Cossacks and the Cossack Horde

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

If historians try in every possible way to keep silent and even deny the existence of the Cossack people of ancient times, within the Caucasus and the Azov region, then it was considered a prohibition to say anything about the Cossacks of Central Asia. So, for example, Professor Vernadsky in his book: "The Experience of the History of Eurasia" dully mentions that the border guards of Turkestan were groups "like our Russian Cossacks."

“The historian Ferdusi, who lived around 1020, that is, two centuries before the Mongol-Tatars came to the West, in the history of Rustem, mentions the Cossack people. From his writings and the most ancient Persian chronicles, which he used, it is known that the ancient Cossacks, like the later ones, glorified their name by raids. And so, the Tatar Cossacks, revered by us for the original Cossacks, were only imitators and their name was not Tatar, but taken from another people. This news makes the interpretation and translation of the word "Cossack" superfluous."

Professor Klyaprot, dividing the Kirghiz into eastern and western, says: “in Europe they give the name“Kirghiz”, but these are two nations that, although they speak the same language, differ significantly in appearance from one another, and at the same time the Cossacks do not accept the name "Kyrgyz". Western "Kirghiz", who call themselves Cossacks and deny the name "Kirghiz", currently (1806) occupy the area from the left bank of the upper Irtysh to Yaik; to the North, their dwellings reach 53 degrees of latitude; to the South they end at the Targabatai mountains - Lake Balkash; in the West - along the line of the Selestine Mountains (Tian-Shano)”.

Hieromonk Iakinf says: “The Cossack is the name of the people who roam the steppes adjacent to the provinces: Tomsk, Tobolsk and Orenburg. The Chinese call them "Hasak"; Russians - Kirgiz-Kaisakami. Now (the book was published in 1829) now the people are divided into two hordes: eastern and western.

The Western Cossack Horde extends to the Russian border. Both of these hordes are under the auspices of the Chinese state.

Is there something in common between them or the Cossacks separately, and the Cossack Horde separately?

On the map of Semyon Remezov in 1701, there is the name "Land of the Cossack Horde":

Fragment of a map from Remezov's Drawing Book, sheet 44, 1701

The map is turned north down, south up. From the west, the border of the Cossack Horde runs along the Yaik River, now the Ural, which flows into the Caspian Sea. From the north with Kalmykia. From the east - with Altai. Lake Tengiz is probably still part of its territory. The boundaries are not marked. From the south it also captures the region of the Amu Darya, which flows into the Aral Sea.

This is how it looks more familiar to us:

the same upside down

It is interesting that Lake Tengiz on the map of Remezov is shown so large, with a bunch of rivers flowing into it. Error? Now only two rivers flow into it: Nura, Kulanotpes. Moreover, only the river is shown on the map. Nura:

Map of modern Kazakhstan

Modern view of Tengiz lake

Similar to Remezov's card. Currently, the lake is bitterly salty and drying up.

Remezov has another map, where different areas of Tartary are highlighted in color:

Fragment of a map from Remezov's Drawing Book, sheet 50, 1701

Here the Cossack Horde already occupies a smaller territory than on the previous map. But it is located on the territory of modern Kazakhstan.

On the Map of Nikolaas Witsen, there is also a Cossack Horde, only it is named Kasakkia Horda (and Kalmykia is not at all where it is now, just like on the map of Remezov):

map of Tartary 1705

All the same, Witsen was a foreigner and wrote all the names in his own Dutch way.

In his book "Northern and Eastern Tartaria" Nikolaas Witsen writes a lot about the Cossacks, but does not mention the Kazakhs at all. It turns out that the word "Kazakh" appeared in the 20th century. Until December 1936, Kazakhstan was called KazaKstan - the Cossack Camp?

And the current Kazakhs in Tsarist Russia and in Soviet times until 1925 were called Kyrgyz-kaisaks or Kyrgyz … Ostensibly in order not to confuse Kazakhs with Cossacks. (Wikipedia) I wonder how they could then be confused with someone, if they were not already there?

"MILL - m. the place where travelers, road steel, stopped for rest, temporary stay, and the whole arrangement is in place, with carts, cattle, tents or other lands; parking space and the whole device"

In the Kuban, small settlements are still called stanitsa.

Big Encyclopedic Dictionary: STANITSA - 1) in the 16-17 centuries. in the Russian state, a Cossack detachment to protect the notch line, which was in front of it. 2) In Russia, a large Cossack rural settlement or administrative-territorial unit, uniting several small Cossack villages.

“Cossack means differently, by the strength of the word, a lover of war and freedom.

Cossacks spread over several areas, they are all Russian Christians, such as the:

1. Ukrainianwho border on Poland and changed it (crown) under King Casimir.
2. Dnieper, near the Dnieper River, which, together with the above, form one whole.
3. Donai, or Donlocated near the Dnieper, or Borystenes.
4. Those who are called black hats and black forests, some of which are in one place, northwest of the Caspian Sea; there are few of them, they live there without women and are known as the core or the best of all the Cossacks. There is also Zaporozhye Cossacks located near the Dnieper, and even larger groups of Cossacks living in the southern cities of Ukraine, in which the hetman, or the ataman, or the sub-king: now two years ago he was Ivan Samoilovich - and he is in disgrace, banished to Siberia for life, and his son, because of a crime during the Russian military campaign in 1687, was beheaded.
5. Grebensky - about 700 families between Terek and Aidarova, not far from the Caspian Sea, near the source of the Terek and Koisy rivers, the village of which is called Greben.
6. Yayki, near the Yaik River, which lies east of the Volga and flows into the Caspian Sea; they have several small towns there. They are generally tall and strong people."

“I am also informed about all this from Moscow through surveys of Peking travelers and by letters from the governor and Kalmak ambassadors following:

Dear Sir, prince Galdan, not Kaldan, is that famous prince who was later called Bushukhtu khan, for these peoples, with great luck and heroism, change their names. (this is how princes become khans - note mine)

…..yes, he wrote that if he could get two or three thousand good Cossacks (Russian soldiers) from Siberia, armed with good guns, then I would have destroyed everything that the blue bream owned outside the Wall."

Who helped Their Royal Majesties collect tribute, and also explored the coast of the Arctic Ocean:

“A certain noble Muscovite merchant told me that in Arkhangel he talked with the Cossacks, who told him that they walked to the end of Ice Cape for three days, that in some places it [the cape] is so narrow that you can see the sea from both sides … These Cossacks or Muscovite warriors were sent from the Yakut garrison to collect tribute in the interior of the country. They have a custom of going on a hike across the country for 10–20 people. They said that the sea coast from the Lena to the Yenisei is even, namely, to the northeast. They partially walked along the coast, from the mouth of the Lena, but did not reach the Ob, so I still do not have accurate information that they often go out to the sea from the Ob, in particular, sailing to the east is unknown, so that the coast [of the sea] from Obi or Yenisei up to Lena are not fully studied. They go on to say that they had 8 small ships, that 4 of them went to round the Cape of Ice, but there, on the cape, they met such a large whirlpool, or rather, a surf, since the northern current there seemed to collide with the southern one, 4 ships were broken and people drowned.

“From Nerchinsky to Albazin, down the Amur, five days, and by dry route - two weeks, and from Albazin, also down the Amur, to the Ziya River, - eight days. On the last river, they say Albazin Cossacks, subordinate to Their Royal Majesties, intend to build a castle."

“The troops of Their Royal Majesties in these Tartar regions are strengthening more and more. They are called Cossacks, after those who were the first to conquer Siberia over 100 years ago. They come from or are recruited from those Cossacks who live on the Don, and are called free Cossacks. They finally reached the point that they settled in the region of Dauria, and in the place where the ancient city used to be, subordinated to one Tartar prince. There they built the Albazin fortress."

“Above the Yaik River, besides the Yaik town, there is another place, the name of which I do not know, inhabited by Cossacks who came from Samara and other places to plunder Kalmaks and the surrounding hordes. This place is surrounded by a fence of trees and bushes. Each house, or building, stands separately, surrounded by a hedge of clay, sticks, logs and bushes.

These people live very simply, but in complete freedom, and eat very poorly. Many come there from the Don River, first by land, to Kamyshinskaya, and along the Aktopskaustga River, which means the mouth of the city of Aktopsk, or Akhtukh (this city used to be the size of Amsterdam); further on in their ships along the Volga, to the Yaik or down the Volga, along some tributary, bypassing the Astrakan, into the Caspian Sea.

Ukrainian Cossacks live under their hetman, but Don, Samara, Dnieper and Zaporozhye Cossacks are free people, and most of them are of the Greek faith."

“It is reported that recently Yaik Cossacks with the help of the soldiers of Their Royal Majesties, in the number of 1,000 people, invaded the Bukhara country, destroyed five towns, freed many Russian slaves and plundered this country everywhere."

“The state of Bukhara, he said, was quite large, it included a certain number of Cossacks and the city of Siarsia and other cities, and the main city was almost the size of Moscow. There is little money in circulation, but everything is exchanged. The main trade consists of the exchange of cattle with blue bream for silk fabrics."

Description of the path from Tobolsk to the regions of the so-called Tartar Cossacks … Good roads with their names through Adbashkoy and Kapkani, to the Ishim River, and about Bukhara and Khevin places, etc.

The second road, along the Sarysu River, through Sauskan, is rocky; along the Kalmak road, away from the Cossack regions, there is a guard. Through the river Zhui - the city of Savran, to the city of Turgustan - 13 days drive. There are many rivers, the land is flat, there are mountains, but they are not high, people go there by carts.

Coming out of Sauskan, by the stony river Sirdarya, to the right of the aforementioned city of Savran in the Cossack regions, there is a chief whose name is Kas Sultan. To the left of Savran, in the Cossack region, it is rocky. (Turgustan, apparently modern Turkestan - note. Mine)

From Turgustan to Ihan 15 versts, or three German miles, grapes grow there; to the south of the town of Ihan is the town of Otroff in 1690. A chief named Thorson Khan lives in half a day's drive from there; from Otroff to the south, in the city of Sosiran, or Sairan (Wikipedia writes that in the first half of the XIV century, Sauran was the capital of the Juchid White Horde - my note), a day and a half away, the chief Karabas Sultan lives, and then there are many other towns like as in the Cossack regions there are only 32 small towns, of which the main one is Turgustan. It lies surrounded by water, the ramparts are built of sand, slightly more than 2 fathoms in height, with low rotundas; one rotunda near Teffka Khan's house was built of bricks, the others - a total of six of them serve as city gates and were built of adobe; the walls are fathoms thick, in some places less."

Archaeological excavations, Ancient Otrar, XIV-XV centuries.

Otrar is one of the largest cities in Central Asia, now a settlement in the Otrar district of the South Kazakhstan region. It is located in the lower reaches of the Arys River at its confluence with the Syr Darya, 10 km west of the Timur railway station, next to the modern village of Talapty, 57 km south of the city of Turkestan, 120 km northwest of Shymkent. The number of Otrar warriors reached 200,000 warriors. (Wikipedia)

“The mentioned house was built in Astana Temir Asak Tamerlane; for this he brought craftsmen from the Chinese state of Sina, and he, Temir Asak, is buried in Samarkand or near it and, as others say, in Turgustan. Their drink is water from dug wells, their faith is Basurman, they walk bareheaded, without a turban.

The goods that Bukharans trade in the Cossack regions is cotton, red and white, of the lowest grade. In the Cossack territories there is no significant trade, they have no (or few) cannons, few small weapons, and also no good craftsmen. They fight with bows and arrows, they receive weapons from the Bukhara state, their military clothes are shells (these shells consist of iron rings or scales attached to an iron helmet, on the head, and reaches the chest, covering their face, however, so that you can look) called tegilai.

There is an abundance of livestock - sheep and horses. They have no cows. Teffki Khan, who now rules in Turgustan, has no legs, as he was shot by his own people; they carry it on their hands. There is a fair there. Teffki Khan rides on horseback to trade, armed with a bow and arrow. What is the reason that he leaves like this, I do not know. The people of the Cossack territories are free people; they can go wherever they want without recognizing their superiors. The Karakalpaks are located not far from them, at the bottom of the Sirdar. People who are trustworthy say that this people is 8,000 people, they do not have guns, and they have an abundance of tigilaiof shells and throwing weapons in the Cossack and Karakalpak lands. Rice, millet, barley, rye, wheat, peas grow there, but rye and oats do not grow there. To the south and east of Turgustan is the Talas River, its length is six days' drive and more, inhabited by Cossack peoples, they say, numbering 40,000 people. Further south of Turgustan there are fortified cities like the city of Tashent, or Taskate, six days' drive from here; around him live people whom they call katama kuruma. The prince is called there Uras Sultan; he has a Busurmian faith, he fights with the Cossacks every year.

There are many military people in the Khiva state, there are also many firearms, but no cannons; firearms there are made by Russians named Danila Etskoy, a Cossack, and Petrushka Usinskaya, a Cossack, with their people who live there.

Shells, chain mail and others, as well as throwing weapons For example, arrows and slings, they have in abundance. The troops live in the groves. Bukhara residents live in the cities; in Khiva there is a building in which a certain Medreka, a saint, is buried, according to their custom."

“According to some Cossacks who were in Turkestan and Bukhara, they wrote to me from Moscow in 1694:

…… The Cossacks were sent to Teftikhan with the ambassador to appeal against the invasion of the aforementioned Kozak horde, but since he died there, they fled from Bukhara, and from there some returned to Tobolsk, others to Astrakan. That summer a Cossack horde with three or four hundred men went to plunder townships near Tobolsk, but quite far away; the Russians defeated them, and five prisoners were brought here.

Last year I had tartarswho did not know about the Mohammedan religion, but when they want to thank or pray, they put their hands together, raise their hands and eyes to heaven and say: “The great God who created the world will reward or preserve you - and they say that they worship the same only God and believe in the resurrection of the flesh, but with some inventions about the transmigration of soulsand they are the most sincere and simple people that I have seen from this nation."

The letter ends here."

“He told me other things that I had heard about before, namely that Cossacks of Polandsailed on ships on the rivers of Georgia (modern Georgia - my note) that the king of Poland recently sent two or three ships with gifts to King Teimuraz near Guriel. I doubt if this is Kogne or some other place belonging to the Turks, which is without a doubt the country that they gave him into his possession."

“Between the city of Terki near the coast of the Caspian Sea and near the Terek River, on the river islands, there live several Cossacks, who are called Greben Cossacks by the name of the small area of the Comb, located in the same place. They came there to live long ago from Russia: they live by robbery and robbery, doing little farming. Now they have mixed marriages with Tartars, so the Russian language is now broken and mixed with Tartar. They still retain the Christian faith. The same free people live near the Yaik River near Krasnoyar: they are immigrants from both Muscovy and the land of the Cossacks, who mainly live by poaching and are called Cossacks.

Behind the city of Terki, opposite Derbent, to the north-west, in the interior of the country is the Kumania region, or the country of the Kumyks, separated from the Chirkases and Dagestan by high mountains; from the south it borders on George.

They wrote to me on March 11, 1692, when Semkal attacked the city of Terki, belonging to Their Royal Majesties; he robbed, set fires, took many people into captivity; he was supported by the crowd rebel Cossackswho used to rob a Turk in the Black Sea; however, subsequently sent there Russian military forces curbed and calmed him, on the condition that he promises never to disturb the Caspian Sea or its shores and give free passage to the subjects of Their Imperial Majesties. For one or two years he fought with Persia and defeated 3,000 people among them, which, however, was attributed more to the negligence of the governor in Derbent and the envy that he had for the Persian colonel than to the courage of the Shemkhal. The Persian then had 12,000 men under arms."

Tersk town

Terki is a Russian fortress settlement in the North Caucasus in the 16th-18th centuries.

Plan of the Kizlyar Fortress from the Atlas of the Russian Empire in 1745.

Fortress of the Holy Cross

Fortress plan Groznaya

Fanagoria fortress, Taman

“From here, 100 miles to the west, there is the Chornaya Protoka or Abaza Irmakhi river.

40 miles from here to Temryuk; it lies at the mouth of the Kuban River, and a few years ago, despite the fortifications, this place was very often plundered by the Cossacks. With this prey, the Cossacks often stop at the Abasa River, when the captured people and cattle are unloaded before they are taken away."

“Crimean Tartaria is a peninsula surrounded by the Black Sea. It includes four large cities: Perekop, Kozlov, Balaklava and Kafa. This peninsula is, as it were, sown with villages, for they say that there are 160 thousand villages, which are mostly inhabited by Greeks, Poles, Russians and Cossacks, from time to time transported there by slaves and captives, subsequently united by marriage with the natives of this country."

"Dear sir, Their Royal Majesties not only seized the Azov, but also subjugated the surrounding places, like the Buttercup region, two miles from Azov; also the city of Kuban and other nearby towns. Kuban and Nagai tartarswho were located near the Kuban, use the Ayuka shamkhal so that they implore Their Imperial Majesty to treat them favorably [tartars] and give permission to settle on a particular river in safety; for this they offer their troops of many thousands, always ready to march, to the service of Their Royal Majesties, since these people have already suffered great damage from the Crimea and from Zaporizhzhya chirkasov near Kozlov and Ochakov. On this road, the Cossacks go to plunder in the Black Sea. It is wrong to think that this city is located at the mouth of the Maly Don.

In 1637 the famous city was occupied by the Don Cossacks, destroying all the Turkish invaders."

Cherkasy (ital. Circassi) is an exo-ethnonym of the XVI-XVII centuries, used among the Russian-speaking population and in the documents of the Russian kingdom to the inhabitants of the North Caucasus and the Black Sea region, in particular, to the ancestors of modern Circassians, Ossetians, Circassians, Russians, Ukrainians, as well as an exonym of the Slavic-speaking Cossacks-Christians of the East Europe and the south-west of Tartary (Russia) (mostly Ukrainian) in the Russian state (in particular, in official documents) until the end of the 18th century. (Wikipedia)

An excerpt from the Decision of the Zemsky Sobor on the reunification of Ukraine with Russia:

“October 1, 1653

And in the past, in 161, he sent Zaporozhye hetman Bogdan Khmelnitskaya to the Tsar Tsar and Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich of All Russia, hetman Bogdan Khmelnitskaya twice, that from the royal side by agreement, on what with them, Zaporozhye Cherkasy, were reconciled, not fulfilled, and the churches of God, which were written in the contract to give from the unia, did not give, but which few were given were, and those were turned back under the unia."

Circassian map 1830

“Three languages are spoken in Chirkassia: Cossack, Russian and Turkish.

……. On Monday 22nd we dropped anchor in front of Chirkassk, where we were greeted with three shots from 80 cannons … Chirkassk - the main city of 39 Cossack cities; from Rybny to Panshin - 16 cities. From Panshin to Chirkassk, 23 cities can be seen, mostly lying on the Don islands, with double wooden fences and palisades. Many of the named cities are divided into two parts: one with ovens, where they live in the winter, and the other to rule in the summer. The walls and floors are white and clean on the inside, and usually much neater than the Russians. Their clothes are more like Turkish.

Kuban Cossack artist Andrey Lyakh

Each city chooses its chief for one year, and if they like the way he rules, then he is left, if not, then another is appointed in his place. The husband is not obliged to keep his wife longer than he wants; he, through the city's herald, calls men to the market, where he walks in a circle with his wife, holding her hands, and the husband shouts: Men, brothers and married Cossacks, I lived with this woman for so long, she was always kind and faithful to me, and now whoever wishes can take it. At the same time, he takes his hand from her, and leaves it. It happens that a husband, for an insignificant reason, kills his wife or drowns her in water, or sells her, as it happened openly in Azov in my time. One Italian boss bought one for four ducats, a Dutch boss bought the same 21-year-old woman for seven ducats. Because of the power of men, women have great respect for them.

If a Cossack is caught stealing and the theft can be proven by two witnesses, then his top shirt is filled with sand, sewn up and thrown alive into the Don. All other major matters on the Don, such as a conference on the war, preparation for a campaign, are accepted here in Chirkassk, and the hetman, as chief, also holds his throne here.

Ilya Repin Letter of the Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan

There are seven or eight thousand good soldiers in this city, both on horseback and on the water; the city stands on an island, in the middle of the Don, around it is well fortified with bolverki and towers according to the old model. From Panshin and up to here in all cities there are soldiers, and they consider it a shame to be engaged in agriculture or peasant work. In turn, they make hikes of 100-400 people on Kalmaks or Kuban tartars and usually divide the loot: people and horses. "

Starocherkasskaya (Starocherkassk, until 1805 - Cherkassk) is a village in the Aksai district of the Rostov region. Located on the right bank of the Don River, 30 km from the regional center. The administrative center of the Starocherkassk rural settlement.

It is known as the capital of the Don Cossacks and the birthplace of General Matvey Platov and many other Don heroes. (Wikipedia)

Plan-diagram of the cr. St. Anne of the 18th century.

This is how it looks now:

Anninsky fortress

And next to another, in Rostov-on-Don:

Fortress of St. Dmitry of Rostov

This is how this area looks on a modern map:

Rostov-on-Don

And in a smaller plan:

Map of Russia with the location of the Cossacks in the 17th century

The lands of the Zaporozhye Cossacks, Don, Astrakhan, Yaik, Kuban and Cossacks of the Cossack Horde were located here.

Now, for some reason, in the heart of this Cossack settlement is the Republic of Kalmykia, although earlier it was located in a completely different place (see the maps of Remezov and Witsen):

The modern location of Kalmykia on the map of Russia

“Between the Caspian Sea and the kingdom of Siberia, on the border of Kalmakia, in the desert places called“steppes”there, in 1694 there were many Kalmak tartars. These are people from the Golden Horde, which settled near the Caspian Sea, at the place where I indicated on my map. From Kalmykia itself, they were joined by various other people from the surrounding peoples, numbering about 25 thousand people. They are ruled by a head of their own people. They roamed for the sake of plunder, and a year and a half ago they robbed the Russian village of Krasny, not far from Tyumen in Siberia, hacked many people and took 200 people and a lot of cattle prisoner. They are called Cossacks or Cossack horde, but the Golden Horde (Horde or Chord is a lot of people together, under one head, living in the steppes) rose up against them and drove them out of their possessions and defeated them. From there comes the name "kazasi", what it means, I do not know, but I believe that they were given this name because they, like the Cossacks, are brave warriors. These hordes often mix. "

“Dear sir!

So that you are well aware of the situation of these wild countries and peoples, I will use what I learned from the smartest tartars and could understand myself, having been there. First, I must tell you a little about their origin and how they are divided into hordes under the rule of elected leaders (they live sedentary, separate from other peoples, in dwellings built for themselves). First, I want to note that these tartars boast of their origin from the oldest family of the famous Scythians and also the fact that they were never enslaved, although troops, including Alexander the Great, Darius, Cyrus and Xerxes, tried to capture them many times. The hardships of the war forced them to rally into hordes (Horde is a group of people living in yurts or in tents under the rule of one chief) with different names: 1) yekamogal, which means large Mongols; 2) sumangals, that is, water Mongols; 3) mercat; 4) metritis. They named their possessions: Kozan, Cossacks, Bukhara, Samarkand, - until they are united enough to form united state … They chose an experienced and famous person named Chinggis as their emperor, or khan. This happened around 1187 after the Nativity of Christ."

"Under the name of the Mughals, or Mongolsand also under the name of Turks, Arab writers sometimes mean all sorts of tartars or Scythians, as well as Zaoksky or Mavranar, and even Georgian Christians are sometimes called tartars."