7 seditious facts about the Cossacks

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

According to the official version of history, the Cossacks took part in ALL the wars of the Russian state from the 16th to the 20th century. But who are the Cossacks and where did they come from? From the encyclopedias one can learn that the Cossacks are "… originally free people, from serfs, serfs, townspeople who fled from feudal oppression, who settled on the outskirts of the Russian state."

According to this generally accepted version, the Cossacks finally took shape in the 16-17 centuries. For the defense of the borders of the state, the Cossacks received a salary from the treasury, land for life, were exempted from taxes, and had self-government from elected atamans.

Despite the stormy activity, the Cossacks are mentioned in passing in school and even university history courses. The beginning of the history of the Cossacks, even in different encyclopedias, dates back to the 14th, the 15th, the 16th century.

The two-month siege of Moscow by Ivan Bolotnikov's Cossacks takes place as spontaneous peasant uprisings on the outskirts of Russia. The trip to Moscow to restore the legitimate heir to the throne, Tsarevich Dmitry, is called "the False Dmitry's adventure" and the Polish intervention.

1. Territories

Let's see where the peasants were hiding, who did not want to bend their backs on the landlords. For two centuries, hundreds of thousands of fugitive peasants have been hiding on the largest, central rivers of Russia - in fact, on trade and political highways. These are DNEPR, DON, VOLGA, URAL and TEREK. It is difficult to think of a more unfortunate place to hide.

It is here that trade and other caravans constantly pass, so it is along these rivers that almost all major military campaigns of that time were directed (Ivan the Terrible, Yuryev, Sheremetev, Nozdrevaty, Rzhev, Adashev, Serebryany, Vishnevetsky, etc.). There are no forests, mountains, impenetrable swamps in which, for example, Old Believers tried to hide from Nikon's reform. All these areas are predominantly steppe, which can be seen for many kilometers around and where the search for fugitives is simplified as much as possible.

Historians claim that all these areas were uninhabited, unnecessary outskirts, backwaters. But fugitive peasants get from the most fertile places in climatic and geographical terms. A surprisingly even warm climate, chernozem soils, giving two harvests a year, an abundance of fresh water. Until now, these areas are called granaries and health resorts.

And for much more modest places on earth, long bloody wars were fought. Common sense dictates that such territories were given only to the strongest and most successful, and not to fugitive peasants and slaves.

There is another oddity about the main Russian river. What is the attitude towards the Volga in Russia? "Mother Volga", "Dear Mother, Russian River". But according to the textbooks of traditional history, the Volga should have remained in the people's memory as a kind of generator of troubles. A kind of tartarars, from where hordes of nomads constantly come. From here came the Kipchaks and Polovtsians, the unreasonable Khazars made devastating raids. Later, wild Mongols came from beyond the Volga. Here they also settled down with their Sheds. Here, on the Volga, for hundreds of years, with fear in their hearts, Russian princes went to bow to the khans, knowingly leaving posthumous wills. Later, gangs and gangs of various chieftains were robbed here.

2. Taxes

Runaway peasants are exempt from taxes. Moreover, for the fact that they defended the borders of Russia from numerous enemies. Both statements contradict common sense - why should the fugitives defend the borders of the state from which they just fled? And where does such a warmth, right down to tax benefits, come from for the fugitives, who, logically, need to be returned, and not asked to pay taxes and sleep peacefully.

3. Activity

Literally from the first days of their existence, the Cossacks have been demonstrating fantastic activity. Scattered groups of farmers and small people who fled from different places in Russia, without any means of communication and, presumably, weapons, are instantly organized. And they organize themselves not into a working peasant community, but into a powerful army. Moreover, the army is not defensive, but a pronounced offensive.

Instead of sitting quietly, cultivating a vegetable garden and enjoying the will, as it would seem, the escaped peasant should do, the Cossacks begin military expeditions in all directions. And they do not go against some neighboring village, but attack the strongest states of their time. The theaters of the actions of the Cossack troops do not know the limit. They attack Turkey, the Commonwealth, Persia. They organize trips to Siberia. Their FLEET floats freely up and down the Don, Volga, Dnieper and Caspian Sea.

Fugitive peasants on the outskirts of the state are keenly interested in political and palace affairs in the capital. Throughout the 17th century, they all the time want to correct something in the structure of the state. Constantly rushing to Moscow with fanaticism. And they are interested in only one question. They want to install the "right" king. Where do they get their weapons, and in what shipyards do they build the fleet? It was not the tsarist government that supplied its runaway slaves.

The idea of historians that the Cossacks did not pay taxes for their service to Russia does not stand up to criticism, if only because it was Russia that got the most from the Cossacks in the 16-18 centuries. At the same time, the COSSACK WARS under the leadership of Khlopok, Bolotnikov, Razin, Pugachev are not called peasant wars.

Following this logic, historians should describe historical battles as follows: "With a blow from the flank of the fugitive slaves of Ataman Skoropadsky, the Swedish troops were put to flight" or "a deep roundabout maneuver with a passage to the rear of the fugitive slaves of Ataman Platov stopped the advance of the French troops."

Then historians say that there is a second definition of the Cossacks up to 1920 - the military estate in Russia. But when exactly did the fugitive peasants become a MILITARY CONSIDERATION? After all, the military class is not just professional, but also hereditary military.

4. Cossacks-Tatars and Cossacks-Basurmanes

Whenever the Cossacks (or let's put it this way: the inhabitants of the territories indicated above) fight on the side of Russia or on the side favorable to it, they are called Cossacks. As soon as they smash the Romanov troops or take Russian cities, they are called either Tatars, or Basurmans, or rebellious peasants.

The 17th century Cossack wars against the Romanovs are called peasant riots.

Cossack attacks on Moscow, Serpukhov, Kaluga of the 15-16th centuries are called Tatar raids.

These same "Tatars", fighting on the side favorable for Russia against the Commonwealth, against the Turks or Swedes, are already called Cossacks.

While the lower reaches of the Volga are at war with Moscow, the non-Russian and Basurman Astrakhan Khanate is located there, as soon as peace is concluded in 1556 and this khanate joins Russia, the Astrakhan Cossack army magically appears here.

On the site of the Big Horde, the inscription Don Cossacks appears. On the site of the Edisan Horde - the Zaporozhye Sich, on the site of the Nogai Horde - the Nogai and Yaitsk Cossacks.

In general, Tatars and Cossacks have common habitats, identical weapons, clothing, method of warfare, and the names of the Cossack hordes.

The Tatars take the most active part in the liberation war of the Ukrainian and Belarusian peoples against the Polish gentry, that is, against the Catholics in 1648-1654. The troops of Bohdan Khmelnitsky are entirely composed of Cossack and Tatar cavalry. No one can really explain how the Tatars and Cossacks got along on the same land at the same time.

5. The origin of the word "Cossack"

It is believed that the word Cossack or Cossack is a Türkic word meaning "daredevil". Isn't it strange that Orthodox Russian peasants flee from the landowners and call themselves the Turkic word "daredevil"? Why not Chinese or not Finnish? At the same time, these fugitive peasants of the 15-16th centuries appear before us as real polyglots. They called themselves a Türkic word, and called their military leaders the proud Anglo-Saxon word headman - leader, leader. This is how the origin of the word ATAMAN of the encyclopedia is determined.

6. Famous Cossacks

It is not surprising that the greatest commander of ancient Russia Svyatoslav Igorevich (who lived, according to traditional history, in the 10th century) was a Cossack, but that the fugitive peasants of the 16th century in some unknown way learned and decided to adopt and preserve the old Russian military traditions 600- summer (!) prescription. In the appearance of Svyatoslav, THREE UNIQUE features of the appearance of the Zaporozhye Cossacks are described - a drooping mustache with a shaved beard, a forelock and one earring in the ear.

The plain text of the old COSSAC is called the hero Ilya Muromets in Russian epics, which, according to the historians themselves, date back to the 11-12 centuries! Although, according to generally accepted chronology, there is still half a millennium before the emergence of the Cossacks.

7. Alternative version

The Cossacks are an old military class. There was no transformation of fugitive slaves into warriors. These territories were inherited from their ancestors and belonged to them for a long time and by right.

They lived where it was more convenient and better for them (along large rivers, in warm and lively regions). We never hid from anyone. Therefore, military campaigns of government troops along the Dnieper, Volga, Don, etc. did not come across settlements of escaped slaves. These "escaped slaves" were originally a regular army of the country, specially located so that within a few days to collect all the kurens (small horse garrisons) in a predetermined place.

The army never pays taxes. The Cossacks themselves lived off taxes and collected these taxes themselves.

The duties of the army, in fact a regular army, include protection from external enemies of the state.

Also, the army shows an active political position during the turbulent changes in the state, during the change of the royal dynasties. The army is obliged to take some side and take part in hostilities, the fugitive peasants are not capable of this.

There is no logic in the fact that fugitive slaves, who magically turned into hereditary military men, and receiving salaries, begin to go in whole regiments to the hostile Poles, then to the hated Turks, or even go in general on a campaign against Moscow, that is, against their benefactors …

However, if we assume that previously unified territories without a central government begin to divide along religious and ethnic lines, then everything falls into place.

The state ceased to exist, to which the army served faithfully from time immemorial. A recent historical analogue can be considered the division of a single Soviet Army into the armies of separate states, and the situation in Ukraine today.

In this version, the wars of the Western and Southern Cossacks, called the Polish-Turkish wars, become logical.

Or the wars of the eastern Cossacks with the southern ones, called the campaigns of the Don Cossacks to Turkey and Persia.

The campaign of Western Cossacks to Moscow is now called the Polish intervention and a series of Russian-Polish wars in 1632-1667. It becomes clear why many Russian cities did not just surrender without a fight, but joyfully greeted the arrival of "foreign invaders-invaders." As soon as it became clear that the Western Cossacks were still unable to complete the matter, take Moscow and were ready to sign peace with the Romanovs, the Eastern Cossacks under the leadership of Stepan Timofeevich Razin set out on a campaign. This is now called the peasant war of 1667-1671. After Razin's defeat, the third part of the former imperial army, Turkey, entered the war. The first Russian-Turkish war began in 1676-1681.

As a result of these wars, the territories of the Western and Eastern Cossacks were divided along the Dnieper. The left bank later proclaimed reunification with Russia, and the right bank remained the enemy of the Romanovs for many years and decades.