In the previous articles of this series, devoted to the history of the Dnieper and Zaporozhye Cossacks, it was shown how the ruthless wheels of history grind the legendary Dnieper Cossack republics. With the expansion of the boundaries of the Russian Empire to the Black Sea, Zaporozhye with its original organization, liberties and possessions became a "state within a state". His services, if they were still needed, were far from the same size and degree, and meanwhile the Zaporozhye Cossacks were an unpredictable and dangerous element for the administration of Little Russia and the empire. During the Pugachev uprising, some Cossacks participated in it, others kept in touch with the rebels, and still others with the Turks. Denunciations on them followed continuously.
On the other hand, the vast land holdings of Zaporozhye seemed rather tempting for the bureaucratic colonialists of the region. Justifying himself from complaints about the army, the koshevoy chieftain Kalnyshevsky wrote in one of his letters to Potemkin: “Why does not he who does not seize our lands and does not use them complain about us. The interests of the Novorossiysk Governor-General and the Cossacks were in conflict. To secure the rear of his governorship, Potemkin had to destroy Zaporozhye with its vast possessions, which he did in 1775. The consequences confirmed the instructions of the koshevoy. When the Zaporozhye Cossacks were destroyed, Prince Vyazemsky received 100,000 dessiatines during the division of the Zaporozhye lands, including the places that were under both Sich Kosh, almost the same amount went to Prince Prozorovsky and smaller shares to many others. But the disbandment of such large military organizations as the Zaporozhye Sich and the Dnieper Cossacks brought a number of problems. Despite the departure of a part of the Cossacks abroad, about 12 thousand Zaporozhians remained in the citizenship of the Russian Empire, many could not stand the strict discipline of regular army units, but they could and wanted to serve the empire as before. Circumstances forced Potemkin to change his anger to mercy, and he, being the "chief commander" of the annexed Chernomoria, decides to use the Cossack military force.
The idea of the final annexation of Crimea to Russia and the inevitability of a new war with Turkey made Prince Tavrichesky take serious care of the restoration of the Dnieper Cossacks. In 1787, the Russian Empress Catherine II undertook her famous journey through southern Russia. On July 3, in Kremenchug, Prince G. A. Potemkin introduced her to a number of former Zaporozhye elders, who presented the empress with a petition for the restoration of the Zaporozhye army. During this period, the aspirations of the Cossack foremen surprisingly coincided with the intentions of the Russian government. In anticipation of the impending war with Turkey, the government sought various ways to strengthen the country's military potential. One of these measures was the creation of several Cossack troops. For the birthday of the Black Sea army, you can take the order of Prince G. A. Potemkin from August 20, 1787: "In order to have military teams of volunteers in the governorship of Yekaterinoslav, I entrusted the seconds-majors Sidor Bely and Anton Golovaty to collect hunters, both horse and foot for boats, from the Cossacks who settled in this governorship who served in the former Sich Zaporozhye Cossacks."By order of the Empress, it was decided to restore the Zaporozhye Cossacks and in 1787 A. V. Suvorov, who, by order of Empress Catherine II, organized new army units in southern Russia, began to form a new army from the Cossacks of the former Sich and their descendants.
The great warrior took all assignments extremely responsibly and this also. He skillfully and carefully filtered the contingent and formed the "Troops of the Faithful Zaporozhians", and for military services on February 27, 1788, in a solemn atmosphere, Suvorov personally handed flags and other kleinods to the foremen, which were confiscated in 1775. The assembled Cossacks were divided into two groups - the cavalry, under the command of Zakhary Chepega, and the rook infantry, under the command of Anton Golovaty, while the general command over the Cossacks was entrusted to Potemkin to the first koshevoy ataman of the revived army, Sidor Bely. This Army, renamed in 1790 into the Black Sea Cossack Army, very successfully and worthily participated in the Russian-Turkish war of 1787-1792. The Black Sea residents really showed miracles of courage in this war and in practice proved their combat suitability and the right to independent existence. We can say that the blood shed during that war, they then bought themselves land in the Kuban. But this victory was not cheap for the Cossacks, in which they took such an outstanding part, the army lost many fighters and the kosh chieftain Sidor Bely, who received a mortal wound in the battle and three days after he died. All the time of its four-year existence, from 1787 to 1791, the Black Sea Cossacks spent exclusively in hostilities.
The former enemy of the Cossacks, Prince Potemkin Tavrichesky, turned into a "merciful dad", all those regalia that the Zaporozhye Cossacks had always cherished were returned to the army, finally, Potemkin himself assumed the title of hetman of the Cossack troops. But, to everyone's grief, on October 5, 1791, unexpectedly for everyone, Potemkin died. Having lost his protection and all-round patronage, the loyal Cossacks felt extremely insecure on the allocated lands between the Dnieper and the Bug. Despite the military merits of the Cossacks and the government's permission to settle and acquire an economy, the local administration and landowners put all kinds of obstacles to the Cossack colonization for the former Cossacks. Meanwhile, the Cossacks have already witnessed how their ancient Zaporozhye lands turned into private property before their very eyes. Therefore, at the end of the war, they conceived of resettlement to the lower reaches of the Kuban and at the general military Rada decided to send, first of all, experienced people to inspect Taman and the adjacent lands. Such a person was elected military esaul Mokiy Gulik with a team of Cossack scouts, who were entrusted with carefully examining the nature of the terrain and assessing the merits of the land. Then, also by the verdict of the military Rada, the military judge Anton Golovaty with several military comrades were elected to the empress's deputies to "seek the rights to eternal quiet hereditary possession" of the land that the Cossacks had planned for themselves. It should be said that this was not the first deputation of Anton Golovaty to Petersburg.
In 1774, by the decision of the Rada, he, then an assistant to the military clerk, was sent as part of a Cossack deputation with a similar mission. But the deputation, by order of the Rada, then took a completely counterproductive position. Armed with numerous documents on the rights of the Cossacks to the Zaporozhye lands, they tried to defend the Sich in St. Petersburg. But their documents did not make any impression in St. Petersburg, and the manner of "pumping the rights" did not cause rejection at all. The delegation was expected to fail, and the Cossacks went home not salty. The news of the defeat of the Sich by General Tekeli caught the delegates on their way from Petersburg and made a painful impression. Chepega and Holovaty even wanted to shoot themselves. But reason prevailed over emotions, and the foremen limited themselves to the old, in such cases, military custom, going into a long and unrestrained binge, which, in general, saved them from repression. Coming out of the binge, the commanders realized that life did not end with the defeat of the Sich, and went to serve in the Russian army, initially with the rank of second lieutenants. As you know, you cannot drink the skill, and in 1783 the captains Chepega and Golovaty, according to Little Russian papers, set off at the head of a team of volunteers under the general leadership of Suvorov to pacify the rebellious Crimea, a familiar thing and familiar to the Cossacks. And in 1787, Major Seconds Holovaty, along with other foremen, was instructed to assemble the "Troops of the Faithful Zaporozhians". This time, remembering the past failure, the Cossacks approached the deputation to Petersburg more thoroughly. In the instruction and request of the Rada, not a word was said about the previous rights, the emphasis was on the merits of the Cossacks in the last Russian-Turkish war and on other things, first of all, on creating a positive image of the Zaporozhye Cossacks.
Anton Golovaty was not only a brave commander of the Zaporozhye rook army, but also a major Cossack businessman, and, in modern terms, a talented bard. He mentally and beautifully sang Cossack songs, accompanying on a bandura, and composed songs himself. The delegates took with them a whole cultural landing, in the form of a dashing Cossack song and dance ensemble. Zaporozhye artists first charmed the empress, then the whole noble Petersburg. Cossack legend says that for many evenings the Empress listened to soulful Little Russian songs performed by Golovaty and the Cossack choir. The days of Zaporizhzhya culture in St. Petersburg dragged on, but Golovaty was in no hurry, it was important for him to have a general positive attitude towards the Cossack idea of resettlement to the Kuban on the part of the empress, court, government and society.
Fig. 1 Military judge Anton Golovaty
Meanwhile, the Rada, having received favorable information from the scouts from the Kuban and from delegates from St. Petersburg, without waiting for official permission, began to prepare the resettlement. Local authorities did not interfere. A rare unanimous circumstance has developed when three previously differently directed vectors of aspirations have formed into one, namely:
- the desire of the authorities of Little Russia to rid the now rear of the Dnieper region from the most restless Zaporozhye Cossack element
- the desire of the authorities of Novorossiya and the Russian government to strengthen the borders of the empire in the North Caucasus with the Cossacks
- the desire of the Zaporozhye Cossacks to move to the border, away from the eye of the tsar and his relatives, closer to war and booty.
Anton Golovaty did not bore his last name for nothing. He used everything in Petersburg, and acquaintance with strong people, and a Little Russian song, and anecdotes, and humor and eccentricities of a rustic-looking Little Russian Cossack. This remarkably intelligent and well-educated Cossack in his time completed the task entrusted to him so successfully that the main desires of the army were entered into the letters of gratitude in almost genuine expressions of the Cossack instructions and petitions. The result of the hassle of the deputation in St. Petersburg were two letters of commendation dated June 30 and July 1, 1792 on the surrender of lands to the possession of the Black Sea Army "on Taman, with its environs", and these environs, in terms of the space they occupied, were 30 times larger than the entire Taman Peninsula. … True, it was not a small matter, Taman and the surrounding area still needed to be populated, mastered and retained. Taman and the lower reaches of the right-bank Kuban were deserted at that time.
The fact is that, according to the Kuchuk-Kainardzhiyskiy peace of 1774, Russia acquired the Azov coast and a decisive influence in the Crimea. But the Turks agreed to these conditions only due to the prevailing difficult circumstances and were in no hurry to fulfill these conditions. They did not withdraw their troops from Taman for a long time, raised the Crimean and Nogai Tatars and other peoples of the Caucasus against Russia and prepared for a new war. Under the influence of the Turks, a rebellion began in the Crimea and the Kuban, but parts of Prozorovsky's corps under the command of Suvorov entered the Crimea and a supporter of Russia Shagin_Girey was appointed Khan. After putting things in order in the Crimea, Suvorov was appointed chief of the troops in the Kuban and began to take measures to pacify the region. The main threat was the raids of the mountain peoples. Suvorov made a reconnaissance, outlined the places for the construction of fortresses and began to build them. To strengthen the troops, he asked to send him the Cossacks. But the Zaporozhye Cossacks at that time were in disgrace and were considered unreliable, and there was not enough Donets for everything, and they were not eager to move from their dear Don. Therefore, the Nogai Horde, which obeyed and swore allegiance to Russia, was resettled to the conquered territory from the Dniester, Prut and Danube. The resettled Horde could not get along in the steppes between the Don and the Kuban, conflicts began with the Cossacks and Circassians. The Russian authorities decided to resettle the Nogais beyond the Volga. In response, the Horde rebelled and Potemkin decided to postpone this decision. But Suvorov was adamant and with his corps and Don Cossacks moved up the Kuban. The horde was defeated and went into Turkish borders, followed by thousands of Kuban and Crimean Tatars, frightened by the Suvorov massacre, together with Khan Shagin-Girey. So back in 1784, the famous Suvorov, as it were, deliberately prepared the region for the acceptance of the Black Sea people, having evicted the last of its inhabitants - the Nogai. In the Azov region, the ancient cradle of their Cossack family, the Cossacks - the descendants of the legendary Cherkas and Kaisaks - returned, after seven hundred years of staying on the Dnieper, with a language that by that time had become one of the dialects of the Cossack speech.
Chernomorets moved in several streams. Without waiting for the return of the deputation from St. Petersburg, in mid-July 1792, the first group of 3847 rook Cossacks (then marines), led by Colonel Savva Bely, set out on rowing ships from the mouth of the Dniester to the Black Sea and set off for new lands. On August 25, almost a month and a half after the start of the sea voyage, the Black Sea men landed on the Taman coast.
Rice. 2 Monument to the Cossacks at the site of their landing in Taman
Two foot regiments of Cossacks under the command of Colonel Kordovsky and part of the Cossack families crossed the Crimea by land, crossed the Kerch Strait and arrived in Temryuk in October. In early September, a large group of Black Sea residents under the command of the chieftain of the Koshevoi Zakhary Chepega set off for the Kuban from the banks of the Dniester. The detachment, which included three cavalry and two foot regiments, a military headquarters and a wagon train, had to overcome a long, difficult path, crossing the Dnieper, Don and many other rivers. Having rounded the Sea of Azov, this group of Black Sea residents at the end of October approached the former residence of Shagin-Girey in the Kuban, the so-called Khan town (present-day Yeisk) and stayed there for the winter.
Rice. 3 Resettlement
In the spring, the Cossacks from the Khan town set off towards the Ust-Labinsk fortification under construction, and then further down the Kuban. In the area of the Karasunsky kut tract, the Chernomors found a convenient location for a military camp. The peninsula, formed by the steep bend of the Kuban and the Karasun River flowing into it, was the best suited for a settlement. From the south and west, the chosen place was protected by the stormy waters of the Kuban, and from the east, it was covered by Karasun. Already at the beginning of summer, here, on the high right bank, the Cossacks began to build a fortress, which later became the center of the entire Black Sea army. Initially, the residence of the koshevoy ataman was called the Karasunsky kut, sometimes simply the Kuban, but later, in order to please the empress, it was renamed Yekaterinodar. The fortifications of the fortress were created according to the old Zaporozhye traditions, there were also fortified gates - bashta. In its location and plan, the fortress was very reminiscent of the New Sich. In the center of Yekaterinodar, as in the Zaporizhzhya Kosha, the Cossacks erected a camp church brought from the Chernomoria, along the earthen ramparts were located kurens, in which the unmarried (homeless) Cossacks-seromakhs (siroma) and service Cossacks employed in the service lived. The names of the kurens remained the same, Zaporozhye, among others, the legendary Plastunovsky kuren. Inhabiting the Kuban, the Cossacks built several fortified posts on the banks of the then border Kuban.
What did this now fertile land represent at that time? Over the centuries, many ethnic groups have been in the Azov and Kuban regions, who at different times lived in these regions and from which even memories were poorly preserved by the end of the 18th century. Scythians, Sarmatians (Saks and Alans), Sinds, Kaisaks (Kasogs), Bulgarians, Russians, Greeks, Genoese, Khazars, Pechenegs, Polovtsians, Circassians, later Turks, Tatars, Nekrasov Cossacks and, finally, Nogais, one way or another, were involved at different times in the area granted to the Black Sea residents. But at the moment of resettlement, the region was completely free of any nationality with which the Cossacks would have to fight or divide the land. Luxurious natural vegetation gave a completely wild character to the steppes, steppe rivers, estuaries, lakes, swamps, floodplains abounded in water, the waters, in turn, were rich in different types of fish, and the area was rich in wild animals and birds. Nearby were the seas, Azov and Black, with the richest fishing grounds. The coasts of the Sea of Azov, the Kuban, some steppe rivers, estuaries and floodplains were excellent breeding grounds for fish, which bred here in the billions.
Old-timers tell miracles about it. The Cossack, as a trapper and fisherman, had a wide field for fishing activities. The steppe lands and the richness of pastures promised excellent conditions for cattle breeding, a relatively warm climate and a rich, and generally unpaved virgin soil also favored agricultural pursuits. However, Chernomoria was still a deserted, wild, not adapted for civilian life land. It still had to be cultivated, it still had to be populated, it was necessary to arrange dwellings, build roads, establish communications, conquer nature, adapt to the climate, etc. But this is not enough. Although the land was deserted, but next to it, on the other side of the Kuban, lived the Circassian tribes, the descendants of the ancient Bulgarians and Kaisaks, predatory, warlike and robber tribes, which, moreover, could not calmly react to the settlement of the neighboring area by Cossacks, very dangerous rivals … Thus, at the very first stages of colonization, along with the economic needs of the Black Sea people, the military demands were very urgently needed. Such exclusively military settlement forms were the "cordons" among the Black Sea residents, i.e. small Cossack fortresses, and pickets ("bikets"), i.e. even less significant guard posts, and batteries can also be ranked as cordon fortifications. As in the tickets of the Zaporizhzhya Army, dozens of Cossacks served in the fortifications on a permanent basis. The arrangement of cordons and tickets practically did not differ from those in Zaporozhye.
Rice. 4 Cossack cordon
In January 1794, at the military council, which gathered a bunchuk partnership, kuren and military foremen, colonels and chieftains of the Black Sea Army, according to the old Zaporozhye custom, a lot was cast, allotting land plots for the location of 40 Cossack settlements - kurens. With the exception of Ekaterininsky and Berezansky, named in honor of the empress and the resounding victory of the Zaporozhians during the storming of Berezan, all the other 38 kurens received their former names when the Zaporizhzhya Army was still there. Many of the names of these kurens, which later became known as stanitsa, have survived to this day. Plastunovsky kuren since March 1794 was located on the Kuban River, next to Korsunsky and Dinsky kurens. According to the information provided by the chieftain of the kuren, in January 1801, only 291 Cossacks lived in Plastunovsky, of which only 44 were married. Constant cross-border skirmishes with the highlanders forced the scouts to move their families away from the cordon, and in 1814 Plastunovsky kuren settled on the Kochety River, where it is still located.
Rice. 5 Black Sea Coast Map
Hugging a space of about 30,000 sq. miles, the new Black Sea coast was originally inhabited by 25 thousand souls of both sexes. Therefore, for each migrant there was more than a square mile of space. From the very first steps of the settlement of Chernomoria, a constant influx of fugitive elements began here, and this is quite understandable. Chernomoria needed new workers' hands, no matter who these hands belonged to. Since its Cossack population was constantly distracted from the economy by military service, it is clear that every newcomer was a welcome guest here. But the main mass of the migrant people was given to the Black Sea region by the government itself. At the expense of the Cossacks from Little Russia, Cossack settlements in the Caucasus were constantly replenished and strengthened. In 1801, the remnants of the disbanded Yekaterinoslav army were sent there, of which the Caucasian Cossack regiment was formed (1803). In 1808, it was ordered to resettle 15 thousand former Little Russian Cossacks to the lands of the Black Sea army, in 1820 - another 25 thousand. Satisfying the natural demands of the troops in people, the government in several stages - in 1801, 1808, 1820 and 1848, ordered the resettlement of more than 100,000 souls of both sexes from the Little Russian provinces to the Black Sea region.
Therefore, within fifty years, the original population of the Black Sea, consisting of 25,000 souls of both sexes, thanks to government measures, was increased fivefold. Following the Cossacks, the Black Sea Host was strengthened by the Cossacks of the Sloboda regiments, the Azov, Budzhak, Poltava, Yekaterinoslav, Dnieper Cossacks. Originally made up of experienced Zaporozhian warriors, hardened in endless wars, the Black Sea army that had moved to the Kuban grew mainly due to immigrants from the Cossack regions of Ukraine. The poorest, the most courageous and freedom-loving migrated, the passive by hook or by crook remained. The Cossacks who remained in the Dnieper basin soon melted into the masses of the multi-tribal Ukrainian population and almost lost their fighting Cossack features, only the eternal passion for booze, drunkenness and Maidanovshchina remained.
Rice. 6 Return of the Cossacks from the Maidan
Many circumstances complicated the colonization tasks of the Cossacks, but all this did not prevent the Black Sea people from mastering the territories and creating completely new forms of Cossack life, which, although they were based on ancient Cossack ideals, had a completely different foundation. The main principles of the organization of the army and the distinctive features of its self-government were predetermined by the Cossacks, included in the instructions and petitions of the Cossack deputies who traveled to St. Petersburg, and then almost literally transcribed into two letters, which were granted to the army by the Highest - from June 30 and July 1, 1792. On the basis of the first of these letters, the army was a collective legal entity, the land was also given to it in collective ownership. The army was given a certain salary, free internal trade and free sale of wine on military lands were granted, a military banner and timpani were granted, and the use of other regalia of the former Zaporizhzhya Sich was confirmed.
Administratively, the army was subordinate to the Tavrichesky governor, but had its own command, the so-called "military government", which consisted of a military chieftain, a judge and a clerk, although later it was improvement, it was reasonable with the published institutions on the management of the provinces. "But the military government was given "punishment and punishment for those who fall into errors in the army", and only "important criminals" were commanded to be sent to the Tavrichesky governor for "condemnation according to the laws." Finally, the Black Sea army was entrusted with "vigil and border guard from the raids of the Trans-Kuban peoples." The second diploma, dated July 1, embraced the actual question of the resettlement of the Cossacks from beyond the Bug to the Kuban and the granting of patents for officers' ranks to the foremen. Thus, the charters did not contain precise and definite regulation of the organization and self-government of the army, but there were very strong grounds for giving both of them the most important features from the former Cossack practice.
The Cossacks soon developed in the form of written rules of 1794, known as the "Order of Public Benefit", their own special organization of Cossack self-government. As they say in this remarkable document "… remembering the primitive state of the army called Zaporozhtsev …", the Cossacks established the following most important rules:
- The army was supposed to have a "military government, forever controlling the army", and consisted of a kosh chieftain, a military judge and a military clerk.
- "For the sake of the military residence" the city of Yekaterinodar was founded. In Yekaterinodar, "for the sake of gathering the army and the homeless Cossacks coming running," 40 kurens were built, of which 38 bore the same names as in the Zaporozhye Sich.
- The whole army was supposed to "settle in kuren villages in those places where it will belong to which kuren by lot." In each kuren annually, on June 29, it was supposed to elect the kuren chieftain. The atamans who smoke were supposed to be at the smoking places, make work orders, reconcile the litigants and "sort out unsubstantiated unimportant quarrels and fights", and "for an important crime, submit them to the military government under legal judgment."
- Elders without a position were supposed to obey in kurens "ataman and partnership", and the latter, in turn, were instructed to respect the elders.
- For the management and approval of the entire military land for the "long-term tranquility of a well-organized order", the military territory was divided into five districts. To manage the districts, each of them had a "district government", which consisted of a colonel, a clerk, a captain and a cornet and had its own district seal with the coat of arms. Cossacks, both officials and privates, were allowed to establish yards, farms, mills, forests, orchards, vineyards and fish factories on military land and lands. With the settlement in the Black Sea region, the Cossacks conducted their economic activities in the spirit of the methods that characterized the economic life of Zaporozhye. Agriculture was poorly developed, the main industry was originally cattle breeding and fishing. This was also facilitated by the natural features of the region. There were so many vacant spaces, with beautiful pastures, that in a warm climate, cattle could be raised in significant numbers, without much labor and economic care. Horses grazed on pasture all year round, cattle had to be fed with harvested hay only for several days or weeks a year, even sheep could be content with pasture for most of the winter. However, once established in the region, cattle breeding very soon became a special craft of the farm itself. The kurens (i.e., stanitsa societies) were poorer in cattle, the kurens only owned skinny "ranks" (public herds) of cattle, small "kuschankas" of sheep and even fewer horses, so that, for example, when equipping the service, the Cossack - the villager often bought a horse from the herds of farmers (i.e., wealthy Cossacks who lived in separate farms on the stanitsa lands). The Kurennaya Cossack, therefore, far earlier than the Cossack farmer became a farmer. Arable farming, even with the frequent distraction of workers by the border, "cordon" service, although it could not provide particularly large material resources, but served as the main means of feeding the Cossack family.
During the resettlement, the Chernomorets were called to guard a part of the line that stretched along the Kuban and Terek from the Black to the Caspian Sea. Potemkin Tavrichesky fought about the continuous defense of this line by the Cossacks, and the preliminary strengthening of which was carried out by Suvorov. From this line, the Chernomorsky accounted for about 260 versts along the Kuban, with its countless bends and bends, from the Izryadny spring, near the present Vasyurinskaya stanitsa, and to the shores of the Black Sea. It should be said that at that time, the main channel of the Kuban did not flow into the Azov, but into the Black Sea between Anapa and Taman. The entire northern slope of the Caucasian ridge and the left-bank Trans-Kuban plains were inhabited along the border line by mountain tribes, always hostile to the Cossack and always ready to raid his dwellings. Therefore, on the shoulders of the Chernomorites lay the heavy burden of guarding the border line at every point, turn, meander, wherever there was even the slightest opportunity to move the mountaineer to the Cossack possessions. For 260 versts of the border line, about 60 posts, cordons and batteries and more than a hundred pickets were set up. Under the terms of the peace treaty, for its part, Turkey was also obliged to restrain the warlike impulses of the Circassian tribes, not to allow them to open hostility and attacks on the Cossack settlements. For this purpose, a specially appointed Pasha had a permanent residence in the Turkish fortress of Anapa.
Rice. 7 Turkish fortress Anapa
The reality, however, testified to the complete impotence of the Turkish authorities in curbing the warlike mountaineers. The raids of the Circassians in small parties on the Black Sea coast continued almost continuously. The Circassians took away the Cossack cattle and took the population captive. And the Turkish Pasha at that time was either inactive, or, despite all his desire, he could not do anything. The Circassians did not want to obey him, they refused to return the stolen cattle and prisoners by his order to the Cossacks. When the Pasha threatened them with military measures, they boldly replied that the Circassians are a free people who do not recognize any power - neither Russian nor Turkish, and will defend their freedom with arms in hand from any encroachment on it by a Turkish official. It even went so far that the Cossacks had to protect Turkish officials from subjects subordinate to the Turkish government. Under such circumstances, the Turkish Pasha reduced his supreme power over the highlanders to the fact that in some cases he warned the Cossacks about the highlanders who were preparing for them, and in others he asked the Cossack authorities to deal with the Circassians at their discretion with the help of military force. But relations between Russia and Turkey became a little strained, as the same Pasha, obliged to keep the Circassians from raids, secretly incited the Circassian tribes to hostile actions against the Cossacks. The Cossacks, in the end, had to stick with the highlanders of their own policies - pay for a raid with a raid and for ruin by ruin. Military expeditions were dressed up, the Cossacks moved to the lands of the mountaineers, ruined villages, burned bread and hay, took away cattle, captured the population, in a word, they repeated the same thing that the Circassians did in the Cossack lands. Fierce and merciless military actions flared up in the spirit of that time.
Thus, already soon, the resettled Black Sea Army found itself in the very crucible of the outbreak of the Caucasian War. But that's a completely different story. After the end of the Caucasian War in 1860, all the Cossack troops from the mouth of the Terek to the mouth of the Kuban were divided into 2 troops, the Kuban and the Terek. The Kuban army was created on the basis of the Black Sea, with the addition of two regiments of the Caucasian line of the army, which had long lived in the middle and upper reaches of the Kuban. The Kuban people call these Cossacks the Lineers. The first of them is the Kuban regiment. Its members were descendants of the Don and Volga Cossacks who moved to the middle Kuban immediately after the right bank of the Kuban became part of Russia in the 1780s. Initially, it was planned to resettle most of the Don army to the Kuban, but this decision caused a storm of protests on the Don. It was then, in 1790, that Anton Golovatyi for the first time suggested that the Chernomorets leave Budzhak for the Kuban. The second is the Khopersky regiment. This group of Cossacks originally from 1444 lived between the rivers Khoper and Medveditsa. After the Bulavin uprising in 1708, the land of the Khopyor Cossacks was heavily cleaned out by Peter I. It was then that part of the Bulavins went to the Kuban, swore allegiance to the Crimean Khan and formed a community of outcast Cossacks - the Nekrasov Cossacks. Later, when the Russian troops attacked the North Caucasus, they left for Turkey forever. Despite the ruthless cleansing of Khopr by the Petrine punishers after the Bulavin uprising, in 1716 the Cossacks returned there. They were involved in the Northern War, distinguished themselves there, were pardoned, and from the Voronezh governor they were allowed to build the Novokhopyorsk fortress.
For half a century, the Khopersky regiment has grown again. In the summer of 1777, during the construction of the Azov-Mozdok line, the Khopyor Cossacks were resettled to the North Caucasus, where they fought against Kabarda and founded the Stavropol fortress. In 1828, after the conquest of the Karachais, they resettled again and settled forever in the upper Kuban. These Cossacks, by the way, were part of the first Russian expedition to Elbrus in 1829. The seniority of the newly formed Kuban army was borrowed precisely from the Khopyor Cossacks, as the oldest. In 1696, the Khopers distinguished themselves in the capture of Azov during the Azov campaigns of Peter I, and this fact is considered the year of the seniority of the Kuban army. But the history of the Linearians is more connected with the history of the Caucasian line of the army and his successor - the Terek Cossack Host. And this is a completely different story.
