The date of seniority (formation) of the Don Cossack Host is officially 1570. This date is based on a very minor, but very significant event in the history of the army. In the oldest of the found letters, Tsar Ivan the Terrible orders the Cossacks to serve him, and for this he promises to "grant" them. Gunpowder, lead, bread, clothing, and a monetary salary, albeit very small, were sent as salaries. It was compiled on January 3, 1570 and sent with the boyar Ivan Novosiltsev to free Cossacks living in the Seversky Donets. According to the letter, Tsar Ivan the Terrible, sending ambassadors to the Crimea and Turkey, ordered the Don people to escort and protect the embassy to the border with Crimea. And earlier, the Don Cossacks often carried out assignments and participated in various wars on the side of the Moscow troops, but only as a foreign mercenary army. The order in the form of an order was found with this letter for the first time and means only the very beginning of the regular Moscow service. But the Don Army took a very long time to this service, and this path was, without exaggeration, very difficult, thorny and even sometimes tragic.
The article "Ancient Cossack ancestors" described the history of the emergence and development of the Cossacks (including the Don) in the pre-Horde and Horde periods. But at the beginning of the 14th century, the Mongol Empire, created by the great Genghis Khan, began to disintegrate, in its western ulus, the Golden Horde, dynastic unrest (zamyatny) also periodically arose, in which Cossack detachments, subject to individual Mongol khans, murzas and emirs, also participated. Under Khan Uzbek, Islam became the state religion in the Horde, and in the subsequent dynastic troubles it became aggravated and the religious factor also became actively present. The adoption of one state religion in a multi-confessional state, of course, hastened its self-destruction and disintegration, because nothing separates people so much as religious and ideological predilections. As a result of religious oppression by the authorities, there was a growing flight from the Horde of subjects for reasons of faith. Muslims of other persuasions were drawn to the Central Asian uluses and to the Turks, Christians to Russia and Lithuania. In the end, even the Metropolitan moved from Sarai to Krutitsk near Moscow. The heir of Uzbek, Khan Janibek, during his reign, gave the vassals and nobles "great weakening" and when he died in 1357, a long Khan civil strife began, during which 25 khans were replaced in 18 years and hundreds of Chingizids were killed. This turmoil and the events that followed it were called the Great Zamyatnya and were tragic in the history of the Cossack people. The horde was rapidly heading towards its decline. Chroniclers of that time already considered the Horde not as a whole, but consisting of several Hordes: Sarai or Bolshoi, Astrakhan, Kazan or Bashkir, Crimean or Perekop and Cossack. The troops of the disgraced and perishing in the turmoil of the khans often became ownerless, "free", not subject to anyone. It was then, in the 1360s-1400s, that this new type of Cossack appeared in the Russian borderland, who was not in the service and lived mainly by raids on the surrounding nomadic hordes and neighboring peoples or robbing merchant caravans. They were called "thieves" Cossacks. There were especially many such "thieves" gangs on the Don and on the Volga, which were the most important waterways and main trade routes connecting the Russian lands with the steppe, the Middle East and the Mediterranean. At that time, there was no sharp division between the Cossacks, servicemen and freemen, often freemen were hired, and the servicemen, on occasion, robbed caravans. It was from this time that a mass of "homeless" Horde servicemen appeared on the borders of the Moscow and other principalities, which the princely authorities began to make up for the city Cossacks (in the present-day PSCs, SOBRs and the police), and then for the scribes (archers). For their service they were exempted from taxes and settled in special settlements, “settlements”. Throughout the entire time of the Horde hush-up, the number of these servicemen in the Russian principalities was constantly growing. And there was where to draw from. The number of the Russian population on the territory of the Horde on the eve of Zamyatnya, according to the estimates of the Cossack historian A. A. Gordeev, was 1-1, 2 million people. This is quite a lot by medieval standards. In addition to the indigenous Russian population of the steppes of the pre-Horde period, it greatly increased due to the "tamga". In addition to the Cossacks (military class), this population was engaged in agriculture, trades, crafts, yamskaya service, served fords and transfers, made up the retinue, courtyard and servants of the khans and their nobles. An estimated two thirds of this population lived in the Volga and Don basins, and one third along the Dnieper.
In the course of the Great Zamyatnya, the Horde commander, temnik Mamai, began to gain more and more influence. He, as before Nogai, began to remove and appoint khans. By that time, the Iranian-Central Asian ulus had also completely disintegrated and another impostor, Tamerlane, appeared on the political scene there. Mamai and Tamerlane played a huge role in the history of the Iranian ulus and the Golden Horde, at the same time both contributed to their final death. The Cossacks also actively participated in the Mamai troubles, including on the side of the Russian princes. It is known that in 1380 the Don Cossacks presented Dmitry Donskoy with the icon of the Don Mother of God and participated against Mamai in the Battle of Kulikovo. And not only the Don Cossacks. According to many sources, the commander of the ambush regiment of the voivode Bobrok Volynsky was the ataman of the Dnieper Cherkas and went into the service of the Moscow prince Dmitry with his Cossack squad due to disagreements with Mamai. In this battle, the Cossacks fought bravely on both sides and suffered huge losses. But the worst was ahead. After the defeat on the Kulikovo field, Mamai gathered a new army and began to prepare for a punitive campaign against Russia. But the khan of the White Horde Tokhtamysh intervened in the turmoil and inflicted a crushing defeat on Mamai. The ambitious Khan Tokhtamysh, with fire and sword, again united under his bunchuk the entire Golden Horde, including Russia, but he did not calculate his strength and behaved defiantly and defiantly with his former patron, the Central Asian ruler Tamerlane. The reckoning was not long in coming. In a series of battles, Tamerlane destroyed the huge Golden Horde army, the Cossacks again suffered huge losses. After the defeat of Tokhtamysh, Tamerlane moved to Russia, but alarming news from the Middle East forced him to change his plans. Persians, Arabs, Afghans constantly rebelled there, and the Turkish Sultan Bayazet behaved no less boldly and defiantly than Tokhtamysh. In campaigns against the Persians and Turks, Tamerlane mobilized and took with him tens of thousands of surviving Cossacks from the Don and Volga. They fought very worthily, about which Tamerlane himself left the best reviews. So in his notes, he wrote: "Having mastered the manner of fighting like a Cossack, I equipped my troops so that I could, like a Cossack, penetrate the location of my enemies." After the victorious end of the campaigns and the capture of Bayazet, the Cossacks asked for their homeland, but did not receive permission. Then they arbitrarily migrated to the north, but by order of the wayward and powerful ruler they were overtaken and exterminated.
The Great Golden Horde Troubles (Zamyatnya) of 1357-1400 cost the Cossack people of the Don and Volga very dearly, the Cossacks survived the hardest times, great national misfortunes. During this period, the territory of Cossackia was consistently subjected to devastating invasions by formidable conquerors - Mamai, Tokhtamysh and Tamerlane. The formerly densely populated and flowering lower reaches of the Cossack rivers turned into deserts. The history of Cossackia did not know such a monstrous decossackization either before or after. But some of the Cossacks survived. When threatening events came, the Cossacks, led in this troubled time by the most prudent and far-sighted atamans, moved to the neighboring regions, the Moscow, Ryazan, Meshchera principality and on the territory of Lithuania, the Crimean, Kazan khanates, to Azov and other Genoese cities of the Black Sea region. The Genoese Barbaro wrote in 1436: "… in the Azov region there is a people called the Azak-Cossack, who speaks the Slavic-Tatar language." It was from the end of the XIV century that the Azov, Genoese, Ryazan, Kazan, Moscow, Meshchersk and other Cossacks, who were forced to emigrate from their native places and entered the service of various rulers, became known from the chronicles. These Cossack ancestors, fugitives from the Horde, were looking for service, work in the new lands, "labored", at the same time they passionately wanted to return to their homeland. Already in 1444, in the papers of the Discharge Order, regarding the raid of a detachment of Tatars to the Ryazan lands, it was written: “… it was winter and deep snow fell. Cossacks opposed the Tatars on art …”(skiing).
Fig. 1 Cossacks on skis in a hike
Since that time, information about the activities of the Cossacks as part of the Moscow troops does not stop. The Tatar noblemen who went over to the service of the Moscow prince with arms and troops brought many Cossacks with them. The horde, disintegrating, divided its legacy - the armed forces. Each khan, leaving the power of the chief khan, took with him a tribe and troops, including a significant number of Cossacks. According to historical information, the Cossacks were also under the khans of Astrakhan, Saray, Kazan and Crimea. However, as part of the Volga khanates, the number of Cossacks quickly fell and soon completely disappeared. They went into the service of other rulers or became "free". This is how, for example, the exodus of the Cossacks from Kazan took place. In 1445, the young Moscow prince Vasily II opposed the Tatars to defend Nizhny Novgorod. His troops were defeated, and the prince himself was taken prisoner. The country began collecting funds for the ransom of the prince, and for 200,000 rubles, Vasily was released to Moscow. A large number of Tatar nobles appeared with the prince from Kazan, who went over to his service with their troops and weapons. As "service people" they were awarded lands and volosts. In Moscow, Tatar speech was heard everywhere. And the Cossacks, being a multinational army, being part of the troops of the Horde and the Horde nobles, retained their native language, but in service and among themselves spoke the state language, i.e. in Turkic-Tatar. Vasily's rival, his cousin Dmitry Shemyak, accused Vasily of "he brought the Tatars to Moscow, and you gave them cities and volosts for feeding, the Tatars and their speech loves more than measure, gold and silver and the estate gives them …". Shemyaka lured Vasily on a pilgrimage to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, captured, overthrown and blinded him, taking the Moscow throne. But a detachment of Cherkas (Cossacks) loyal to Vasily, led by the Tatar princes Kasim and Egun who served in Moscow, defeated Shemyaka and returned the throne to Vasily, since then called the Dark One for his blindness. It was under Vasily II the Dark that the permanent (deliberate) service Moscow troops were systematized. The first category consisted of parts of the "city" Cossacks, formed from the "homeless" Horde service people. This unit carried out patrol and police service, to protect the internal city order. They were completely subordinate to local princes and governors. Part of the city troops formed the personal guard of the Moscow prince and were subordinate to him. Another part of the Cossack troops were the Cossacks of the border guards of the outlying lands at that time of the Ryazan and Meshchersky principalities. Payment for the service of the permanent troops was always a difficult issue for the Moscow principality, as, indeed, for any other medieval state, and was carried out through land allotments, as well as receiving salaries and benefits in trade and industries. In internal life, these troops were completely independent and were under the command of their chieftains. Cossacks, being in the service, could not actively engage in agriculture, because labor on the ground took them away from military service. They rented surplus land or hired farm laborers. In the borderlands, the Cossacks received large plots of land and were engaged in cattle breeding and gardening. Under the next Moscow prince Ivan III, the permanent armed forces continued to grow and their armament improved. In Moscow, a "cannon yard" was set up for the manufacture of firearms and gunpowder.
Fig. 2 Cannon yard in Moscow
Under Vasily II and Ivan III, thanks to the Cossacks, Moscow began to possess powerful armed forces and successively annexed Ryazan, Tver, Yaroslavl, Rostov, then Novgorod and Pskov. The growth of the military power of Russia increased with the growth of its armed forces. The number of troops with mercenaries and militia could reach 150-200 thousand people. But the quality of troops, their mobility and combat readiness increased mainly due to the growth in the number of "deliberate" or permanent troops. So in 1467 a campaign was undertaken against Kazan. Ataman of the Cossacks Ivan Ruda was elected the chief governor, successfully defeated the Tatars and ravaged the environs of Kazan. Many prisoners and booty were captured. The decisive actions of the chieftain did not receive the prince's gratitude, but, on the contrary, incurred disgrace. The paralysis of fear, obedience and subservience to the Horde very slowly left the soul and body of the Russian government. Speaking on campaigns against the Horde, Ivan III never dared to engage in big battles, limited himself to demonstration actions and help to the Crimean Khan in his struggle with the Great Horde for independence. Despite the protectorate from the Turkish sultan imposed on Crimea in 1475, the Crimean Khan Mengli I Girey maintained friendly and allied relations with Tsar Ivan III, they had a common enemy - the Big Horde. So during the punitive campaign of the Golden Horde Khan Akhmat to Moscow in 1480, Mengli I Girey sent the Nogays subject to him with the Cossacks to raid the Sarai lands. After a useless "standing on the Ugra" against the Moscow troops, Akhmat retreated from the Moscow and Lithuanian lands with rich booty to the Seversky Donets. There he was attacked by the Nogai Khan, whose troops included up to 16,000 Cossacks. In this war, Khan Akhmat was killed and he became the last recognized khan of the Golden Horde. The Azov Cossacks, being independent, also waged wars with the Great Horde on the side of the Crimean Khanate. In 1502, Khan Mengli I Girey inflicted a crushing defeat on the Khan of the Great Horde Shein-Akhmat, destroyed the Saray and put an end to the Golden Horde. After this defeat, it finally ceased to exist. The protectorate of Crimea before the Ottoman Empire and the elimination of the Golden Horde constituted a new geopolitical reality in the Black Sea region and made an inevitable regrouping of forces. Occupying the lands lying between the Moscow and Lithuanian possessions from the north and north-west and surrounded from the south and southeast by aggressive nomads, the Cossacks did not reckon with the politics of either Moscow, Lithuania, or Poland, relations with Crimea, Turkey and nomadic hordes were built exclusively from the balance of forces. And it also happened that for their service or neutrality, the Cossacks received a salary simultaneously from Moscow, Lithuania, Crimea, Turkey and nomads. The Azov and Don Cossacks, occupying an independent position from the Turks and the Crimean khans, continued to attack them, which displeased the Sultan and he decided to end them. In 1502, the Sultan ordered Mengli I Giray: "To deliver all the dashing Cossack pashas to Constantinople." Khan intensified the repression against the Cossacks in the Crimea, went on a campaign and occupied Azov. The Cossacks were forced to retreat from the Azov and Tavria to the north, re-founded and expanded many towns in the lower reaches of the Don and Donets, and moved the center from Azov to Razdory. This is how the grassroots Don Host was formed.
Fig. 3 Don Cossack
After the death of the Big Horde, the Cossacks also began to leave service on the borders of the Ryazan and other border Russian principalities, began to leave for the "deserted steppes of the Batu horde" and take their former places in the upper Don, along the Khopr and Medveditsa. Cossacks served at the borders under treaties with princes and were not bound by oath. In addition, when entering the service of the Russian princes during the Horde turmoil, the Cossacks were unpleasantly surprised by the local order, and having understood the "lawlessness" of the servile dependence of the Russian people on the masters and authorities, they sought to save themselves from enslavement and transformation into slaves. The Cossacks inevitably felt like strangers among the general submissive and uncomplaining mass of slaves. The Ryazan princess Agrafena, who ruled with her young son, was powerless to restrain the Cossacks and complained to her brother, the Moscow prince Ivan III. To "prohibit the departure of the Cossacks to the south by tyranny" they took repressive measures, but they backfired, the outcome intensified. So the horse Don Army was formed again. The departure of the Cossacks of the border principalities exposed their borders and left them without protection from the steppe. But the need to organize permanent armed forces put the Moscow princes in the need to make big concessions to the Cossacks and to put the Cossack troops in exceptional conditions. As always, one of the most intractable issues when hiring Cossacks for service was their content. Gradually, a compromise was outlined in resolving these issues as well. Cossack units in the Moscow service turned into regiments. Each regiment received a land allotment and salary and became a collective landowner, like monasteries. It was even more accurate to say it was a medieval military collective farm, where each soldier had his own share, those who did not have it were called "loafers", from whom they were taken away, they were called "dispossessed". Service in the regiments was hereditary and lifelong. The Cossacks enjoyed many material and political benefits, retained the right to choose chiefs, with the exception of the eldest, appointed by the prince. While maintaining internal autonomy, the Cossacks took the oath. Accepting these conditions, many regiments were transformed from the Cossack regiments, into the regiments of "gunners" and "squeakers", and later into the streltsy regiments.
Fig. 4 Cossack squeaker
Their chiefs were appointed by the prince and went down in military history under the name "Streletsky Head". The rifle regiments were the best deliberate troops of the Moscow state of that time and existed for about 200 years. But the existence of the streltsy troops was due to the strong monarch's will and strong state support. And soon, in the Time of Troubles, having lost these preferences, the streltsy troops again turned into Cossacks, from whom they came. This phenomenon is described in the article "COSSACKS IN TIME OF TIME". The new layout of the Cossacks in the Streltsy took place after the Russian Troubles. Thanks to these measures taken, not all Cossack emigrants returned to Cossackia. A part remained in Russia and served as the basis for the formation of service classes, police, guard, local Cossacks, gunners and riflemen's army. Traditionally, these estates had some features of Cossack autonomy and self-government up to Peter's reforms. A similar process took place in the Lithuanian lands. Thus, at the beginning of the 16th century, 2 camps of the Don Cossacks, horse and grassroots, were re-formed. Horse Cossacks, settling in their former places within the boundaries of Khopra and Medveditsa, began to clear the bottom of the Nogai nomadic hordes. The grass-roots Cossacks, driven out of Azov and Tavria, also fortified themselves on the old lands in the lower reaches of the Don and Donets, waged a war against the Crimea and Turkey. In the first half of the 16th century, the upper and lower ranks were not yet united under the rule of one chieftain, and each had their own. This was hampered by their different origins and the multidirectionality of their military efforts, among the horsemen on the Volga and Astrakhan, among the grassroots in Azov and the Crimea, the grassroots did not abandon the hope of returning their former cultural and administrative center - Azov. By their actions, the Cossacks protected Moscow from the raids of nomadic hordes, although sometimes they themselves were disgraceful. The connection of the Cossacks with Moscow was not interrupted, in church terms they were subordinate to the Sarsko-Podonsky bishop (Krutitsky). The Cossacks needed material assistance from Moscow, Moscow needed military assistance from the Cossacks in the fight against Kazan, Astrakhan, the Nogai hordes and the Crimea. The Cossacks acted actively and boldly, they knew well the psychology of the Asian peoples, who respected only strength, and rightly considered the best tactic against them was an attack. Moscow acted passively, prudently and cautiously, but they needed each other. So, despite the prohibitive measures of the local khans, princes and authorities, at the first opportunity, after the end of Zamyatnya, the Cossacks-emigrants and fugitives from the Horde returned to the Dnieper, Don and Volga. This continued later, in the 15th and 16th centuries. These returnees, Russian historians often pass off as fugitive people from Muscovy and Lithuania. The Cossacks who remained on the Don and returned from neighboring borders unite on the ancient Cossack principles and recreate that social and state mechanism, which will later be called the republics of the Free Cossacks, the existence of which no one has any doubts about. One of these "republics" was on the Dnieper, the other on the Don, and its center was on an island at the confluence of the Donets and Don, the town was called Discord. The most ancient form of power is established in the "republic". Its fullness is in the hands of the national assembly, which is called the Circle. When people from different lands gather together, bearers of different cultures and keepers of different faiths, in order to get along, they have to retreat in their communication to the simplest level, tested for millennia, accessible to any understanding. The armed men stand in a circle and, looking into each other's faces, decide. In a situation where everyone is armed to the teeth, everyone is used to fighting to the death and risking their lives every moment, the armed majority will not tolerate an armed minority. Either expel or simply interrupt. Those who disagree may break away, but subsequently, within their group, they will not tolerate differences of opinion either. Therefore, decisions can only be made in one way - unanimously. When the decision was made, a leader called the "chieftain" was elected for the period of its implementation. They obey him implicitly. And so until they do what they decided. In the intervals between the Circles, the elected chieftain also rules - this is the executive power. The ataman, who was elected unanimously, was smeared with mud and soot on his head, a handful of earth was poured over the collar, like a criminal before drowning, showing that he is not only a leader, but also a servant of society, and in which case he will be punished mercilessly. Ataman was elected two assistants, esauls. The ataman's power lasted one year. The administration was built on the same principle in each town. When going on a raid or campaign, they also elected the ataman and all the chiefs, and until the end of the enterprise, the elected leaders could punish for disobedience with death. The main crimes worthy of this terrible punishment were considered treason, cowardice, murder (among their own) and theft (again among their own). The convicts were put into a sack, sand was poured into it and drowned (“they were put into the water”). The Cossacks went on a campaign in different rags. Cold weapons, so as not to shine, were soaked in brine. But after the campaigns and raids, they dressed up brightly, preferring Persian and Turkish clothes. As the river settled down again, the first women appeared here. Some Cossacks began to take their families out of their former place of residence. But most of the women were repulsed, stolen, or bought. Nearby, in the Crimea, there was the largest center of the slave trade. There was no polygamy among the Cossacks, the marriage was concluded and dissolved freely. For this, it was enough for the Cossack to inform the Circle. Thus, at the end of the 15th century, after the final collapse of the united Horde state, the Cossacks who remained and settled on its territory retained the military organization, but at the same time found themselves completely independent from the fragments of the former empire, and from the Muscovy that appeared in Russia. Runaway people of other classes only replenished, but were not the root of the emergence of troops. Those who arrived were not accepted into the Cossacks and not all at once. To become a Cossack, i.e. to be a member of the army, it was necessary to obtain the consent of the Army Circle. Not everyone received such consent, for this it was necessary to live among the Cossacks, sometimes for a long time, to enter the local life, “get old” and only then was permission to be called a Cossack given. Therefore, among the Cossacks lived a significant part of the population that did not belong to the Cossacks. They were called "loose people" and "barge haulers". The Cossacks themselves have always considered themselves a separate people and did not recognize themselves as fugitive men. They said: "we are not slaves, we are Cossacks." These opinions are clearly reflected in fiction (for example, in Sholokhov). Historians of the Cossacks cite detailed excerpts from the chronicles of the 16th-18th centuries. describing the conflicts between the Cossacks and alien peasants, whom the Cossacks refused to recognize as equals. So the Cossacks managed to survive as a military estate during the collapse of the Great Empire of the Mongols. It entered a new era, not suggesting what a significant role it would play in the future history of the Moscow state and in the creation of a new empire.
By the middle of the 16th century, the geopolitical situation around Cossackia was very complex. She was greatly complicated by the religious situation. After the fall of Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire became a new center of Islamic expansion. The Asian peoples of Crimea, Astrakhan, Kazan and the Nogai hordes were under the patronage of the Sultan, who was the head of Islam and considered them his subjects. In Europe, the Ottoman Empire was opposed by the Holy Roman Empire with varying success. Lithuania did not abandon hopes for a further seizure of Russian lands, and Poland, in addition to seizing lands, had the goal of spreading Catholicism to all Slavic peoples. Located on the borders of three worlds, Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Islam, Don Cossackia was surrounded by hostile neighbors, but also owed its life and existence to skillful maneuvers between these worlds. With the constant threat of attack from all sides, it was necessary to unite under the rule of one chieftain and a common Army Circle. The decisive role among the Cossacks belonged to the grassroots Cossacks. Under the Horde, the lower Cossacks served for the protection and defense of the most important trade communications of the Azov and Tavria and had a more organized administration located in their center - Azov. Being in contact with Turkey and Crimea, they were constantly in great military tension, and Khoper, Vorona and Medveditsa became the deep rear of the Don Cossacks. There were also deep racial differences, the riding ones were more Russified, the lower ones had more Tatar and other southern bloodlines. This was reflected not only in physical data, but also in character. By the middle of the 16th century, a number of outstanding atamans appeared among the Don Cossacks, mainly from the lower part, through whose efforts unification was achieved.
And in the Moscow state in 1550, the young Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible began to rule. Having carried out effective reforms and relying on the experience of his predecessors, by 1552 he got his hands on the most powerful armed forces in the region and intensified the participation of Muscovy in the struggle for the Horde inheritance. The reformed army consisted of 20 thousand tsarist regiment, 20 thousand archers, 35 thousand boyar cavalry, 10 thousand noblemen, 6 thousand city Cossacks, 15 thousand mercenary Cossacks and 10 thousand mercenary Tatar cavalry. His victory over Kazan and Astrakhan meant a victory on the Europe-Asia line and the breakthrough of the Russian people into Asia. In the East, the expanses of vast countries opened up before the Russian people, and a rapid movement began with the aim of mastering them. Soon the Cossacks crossed the Volga and the Urals and conquered the vast Siberian Kingdom, and after 60 years the Cossacks reached the Sea of Okhotsk. These victories and this great, heroic and incredibly sacrificial advance of the Cossacks to the East, beyond the Urals and the Volga, are described in other articles of the series: Formation of the Volga and Yaik troops; Siberian Cossack epic; Cossacks and the annexation of Turkestan, etc. And in the Black Sea steppes, the hardest struggle continued against the Crimea, the Nogai horde and Turkey. The main burden of this struggle also lay on the Cossacks. The Crimean khans lived on a raid economy and constantly attacked neighboring lands, sometimes reaching Moscow. After the establishment of the Turkish protectorate, Crimea became the center of the slave trade. The main prey in the raids were boys and girls for the slave markets of Turkey and the Mediterranean. Turkey, being in a share and interest, also took part in this struggle and actively supported Crimea. But from the side of the Cossacks, they were also in the position of a besieged fortress and under the threat of constant attacks on the peninsula and the Sultan's coast. And with the transition of Hetman Vishnevetsky with the Dnieper Cossacks to the service of the Moscow Tsar, all the Cossacks temporarily gathered under the rule of Grozny.
After the conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan, the question of the direction of further expansion arose before the Moscow authorities. The geopolitical situation suggested 2 possible directions: the Crimean Khanate and the Livonian Confederation. Each direction had its own supporters, opponents, advantages and risks. To resolve this issue, a special meeting was convened in Moscow and the Livonian direction was chosen. Ultimately, this decision turned out to be extremely unsuccessful and had fatal, even tragic consequences for Russian history. But in 1558 the war began, its beginning was very successful, and many Baltic cities were occupied. Up to 10,000 Cossacks took part in these battles under the command of Ataman Zabolotsky. While the main forces were fighting in Livonia, the Don chieftain Misha Cherkashenin and the Dnieper hetman Vishnevetsky acted against the Crimea. In addition, Vishnevetsky received an order to raid the Caucasus to help the allied Kabardians against the Turks and Nogais. In 1559, the offensive on Livonia was renewed and after a series of Russian victories the coast from Narva to Riga was occupied. Under the powerful blows of the Moscow troops, the Livonian Confederation collapsed and was saved by the establishment of the protectorate of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania over it. The Livonians asked for peace and it was concluded for 10 years until the end of 1569. But the Russian access to the Baltic affected the interests of Poland, Sweden, Denmark, the Hanseatic League and the Livonian Order. The energetic Master of the Order of Kettler instituted the kings of Poland and Sweden against Moscow, and they, in turn, after the end of the seven-year war between them, attracted to their side some other European monarchs and the pope, and later even the Turkish sultan. In 1563, the coalition of Poland, Sweden, the Livonian Order and Lithuania demanded the withdrawal of the Russians from the Baltic as an ultimatum, and after its rejection, the war resumed. There have also been changes in the Crimean borderlands. Hetman Vishnevetsky, after a campaign against Kabarda, withdrew to the mouth of the Dnieper, got in touch with the Polish king and re-entered his service. Vishnevetsky's adventure ended tragically for him. He undertook a campaign in Moldova with the aim of taking the place of the Moldovan ruler, but was treacherously captured and sent to Turkey. There he was sentenced to death and thrown from the fortress tower onto iron hooks, on which he died in agony, cursing Sultan Suleiman, whose person is now widely known to our public thanks to the popular Turkish TV series "The Magnificent Century". The next hetman, Prince Ruzhinsky, again entered into relations with the Moscow Tsar and continued raids on the Crimea and Turkey until his death in 1575.
To continue the Livonian War, troops were assembled in Mozhaisk, incl. 6 thousand Cossacks, and one of the thousands of Cossacks was commanded by Ermak Timofeevich (diary of King Stephen Batory). This stage of the war also began successfully, Polotsk was taken and many victories were won. But the successes ended in a terrible failure. When attacking Kovel, the chief voivode, Prince Kurbsky, made an unforgivable and incomprehensible oversight and his 40 thousandth corps was utterly defeated by an 8 thousandth detachment of Livonians with the loss of the entire convoy and artillery. After this failure, Kurbsky, not waiting for the king's decision, fled to Poland and went over to the side of the Polish king. Military failures and the treason of Kurbsky prompted Tsar Ivan to intensify the repressions, and the Moscow troops went on the defensive and, with varying success, held the occupied regions and the coast. The protracted war drained and bled Lithuania, too, and she weakened in the struggle with Moscow so much that, avoiding a military-political collapse, she was forced to recognize the Union with Poland in 1569, effectively losing a significant part of her sovereignty and losing Ukraine. The new state was called Rzeczpospolita (a republic of both peoples) and was headed by the Polish king and the Seim. Polish king Sigismund III, striving to strengthen the new state, tried to involve as many allies as possible in the war against Moscow, even if they were his enemies, namely the Crimean Khan and Turkey. And he succeeded. Through the efforts of the Don and Dnieper Cossacks, the Crimean Khan sat in the Crimea as in a besieged fortress. However, taking advantage of the Moscow Tsar's failures in the war in the West, the Turkish Sultan decided to start a war with Moscow for the liberation of Kazan and Astrakhan and to clear the Don and Volga of the Cossacks. In 1569, the sultan sent 18 thousand sipags to the Crimea and ordered the khan and his troops to march through the Don across Perevoloka to drive out the Cossacks and occupy Astrakhan. In the Crimea, at least 90 thousand troops were assembled, and they, under the command of Kasim Pasha and the Crimean Khan, moved upstream of the Don. This campaign is described in detail in the memoirs of the Russian diplomat Semyon Maltsev. He was sent by the tsar as an ambassador to the Nogais, but on the way he was captured by the Tatars and as a prisoner followed with the Crimean Turkish army. With the offensive of this army, the Cossacks left their towns without a fight and went towards Astrakhan to join the archers of Prince Serebryany, who occupied Astrakhan. Hetman Ruzhinsky with 5 thousand Dnieper Cossacks (Cherkas), having bypassed the Crimeans, connected with the Don in Perevolok. In August, the Turkish flotilla reached Perevoloka and Kasim Pasha ordered to dig a canal to the Volga, but soon realized the futility of this venture. His army was surrounded by the Cossacks, deprived of the supply, procurement of food and communication with the peoples to whose help they went. Pasha ordered to stop digging the canal and drag the fleet to the Volga. Approaching Astrakhan, the Pasha ordered to build a fortress near the city. But here, too, his troops were surrounded and blockaded and suffered heavy losses and hardships. Pasha decided to abandon the siege of Astrakhan and, despite the strict order of the Sultan, moved back to Azov. The historian Novikov wrote: "When the Turkish troops approached Astrakhan, the hetman called up from Cherkassy with 5000 Cossacks, copulating with the Don Cossacks, won a great victory …" But the Cossacks blocked all favorable escape routes and the Pasha led the army back to the waterless steppe. On the way, the Cossacks "plundered" his army. Only 16 thousand troops returned to Azov. After the defeat of the Crimean Turkish army, the Don Cossacks returned to the Don, restored their towns and finally and firmly established themselves on their lands. Part of the Dnieper, dissatisfied with the division of the booty, separated from Hetman Ruzhinsky and remained on the Don. They restored and fortified the southern town and named it Cherkassk, the future capital of the Host. The successful reflection of the campaign of the Crimean Turkish army on the Don and Astrakhan, while the main forces of Moscow and the Don Host were on the western front, showed a turning point in the struggle for possession of the Black Sea steppes. From that time on, domination in the Black Sea region began to gradually pass to Moscow, and the existence of the Crimean Khanate was extended for 2 centuries not only by the strong support of the Turkish Sultan, but also by the great troubles that soon arose in Muscovy. Ivan the Terrible did not want a war on 2 fronts and wanted a reconciliation in the Black Sea coast, the Sultan, after the defeat at Astrakhan, also did not want the war to continue. An embassy was sent to Crimea for peace negotiations, which was discussed at the very beginning of the article, and the Cossacks were ordered to accompany the embassy to Crimea. And this, in the general context of the Don history, an insignificant event, became a landmark and is considered the moment of the seniority (foundation) of the Don Army. But by that time, the Cossacks had already accomplished many brilliant victories and great deeds, including for the good of the Russian people and in the interests of the Russian government and the state.
Meanwhile, the war between Moscow and Livonia took on the character of increasing tension. The anti-Russian kaolitsy managed to convince the European public of the extremely aggressive and dangerous nature of Russian expansion and to win over the leading European monarchies. Strongly engaged in their Western European squabbles, they could not provide military assistance, but helped financially. With the allocated money, the kaolitsia began to hire troops of European and other mercenaries, who greatly increased the combat effectiveness of its troops. The military tension was aggravated by internal turmoil in Moscow. The money allowed the enemy to bribe the Russian aristocracy and maintain the "5th column" inside the Moscow state. Treason, betrayal, sabotage and oppositional actions of the nobility and their servants took on the character and dimensions of a national calamity and prompted the tsarist government to retaliate. After the flight of Prince Kurbsky to Poland and other betrayals, cruel persecution of the opponents of autocracy and the power of Ivan the Terrible began. Then Oprichnina was established. Appanage princes and opponents of the tsar were ruthlessly destroyed. Metropolitan Philip, who came from the noble family of the Kolychev boyars, spoke out against the reprisals, but he was deposed and killed. During the repressions, most of the noble boyars and princely families perished. For the history of the Cossacks, these events were also of great, albeit indirect, significance. From this time until the end of the 16th century. In addition to the indigenous Cossacks, military servants of the boyars executed by Ivan the Terrible, noblemen, battle slaves and boyar children who did not like the tsarist service and the peasants, whom the state began to attach to the land, poured into the Don and Volga from Russia. “We do not think of dashing in Russia,” they said. "Reign the tsar in flint Moscow, and we - the Cossacks - on the Quiet Don." This stream has multiplied the Cossack population of the Volga and Don.
The difficult internal situation was accompanied by heavy setbacks at the front and created favorable conditions for the intensification of the raids of the nomadic hordes. Despite the defeat at Astrakhan, the Crimean Khan also craved revenge. In 1571, the Crimean Khan Devlet I Girey successfully chose the moment and successfully broke through with a large detachment to Moscow, burned its surroundings and took tens of thousands of people prisoner with him. The Tatars have long worked out a successful tactic of a secretive and lightning-fast breakthrough into Moscow's borders. Avoiding river crossings, which greatly reduced the speed of movement of the light Tatar cavalry, they passed along the river watersheds, the so-called "Muravsky way", going from Perekop to Tula along the upper reaches of the tributaries of the Dnieper and Seversky Donets. These tragic events demanded an improvement in the organization of guarding and defense of the border strip. In 1571, the tsar commissioned the voivode M. I. Vorotynsky to develop the order of service of the border Cossack troops. High-ranking "border guards" were summoned to Moscow and the Charter of the Border Service was drawn up and adopted, which detailed the procedure for carrying out not only the border, but also the guard, reconnaissance and patrol service in the border zone. The service was entrusted to the part of the serving city Cossacks, part of the service children of the boyars and to the settlements of the Cossacks. The watchmen of the service troops from the Ryazan and Moscow region lands descended to the south and southeast and merged with the patrols and pickets of the Don and Volga Cossacks, i.e. observation was carried out to the limits of the Crimea and the Nogai horde. Everything was written down to the smallest detail. The results were not slow to show. The very next year, the breakthrough of the Crimeans in the Moscow region ended for them with a great catastrophe at Molodi. The Cossacks took the most direct part in this great defeat, and the ancient and ingenious Cossack invention "gulyai-gorod" played a decisive role. On the shoulders of the defeated Crimean army, the Don Ataman Cherkashenin broke into the Crimea with the Cossacks, captured a lot of booty and prisoners. The unification of the riding and grassroots Cossacks dates back to the same time. The first united chieftain was Mikhail Cherkashenin.
Rice. 5 Walking town
It was in such a complex, contradictory and ambiguous internal and international situation that the Don Host was restored in the new post-Horde history and its gradual transition to Moscow service. A decree found by chance in the Russian archives cannot obliterate the previous turbulent history of the Don Cossacks, the emergence of their military caste and people's democracy in the conditions of the nomadic life of the neighboring peoples and their continuous communication with the Russian people, but not subject to the Russian princes. Throughout the history of the independent Don Army, relations with Moscow have changed, sometimes taking on the character of hostility and sharp discontent from both sides. But dissatisfaction most often arose from Moscow and ended in an agreement or compromise and never led to treason on the part of the Don Army. The Dnieper Cossacks demonstrated a completely different situation. They arbitrarily changed their relations with the supreme authorities of Lithuania, Poland, Bakhchisarai, Istanbul and Moscow. From the Polish king they went over to the service of the Moscow tsar, betrayed him and returned back to the service of the king. Often they served in the interests of Istanbul and Bakhchisarai. Over time, this impermanence only grew and took on more and more perfidious forms. As a result, the fate of these Cossack troops was completely different. The Don Host, in the end, firmly entered the Russian service, and the Dnieper Cossacks, in the end, were liquidated. But that's a completely different story.
A. A. Gordeev History of the Cossacks
Shamba Balinov What was the Cossacks
