Ural Cossack Army
The Ural Cossack Army ( Russian Уральское казачье войско even Yaik Cossack army , after the name of the river Ural to 1775) was before the inclusion in the Imperial Russian Army an irregular force , then that was the Urals - Cossack Army military unit in Russian Empire . The foundation goes back to the year 1775 , it was dissolved in 1917 . The headquarters were in Uralsk .
prehistory
The origin of the Ural Cossacks begins in 1584 and refers to the settlement of Don and Volga Cossacks. Its leaders included Matvey Meshscheryak and the ataman Barabosh. The colonization along the Urals was the conquest of new living space. The original settlement center of the Cossacks in Yaik was at the mouth of the Ilek Kosh-Yaik river. The Cossacks are mainly engaged in fishing, salt extraction and hunting.
history
The habitat of the Ural Cossacks extended along the right bank of the Ural and ran parallel to the Kyrgyz steppe . It began at Mukhranov and ended roughly at Chunev, where the Urals flow into the Caspian Sea . In the stanizas , the so-called Cossack settlements, there were about 100-200 houses, with a distance of about 10 to 13 miles between the settlements . The Cossacks mainly operated in agriculture. The male Cossacks between the ages of 20 and 50 committed themselves to service in the Ural Cossack army, which was usually nine years in different time periods. In 1718 an ataman and his assistants were appointed by the Russian government . They now determined the residence and whereabouts of the Cossacks and their families. This led to unrest in the 1720s, and the Cossacks opposed the orders. The so-called "Cossack Uprising" was violently suppressed in 1723 and the freely chosen ataman and his assistants were executed. Since then, the Ural Cossacks have been administered and commanded by the Russian government. In 1748 a central command staff was introduced for the Cossack army , and 7 regiments were subordinate to it . Another uprising of the Ural Cossacks occurred during the Pugachev uprising in 1773-1775, the imperial government troops were massacred. At the end of the uprising, in 1775, Catherine II (1729 - 1769) issued a decree that stipulated membership of the Imperial Russian Army as a regular troop, this is the official founding year of the Ural Cossack Army. The autonomy of the Ural Cossacks was thus abolished, an ataman and a commander in chief were assigned to the Ural Cossacks as Cossack leaders . Since 1782 the Urals were subordinate to the Orenburg Governor General . Another reorganization took place in 1868 by means of a "Provisional Ordinance", from now on they were assigned to the newly created Ural region and were subordinate to the Urals Governor General. The area was divided into the regions (divisional districts) Ural, Lischensky and Gurjewski and in 1916 comprised 290,000 people in 480 stanizas. In 1897 the Ural Cossack army consisted of two riders regiments and a bodyguard - squadron in the war another cavalry regiment was set up. The bodyguard squadron was subordinate to the 1st Guard Cavalry Division. In 1891 the Cossack army was organized as follows: 1st - 10th Cossack regiment.
structure
In the Ural Cossack area, up to 25,000 men lived from around 1835, of whom around 12,000 were of service age. In 1837 around 3,300 of them were in active service. During wartime, the military units could be equipped with mobilized reserve forces within three weeks. A military order prevailed within the Stanitzas, an officer with the rank of Rittmeister presided over the village community. This exercised judicial and administrative powers and appointed his deputies and administrators. Each place had a guard train with a strength of 15 to 20 men, who performed their duties in a 24-hour guard duty. The entire territory of the Ural Cossacks formed a social, economic, military and political unit, the center of which was Uralsk. The city was founded in 1613 between the Chagan and Urals rivers under the name of Jaiksk as a Cossack settlement. Today the city is called Oral (Kazakh) or Uralsk (Russian). The Cossacks were led by an elected ataman, who represented their interests to the governor. He headed a central government, which also regulated the financial administration. According to this principle there was no right to own land, all income flowed into communal property. The ataman and the local community leaders regulated all executive measures, including the day of harvest, as well as the day of mowing or sowing. Even the timing of the sturgeon fishing , the supplier of the caviar , was ordered by the Cossack leaders . With the imperial decree of Catherine II, this form of self-government was abolished.
Uniform colors
The regimental flag of the Ural Cossacks consisted of a dark blue cloth with a raspberry edge and a picture of the Archangel Michael , who was also the patron saint of the Cossacks. The Cossacks wore blue uniforms and caplets, they had crimson ribbons and trouser strips.
Armed operations
In 1717 armed forces of the Ural Cossack army, led by Prince, took part in the Khivas campaign . The Russian units were ambushed and attacked. Very few Cossacks returned from this war. In 1798 two Cossack regiments were used in the Italian and Swiss campaigns in the Second Coalition War under the leadership of General Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov . In the Sixth Coalition War from 1792 to 1815, the Ural Cossacks with the 3rd and 4th Cossack regiments were assigned to the Danube Army under the command of General Vasily Jakowlewitsch Tschitschagow . Ural Cossacks participated in the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829 and in the suppression of the Polish uprising of 1830. During the Crimean War of 1853-1856, two regiments from the Ural Cossack army were deployed. During the First World War , the Ural Cossack Army provided 9 cavalry regiments, an artillery battery, a guard unit, 9 special and replacement units, and a total of 13,000 Cossacks were deployed in the war. For their bravery, 5,378 officers of the Ural Cossack army were awarded the Russian Order of St. George .
October Revolution and Civil War
After the October Revolution of 1917, the Ural Cossacks endeavored to maintain neutrality. Their main focus was on maintaining their own internal order and preserving their own life structures. Only a few older Cossacks took part in minor mutinies against the new rulers. With the outbreak of the civil war in 1918, the Ural Cossacks rose against the Bolshevik Revolutionary Committee and fought against the troops that were supposed to suppress the uprising. Under the leadership of Ataman Lieutenant General Tolstow, who was elected in 1919 , the Ural Cossacks formed the backbone of the Ural Army, but in 1920 they were subject to the overwhelming power of the Soviets. In 1930 the Soviet government initiated an act of revenge against several Cossack armies, while the Don Cossack Army, the Kuban Cossack Army and the Terek Cossack Army were partially restored by Josef Stalin (1878-1953), the Ural Cossack lord was completely dissolved.
Renaissance
After the Russian Revolution in 1917, many Cossacks loyal to the Tsar emigrated and spread over Europe , China , Australia and the USA . To maintain their culture, especially the songs and dances, Andrei Iwanowitsch Scholuch founded the “ Ural Cossack Choir ” in Paris in 1924 . In February 1990, 30 delegates gathered in Uralsk and founded the "Historical Cultural Society of the Ural Cossack City". In September 1991 they celebrated the 400th anniversary of the Ural Cossacks, finally the society was registered in 1996 as an official community instrumentalization of the Cossacks and registered in the Cossack Union of Russia. In 1999 the Ural Cossacks merged, and they were now regrouped to form the Ural Cossack community.
Web links
- Cosack Web: The Commune of the Ural Cossacks (Extracts from "Studies On The Interior Of Russia" by Westphalian baron August von Haxthausen. The original German edition of the book appeared in 1847)
- Geographical-physical and natural-historical description of the Russian Empire: for an overview of previous knowledge of the same. Description of the individual governorates; 3. Governments of the southern region of Russia. Volume 2, Edition 3, Johann Gottlieb Georgi , Verlag Nicolovius, 1799, original from Bayerische Staatsbibliothek , digitized April 17, 2012
- Ural Cossack Army. In: eLexicon
Individual evidence
- ^ Ural Cossacks in Australia, The Australian People: An Encyclopedia of the Nation, Its People and Their Origins, editor James Jupp. Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN 0521807891 , 9780521807890 [1] , accessed August 1, 2018
- ↑ URAL COSSACKS IN AUSTRALIA. [2]
- ↑ Uwe Halbach, Russia's recourse to its imperial history: “The New Cossacks in Post-Soviet Times”, in: SWP Aktuell 9, January 2015 [3] , accessed on August 1, 2018