While in Moscow, Napoleon interrogated a captured, wounded Cossack and asked him: how could the war he started against Russia have ended if there were Cossack units in the ranks of the French army. Donets chuckled: "Then the French emperor would have long been a Chinese emperor."
“Happy is the commander who has Cossacks. If I had an army of Cossacks alone, I would have conquered the whole of Europe."
“We must give justice to the Cossacks - it was they who brought success to Russia in this campaign. Cossacks are the best light troops among all existing ones. If I had them in my army, I would go through the whole world with them."
Napoleon
“The name of the Cossack for the French thundered with horror, and after the Parisian acquaintance, they were revealed to them by heroes from ancient myths. They were as pure as children and great as gods."
Stendhal
1. You can talk last, but you must always shoot first
2. Not the Cossack who overcame, but the one that turned out
3. Do not trust a checker, a horse and a wife
4. As war - as brothers, as the world - as sons of bitches
5. Pimy, sheepskin coat and malachai - the most reliable and reliable weapon of the Siberian Cossack
6. Cossacks are not crayfish - they don't back up
Cossack sayings
The Cossacks are a unique phenomenon on planet Earth that arose in the process of natural historical selection, formed on the basis of a military brotherhood and the Orthodox faith. The unique military glory of the Cossacks was the reason that many states tried to create their own "Cossack" troops: hussars appeared in Hungary, dragoons in France, in England and Prussia their "Cossack hundreds." not a first-class horse riding, not a virtuoso possession of cold arms and firearms, not even the ability to fight and rare fearlessness, but that "special state of mind" inherent in the best representatives of the Eastern Slavs. They amazed with their fearless horse riding, they admired the dexterity and beauty of their system, they amazed with the intricate game of enticing cavalry lava. They, according to all foreigners who saw them in peacetime, were the only inimitable and incomparable cavalry in the world. They were natural horsemen. The Hesse German, the hero-partisan of the Patriotic War, Adjutant General Vintsingerode wrote in 1812: "Having got used to always consider the Hungarian cavalry the first in the world, I must give preference to the Cossacks and over the Hungarian hussars."
The beauty of their regimental life, with their songs going from time immemorial, with a dashing dance, with a close and friendly military comradeship, captivated. Serving with the Cossacks, serving with the Cossacks was the dream of all truly military people. The Cossacks themselves became like that. They were created and tempered in border battles by history itself. Yes, in the 19th century the Cossacks seemed to everyone who saw them as "natural horsemen". But we remember the formidable Zaporozhye infantry and the fearless Kuban plastuns who adopted its traditions. And when the Cossacks on their light plows or "seagulls" went out to sea, the coast of Sultan Turkey and the Shah's Iran trembled. And rarely the galleys and "hard labor" could resist the Cossack flotillas, bringing matters to a brutal and merciless boarding battle. Well, when, surrounded by a many times superior enemy, the Cossacks sat under siege, they showed themselves to be real masters of mine warfare. Their Cossack tricks were destroyed by the art of foreign siege masters. There are excellent descriptions of the defense of the city of Azov, which nine thousand Cossacks managed to capture almost without losses, and then hold them for several years, fighting off the 250-thousand-strong Turkish army. They were not only "natural horsemen", they were natural warriors, and they succeeded in everything they undertook in military affairs.
The Cossacks were the last in all of Russia to preserve the old knightly principle of "service for the land" and gathered for service at their own expense "on horseback and arms." These are the last Russian knights. Silently, in the greatest consciousness of their duty to the Motherland, the Cossacks bore all their hardships and deprivations of equipment for the service and were proud of their Cossack name. They had an innate sense of duty.
Many Russian historians explain, albeit unsubstantiated, the origin of the Cossacks from walking, homeless people and escaped criminals from different regions of the Moscow and Polish-Lithuanian states, "looking for wild will and prey in the empty uluses of the Batu horde." At the same time, the very name "Cossack" will be of relatively recent origin, which appeared in Russia not earlier than the 15th century. The name was given to these fugitives by other peoples, as a given name, identifying with the concept of "free, not subject to anyone, free". Indeed, for a long time it was customary to think that the Cossacks were Russian peasants who fled to the Don from the horrors of the oprichnina. But the Cossacks cannot be taken out only from the serfs. Various estates fled, not satisfied and not reconciled with the authorities. They fled to the war, to the Cossack democracy, fled artisans, peasants, nobles, vigilantes, robbers, thieves, everyone in Russia was waiting for a chopping block, everyone who was tired of living in peace, everyone who had a riot in their blood. It was they who replenished the Cossacks. This is true, a significant part of the Cossacks was formed in this way. But the fugitives, coming to the Don, did not end up in the desert. That is why the famous proverb was born: "There is no extradition from the Don". Where did the Cossacks come from?
Kaisaks, Saklabs, Brodniks, Cherkasy, Black Hoods
In the 1st millennium AD, the Black Sea steppe became, as it were, a gateway from Asia to Europe. Not a single people, led by the waves of the great migration, lingered here for a long time. In this era of the "great migration of peoples" in the steppe, as in a kaleidoscope, the dominant nomadic tribes changed, creating tribal nomadic states - the kaganates. These nomadic states were ruled by powerful kings - kagans (khaans). Moreover, most often, the large rivers Kuban, Dnieper, Don, Volga, Ural and others were the natural boundaries of the habitats of nomadic tribes, and of the Khaganates, respectively. The borders of states and tribes have always demanded special attention. It was always difficult and dangerous to live in the borderlands, especially in the era of medieval steppe lawlessness. For the border, serf, messenger and postal service, service, protection, defense of fords, ferries and portages, collection of duties and control over shipping, the steppe kagans from ancient times inhabited the banks of border rivers with semi-sedentary warlike North Caucasian tribes of the Circassians (Cherkasy) and Kasogs (more precisely, the Kaisaks). The Iranian-speaking peoples called Sakami the Scythians and Sarmatians. Kaisaks were called the king's, the main Saks, who made up the detachments of all kinds of guards, as well as the bodyguards of the khans and their nobles. Many chronicles of that time also refer to these military inhabitants of the lower reaches of the rivers as wanderers. The Cossacks (Kaisaks) living in the Azov region, along the banks of the Don and Kuban, are mentioned in the Arab and Byzantine chronicles of the fourth century A. D. NS. as a warlike people professing Christianity. Thus, the Cossacks became Christians almost five hundred years before the baptism of Rus by Prince Vladimir. From different chronicles it is clear that the Cossacks originated in Russia no later than the 5th century A. D. and, before the era of the emergence and prosperity of Kievan Rus (Russian Kaganate), the ancient ancestors of the Cossacks were most often called brodniks, and later also black hoods or Cherkassians.
Brodniks are a tribe of ancient Cossack ancestors who lived on the Don and Dnieper in the first half of the Middle Ages. The Arabs also called them Sakalibs, a white people, mainly of Slavic blood (more precisely, this Persian word sounds like Saklabs - coastal Sakas). So in 737 the Arab commander Marwan marched with his troops throughout the indigenous Khazaria and between the Don and the Volga beyond Perevoloka met the semi-nomadic horse breeders Sakalibs. The Arabs took their horse herds and took with them up to 20 thousand families, who were resettled to the eastern border of Kakheti. The presence of such a mass of horse breeders in this place is far from accidental. Perevoloka is a special place in the history of both the Cossacks and the steppe as a whole. In this place, the Volga is closest to the Don and at all times there was a portage there. Of course, no one dragged merchant ships for tens of kilometers. The transshipment of goods from the Volga basin to the Don basin and back was carried out by horse-drawn and pack transport, which required a large number of horses, horse breeders and guards. All these functions were performed by the roaming people, in Persian saklabs - coastal saks. The transfer during the navigation period provided a stable and good income. The steppe kagans treasured this place very much and strove to give it to the closest members of their kind. Most often these were their mothers (dowager queens) and beloved wives, mothers of the heirs to the throne. From early spring to late autumn, for personal control of Perevoloka, the queens kept their tents on the banks of the then picturesque and full-flowing river, the right tributary of the Volga. And it is no coincidence that this river from time immemorial was called the Tsarina, and the fortress at its mouth, founded in modern history by the voivode Zasekin, was named Tsaritsyn. The famous legend about the mother and wife of Batu, who owned Perevoloka, is only the visible and audible part of this centuries-old phenomenon of the steppe civilization. Many rulers dreamed of making Perevoloka navigable; several unsuccessful attempts were made to build a canal. But only in the era of Joseph Stalin, whose all-Russian glory also began with the battles with the whites on the Tsaritsin's passage, this project was successfully implemented.
And in those days, the wanderers were replenished with newcomers, fugitives and expelled people from the surrounding tribes and peoples. Brodniks taught newcomers to serve, to keep fords, portages and borders, to raid, taught their relationship with the nomadic world, taught to fight. The brodniks themselves gradually disappeared into the newcomers and created a new Slavic nationality of the Cossacks! It is interesting that the brodniki wore stripes in the form of a leather strip on their trousers. This custom was preserved among the Cossacks and subsequently among different Cossack Troops the color of the stripes became different (for the Don people it was red, among the Urals it was blue, among the Transbaikal people it was yellow).
Later, around 860, the Byzantine emperor Michael III commissioned the compilation of the Slavic alphabet and the translation of the liturgical books into the Slavic language. According to biographical data, Cyril (Constantine the Philosopher, 827–869) went to Khazaria and, preaching Christianity there, studied the local Slavic dialects. Obviously, as a result of the preaching of this envoy of Byzantium, the New Faith finally triumphed among the Azov Khazarites. At his request, the Khazar Khakan (Kagan) allowed the restoration of the episcopal see in the Kaisak Land on Taman.
Fig. 1, 2 Legendary roam and black cowl
In 965, the great Russian warrior, Prince (Kagan of the Rus) Svyatoslav Igorevich, together with the Pechenegs and other steppe peoples, defeated Khazaria and conquered the Black Sea steppe. I act in the best traditions of the steppe kagans, part of the Alans and Cherkas, Kasogs or Kaisaks, he, to protect Kiev from the raids of the steppe inhabitants from the south, moved from the North Caucasus to the Dnieper and in Porosye. This decision was facilitated by an unexpected and treacherous raid on Kiev by his former allies, the Pechenegs in 969. On the Dnieper, together with the other Turkic-Scythian tribes who lived earlier and later arrived, mixing with the rovers and the local Slavic population, having mastered their language, the settlers formed a special nationality, giving it their ethnic name Cherkasy. Until today, this region of Ukraine is called Cherkassy, and the regional center is Cherkasy. By about the middle of the 12th century, according to chronicles around 1146, on the basis of these Cherkas from different steppe peoples, an alliance called black hoods was gradually formed. Later, from these Cherkas (black hoods) a special Slavic people formed and then the Dnieper Cossacks were created from Kiev to Zaporozhye.
On the Don it was a little different. After the defeat of Khazaria, Prince Svyatoslav Igorevich divided its possessions with the Pechenegs allies. On the basis of the Black Sea Khazar port city of Tamatarha (in Russian Tmutarakan, now Taman), he formed the Tmutarakan principality on the Taman Peninsula and in the Azov region. The connection of this enclave with the metropolis was carried out along the Don, which was controlled by the Don Brodniks. The stronghold of this medieval transit along the Don became the former Khazar fortress city Sarkel (in Russian Belaya Vezha). The Tmutarakan principality and the Brodniks became the founders of the Don Cossacks, which, in turn, later became the ancestor of other Cossack Troops (Siberian, Yaitsk or Ural, Greben, Volzh, Tersk, Nekrasov). The exception is the Kuban Black Sea people - they are the descendants of the Zaporozhian Cossacks.
Fig. 3, 4 Russian prince (kagan of the Rus) Svyatoslav Igorevich before the battle and in negotiations with the Byzantine emperor John Tzimiskes on the Danube
The great warrior himself, Prince Svyatoslav Igorevich, for his services to the Cossacks, can rightfully be considered one of the founding fathers of this phenomenon. He fell in love with the appearance and prowess of the North Caucasian Cherkas and Kaisaks. Raised by the Varangians from early childhood, nevertheless, under the influence of the Cherkas and Kaisaks, he willingly changed his appearance, and most of the late Byzantine chronicles describe him with a long mustache, shaved head and a settled forelock.
In the middle of the 11th century, the Black Sea steppes were captured by the Polovtsians. They were Turkic-speaking Caucasians, fair-haired and light-eyed. Their religion was the veneration of Tengri - the Blue Sky. Their arrival was cruel and merciless. They defeated the Tmutarakan principality, fragmented and torn apart by princely strife, Russia could not help its enclave. Part of the inhabitants of the steppe part of the Russian state submitted to the Polovtsy. Another part retreated to the forest-steppe and continued to fight against them together with Russia, replenishing its federates, black hoods, which were named from the Russians by their appearance - black felt hats. In the Moscow annalistic collection of the 15th century, there is a provision dated 1152: "All Black Klobuki are called Cherkasy." The continuity of Cherkas and Cossacks is obvious: both capitals of the Don Army have this name, Cherkassk and Novocherkassk, and the most Cossack region of Ukraine is called Cherkassk to this day.
Rice. 5, 6 Polovtsy and Black Hoods of the XII - XIII centuries
In Russian chronicles, there are also the names of lesser peoples and tribes, known under the common nickname black hoods, or Cherkassians, who became part of the Cossack people. These are ties, torques and berendeys with the cities of Tor, Torchesk, Berendichev, Berendeevo, Izheslavtsi with the city of Izheslavets, hurry and Saki with the cities of Voin and Sakon, kovui in Severshchina, Bologovites on the Southern Bug, wanderers on the Don and in the Azov region, chigi (dzhigi) with the city of Chigirin and Sary and Azmans on the Donets.
Later, another great Russian warrior and prince Vladimir Monomakh managed to consolidate the Russian principalities, brutally suppressed the princely and boyar strife and, together with the black hoods, inflicted a series of cruel and decisive defeats to the Polovtsians. After that, the Polovtsians were forced to peace and alliance with Russia for a long time.
In the 13th century, the Mongols appeared in the Black Sea steppes. In 1222, about 30 thousand. Mongols left Transcaucasia in the Black Sea steppes. It was a reconnaissance detachment of the Mongol horde sent by Genghis Khan under the command of the legendary commanders Subedei and Chepe. They defeated the Alans in the North Caucasus, and then attacked the Polovtsians and began to push them beyond the Dnieper, capturing the entire Don steppe. The Polovtsian khans Kotyan and Yuri Konchakovich turned to their relatives and allies, the Russian princes, for help. Three princes - Galician, Kiev and Chernigov - came with their troops to the aid of the Polovtsian allies. But in 1223, on the Kalka River (a tributary of the Kalmius River), the combined Russian-Polovtsian army was utterly defeated by the Mongols, Cherkassians, and roaming.
Rice. 7 The tragic ending of the Battle of Kalka
This episode deserves special mention. Brodniks, tired of endless civil strife and oppression of the Russian and Polovtsian princes, perceived the Mongols as allies in the fight against tyranny and Polovtsian oppression. The Mongols knew how to persuade and recruit warlike, but offended tribes. The Caucasian Cherkasy and the Don Brodniks formed the basis of the new, third tumen of the Mongol army, provided Subedei with tactical and strategic intelligence, and before the battle took an active part in the embassies and negotiations. After the battle, the ataman of the brodniks Ploskinya, kissing the cross, persuaded the remnants of the Russian army to surrender. Surrender for the purpose of subsequent ransom was a fairly common thing for that time. But the Mongols treated the commanders who had surrendered with contempt, and the captured Russian princes were put under the "dostarkhan" made of planks on which a feast was arranged by the victors.
After bloody battles, the Mongols went back to the Trans-Volga steppe and for some time nothing was heard of them. The leader of the Mongols, Genghis Khan, soon died, dividing the empire he had created among his descendants. Genghis Khan's grandson Batu headed the western limits of the Mongol possessions (ulus Jochi) and, fulfilling the behests of his grandfather, had to expand them as far as possible to the west. By the decree of the Kurultai of 1235, which took place in the capital of the Mongol Empire, Karokorum, an all-Mongolian Western campaign to the coast of the Atlantic Ocean (a campaign to the "last sea") was appointed for 1237. Dozens of tumens from all over the Mongol empire were mobilized for the campaign; 14 Chingizid princes, grandchildren and great-grandsons of Genghis Khan stood at their head. Khan Batu was appointed commander-in-chief, the preparation was supervised by a veteran of the western campaigns Subedei. It took the entire 1236 to collect and prepare. In the spring of 1237, the Mongols and the nomadic tribes subject to them concentrated on the territory of the Bashkirs recently conquered by Subedei and again attacked the Polovtsians, now from beyond the Volga. In the interfluve of the Volga and Don, the Polovtsians were defeated, their commander Bachman was killed. Khan Kotyan withdrew the Polovtsian troops beyond the Don and temporarily stopped the further advance of the Mongols along this river. The second large detachment of the Mongols, led by Batu, defeating the Volga Bulgaria, in the winter of 1237/38 invaded the territory of the northern Russian principalities, ravaged many cities, and in the summer of 1238 left the Russian territory into the steppe, to the rear of the Polovtsy. In panic, part of the Polovtsian troops rolled back to the foothills of the Caucasus, part went to Hungary, many soldiers died. Polovtsian bones covered the entire Black Sea steppe. In 1239 - 1240, after defeating the southern Russian principalities, Batu sent his tumens to Western Europe. Warriors from South Russia, including Cherkassians and Brodniks, readily took part in the campaign of the Mongol troops against their ancient enemies - the "Ugrians" and "Poles". Numerous European chronicles and chronicles of that time depict a completely non-Mongolian appearance and language of the Tatar-Mongol army that came to Europe.
Rice. 8, 9, 10 Commander Subedey and participants in the grandiose battle near the Polish city of Legnitz, European knight and "Mongol" horsemen
Until 1242, Batu led the all-Mongolian Western campaign, as a result of which the western part of the Polovtsian steppe, Volga Bulgaria, Russia were conquered, all countries up to the Adriatic and the Baltic were defeated and conquered: Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria and etc. The defeat of the European armies was complete. During this time, the Mongols did not lose a single battle. The Mongol army reached Central Europe. Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor of the German Nation, tried to organize resistance, however, when Batu demanded obedience, he replied that he could become the khan's falconer. The salvation of Europe came from where no one expected. In the summer of 1241, the great Mongol Khan Ogedei fell ill and recalled his children and grandchildren from the front, and died in December 1241. The first general Mongol unrest was brewing. Numerous Chingizid princes, anticipating a fight for power, one after another left the front together with their troops and returned to their uluses. Batu did not have the strength to advance alone with the forces of only his ulus and completed his campaign to the West in 1242. The troops withdrew to the Lower Volga, the city of Sarai-Batu was founded, which became the new center of the Jochi ulus. After these battles, the Kuban, Don and Black Sea steppes were incorporated by the Mongols into their state, the surviving Polovtsy and Slavs became their subjects. Gradually, the nomads who came along with the Mongols, called "Tatars", merged with the local Slavic-Polovtsian population, and the resulting state was called the Golden Horde.
Rice. 11, 12 Ulus Jochi (Golden Horde) and Khan Batu
The Cossacks owe their new revival to the custom of "tamga" that existed during the Golden Horde - living tribute, that is, tribute to people whom the Russian principalities supplied to the horde to replenish the Mongol troops. The Mongol khans, who ruled in the Polovtsian steppes, loved to raid the coastal Byzantine and Persian lands, i.e. walk across the sea "for zipuns". For these purposes, Russian warriors were especially suitable, since the times of the rule of the Varangians in Russia, they successfully mastered the tactics of the marines (in Russian "rook rati"). And the Cossacks themselves turned into a universal mobile army, capable of fighting on land both on foot and in horse formation, making river and sea raids, and also conducting boarding sea battles on boats and plows. Being foreigners, not connected by clan, kinship and ethnically with the local steppe population, they were also valued by the Mongol nobles for personal loyalty, loyalty and diligence in the service, including in terms of performing police and punitive functions, knocking out taxes and debts. By the way, there was also a counter process. Since the "rook army" was constantly in short supply, the khans requested replenishment. Russian princes and boyars went for it, but in exchange for their service they requested detachments of dashing foreign steppe horsemen, no less loyal and diligent in service in a foreign land. These Russianized princely and boyar military servants gave root to many noble and boyar families. L. N. Gumilev and other Russian historians constantly paid attention to the Turkic origin of the majority of Russian noble families.
Rice. 13, 14 Hike "for zipuns"
In the first century of the existence of the Golden Horde, the Mongols were loyal to the preservation of the subjects of their religions, including the people who were part of their military units. There was even the Saraysko-Podonsk bishopric, formed in 1261. Thus, those driven from Russia retained their originality and self-identification. Many old Cossack legends begin with the words: “From the blood of the Sarmatian, tribe-tribe of Cherkassk, let the Cossack brothers say a word not about the death of Vidar the Great and the campaigns of his son Kudi Yariy, the glorious thousand-strong and favorite Batyev. And about the deeds of our fathers and grandfathers, who shed blood for Mother Russia and laid down their heads for the Tsar-Father …”. The Cossacks, conquered by the Tatars, so to speak otatarized, the Cossacks, treated kindly and showered with the favors of the khans, began to represent a dashing invincible cavalry in the advanced detachments of the conquering hordes of Tatars - the so-called dzhigits (from the name of the Cherkasy tribes of the Chig and Getae), as well as detachments of bodyguards of the khans and their nobles. Russian historians of the 18th century. Tatishchev and Boltin write that the Tatar Baskaks, sent to Russia by the khans to collect tribute, always had units of these Cossacks with them. At this time, the Cossacks formed as a purely military estate under the Horde khans and their nobles. “God feeds us good fellows: like birds we do not sow and do not collect bread in the granaries, but are always full. And if anyone starts to plow the land, they will mercilessly flog him with rods”. In this way, the Cossacks zealously made sure that nothing distracted them from their main occupation - military service. At the beginning of the Mongol-Tatar domination, when civil wars were prohibited inside the Golden Horde on pain of death, the nomadic population of the Black Sea region increased many times over. In gratitude for the service to the Horde, the Cossacks owned the lands of the entire Black Sea region, including the Kiev region. This fact is reflected in numerous medieval maps of Eastern Europe. The era from 1240 to 1360 was the best for the life of the Cossack People under the auspices of the Mongolian state. The noble Horde Cossacks of that time looked very formidable and imposing and, without exception, had a sign of belonging to the social top of the Cossack society. This is a forelock - a sedentary, based on a custom that has long been accepted by the Cherkasy in the Caucasus. Foreigners wrote about them: “They carry the longest mustache and the darkness of weapons with them. On the belt in a leather purse, made and embroidered by the wife's hands, they constantly have a flint and a razor with a donkey. She shaves each other's head, leaving on the crown of the head a long bun of hair in the form of a pigtail."
Rice. 15, 16, 17 Horde Cossacks
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 troubles (zamyatny) also periodically arose, in which Cossack detachments were also subject to individual Mongol khans. 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 undoubtedly accelerated its self-destruction and disintegration. The Cossacks also took part in the turmoil of the Horde temnik Mamai, including on the side of the Russian princes. It is known that in 1380 the Cossacks presented Dmitry Donskoy with the icon of the Don Mother of God and participated against Mamai in the Battle of Kulikovo. The troops of the khans who perished in the turmoil often became ownerless, "free". It was then, in the years 1340-60, that a 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. 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. After the final collapse of the unified Mongolian 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. The fugitive peasants only replenished, but were not the root of the emergence of the troops. The Cossacks themselves have always considered themselves a separate people and did not recognize themselves as fugitive men. They said: "we are not Russians, 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.
In the 15th century, the role of the Cossacks in the border areas increased sharply due to the incessant raids of nomadic tribes. In 1482, after the final collapse of the Golden Horde, the Crimean, Nogai, Kazan, Kazakh, Astrakhan and Siberian khanates arose. They were in constant enmity with each other, as well as with Lithuania and the Moscow state, and did not want to recognize the power and authority of the Moscow prince. Since that time, a new, three-century period of Eastern European history begins - the period of the struggle for the Horde inheritance. At that time, few could have imagined that the out-of-the-ordinary, albeit dynamically developing, Moscow principality would eventually turn out to be the winner in this titanic struggle. But already less than a century after the collapse of the Horde, under Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible, Moscow will unite all the Russian principalities around itself and conquer part of the Horde. At the end of the 18th century. under Catherine II, the entire territory of the Golden Horde will be under Moscow rule. Having defeated the Crimea and Lithuania, the victorious nobles of the German queen put a fat and final point in the centuries-old dispute over the Horde inheritance. Moreover, in the middle of the 20th century, under Joseph Stalin, for a short time the Soviet people would create a protectorate over practically the entire territory of the Great Mongol Empire, created in the 13th century. labor and genius of the Great Genghis Khan, including China. But it will be later.
Rice. 18 Disintegration of the Golden Horde
And in all this post-Horde history, the Cossacks took the most lively and active part. Moreover, the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy believed that "the whole history of Russia was made by the Cossacks." And although this statement, of course, is an exaggeration, but looking at the history of the Russian state, we can state that all significant military and political events in Russia were not without the active participation of the Cossacks.
