On June 27, 1651, immigrants from Little Russia and Poland, known as Cherkassy and living along the southern border of Moscow Ukraine, were organized into regiments: Sumy, Izyumsky, Akhtyrsky, Kharkov, Ostrogozhsky (territories of modern Sumy, Kharkov, parts of Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine, Kursk, Belgorod and Voronezh regions of Russia). The settlements that were formed at the same time were called settlements. Inhabited by immigrants from Ukraine, these lands were called Slobodskoy Ukraine, and its inhabitants were called Slobodskoy Cossacks.
The main military and territorial-administrative unit of the Cossacks was the regiment. The shelves were divided into hundreds. All cities and settlements were originally built and inhabited by the Cossacks themselves, there were no nonresidents in this area. Sloboda Cossacks evaded joint actions with the rebels and did not participate in the plans of the Little Russian hetmans. The bulk of the suburban Cossacks did not support the traitorous hetman Vyhovsky. Sloboda Cossacks did not support the uprising of the Bakhmut centurion Bulavinov in 1707-1709, during the war with the Swedes, considering it treason.
The entire male population in Sloboda Ukraine was divided into two categories. These are "registered Cossacks", whose primary task was military service, and their sub-assistants. This was the name of the Cossacks who wished to become peasants or petty bourgeois. They were exempted from military service, but were obliged to help the Cossacks to carry out this service, moreover, they were subject to a tax to the military treasury. Transition from one category to another was allowed.
Initially, the Cossacks were ruled by an elected foreman and obeyed the Discharge Order at first, and from 1688. - Ambassadorial order, from 1708 to the Azov military governor. The posts of colonels and foremen were initially elective. Elections were held at the regimental councils, while the colonel was accountable for his activities to the people who elected him to the post. Subsequently, Tsar Peter I, carrying out reforms, did not forget the Sloboda Cossacks. Slobodskaya Ukraine, as well as the Don Army, were subordinated to the Military Collegium. The elections of colonels and centurions were abolished, and the monarch himself appointed military leaders as ataman. Since 1721, the colonels elected by the Rada took office only after the approval of their candidatures by the Russian emperor.
The reign of Anna Ioannovna was a difficult era for the Sloboda Cossacks, which for some reason the German Biron disliked. By 1735, the number of Sloboda Cossacks and their assistants had increased to 100,000 souls, and they had already sent 4,200 Cossacks to military service. For the management of Slobodskaya Ukraine, Anna Ioannovna appointed a special office of guards officers, which was called the “Office of the Commission for the Establishment of Slobodska Regiments”. This reign was difficult and stupid, since the guards officers of the regular units did not care about the Sloboda Cossacks. These officers, in addition, were for the most part foreigners who spoke almost no Russian and who came to Russia at the summons of their compatriot Biron. But with the ascension to the throne of Elizabeth, everything was restored.
Interested in the colonization of its southern outskirts and organizing their defense against the raids of the Crimean Tatars, the tsarist government encouraged the settlers by providing them with lands and exempted them from taxes and duties. In 1652 the Chernigov and Nezhensky regiments moved here together with their families. Moscow sent emissaries to Little Russia to lure the Cossacks to itself. What happened successfully. In military campaigns, the suburban Cossacks showed themselves well and repeatedly received praise from the reigning persons.
Participation of suburban Cossack regiments in hostilities and campaigns:
Reflection of the raids of the Crimean and Nogai Tatars in 1646, 1661 and 1662;
Reflection of the sieges of the Zaporozhian Cossacks loyal to Bryukhovetsky and the raids of the Nogai and Crimean Tatars called by him in 1667;
1672 - the defeat of the Crimean Tatars at Merefa;
1679 - the ten thousandth horde is defeated under the walls of Kharkov, the victory over the Tatars at Zolochev;
1687, 1689 - participation of suburban regiments in the Crimean campaigns as part of the Russian army;
1695, 1696 - participation in the Azov campaigns of Peter I. Cossacks were in the army of B. P. Sheremetev, which was supposed to divert the attention of the Tatars from Azov. The Akhtyrs were on this campaign for over a year, taking part in the storming of the Kizy-Kermen fortress, as well as in the siege and capture of a number of other fortresses;
1698 - participation of suburban regiments in the unsuccessful campaign of Prince Dolgorukov through Perekop;
October 1700 - end of 1702. Slobodsk regiments entered
Ingermanland, where they took part in the war with Charles XII under the command of General Boris Petrovich Sheremetyev;
1709 year. Participation in the Battle of Poltava of the Kharkov and Izyumsky suburban Cossack regiments;
April 25, 1725 - 1000 privates with foremen from the suburban regiments under the command of the Kharkov colonel Grigory Semyonovich Kvitka entered the order of the Russian corps located in Persia;
May 1733 - march to Poland to suppress unrest. Slobodsk regiments operated as part of the 2nd Russian corps of Lieutenant General Izmailov;
1736-1739 - Russian-Turkish war. Sloboda Cossacks with the troops of Field Marshal Minich entered the land of the Crimea and on May 14 they took part in the storming of Perekop (Akhtyrtsy). In June 1737, they fought with the Turks under the walls of Ochakov, after the conquest of which they were left in his garrison and courageously defended the fortress against the 40-thousandth Turkish army;
1756 - by decree of the military collegium, the suburban regiments were sent to Prussia to participate in the Russian-Prussian War as part of the Russian army under the leadership of Field Marshal Stepan Fedorovich Apraksin. On August 19, 1757, during the battle at Gross-Jägersdorf, the suburban irregular regiments suffered heavy losses, and their commander, Brigadier V. P. Kapnist was killed. In 1758, the regiments returned from Prussia.
Continuous participation in wars and the frequent separation of the Cossacks from their farms led the Sloboda Cossacks into disorder. As Efgraf Savelyev writes in his historical notes: “In 1760, the Sloboda Cossacks put 5,000 horsemen in the field, divided in the old way into five regiments. as well as the formation of new peasant settlements south of Slobodskaya Ukraine, the Cossack territory begins to be populated by all kinds of people, tenants of the Cossack lands, buyers of all kinds of goods, who acquired land for eternity. to hire themselves as laborers to the landowners. In 1764, Catherine the Great decides to disband the Sloboda Cossacks due to their disorder.
However, many of the Sloboda Cossacks did not want to submit to the new order and partly went to the Don, the Urals and the Caucasus, partly joined the Cossacks living in Turkey. This is how the glorious history of the Sloboda Cossacks ended.
Most of the residents of the Kursk, Belgorod and Voronezh regions have not even heard of the existence of suburban Cossacks on their territories, which is a pity. “You need to know the past in order to understand the present and foresee the future” (VG Belinsky).
