar, Caesar, or Caesar, Caesar, Caesar and our Slavic-Russian tsar. Although many are inclined to think that sary is a Tatar word meaning yellow, and from here they deduce red, but in the Tatar language there is a separate word to express the concept of red, namely zhiryan. It is noted that Jews descended from the maternal side often call their daughters Sarah. It is also noted about female dominance that from the 1st century. along the northern shores of the Azov and Black Seas, between the Don and the Caucasus, the rather powerful people Roksolane (Ros-Alan) become known, along Iornand (6th century) - the Rokas (Ros-Asy), whom Tacitus classifies as Sarmatians, and Strabo - as Scythians. Diodorus Sicilian, describing the Saks (Scythians) of the northern Caucasus, talks a lot about their beautiful and cunning queen Zarina, who conquered many neighboring peoples. Nicholas of Damascus (1st century) calls the capital of Zarina Roskanakoy (from Ros-kanak, castle, fortress, palace). It’s not for nothing that Iornand calls them Aesir or Rokas, where a giant pyramid with a statue on top was erected for their queen.

Since 1671, the Don Cossacks recognized the protectorate of the Moscow Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, that is, they abandoned their independent foreign policy, subordinating the interests of the Army to the interests of Moscow. The internal order remained the same. And only when the Romanov colonization of the south advanced to the borders of the Land of the Don Army, then Peter I carried out the incorporation of the Land of the Don Army into the Russian state.
This is how some of the former Horde members became the Cossacks of the Don, took an oath to serve the Tsar Father for a free life and protection of borders, but refused to serve the Bolshevik authorities after 1917, for which they suffered.

So, the Sinds, Miots and Tanaites are Kuban, Azov, Zaporozhye, partly Astrakhan, Volga and Don, of which the first two mostly died out due to the plague, replaced by others, mainly Cossacks. When, by decree of Catherine II, the entire Zaporozhye Sich was destroyed, then the surviving Cossacks were collected and resettled to Kuban.

The photo above shows the historical types of Cossacks who made up the Kuban Cossack army in the reconstruction of Yesaul Strinsky.
Here is a Khoper Cossack, three Black Sea Cossacks, a Lineets and two Plastuns - participants in the defense of Sevastopol during the Crimean War. The Cossacks are all distinguished, they have orders and medals on their chests.
-The first on the right is a Cossack of the Khoper regiment, armed with a cavalry flintlock rifle and a Don saber.
-Next we see a Black Sea Cossack in the uniform of the 1840 - 1842 model. He holds an infantry percussion rifle in his hand, an officer’s dagger and a Caucasian saber in a sheath hang on his belt. A cartridge bag or cannon hangs on his chest. On his side is a revolver in a holster with a lanyard.

-Behind him stands a Cossack in the uniform of the Black Sea Cossack Army of the 1816 model. His weapons are a flintlock Cossack rifle, model 1832, and a soldier's cavalry saber, model 1827.
-In the center we see an old Black Sea Cossack from the time of settlement of the Kuban region by the Black Sea people. He is wearing the uniform of the Zaporozhye Cossack Army. In his hand he holds an old, apparently Turkish flintlock gun, in his belt he has two flintlock pistols and a powder flask made of horn hangs from his belt. The saber at the belt is either not visible or missing.
-Next stands a Cossack in the uniform of a linear Cossack army. His weapons consist of: a flint infantry rifle, a dagger - beibut at the belt, a Circassian saber with a recessed handle in the scabbard, and a revolver on a cord at the belt.
The last ones in the photograph are two Plastun Cossacks, both armed with the authorized Plastun weapons - Littikh double-rifled fittings of the 1843 model. Cleaver bayonets hang from their belts in homemade sheaths. To the side stands a Cossack pike stuck into the ground.

Brodniki and Donets.
Brodniki are descended from the Khazar Slavs. In the 8th century, the Arabs considered them Saqlabs, i.e. white people, Slavic blood. It is noted that in 737, 20 thousand of their horse breeding families settled on the eastern borders of Kakheti. They are indicated in the Persian geography of the tenth century (Gudud al Alem) on the Sreny Don under the name Bradas and were known there until the 11th century. after which their nickname is replaced in the sources by a common Cossack name.
Here it is necessary to explain in more detail about the origin of the wanderers.
The formation of the union of Scythians and Sarmatians received the name Kas Aria, which later became distortedly called Khazaria. It was Cyril and Methodius who came to missionize the Slavic Khazars (KasArians).

Their activities were also noted here: Arab historians in the 8th century. noted the Sakalibs in the Upper Don forest-steppe, and the Persians, a hundred years after them, the Bradasov-Brodnikovs. The sedentary part of these tribes, remaining in the Caucasus, was subordinate to the Huns, Bulgarians, Kazars and Asam-Alans, in whose kingdom the Azov region and Taman were called the Land of Kasak (Gudud al Alem). It was there that Christianity finally triumphed among them, after the missionary work of St. Kirill, approx. 860
The difference between KasAria is that it was a country of warriors, and later became Khazaria - a country of traders, when the Jewish high priests came to power in it. And here, in order to understand the essence of what is happening, it is necessary to explain in more detail. In 50 AD, Emperor Claudius expelled all Jews from Rome. In 66-73 there was a Jewish uprising. They capture the Jerusalem Temple, the Antonia fortress, the entire upper city and the fortified palace of Herod, and arrange a real massacre for the Romans. They then rebel throughout Palestine, killing both the Romans and their more moderate compatriots. This uprising was suppressed, and in 70 the center of Judaism in Jerusalem was destroyed and the temple was burned to the ground.
But the war continued. The Jews did not want to admit they were defeated. After the great Jewish uprising of 133-135, the Romans wiped out all historical traditions of Judaism from the face of the earth. In 137, on the site of the destruction of Jerusalem, a new pagan city, Elia Capitolina, was built; Jews were forbidden to enter Jerusalem. To further offend the Jews, Emperor Ariadne forbade them from being circumcised. Many Jews were forced to flee to the Caucasus and Persia.
In the Caucasus, Jews became neighbors of the Khazars, and in Persia they slowly entered all branches of government. It ended with a revolution and civil war under the leadership of Mazdak. As a result, the Jews were expelled from Persia - to Khazaria, where the Khazar Slavs lived there at that time.
In the 6th century, the Great Turkic Khaganate was created. Some tribes fled from him, such as the Hungarians to Pannonia, and the Khazar Slavs (Kozars, Kazars), in alliance with the ancient Bulgars, united with the Turkic Kaganate. Their influence reached from Siberia to the Don and the Black Sea. When the Turkic Kaganate began to fall apart, the Khazars took in the fleeing prince of the Ashin dynasty and drove out the Bulgars. This is how the Khazar-Turks appeared.
For a hundred years, Khazaria was ruled by Turkic khans, but they did not change their way of life: they lived a nomadic life in the steppe and only returned to the adobe houses of Itil in the winter. The Khan supported himself and his army himself, without burdening the Khazars with taxes. The Turks fought the Arabs, taught the Khazars to repel the onslaught of regular troops, since they had the skills of steppe maneuver warfare. Thus, under the military leadership of the Turkuts (650-810), the Khazars successfully repelled the periodic invasions of the Arabs from the south, which united these two peoples, moreover, the Turkuts remained nomads, and the Khazars remained farmers.
When Khazaria accepted the Jews who fled from Persia, and wars with the Arabs led to the liberation of part of the lands of Khazaria, this allowed the refugees to settle there. So gradually Jews who fled from the Roman Empire began to join them, it was thanks to them at the beginning of the 9th century. the small khanate turned into a huge state. The main population of Khazaria at that time could be called “Slav-Khazars”, “Turkic-Khazars” and “Judeo-Khazars”. The Jews who arrived in Khazaria were engaged in trade, for which the Khazar Slavs themselves did not show any ability. In the second half of the 8th century, rabbinic Jews expelled from Byzantium began to arrive among the Jewish refugees from Persia in Khazaria, among whom were also descendants of those expelled from Babylon and Egypt. Since Jewish rabbis were city dwellers, they settled exclusively in cities: Itil, Semender, Belendzher, etc. All these immigrants from the former Roman Empire, Persia and Byzantium are known to us today as Sephardim.
At the beginning, there was no conversion of the Slavic Khazars to Judaism, because The Jewish community lived separately among the Slavic Khazars and Turkic Khazars, but over time some of them accepted Judaism and today they are known to us as Ashkenazis.

By the end of the 8th century. The Judeo-Khazars began to gradually penetrate into power structures Khazaria, acting by their favorite method - becoming related through their daughters to the Turkic aristocracy. Children of Turkic-Khazars and Jewish women had all the rights of their father and the help of the Jewish community in all matters. And the children of Jews and Khazars became a kind of outcasts (Karaites) and lived on the outskirts of Khazaria - in Taman or Kerch. At the beginning of the 9th century. the influential Jew Obadiah took power into his own hands and laid the foundation for Jewish hegemony in Khazaria, acting through the puppet khan of the Ashin dynasty, whose mother was Jewish. But not all Turkic-Khazars accepted Judaism. Soon a coup took place in the Khazar Kaganate, which resulted in a civil war. The "old" Turkic aristocracy rebelled against the Judeo-Khazar authorities. The rebels attracted the Magyars (ancestors of the Hungarians) to their side, and the Jews hired the Pechenegs. Constantine Porphyrogenitus described those events as follows: “When they separated from power and an internecine war broke out, the first government (the Jews) gained the upper hand and some of them (the rebels) were killed, others fled and settled with the Turks (Magyars) in the Pecheneg lands (lower Dnieper), made peace and received the name Kabars."

In the 9th century, the Judeo-Khazar Kagan invited the Varangian squad of Prince Oleg to war with the Muslims of the Southern Caspian region, promising the division of Eastern Europe and assistance in capturing the Kyiv Kaganate. Tired of the constant raids of the Khazars on their lands, where the Slavs were constantly taken into slavery, Oleg took advantage of the situation, captured Kyiv in 882 and refused to fulfill the agreements, and a war began. Around 957, after baptism Kyiv princess Olga in Constantinople, i.e. After gaining the support of Byzantium, the confrontation between Kyiv and Khazaria began. Thanks to the alliance with Byzantium, the Russians were supported by the Pechenegs. In the spring of 965, Svyatoslav's troops descended along the Oka and Volga to the Khazar capital Itil, bypassing the Khazar troops who were waiting for them in the Don steppes. After a short battle the city was taken.
As a result of the campaign 964-965. Svyatoslav excluded the Volga, the middle reaches of the Terek and the middle Don from the sphere of the Jewish community. Svyatoslav returned independence to Kievan Rus. Svyatoslav’s blow to the Jewish community of Khazaria was cruel, but his victory was not final. Returning, he passed Kuban and Crimea, where Khazar fortresses remained. There were also communities in the Kuban, Crimea, Tmutarakan, where Jews under the name Khazars continued to hold dominant positions for another two centuries, but the state of Khazaria ceased to exist forever. The remnants of the Judeo-Khazars settled in Dagestan (Mountain Jews) and Crimea (Karaite Jews). Part of the Slavic Khazars and Turkic-Khazars remained on the Terek and Don, mixed with local related tribes and, according to the old name of the Khazar warriors, they were called “Podon Brodniks,” but it was they who fought against Rus' on the Kalka River.
In 1180, the Brodniks helped the Bulgarians in their war for independence from the Eastern Roman Empire. The Byzantine historian and writer Nikita Choniates (Acominatus), described in his “Chronicle”, dated 1190, the events of that Bulgarian war, and in one phrase comprehensively characterizes the Brodniks: “Those Brodniks, despising death, are a branch of the Russians.” Initial name worn as “Kozars”, by origin from the Kozar Slavs, from whom it received the name Khazaria or Khazar Kaganate. This is a Slavic warring tribe, part of which did not want to submit to the already Jewish Khazaria, and after its defeat, uniting with their kindred tribes, they subsequently settled along the banks of the Don, where the Tanaitians, Sarmatians, Roxalans, Alans (Yas), Torquay-Berendeys, etc. lived. They received the name Don Cossacks after most of the Siberian army of the Rusins ​​of Tsar Edygei settled there, which also included black hoods left after the battle on the river. Vorskla, in 1399 Edigei is the founder of the dynasty, who led the Nogai Horde. His direct descendants in the male line were the princes Urusov and Yusupov.
So, the Brodniki are the undisputed ancestors of the Don Cossacks. They are indicated in the Persian geography of the tenth century (Gudud al Alem) on the Middle Don under the name Bradas and were known there until the 11th century. after which their nickname is replaced in the sources by a common Cossack name.
- Berendei, from the territory of Siberia, like many tribes due to climatic shocks, moved to the Russian Plain. The field, pressed from the east by the Polovtsy (Polovtsy - from the word “polovy”, which means “red”), the Berendeys at the end of the 11th century entered into various alliance agreements with the Eastern Slavs. According to agreements with the Russian princes, they settled on the borders of Ancient Rus' and often served as guards in favor of the Russian state. But after that they were scattered and partly mixed with the population of the Golden Horde, and partly with Christians. They existed as an independent people. From the same region originate the formidable warriors of Siberia - Black Klobuki, which means black hats (papakhas) who will later be called Cherkas.

Black hoods (black hats), Cherkasy (not to be confused with Circassians)
- moved from Siberia to the Russian Plain, from the Berendey kingdom, the last name of the country is Borondai. Their ancestors once inhabited the vast lands of the northern part of Siberia, up to the Arctic Ocean. Their stern disposition terrified their enemies; it was their ancestors who were the people of Gog and Magog, and it was from them that Alexander the Great was defeated in the battle for Siberia. They did not want to see themselves in kinship alliances with other peoples, they always lived separately and did not classify themselves as any people.

For example, the important role of black hoods in the political life of the Kyiv principality is evidenced by the stable expressions repeatedly repeated in chronicles: “the whole Russian land and black hoods.” The Persian historian Rashid ad-din (died in 1318), describing Rus' in 1240, writes: “The princes Batu and his brothers, Kadan, Buri and Buchek set out on a campaign to the country of the Russians and the people of the black caps.”
Subsequently, in order not to separate one from the other, the black hoods began to be called Cherkasy or Cossacks. In the Moscow Chronicle of the late 15th century, under the year 1152, it is explained: “All the Black Klobuks are called Cherkassy.” The Resurrection and Kiev Chronicles also speak about this: “And gather up your squad and go, taking with you Vyacheslav’s entire regiment and all the black hoods, which are called Cherkassy.”
Black hoods, due to their isolation, easily entered the service of both the Slavic and Turkic peoples. Their character and special differences in clothing, especially the headdress, were adopted by the peoples of the Caucasus, whose attire is now considered for some reason only to be Caucasian. But in ancient drawings, engravings and photographs, these clothes, and especially hats, can be seen among the Cossacks of Siberia, the Urals, Amur, Primorye, Kuban, Don, etc. Living together with the peoples of the Caucasus, an exchange of cultures took place and each tribe acquired something from the others, both in cuisine and in clothes and customs. From the Black Klobuks also came the Siberian, Yaitsky, Dnieper, Grebensky, Terek Cossacks, the first mention of the latter dates back to 1380, when free Cossacks living near the Grebenny Mountains blessed and presented the holy icon of the Mother of God (Grebnevskaya) to Grand Duke Dmitry (Donskoy) .

Grebensky, Tersky.
The word ridge is purely Cossack, meaning the highest line of the watershed of two rivers or gullies. In each Don village there are many such watersheds and they are all called ridges. In ancient times there was also a Cossack town of Grebni, mentioned in the chronicle of Archimandrite Anthony of the Donskoy Monastery. But not all combs lived on the Terek; in the old Cossack song, they are mentioned in the Saratov steppes:
As on the glorious steppes it was on Saratov,
Below the city of Saratov,
And higher up was the city of Kamyshin,
Friendly Cossacks gathered, free people,
They, brothers, gathered in a single circle:
like Don, Grebensky and Yaitsky.
Their chieftain is Ermak son Timofeevich...
Later in their origin, they began to add “living near the mountains, i.e. near the ridges.” Officially, the Terets trace their ancestry back to 1577, when the city of Terka was founded, and the first mention of the Cossack army dates back to 1711. It was then that the Cossacks of the Free Community of Grebenskaya formed the Grebensk Cossack Army.

Pay attention to the photograph from 1864, where the Greben people inherited a dagger from the Caucasian peoples. But in essence, this is an improved sword of the Scythians akinak. Akinak is a short (40-60 cm) iron sword used by the Scythians in the second half of the 1st millennium BC. e. In addition to the Scythians, the Akinaki were also used by the tribes of the Persians, Saks, Argypeans, Massagetae and Melanchleni, i.e. proto-Cossacks.
The Caucasian dagger is part of national symbols. This is a sign that a man is ready to defend his personal honor, the honor of his family and the honor of his people. He never parted with it. For centuries, the dagger has been used as a means of attack, defense and as a cutlery. The Caucasian dagger "Kama" is most widespread among the daggers of other peoples, Cossacks, Turks, Georgians, etc. The attribute of gazyrs on the chest appeared with the advent of the first firearm with a powder charge. This detail was first added to the clothing of a Turkic warrior, it was among the Mamelukes of Egypt, the Cossacks, but it was already established as an adornment among the peoples of the Caucasus.

The origin of the hat is interesting. Chechens adopted Islam during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad. A large Chechen delegation that visited the prophet in Mecca was personally initiated into the essence of Islam by the prophet, after which in Mecca the envoys of the Chechen people accepted Islam. Mohamed gave them karakul for the journey to make shoes. But on the way back, the Chechen delegation, considering that it was not appropriate to wear the prophet’s gift on their feet, sewed papakhas, and now, to this day, this is the main national headdress (Chechen papakha). Upon the return of the delegation to Chechnya, without any coercion, the Chechens accepted Islam, realizing that Islam is not only “Mohammedanism,” which originated from the Prophet Muhammad, but this original faith of monotheism, which made a spiritual revolution in the minds of people and laid a clear line between pagan savagery and true educated faith.

It was the Caucasians, who adopted military attributes from different peoples, adding their own, such as a burka, a hat, etc., who improved this style of military attire and secured it for themselves, which no one doubts today. But let's look at what military vestments they used to wear in the Caucasus.

In the middle photo above we see Kurds dressed according to the Circassian pattern, i.e. this attribute of military attire is already attached to the Circassians and will continue to be attached to them in the future. But in the background we see a Turk, the only thing he doesn’t have is gazyrs, that’s what makes him different. When Ottoman Empire waged war in the Caucasus, the peoples of the Caucasus adopted some military attributes from them, as well as from the Greben Cossacks. In this mixture of cultural exchange and war, the universally recognizable Circassian woman and papakha appeared. The Ottoman Turks seriously influenced the historical course of events in the Caucasus, so some photographs are replete with the presence of Turks with Caucasians. But if not for Russia, many peoples of the Caucasus would have disappeared or been assimilated, such as the Chechens who left with the Turks for their territory. Or take the Georgians who asked for protection from the Turks from Russia.

As we see, in the past, the main part of the peoples of the Caucasus did not have their recognizable today attributes, “black caps”, they will appear later, but the combs have them, as the heirs of the “black caps” (hoods). We can cite as an example the origins of some Caucasian peoples.
Lezgins, ancient Alan-Lezgi, the most numerous and brave people in the entire Caucasus. They speak a light, sonorous language of Aryan root, but thanks to influence, starting from the 8th century. Arab culture, which gave them their writing and religion, as well as pressure from neighboring Turkic-Tatar tribes, have lost much of their original nationality and now represent a striking, difficult-to-research mixture with Arabs, Avars, Kumyks, Tarks, Jews and others.
Neighbors of the Lezgins, to the west, along the northern slope of the Caucasus Range, live the Chechens, who received their name from the Russians, actually from their large village “Chachan” or “Chechen”. The Chechens themselves call their nationality Nakhchi or Nakhchoo, which means people from the country of Nakh or Noach, i.e. Noah. According to folk tales, they came around the 4th century. to their present place of residence, through Abkhazia, from the area of ​​Nakhchi-Van, from the foot of Ararat (Erivan province) and pressed by Kabardians, they took refuge in the mountains, along the upper reaches of the Aksai, the right tributary of the Terek, where even now there is still the old village of Aksai, in Greater Chechnya , built once, according to the legend of the inhabitants of the village of Gerzel, by Aksai Khan. The ancient Armenians were the first to connect the ethnonym "Nokhchi", the modern self-name of the Chechens, with the name of the prophet Noah, the literal meaning of which means Noah's people. Georgians, from time immemorial, have called Chechens “Dzurdzuks,” which means “righteous” in Georgian.
According to the philological research of Baron Uslar, the Chechen language has some similarities with Lezgin, but in anthropological terms, the Chechens are a people mixed type. In the Chechen language there are quite a lot of words with the root “gun”, such as in the names of rivers, mountains, villages and tracts: Guni, Gunoy, Guen, Gunib, Argun, etc. They call the sun Dela-Molkh (Moloch). Mother of the sun - Aza.
As we saw above, many Caucasian tribes of the past do not have the usual Caucasian attributes, but all the Cossacks of Russia have them, from the Don to the Urals, from Siberia to Primorye.

And here below, there is already a discrepancy in military uniforms. Their historical roots began to be forgotten, and military attributes were copied from the Caucasian peoples.

After repeated renamings, mergers and divisions, the Grebensky Cossacks, according to the order of the Minister of War N 256 (dated November 19, 1860) “... were ordered: to remove the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th brigades of the Caucasian Linear Cossack troops, in full force, to form the “Terek Cossack Army”, incorporating into its composition the horse-artillery batteries of the Caucasian Linear Cossack Army No. 15 and the reserve... "
In Kievan Rus, subsequently, the semi-sedentary and sedentary part of the Black Klobuks remained in Porosye and over time were assimilated by the local Slavic population, taking part in the ethnogenesis of the Ukrainians. Their free Zaporozhye Sich ceased to exist in August 1775, when the Sich and the very name “Zaporozhye Cossacks” in Russia, according to Western plans, were destroyed. And only in 1783 Potemkin again gathered the surviving Cossacks into the sovereign service. The newly formed Cossack teams of the Zaporozhian Cossacks receive the name “Kosh of the faithful Zaporozhye Cossacks” and settle on the territory of the Odessa district. Soon after this (after repeated requests from the Cossacks and for their faithful service), according to the personal decree of the Empress (dated January 14, 1788), they were transferred to Kuban - to Taman. Since then, the Cossacks have been called Kuban.

In general terms, the Siberian army of the Black Cowls had a huge influence on the Cossacks throughout Russia; they were in many Cossack associations and were an example of the free and indestructible Cossack spirit.
The name “Cossack” itself dates back to the times of the Great Turan, when the Scythian peoples of Kos-saka or Ka-saka lived. For more than twenty centuries, this name has changed little; initially among the Greeks it was written as Kossahi. The geographer Strabo called the military people located in the mountains of Transcaucasia during the life of Christ the Savior by the same name. After 3-4 centuries, back in the ancient era, our name is repeatedly found in Tanaid inscriptions (inscriptions), discovered and studied by V.V. Latyshev. Its Greek script, Kasakos, was preserved until the 10th century, after which Russian chroniclers began to confuse it with the common Caucasian names Kasagov, Kasogov, Kazyag. The original Greek script of Kossahi gives two constituent elements of this name "kos" and "sakhi", two words with a specific Scythian meaning "White Sakhi". But the name of the Scythian tribe Sakhi is equivalent to their own Saka, and therefore the following Greek style “Kasakos” can be interpreted as a variant of the previous one, closer to the modern one. The change of the prefix “kos” to “kas” is obviously due to purely sound (phonetic) reasons, peculiarities of pronunciation and peculiarities of auditory sensations among different peoples. This difference continues to this day (Kazak, Kozak). Kossaka, in addition to the meaning of White Saki (Sakhi), has, as mentioned above, another Scythian-Iranian meaning - “White deer”. Remember the animal style of Scythian jewelry, tattoos on the mummy of the Altai princess, most likely deer and deer buckles - these are attributes of the Scythian military class.

And the territorial name of this word was preserved in Sakha Yakutia (Yakuts in ancient times were called Yakolts) and SakhaLin. In the Russian people, this word is associated with the image of branched antlers, like elk, colloquially - elk deer, elk. So, we again returned to the ancient symbol of the Scythian warriors - the deer, which is reflected in the seal and coat of arms of the Cossacks of the Don Army. We should be grateful to them for preserving this ancient symbol of the warriors of the Rus and Ruthenians, who come from the Scythians.
Well, in Russia, Cossacks were also called Azov, Astrakhan, Danube and Transdanubian, Bug, Black Sea, Slobodsk, Transbaikal, Khopyor, Amur, Orenburg, Yaik - Ural, Budzhak, Yenisei, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Yakut, Ussuri, Semirechensk, Daur, Onon , Nerchen, Evenk, Albazin, Buryat, Siberian, you can’t cover everyone.
So, no matter what all these warriors are called, they are still the same Cossacks living in different parts of their country.

P.S.
There are the most important circumstances in our history that are hushed up by hook or by crook. Those who throughout our historical past have constantly played dirty tricks on us are afraid of publicity, afraid of being recognized. That’s why they hide behind false historical layers. These dreamers came up with their own story for us in order to hide their dark deeds. For example, why did the Battle of Kulikovo take place in 1380 and who fought there?
- Dmitry Donskoy, Prince of Moscow and Grand Duke of Vladimir, led the Volga and Trans-Ural Cossacks (Siberians), who are called Tatars in Russian chronicles. The Russian army consisted of princely horse and foot squads, as well as militia. The cavalry was formed from baptized Tatars, defected Lithuanians and Russians trained in Tatar equestrian combat.
- In Mamaev’s army there were Ryazan, Western Russian, Polish, Crimean and Genoese troops that fell under the influence of the West. Mamai's ally was the Lithuanian prince Jagiello, Dmitry's ally is considered to be Khan Tokhtamysh with an army of Siberian Tatars (Cossacks).
The Genoese financed the Cossack ataman Mamai, and promised the troops manna from heaven, i.e. “Western values,” well, nothing changes in this world. The Cossack ataman Dmitry Donskoy won. Mamai fled to Cafa and there, as unnecessary, was killed by the Genoese. So, the Battle of Kulikovo is a battle of Muscovites, Volga and Siberian Cossacks led by Dmitry Donskoy with an army of Genoese, Polish and Lithuanian Cossacks led by Mamai.
Of course, later the whole story of the battle was presented as a battle between the Slavs and foreign (Asian) invaders. Apparently, later, with tendentious editing, the original word “Cossacks” was replaced everywhere in the chronicles with “Tatars” in order to hide those who so unsuccessfully proposed “Western values”.
In fact, the Battle of Kulikovo was just an episode of a civil war that broke out, in which Cossack hordes of one state fought among themselves. But they sowed the seeds of discord, as the satirist Zadornov says - “traders”. It is they who imagine that they are chosen and exceptional, it is they who dream of world domination, and hence all our troubles.

These "traders" persuaded Genghis Khan to fight against his own people. The Pope and the French King Louis the Saint sent a thousand envoys, diplomatic agents, instructors and engineers, as well as the best European commanders, especially the Templars (knightly order), to Genghis Khan.
They saw that no one else was suitable for the defeat of both Palestinian Muslims and Orthodox Eastern Christians, Greeks, Russians, Bulgarians, etc., who once destroyed ancient Rome, and then Latin Byzantium. At the same time, to be sure and strengthen the blow, the popes began to arm the Swedish ruler of the throne, Birger, the Teutons, the Swordsmen and Lithuania against the Russians.
Under the guise of scientists and capital, they took administrative positions in the Uyghur kingdom, Bactria, and Sogdiana.
These rich scribes were the authors of the laws of Genghis Khan - "Yasu", in which all sects of Christians were shown great favor and tolerance, unusual for Asia, the popes and the Europe of that time. In these laws, under the influence of the popes, the Jesuits themselves, permission was expressed, with various benefits, to convert from Orthodoxy to Catholicism, which many of the Armenians took advantage of at that time, who later formed the Armenian Catholic Church.

To cover up the papal participation in this enterprise and to please the Asians, the main official roles and places were given to the best native commanders and relatives of Genghis Khan, and almost 3/4 of the secondary leaders and officials consisted mainly of Asian sectarians of Christians and Catholics. This is where Genghis Khan’s invasion came from, but the “traders” did not take into account his appetite, and cleaned up the pages of history for us, preparing the next meanness. All this is very similar to the “invasion of Hitler”, they themselves brought him to power and got it in the teeth from him, so that they had to take the goal of the “USSR” as an ally and delay our colonization. By the way, not so long ago, during the Opium War in China, these “traders” tried to repeat the “Genghis Khan-2” scenario against Russia, for a long time they occupied China with the help of Jesuits, missionaries, etc., but later, as they say: "Thank you Comrade Stalin for our happy childhood."
Have you wondered why Cossacks of various stripes fought both for Russia and against it? For example, some of our historians are perplexed why the governor of the Brodniks, Ploskin, who, according to our chronicle, stood with 30 thousand troops on the river. Kalka (1223), did not help the Russian princes in the battle with the Tatars. He even clearly sided with the latter, persuading the Kyiv prince Mstislav Romanovich to surrender, and then tied him up with his two sons-in-law and handed him over to the Tatars, where he was killed. As in 1917, so here too, there was a protracted Civil War. Peoples related to each other were pitted against each other, nothing changes, the same principles of our enemies remain, “divide and conquer.” And so that we don’t learn lessons from this, the pages of history are being replaced.
But if the plans of the “traders” of 1917 were buried by Stalin, then the events described above were buried by Batu Khan. And of course, both of them were smeared with the indelible mud of historical lies, these are their methods.

13 years after the Battle of Kalka, the “Mongols” led by Khan Batu, or Batu, the grandson of Genghis Khan, from beyond the Urals, i.e. from the territory of Siberia moved to Russia. Batu had up to 600 thousand troops, consisting of many, more than 20, peoples of Asia and Siberia. In 1238, the Tatars took the capital of the Volga Bulgarians, then Ryazan, Suzdal, Rostov, Yaroslavl and many other cities; defeated the Russians at the river. City, took Moscow, Tver and went to Novgorod, where at the same time the Swedes and the Baltic crusaders were marching. It would be an interesting battle, the crusaders with Batu would storm Novgorod. But mud got in the way. In 1240, Batu took Kyiv, his goal was Hungary, where the old enemy of the Genghisids, the Polovtsian Khan Kotyan, had fled. Poland and Krakow fell first. In 1241, the army of Prince Henry and the Templars was defeated near Legica. Then Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary fell, Batu reached the Adriatic and took Zagreb. Europe was helpless; it was saved by the fact that Khan Udegey died and Batu turned back. Europe received a full blow in the teeth for its crusaders, Templars, bloody baptisms, and order reigned in Rus', the laurels for this remained with Alexander Nevsky, Batu’s brother-in-law.
But this mess began with the baptist of Rus', with Prince Vladimir. When he seized power in Kyiv, Kievan Rus began to increasingly unite with the Christian system of the West. Here we should note interesting episodes from the life of the baptist of Rus', Vladimir Svyatoslavich, including the brutal murder of his brother, the destruction of not only Christian churches, the rape of the prince’s daughter Ragneda in front of her parents, a harem of hundreds of concubines, a war against her son, etc. Already under Vladimir Monomakh, Kievan Rus represented the left flank of the Christian crusader invasion of the East. After Monomakh, Rus' broke up into three systems - Kyiv, Darkness-Tarakan, Vladimir-Suzdal Rus'. When the Christianization of the Western Slavs began, the Eastern Slavs considered this a betrayal and turned to the Siberian rulers for help. Seeing the threat of a crusader invasion and the future enslavement of the Slavs, many tribes united into a union on the territory of Siberia, and this is how a state formation appeared - Great Tartary, which stretched from the Urals to Transbaikalia. Yaroslav Vsevolodovich was the first to call on Tartaria for help, for which he suffered. But thanks to Batu, who created the Golden Horde, the crusaders were already afraid of such power. But still, quietly, the “traders” destroyed Tartaria.

Why everything happened this way, the question here is solved very simply. The conquest of Russia was led by papal agents, Jesuits, missionaries and other evil spirits, who promised all sorts of benefits and benefits to the local residents, and especially to those who helped them. In addition, in the hordes of the so-called “Mongol-Tatars” there were many Christians from Central Asia, who enjoyed many privileges and freedom of religion; Western missionaries, based on Christianity, spawned various kinds of religious movements there, such as Nestorianism.

Here it becomes clear where in the West there are so many ancient maps of the territories of Russia and especially Siberia. It becomes clear why the state formation on the territory of Siberia, which was called Great Tartaria, is kept silent. On early maps Tartaria is indivisible, on later maps it is fragmented, and since 1775, under the guise of Pugachevism, it has ceased to exist. So, with the collapse of the Roman Empire, the Vatican took its place and, continuing the traditions of Rome, organized new wars for its dominance. So the Byzantine Empire fell, and its successor Russia became the main target for Papal Rome, i.e. Now the Western world is "hucksters". For their insidious purposes, the Cossacks were like a bone in the throat. How many wars, upheavals, how much grief befell all our peoples, but the main historical time, known to us since ancient times, the Cossacks kicked our enemies in the teeth. Closer to our times, they still managed to break the dominance of the Cossacks and after the well-known events of 1917, the Cossacks were dealt a crushing blow, but it took them many centuries.

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There are probably not so many inventions, legends, lies and fairy tales about any Russian ethnic group as about the Cossacks.
Their very origin, existence, role in history serve as the object of all kinds of political speculation and pseudo-historical machinations.

Let's try calmly, without emotions and cheap tricks, to figure out who the Cossacks are, where they came from, and what they represent today...

In the summer of 965, the Russian prince Svyatoslav Igorevich moved his troops to Khazaria.
The Khazar army (reinforced by detachments of various Caucasian tribes), together with its kagan, came out to meet him.

By that time, the Russians had already defeated the Khazars more than once - for example, under the command of the Prophetic Oleg.
But Svyatoslav posed the question differently. He decided to eliminate Khazaria completely, without a trace.
This man was no match for today's rulers of Russia. Svyatoslav set global goals for himself; he acted decisively, quickly, without delay, hesitation or regard for anyone’s opinion.

The troops of the Khazar Khaganate were defeated and the Russians approached the capital of Khazaria, Sharkil (known as Sarkel in Greek-Byzantine historical documents), located on the banks of the Don.
Sharkil was built under the leadership of Byzantine engineers and was a serious fortress. But apparently the Khazars did not expect that the Russians would move deeper into Khazaria, and therefore were poorly prepared for defense. Speed ​​and onslaught did their job - Sharkil was taken and defeated.
However, Svyatoslav appreciated the advantageous location of the city - so he ordered the founding of a Russian fortress on this place.
The name Sharkil (or, in Greek pronunciation, Sarkel) means “White House”. The Russians, without further ado, simply translated this name into their language. This is how the Russian city of Belaya Vezha was born.

Aerial photograph of the former Belaya Vezha fortress taken in 1951. Now this territory is flooded by the waters of the Tsimlyansk Reservoir.

Having passed through the entire North Caucasus with fire and sword, Prince Svyatoslav achieved his goal - the Khazar Khaganate was destroyed.
Having conquered Dagestan, Svyatoslav moved his troops to the Black Sea.
There, in part of the Kuban and Crimea, there existed the ancient Bosporan kingdom, which fell into decay and fell under the rule of the Khazars. Among others, there was a city there, which the Greeks called Hermonassa, the Turkic nomadic tribes called Tumentarkhan, and the Khazars called Samkerts.
Having conquered these lands, Svyatoslav transferred a certain amount of the Russian population there.
In particular, Hermonassa (Tumentarkhan, Samkerts) turned into the Russian city of Tmutarakan (modern Taman, in the Krasnodar Territory).

Modern excavations underway in Tmutarakan (Taman). 2008

At the same time, taking advantage of the fact that the Khazar danger had disappeared, Russian merchants founded the Oleshye fortress (modern Tsyurupinsk, Kherson region) at the mouth of the Dnieper.

This is how Russian settlers appeared on the Don, Kuban and in the lower reaches of the Dnieper.

The exclaves of Oleshye, Belaya Vezha, and Tmutarakan on the map of the Old Russian state of the 11th century.

Subsequently, when Rus' fell apart into different principalities, the Tmutarakan principality became one of the most powerful.
The princes of Tmutarakan took an active part in the internal princely feuds of Rus', and also pursued an active expansionist policy. For example, in alliance with the North Caucasian tribes dependent on Tmutarakan, they organized, one after another, three campaigns against Shirvan (Azerbaijan).
That is, Tmutarakan was not just a remote fortress on the edge of the Russian world. It was a fairly large city, the capital of an independent and fairly strong principality.

However, over time, the situation in the southern steppes began to change for the worse for the Russians.
In place of the defeated and destroyed Khazars (and their allies), new nomads began to penetrate into the deserted steppes - the Pechenegs (the ancestors of the modern Gagauz). At first, little by little, then more and more actively (does this remind contemporaries of anything?..). Year after year, step by step, Tmutarakan, Belaya Vezha and Oleshye found themselves cut off from the main territory of Rus'.
Their geopolitical situation complicated.

And then, the Pechenegs were replaced by much more warlike, numerous and wild nomads, who in Rus' were called Polovtsians. In Europe they were called Cumans, or Comans. In the Caucasus - Kipchaks, or Kypchaks.
And these people have always called themselves, and still call themselves, COSSACKS.

Take an interest in the CORRECT name of the republic today, which we Russians know as Kazakhstan.
For those who are not in the know, let me explain - KAZAKSTAN.
And the Kazakhs themselves are called COSSACKS. We call them Kazakhs.

Here on the map is the territory of the Kazakh (Polovtsian, Kipchak) nomadic camps, at the end of the 11th - beginning of the 12th centuries.

The territory of modern Kazakhstan (correctly - Kazakstan)

Cut off by nomads from the main territory of Rus', Oleshye and Belaya Vezha began to gradually decline, and the Tmutarakan principality eventually recognized the sovereignty of Byzantium over itself.
It should be especially taken into account that in that era, no more than 10% of the total population lived in cities. The bulk of the population, even in the most developed states at that time, consisted of peasants. Therefore, the desolation of cities did not entail the death of the entire population, completely - especially since none of the nomadic peoples ever set out to arrange genocide for the Russians.
Russians as an ethnic group on the Don, Kuban, and Dnieper (especially in remote, secluded places) never completely disappeared - although, of course, they mixed with different peoples and partially adopted their customs.

Plus, it should be taken into account that the Pechenegs and Cumans sometimes drove into slavery the inhabitants of the border Russian lands - and mixed with them.
And subsequently, having become relatively civilized, the Polovtsians began to slowly adopt Orthodoxy and entered into various agreements with the Russians. For example, Prince Igor (about whom “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” tells) was helped to escape from captivity by a baptized Polovtsian named Ovrul.

A certain number of Russian vagabonds, people with a dubious past, always flowed in thin streams into the Polovtsian steppes. There, the fugitives tried to settle in an area where a certain number of Russians were present.
Such an escape was made easier by the fact that it did not require knowledge of the road - it was enough to simply walk along the Don or Dnieper.

Of course, this was not done in one day. But as they say, a drop wears away a stone.

Gradually, there were so many such marginalized vagabonds that they began to allow themselves organized attacks on certain areas. For example, in 1159 (note - this was still the PRE-MONGOL period) Oleshye was attacked by a strong detachment of such vagabonds (at that time they were called “berladniki”, or “wanderers”; what they called themselves is unknown) who captured the city and struck serious damage to merchant trade. The Kiev prince Rostislav Mstislavovich, as well as the governors Georgy Nesterovich and Yakun, were forced to go down the Dnieper with a navy to return Oleshye to princely rule...

Of course, that part of the Polovtsians who roamed east of the Volga (in the area of ​​modern Kazakhstan) had much less contact with the Russians, and therefore better preserved their national traits...

In 1222, on the eastern borders of the Polovtsian nomads, immeasurably more savage and formidable conquerors appeared - the Mongols.
By that time, the relations of the Polovtsians with the Russians were already such that the Polovtsians called the Russians for help.

On May 31, 1223, the Battle of the Kalka River (modern Donetsk region) took place between the Mongols and the united Russian-Polovtsian forces. Due to disagreements and rivalry between the princes, the battle was lost.
However, then the Mongols, tired of the long and difficult campaign, turned back. And nothing was heard about them for 13 years...

And in 1237 they returned. And they remembered everything about the Polovtsians, who were subjected to a form of genocide.
If on the territory of modern Kazakhstan, the Mongols were relatively tolerant towards the Cumans (and therefore the Cumans, also known as Kazakhs, survived as a nation), then in the southern Russian steppes, between the Volga, Don and Dnieper, the Cumans were subjected to total massacres.
At the same time, the Russians (all these berladnik wanderers) were of little concern to the events that took place, because such wanderers lived mainly in hard-to-reach places that were simply uninteresting to nomads - for example, in floodplains, on islands, among swamps, floodplain thickets...

One more detail should be noted: after the invasion of Rus', the Mongols themselves sometimes resettled a certain number of Russian people to places where there were important roads and crossings. These people were given certain benefits - and the settlers, in turn, were required to maintain roads and crossings in good condition.
It happened that Russian peasants were resettled to some fertile area so that they could cultivate the land there. Or they didn’t even resettle, but simply gave benefits and protected from harassment. In return, the peasants supplied a certain part of the harvest to the Mongol khans.

Below I quote verbatim an excerpt from the 15th chapter of the book “Travel to the Eastern Countries of William de Rubruck”
in the Summer of Grace 1253. Message from William de Rubruck, Louis IX, King of France."

“So, with great difficulty, we wandered from camp to camp, so that not many days before the feast of blessed Mary Magdalene we reached the great river Tanaid, which separates Asia from Europe, like the river of Egypt Asia from Africa. At the place where we landed, Batu and Sartakh ordered to build a settlement (casale) on the eastern shore of the Russians, who transport ambassadors and merchants on boats. They first transported us, and then the carts, placing one wheel on one barge, and the other on the other, they moved, tying the barges to each other; and so rowing. There our guide acted very stupidly. It was he who believed that they should give us horses from the village and released the animals on the other side that we brought with us, so that they would return to their owners, and when we demanded the animals from the inhabitants; villages, they answered that they had a privilege from Batu, namely: they were not obliged to do anything other than transport those traveling there and back, even from the merchants they received a large tribute. So there, on the bank of the river, we stood for three days. On the first day they gave us a large fresh fish - chebak (borbotam), on the second day - rye bread and some meat, which the village manager collected, like a sacrifice, in various houses, on the third day - dried fish, which they had there in a large quantity. This river there was the same width as the Seine in Paris. And before we got to that place, we crossed many rivers, very beautiful and rich in fish, but the Tatars do not know how to catch them and do not care about the fish unless it is so big that they can eat its meat like the meat of a ram. So, we were in great difficulty there, because we could not find either horses or bulls for money. Finally, when I proved to them that we were working for the common benefit of all Christians, they gave us bulls and people; We ourselves had to go on foot. At that time they were reaping rye. Wheat did not grow well there, but they have millet in large quantities. Russian women wear their heads the same way as ours, and decorate the front of their dresses with squirrel or ermine furs from their feet to their knees. The men wear epanches, like the Germans, and on their heads they have felt hats, pointed at the top with a long point. So we walked for three days, finding no people, and when we ourselves, as well as the bulls, were very tired, and did not know in which direction we could find the Tatars, two horses suddenly came running to us, which we took with great joy, and on them Our guide and interpreter sat down to find out in which direction we could find the people. Finally, on the fourth day, having found people, we were happy, as if we had landed in the harbor after a shipwreck. Then, taking horses and bulls, we rode from camp to camp until, on July 31, we reached the location of Sartakh."

As we see, according to the testimony of European travelers, it was quite possible to find completely legal Russian settlements in the southern steppes.

By the way, this same Rubruk testifies that those Russians whom the Mongols drove away from Russia were often forced to graze cattle in the steppes. This is understandable - such institutions as hard labor, prisons, or mines did not exist among the Mongols. Slaves did the same thing as their owners - grazed livestock.
And of course, such shepherds often fled from their owners.
And sometimes they didn’t even run away - they were simply left without owners when the Mongols began to slaughter each other during civil strife...
And these strife occurred - the further, the more often.
The companions of civil strife were often all kinds of epidemics. Medicine, of course, was in its infancy. The birth rate was high, but children often died.
As a result, there were fewer and fewer nomads in the steppe.
And the Russians kept coming. After all, the stream of fugitives from Russian lands never dried up.

It is clear that the fugitives themselves, after looking around a little, began to navigate the local realities. Of course, they found a common language with the remnants of the surviving Cumans. We became related to them - after all, men predominated among the fugitives.
And they quickly learned that in fact, there are no Polovtsians - there are COSSACKS.
Even those Russians who did not mix with the Cossacks (Polovtsy) still actively used the word Cossack.
This was, after all, the land of the Cossacks, even if they were subjected to genocide, even if they mixed with the Russians.
They went to the Cossacks, they lived among the Cossacks, they became related to the Cossacks, they themselves eventually, albeit not immediately, began to call themselves Cossacks (at first - in a figurative sense).

Gradually, over time, the Russian element in the Don and Dnieper basins began to predominate. The Russian language, which was already familiar to the Polovtsians in pre-Mongol times, began to dominate (not without distortions and borrowings, of course).

It makes no sense today to argue where exactly the “Cossacks” originated: On the Dnieper, or on the Don. This is a pointless debate.
The process of development of the lower reaches of the Dnieper and Don by a new ethnic group occurred almost simultaneously.

It is equally pointless to argue about who the Cossacks are: Ukrainians or Russians.
Cossacks are a separate ethnic group that was formed as a result of the mixing of people from the territory of Rus' (however, people from other countries were also present) with the peoples with whom they neighbored (for example, through mutual abductions of women). At the same time, some groups of Cossacks could move from the Dnieper to the Don, or from the Don to the Dnieper.

A little slower, but also almost simultaneously, the formation of such groups of Cossacks as the Terek and Yaik Cossacks took place. It was somewhat more difficult to get to the Terek and Yaik than to the lower reaches of the Don and Dnieper. But little by little we got there. And there they mixed with the surrounding peoples: on the Terek - with the Chechens, on the Yaik - with the Tatars and the same Polovtsians (Cossacks).

Thus, the Polovtsians, who were present in the vast expanses of the great steppe, from the Danube to the Tien Shan, gave their name to those Slavic settlers who settled on the former Polovtsian lands, west of the Yaik River.
But to the east of Yaik, the Polovtsians as such survived.
This is how two very different groups of people appeared, calling themselves the same, COSSACKS: the Cossacks themselves, or Polovtsy, whom we call today the Kazakhs - and the Russian-speaking ethnic group mixed with the surrounding peoples, called the Cossacks.

Of course, the Cossacks are heterogeneous. In different territories, mixing took place with different peoples and with to varying degrees intensity.
So the Cossacks are not so much an ethnic group as a group of related ethnic groups.

When modern Ukrainians try to call themselves Cossacks, it brings a smile.
Calling all Ukrainians Cossacks is the same as calling all Russians Cossacks.

At the same time, it makes no sense to deny a certain kinship between Russians, Ukrainians and Cossacks.

So, gradually, from different groups of the mixed population of the outskirts (with a clear predominance of Russian blood and the Russian language), different hordes were formed, so to speak, which partly copied the lifestyle of neighboring Asians and Caucasians. Zaporozhye Horde, Don, Terek, Yaitsk...

Meanwhile, Russia recovered from Mongol invasion and began to expand its borders - which eventually came into contact with the borders of the Cossack hordes.
This happened during the reign of Ivan the Terrible - who came up with a simple, brilliant idea - to use the Cossacks as a barrier against Asian raids on Russian lands. That is, half-Asians, close to Russia in language and faith, were used as a safety net against real Asians.

Thus began the gradual domestication of the Cossack freemen by the Russian state...

After the Black Sea region was annexed and the danger of Crimean Tatar raids disappeared, the Zaporozhye Cossacks were resettled to Kuban.

After the suppression of the Pugachev rebellion, the Yaik River was renamed the Ural - although, in general, it has almost nothing to do with the Urals as such (it only originates in the Ural Mountains).
And the Yaik Cossacks were renamed Ural Cossacks - although they live, for the most part, not in the Urals. This leads to some confusion - sometimes residents of the Urals, who have no relation to the Cossacks, are considered Cossacks.

When Russian possessions expanded to the east, some of the Cossacks were resettled in Transbaikalia, Ussuri, Amur, Yakutia, and Kamchatka. However, in those places, sometimes purely Russian people who had nothing to do with the Cossacks were included in the category of Cossacks. For example, the pioneers, comrades-in-arms of Semyon Dezhnev, who came from the city of Veliky Ustyug (that is, from the Russian North) were dubbed Cossacks.

Sometimes representatives of some other peoples were included in the category of Cossacks.
For example, Kalmyks...

In Transbaikalia, the Cossacks mixed quite a bit with the Chinese, Manchus and Buryats, and adopted some of the habits and customs of these peoples.

In the photo there is a painting by E. Korneev “GREBENSK COSSACKS” 1802. The Grebenskys are a “branch” of the Terek.

Painting by S. Vasilkovsky "ZAPOROZHETS ON WATCH".

“Enlistment of captured Poles in Napoleon’s army as Cossacks, 1813.” The drawing by N. N. Karazin depicts the moment of the arrival of the captured Poles in Omsk after they, already deployed among the Cossack regiments, under the supervision of the Siberian army of the Cossack captain (esaul) Nabokov, one by one change into Cossack uniforms.

Officers of the Stavropol and Khoper Cossack regiments. 1845-55

"BLACK SEA COSSACK". Drawing by E. Korneev

S. Vasilkovsky: "GARMASH (COSSACK ARTILLERIST) IN THE TIME OF HETMAN MAZEPA."

S. Vasilkovsky: "UMAN CENTURY IVAN GONTA".

Cossacks of the Life Guards of the Ural Cossack Hundred (this is, of course, a photograph, not a drawing).

Kuban Cossacks in May 1916.

It must be said that gradually, with the development of progress, wars became more and more man-made. In these wars, the Cossacks were assigned a purely secondary, or even tertiary, role.
But the Cossacks began to be increasingly involved in the dirtiest, “police” work - including suppressing uprisings, dispersing demonstrations, terrorizing potentially dissatisfied people, even repressive actions against unfortunate Old Believers.

And the Cossacks fully met the expectations of the authorities.
The descendants of those who escaped from captivity became the king's lackeys. They zealously slashed the dissatisfied with whips and hacked them with sabers.

There's nothing you can do - by mixing with Caucasians and Asians, the Cossacks absorbed some features of the Asian-Caucasian mentality. Including such things as cruelty, meanness, cunning, deceit, corruption, hostility towards Russians (or as the Cossacks say - “non-residents”), passion for robbery and violence, hypocrisy, duplicity.
Genetics is a merciless thing...

As a result, the population of Russia (including Russians) began to look at the Cossacks as foreigners, bashi-bazouks in the service of the autocracy.
And the Jews (who generally do not know how to forgive and in terms of cruelty will surpass any Cossacks) hated the Cossacks until their knees trembled.

It is believed that after the October Revolution of 1917, the Cossacks decisively sided with the autocracy and were the support white movement.
But much is exaggerated here.
In fact, the Cossacks were not at all eager to fight for the interests of the whites. There were strong separatist sentiments in the Cossack regions.
However, when the Bolsheviks came to the Cossack lands, they instantly turned the Cossacks against themselves with the wildest repressions and extreme cruelty. It quickly became clear that the Cossacks could not expect mercy from the Bolsheviks. Jewish commissars, who in other situations feared Great Russian chauvinism like hell, in in this case, on the contrary, they actively fueled the hostility of Russian peasants towards the Cossacks.
If the Bolsheviks willingly gave autonomy to other peoples (even those who did not ask for it at all), proclaiming a bunch of all sorts of national republics (however, the heads of all these republics, as a rule, were, again, Jews) - then no one with the Cossacks on this topic didn't even try to talk.
That is why and only why, the Cossacks WERE FORCED to support the white movement. At the same time, they brought as much benefit to the White Guards as much harm.
Cossack intrigues behind the backs of the Russian leaders of the white movement never stopped.

Ultimately, White was defeated.
Repression fell on the Cossacks. To the point that in other areas the entire male population over 16 years of age was shot.
Until 1936, Cossacks were not drafted into the Red Army.

Cossack regions were carefully renamed. No Transbaikalia - only the Chita region! No Kuban - only Krasnodar region. There is no Don region, or Don region - only the Rostov region. There is no Yenisei province - only the Krasnoyarsk region. Instead of the Ussuri Territory - the Primorsky Territory (although Primorye can be called any territory located near the sea - for example, the Murmansk or Kaliningrad region).
The lands of the Semirechensk and Ural Cossacks generally became part of other republics (Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan).

But the most terrible fate befell the Terek and Greben Cossacks. First, with the full approval of the Soviet government, they were slaughtered by neighboring peoples (primarily the Chechens and Ingush, whom, by the way, Trotsky loved very much), and then the miraculously surviving remnants of the Cossack population were evicted by the Bolsheviks from their places of permanent residence - so that, according to Bolsheviks, "liquidate through the strip."
Of all the peoples of the North Caucasus, only the Ossetians objected to this decision.
This is somehow forgotten today by those Chechens, Ingush, and other Karachais who later, already during the time of Stalin, themselves were evicted from the Caucasus - including from those houses that they once took from the Terek and Greben Cossacks.. .

For some time the word “Cossack” itself was excluded from use. Cossacks in the media and literature were called purely Kazakhs.
Attitudes towards the Cossacks warmed only in the thirties, after Stalin strengthened his power and firmly stood on his feet, defeating all his enemies...

Later, under the late Soviet regime, the Cossacks were completely loyal to it and, along with the Ukrainians, were one of its most faithful lackeys.
But the standard of living, under the late Soviet regime, in traditionally Cossack regions, was quite high.
In Kuban they lived immeasurably more prosperously than in Tver or Ryazan...

Today it is generally accepted that the Cossacks are assimilated into the Russian environment.
In reality - nothing like that. If an ethnic group does not have national-political autonomy, this does not mean that the ethnic group does not exist.
Cossacks are clearly different from Russians - both in mentality and appearance.

Often some costumed clowns pretend to be Cossacks, who seriously think that Cossacks are just a military class. Therefore, they say, it’s enough to put on a uniform, a bunch of orders (it’s unclear why you received them) and take a certain oath - that’s it, you’ve already become a Cossack.
Nonsense of course. It is impossible to “become” a Cossack, just as it is impossible to “become” a Russian or an Englishman. You can only be born a Cossack...

The role of the Cossacks in Russian history is often exaggerated.
And sometimes, on the contrary, the troubles brought to our country by the Cossacks are exaggerated.
In fact, the Cossacks brought significant benefits to Russia at a certain stage of its development. But even without them, Russia would not have perished at all.
There was harm from the Cossacks, but there was also benefit.

Cossacks are not heroes or monsters - they are simply a separate ethnic group, with their own advantages and disadvantages. More precisely, a group of closely related ethnic groups.
And it would be nice if the Cossacks had their own state - say, somewhere in Asia, Africa, Latin America, or maybe in Australia. If they all moved to this state, I would wish them happiness and prosperity in their new homeland.
Still, we are different from them. Really different...

P.S. Above is a painting by I. Repin “COSSACKS WRITING A LETTER TO THE TURKISH SULTAN”. 1880

Cossacks Cossacks

ethnic class groups consisting of Russian and some other peoples. The total population in Russia is about 5 million people. The language is Russian, bilingualism is common. The believers are Orthodox, there are representatives of other faiths. See also Cossacks.

COSSACKS

COSSACKS, an ethnic group, mainly part of the Russian people. The number in the Russian Federation is 140 thousand people (2002), the number of descendants of the Cossacks is estimated at 5 million people. In Turkic languages, “Cossack” is a free person; this is how nomadic peoples called people cut off from their social environment, according to various reasons who did not want to bear the burden of community and family responsibilities. Severing ties with their clan, the Cossacks went to the border areas of their people’s settlement, gathered in groups, lived off hunting and crafts, as well as by predatory raids on the lands of neighboring peoples. Cossacks willingly took part in wars, constituting the advanced, light-horse part of the nomadic army.
After the Mongol-Tatar invasion, Cossacks appeared in the borderlands of Rus' and the Golden Horde. Their ranks began to be intensively replenished by immigrants from the East Slavic lands, and in a relatively short time the Slavic ethnic component among the Cossacks became predominant. But even before the Mongol-Tatar invasion, immigrants from Rus' appeared in the Steppe, forming communities such as the Cossacks (brodniks); Some of the nomads who settled near the Russian borders (black hoods) also became heavily Russified.
The term “Cossacks” has been known in Rus' since the 14th century. Initially, the Cossacks were characterized by the instability of their organization, frequent shifts habitats. In general, in the 14th-15th centuries, Cossacks were free people, warriors united in “bands” or “gangs” who lived on the southern and eastern borders of Rus', the Principality of Lithuania, and the Polish state. At the same time, the Cossacks are opposed to the Horde; they are characterized by the Christian religion. By 1444 there is an entry in Russian chronicles about the Cossacks of the southern regions of the Ryazan principality. (In the Southern Kiev region and Eastern Podolia, the Cossacks appeared in the second half of the 15th century. Russian princes tried to attract the Cossacks to their service. In 1502, “city Cossacks” were mentioned for the first time, who received land and a salary from the prince for their service in protecting the borders. From this time on we can talk about the Cossack class cm. COSSACKS)
, two of its groups are developing in parallel - service Cossacks and free Cossacks. The line between service and free Cossacks was easily crossed. Often, service Cossacks went to “Cossack in the field,” and freemen entered the “sovereign service.”
The ethnic core of the Cossacks was the East Slavic population from different regions of Russia and Ukraine. Socially, the Cossacks were dominated by former landowners, who thus got rid of serfdom. From the second half of the 16th century, the governments of Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth attracted free Cossacks to guard borders and participate in wars. In Ukraine, a registered Cossack community was formed, receiving compensation for their service. The royal salary in the 17th and 18th centuries became one of the main sources of livelihood for the Cossacks. In the 17th century, the Don, Terek and Yaik Cossacks completed the formation of the Cossack army as a relatively independent military-political entity, connected with the center through contractual relations. The Cossack community combined the functions of a social, military and economic organization.
The Cossacks made a significant contribution to the development of annexed lands in Siberia, Kazakhstan, the Caucasus and the Far East. The main sources of recruiting new Cossack troops in the 18th and 19th centuries were rural settlers from the center of Russia, serving Cossacks from other troops, and retired soldiers. In 1733, the Volga Army was created. Many of the new Cossack troops were disbanded, and the Cossacks were transferred to other troops. The process of forming the Cossacks into a special military service class was completed in the 19th century. The state transferred the lands they occupied for “perpetual use” to the Cossack troops and freed the Cossacks from recruitment duties and payment of state taxes. The Cossacks enjoyed the rights of duty-free trade in some goods, tax-free fishing, and salt production. The main duty of the Cossacks was military service, for which they appeared on their horse, with full weapons and uniforms (except firearms). From the beginning of the 18th century, the military service of the Cossacks practically became regular. The service life in the 18th century was 25-35 years, in the 19th century - 20 years, for the Ural Cossacks - 22 years. In addition to military service and border protection, the Cossacks carried out road, postal, and repair duties (often at the expense of the military treasury), carried out land surveying, population censuses, and collected taxes.
In the 18th century, Cossacks were recruited to suppress peasant uprisings and protests by mining workers in the Urals. In the 19th century, the Cossacks were entrusted with security functions, including the suppression of popular uprisings against the autocracy in the center and on the outskirts. Cossacks took part in almost all wars of the 18th and early 20th centuries.
On the eve of the 1917 revolution, there were 11 Cossack troops - Amur, Astrakhan, Don, Transbaikal, Kuban, Orenburg, Semirechenskoe, Siberian, Terek, Ural and Ussuri. The population in the regions of the Cossack troops on January 1, 1913 was 9 million people, of which the military class was 4.165 million. The share of the military population in different troops ranged from 97.2% in the Amur Army to 19.6% in the Terek Army. The Cossacks spoke Russian; dialects stood out - Don, Ural, Orenburg. The speech of the Kuban Cossacks (descendants of the Cossacks), replete with Ukrainianisms, was unique. Bilingualism was widespread among Cossacks in the 19th century, especially in the Don, Ural, Terek, Orenburg, and Siberian armies. Long time possession Tatar language It was considered a sign of good manners among the Cossacks. The overwhelming majority of believing Cossacks were Orthodox; Old Believers made up a significant part in the Ural, Siberian, and Don armies; Other faiths were also represented.
Ethnically, the different Cossack groups were not identical. Similarity was determined by common origin, social status and way of life; local identity - specific historical, geographical and ethnic factors. Most of the Cossack forces were dominated by Russians. Among the Cossacks there were representatives of the peoples of the Caucasus, Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Siberia and the Far East (Kalmyks, Nogais, Tatars, Kumyks, Chechens, Armenians, Bashkirs, Mordovians, Turkmens, Buryats). In a number of troops they formed separate groups who preserved their ethnic identity, language, beliefs, traditional culture and way of life. The participation of non-Russian peoples in the ethnocultural processes of the formation of the Cossacks left its mark on many aspects of life and culture.
In the early period of the existence of Cossack communities on the Don, Terek, Volga and Yaik, the leading occupation was livestock breeding, with fishing, hunting and beekeeping having an auxiliary nature. Until the end of the 18th century, there was a ban on farming on the Don. But since the beginning of the 19th century, farming has been common in all Cossack regions. In the Don, Ural, Astrakhan, Orenburg and Siberian armies, the fallow system of cropping dominated for a long time; three-field crop rotation appeared later and was not widespread. The main agricultural crops in the Don Army: wheat, oats, millet, barley; in Orenburg - rye, spring wheat, millet; in Kubanskoe - winter wheat, buckwheat, millet, peas, lentils, beans, flax, hemp, mustard, sunflower, tobacco. Arable tools - a plow, a saber; for loosening the soil they used a rawl with wooden and iron teeth, harrows; they harvested bread with sickles and scythes (Lithuanians). When threshing, they used stone and wooden rollers; they threshed grain with the help of animals - they drove bulls and horses along sheaves spread out on the threshing floor. Since the end of the 19th century, rich farms have used harvesting machines; Cossacks often rented or bought agricultural equipment together.
Livestock farming was commercial in nature in the Don, Ural and Siberian armies, and from the end of the 19th century - in the Kuban and Terek armies. The leading industries in the Kuban and Terek were horse breeding and sheep breeding. The Don Cossack farms kept draft animals (horses and bulls), cows, sheep, poultry and pigs. In the Ural army - horses, camels (in the south), cows, sheep, poultry and pigs (in the north). The Kuban army raised cattle, horses, sheep, pigs and poultry. At the end of the 19th century, beekeeping became a commercial activity. Fishing was commercial in nature in the Don, Ural, Astrakhan, and partly in the Kuban, Terek and Siberian troops. The fishing gear of most troops was similar: fishing rods, fishing rods, and sweeps. In the Urals there were special fishing gear (yaryga - a bag of nets). The fishing system in most troops (Don, Tersk, Astrakhan and Ural) was based on the natural movement of fish from the sea to the river and back. The crafts in the Urals were unique, strictly regulated, and in most cases of a communal nature. Sturgeon and sturgeon fish in fresh, dried, smoked and dried forms, caviar were exported by the Ural, Don and Siberian troops. Other trades include salt mining, collecting wild plants, making down scarves (Orenburg Army), homemade cloth and felt, preparing dung, and hunting. The driver had great importance in the Ural, Orenburg, Siberian and Amur troops.
For settlements, the Cossacks chose strategically advantageous places: steep river banks, elevated areas protected by ravines and swamps. The villages were surrounded by a deep ditch and an earthen rampart. There were frequent cases of changing the place of settlement.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, special government orders regulated the nature of the development and layout of military Cossack settlements, and the distance between them. The main types of such settlements were villages, fortresses, outposts, redankas and pickets (small guard posts). The construction of fortifications (fortress walls, ramparts and ditches) intensified during periods of aggravation of military-political relations between Russia and the Caucasian and Central Asian states. After the “pacification”, the fortifications around the settlements also disappeared, and their layout changed. Farmsteads, winter huts, koshis and settlements were of purely economic importance, in which the Cossacks kept livestock; later, crops were located next to them. The sharp increase in the number and size of farms in the Don, Terek, and Ural armies was caused by the transition to agriculture in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Many of them turned into permanent settlements, the inhabitants of which were not only Cossacks, but also hired non-resident workers.
The average size of Cossack villages far exceeded the size of peasant villages. Initially, Cossack settlements had a circular structure, which facilitated defense in the event of an unexpected enemy attack. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the layout of Cossack villages and outposts was regulated by the government and local military authorities: a street-quarter layout and division into blocks were introduced, within which the Cossacks were allocated plots for their estates, and the façade line was strictly observed.
In the center of the Cossack village there was a church, a village or village government, schools, and trading shops. Most Cossack settlements were located along rivers, sometimes stretching for 15-20 km. The outskirts of the villages had their own names, their inhabitants sometimes differed on ethnic or social grounds. The houses of non-residents were located both among the Cossack estates and at some distance from them.
Cossack estates were usually surrounded by blank high fences with tightly closed gates, which emphasized the isolation of Cossack life. Often the house was located deep in the yard or turned to the street with its blind side. The earliest dwellings of the Cossacks were dugouts, half-dugouts and huts. Residential buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries in the Kuban were dominated by features inherent in Ukrainian and South Russian housing; the Ural Cossacks have many similarities with Russian housing in the central regions; The Orenburg and Siberian Cossacks intertwined the traditions of the North and South of Russia. The materials used for construction in different regions were wood, stone, clay, and reeds; timber was imported to a number of regions. Outbuildings (bases, sheds, glaciers, sheds, fences for livestock) were most often built from local building materials. A summer kitchen was always built in the Cossack estate, into which the family moved during the warm season.
The most common type of house in the 19th and early 20th centuries were two- and three-room houses. The internal plan of the hut is presented in different options, most often the Russian stove was in the back corner - to the left or right of the entrance, the mouth facing the long side wall (in the Orenburg army also to the front wall of the house). Diagonally from the stove is the front corner with the table. In the second half of the 19th century, the size of the living space of the house increased, and the kitchen and bedroom were allocated. In the Don, Kuban, Terek, Astrakhan and Ural armies, multi-room houses (“round”, that is, square) became widespread; often with an iron roof and wooden floor, two entrances - from the street and from the yard. Rich Cossacks built brick houses (one- and two-story) in the villages, with balconies, galleries and large glazed verandas. The walls of the Cossack hut were decorated with weapons and horse harnesses, paintings depicting military scenes, family portraits, portraits of Cossack atamans and members royal family. Under the influence of the mountain peoples, the Terek Cossacks covered the shops in their houses with carpets, and the bed was put away in a stack in a visible place.
Traditional clothing is characterized by the early displacement of homespun fabrics, the use of purchased fabrics since the mid-19th century. In the second half of the 19th century, urban clothing almost completely replaced the traditional costume. Jackets, trousers, vests, coats became widespread among men, and skirts with a jacket and dress among women. Among the Cossacks of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, hats (scarves, shawls, headscarves), footwear (boots and slippers) and factory-made jewelry were popular. The Cossacks had a special relationship with military uniforms. The uniform and cap were kept as family heirlooms. The uniform retained a number of elements of the traditional men's suit (beshmet, cherkeska, chekmen, burka). Individual components of the uniform became widespread as everyday clothing: a jacket, a tunic, riding breeches, and a hat. The influence of other nations can be seen in the Cossack men's costume. The traditional costume of the Terek, Kuban and Don Cossacks included a burka, bashlyk, cherkeska, and beshmet, borrowed almost unchanged from the peoples of the Caucasus. The Ural Cossacks in the 18th - first half of the 19th century wore a robe, chekmen, beshmet and malakhai, soft boots - ichigi, the cut of which was similar to the cut of the boots of the Tatars, Bashkirs, and Nogais. The most common type of footwear was boots. In winter they wore felt boots. Bast shoes almost never existed (at the end of the 19th century they were known as mortal shoes).
The main set of women's clothing at the end of the 19th century was a skirt with a jacket. In the 18th - first half of the 19th century, a dress (kubelek) and a sundress were common among Don Cossack women, and a slanted sundress among Ural Cossack women. At the end of the 19th century, a sundress was rare, mainly as festive and ceremonial clothing. The traditional women's shirt had a tunic-like cut (for Don Cossack women), and shoulder inserts for Ural, Orenburg and Siberian Cossack women. From the second half of the 19th century, the shirtless shirt became widespread, as well as the shirt with a yoke (with a waistband). The sleeves of the Don shirt widened greatly at the bottom due to inserted wedges; the collar, sleeves, chest and hem of the shirt were decorated with bright red woven patterns. A special feature of the Ural shirt were lush, colorful sleeves, decorated with galloon and embroidery with gold or silver thread. Skirts with a jacket were sewn from the fabric of one (a couple) or different colors. The skirt and jacket were decorated with ribbons, lace, cord, and bugles. Sundresses had different cuts. Among the Orenburg and Siberian Cossack women it is straight and oblique, while among the Ural women it is predominantly oblique. The sundress was belted and decorated with braided ribbons, lace, and embroidery.
In the 18th century in the upper women's clothing The swing cut dominated, at the end of the 19th century, straight back, with side gussets. Winter clothes - fur coat, sheepskin coat, casing, coat. In the Don, Kuban and Terek troops, “Don fur coats” were popular - bell-shaped with a deep smell and long narrow sleeves. They were sewn on fox, squirrel and hare fur, covered with cloth, wool, silk, damask, and satin. Less wealthy Cossack women wore sheepskin coats. Wadded coats (pliskas, zhupeikas) and sweaters (vatyanki, holodayki) were worn everywhere during the cold season.
In the 18th - first half of the 19th century, women's headwear was distinguished by its diversity. Don Cossack women wore a complex headdress consisting of a horned kichka, a magpie, a forehead and a back plate; a scarf was worn over it. The ancient headdress of a Ural Cossack woman consisted of a kichka, kokoshnik (magpie), over which a scarf was tied. Shlychka - a headdress in the form of a small round cap, worn over a knot of hair, was worn by Kuban and Don Cossack women. The disappearance of ancient hats in the second half of the 19th century is due to the influence of the city. A girl's headdress: most often, a ribbon decorated with a beaded bottom, pearls, beads, embroidery was tied around the head. The clothing of the Old Believers was distinguished by its conservatism, the predominance of dark tones, and the preservation of archaic cut details and ways of wearing. After the revolution of 1917, traditional clothing was preserved as part of everyday clothing (tunic, jacket, hat), mainly among old people. The ancient Cossack costume was used as festive (wedding) or stage clothing.
The basis of the Cossacks' diet were products of agriculture, livestock, fishing, vegetable growing and horticulture. Among the methods of preparing and eating food, Russian traditions dominated, and the influence of Ukrainian cuisine was strong. In the methods of processing, storing and preserving food products, there are many borrowings from the peoples of the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Volga region, Siberia and the Far East (freezing meat, fish, dumplings, milk, drying cottage cheese, vegetables, fruits and berries). Everywhere the most common bread was made from sour dough with yeast or sourdough. Bread was baked in a Russian oven (on a hearth or in molds); pies, pirozhki, shangi, buns, pancakes, and pancakes were baked from sour dough. The Ural Cossacks baked eggs into bread intended for travel. A festive and everyday dish were pies filled with fish, meat, vegetables, cereals, fruits, and berries.
Unleavened dough was used to bake flatbreads (presnushki), bursaki, koloboki, knishes, makans, nuts, rosantsy (brushwood). They were cooked in a Russian oven or fried in oil. Flatbreads were often cooked in a frying pan without fat, similar to the baking traditions of nomadic peoples. Rolls and pretzels were made from sour choux pastry. Dishes made from flour boiled in boiling water - zatirukha, dzhurma, balamyk, salamat - formed the basis of the Lenten diet; they were prepared during fishing, on the road, in haymaking. Dumplings, dumplings, noodles, and dumplings were among the dishes of the everyday and festive table. Kulaga was also made from flour (the flour was brewed with a fruit decoction), and jelly for funeral and Lenten meals. Cereals played a major role in nutrition; porridge with water and milk, vegetables (pumpkin and carrots) were added to them. Wheat cereals (from millet and rice) were prepared on the basis of porridges, with the addition of eggs and butter. “Porridge with fish” was known among the Ural, Don, Terek and Astrakhan Cossacks.
The basis for preparing many dishes was sour milk. Dried cheese (krut) was common among many troops. Kuban Cossacks made cheese according to the traditions of Adyghe cooking. Many dishes were supplemented with kaymak - cream melted in a Russian oven. Remchuk, sarsu - dishes made from sour milk, borrowed from nomadic peoples, were common among the Ural, Astrakhan, and Don Cossacks. Varenets, fermented baked milk, sour cream, and cottage cheese were also made from milk.
Fish dishes are the basis of the diet of the Don, Ural, Astrakhan, Siberian, Amur, and partly Kuban Cossacks. The fish was boiled (ukha, shrba), fried (zharina), and simmered in the oven. Cutlets and teloe were prepared from fish fillets - a dish also known among the Pomors. Fish pies, jellied and stuffed fish were served on the festive table. Cutlets and meatballs were made from the caviar of particulate fish. The fish was dried, smoked, dried (balyk). Meat was used to prepare first courses (borscht, cabbage soup, noodles, stew, soup), second courses (roast with vegetables, fried food, pozharok), and filling for pies.
The most popular vegetable dish among the Kuban, Don and Terek Cossacks was borscht with meat, among the Ural Cossacks it was cabbage soup made from meat, cabbage, potatoes and cereals. Carrot, pumpkin, braised cabbage, fried potatoes were part of the daily diet. Kuban and Terek Cossacks prepared dishes from eggplants, tomatoes, peppers, according to the traditions of Caucasian cuisine. Just like the Turkmens, the Ural Cossacks made dried melons, only after drying in the sun they simmered them in a Russian oven. Vegetable dishes with kvass (okroshka, grated radish) were popular among the Siberian, Transbaikal, Orenburg, Ural and Don Cossacks. Melon crops - watermelons, melons and pumpkins dominated the food of many troops in the summer. Watermelons and melons were salted. Salted tomatoes, cucumbers, and cabbage were poured with watermelon pulp. Bekmes was a widespread dish made from watermelon and melon molasses among the Don, Astrakhan, and Ural Cossacks. Terek and Kuban Cossacks added spicy herbal seasonings to their dishes. Wild fruits (sloes, cherries, currants, cherry plums, apples, pears, nuts, rose hips) were consumed everywhere. Terek and Kuban Cossacks cooked hominy from corn, steamed it in a Russian oven, and boiled it. Porridges and liquid dishes were prepared from beans, peas and beans. Bird cherry was widely used by the Transbaikal Cossacks, they baked gingerbread (kursun) and made filling for pies.
The Cossacks drank kvass, compote (uzvar), sour milk diluted with water, satu made from honey, and buza made from licorice root. Intoxicating drinks were served at the festive table: mash, kislushka, chikhir (young grape wine), moonshine (vodka). Tea was very popular among the Cossacks. It penetrated into everyday life in the second half of the 19th century. All holiday and often daily meals ended with tea drinking. Transbaikalians drank tea with “zabela” made from milk, butter and eggs, adding to it wheat flour and hemp seed. The Old Believers observed the ban on drinking tea, brewed wild herbs and roots.
The Cossacks were characterized by a large undivided family. The Don, Ural, Terek, Kuban Cossacks had three-four-generation families, the number of which reached 25-30 people. Along with large ones, small families were known, consisting of parents and unmarried children. The class isolation of the Cossacks in the 19th century limited the range of marriages. Marriages with non-residents and representatives of local peoples were rare even at the beginning of the 20th century. However, traces of marriage alliances with non-Russian peoples in the early period of the existence of Cossack communities can be traced in the anthropological type of Don, Terek, Ural and Astrakhan Cossacks.
The head of the family (grandfather, father or older brother) was the sovereign master: he distributed and controlled the work of its members, and all income flowed to him. The mother occupied a similar position in the family in the absence of the owner. The uniqueness of the Cossack family structure was the relative freedom of the Cossack woman compared to the peasant woman. The youth in the family also enjoyed greater rights than the peasants.
The long coexistence of the Cossack agricultural, fishing and military communities determined many aspects of social life and spiritual life. The customs of collective labor and mutual assistance were manifested in the pooling of draft animals and equipment for the period of urgent agricultural work, fishing gear and Vehicle during Putin, joint grazing of livestock, voluntary free assistance during the construction of a house. Cossacks are characterized by traditions of spending leisure time together: public meals after finishing agricultural or fishing work, seeing off and meeting Cossacks from service. Almost all holidays were accompanied by competitions in cutting, shooting, and horse riding. Characteristic feature many of them were “gulebnye” games that staged military battles or Cossack “freedom”. Games and competitions were often held on the initiative of the military administration, especially equestrian competitions. Among the Don Cossacks there was a custom of “walking with a banner” at Maslenitsa, when the chosen “vatazhny ataman” walked around the houses of the village residents with a banner, accepting treats from them. At the christening, the boy was “initiated as a Cossack”: they put a saber on him and put him on a horse. Guests brought gifts of arrows, cartridges, and a gun to the newborn (for teething purposes) and hung them on the wall.
The most significant religious holidays were Christmas and Easter. Patronal holidays were widely celebrated. The day of the patron saint of the army was considered a general military holiday. Agrarian calendar holidays (Christmastide, Maslenitsa) were important part all festive rituals, they reflected traces of pre-Christian beliefs. In festive ritual games, the influence of contacts with Turkic peoples can be traced. Among the Ural Cossacks in the 19th century. The holiday fun included an entertainment known among the Turkic peoples: without using your hands, you had to get a coin from the bottom of a cauldron with flour stew (balamyk).
The unique way of life of the Cossacks determined the character oral creativity. The most common folklore genre among the Cossacks were songs. The widespread existence of the song was facilitated by living together on campaigns and training camps, and by carrying out agricultural work by the whole “world.” The military authorities encouraged the Cossacks' passion for singing by creating choirs, organizing the collection of ancient songs and publishing collections of texts with notes. Music literacy was taught to schoolchildren in village schools; the basis of the song repertoire was ancient historical and heroic songs. Ritual songs accompanied calendar and family holidays; love and humorous songs were popular. Historical legends, epics, and toponymic stories have become widespread.