Kalmyks on the Don Land from the 17th to the beginning of the 20th century. Buzava
INTRODUCTION
Rarely in modern times you can find the name - Zadonsk steppe. It was part of the Don Army Region along the left bank of the Don from the Archeda River to the Manych Valley, now the territory of Dubovsky and other districts of the Rostov Region. Here in the Kalmyk (Salsky) district in the 19th - first half of the 20th centuries, nomadic camps were located, and then Kalmyk Cossack villages and farms
The work does not pretend to be a study of the history of the Don Kalmyks; an attempt is made to talk about the formation and life of the Kalmyk villages of Potapovskaya, Chunusovskaya, Erketinskaya and their yurt farms, located on the lands of the modern Dubovsky district
In the pre-October period, the works of Colonel of the General Staff N.A. were published on this topic. Maslakovets, which contains information about the relationship between the Don Cossacks and the Kalmyks in the 17th century. I.I. Popov carried out an ethnographic description of the Don Kalmyks. In the works of S.F. Nomikosov presents material on the development of Kalmyk cattle breeding.
Doctor of Historical Sciences K.P. Shovunov published a research work “Kalmyks as part of the Russian Cossacks (second half of the 18th-19th centuries).” The formation of Kalmyk Cossack settlements on the Don became the subject of research by G.E. Tsapnik. The relations of the Kalmyks with the Don Cossacks in the second half of the 17th century were studied by M.I. Guchinov. K.N. Maksimov studied the military integration of Kalmyks with the Don Cossacks in the first quarter of the 18th century. Historian E.N. Badmaeva published the work “Don Kalmyk-Cossacks during the famine of 1933.”
The local history works of the chief bibliographer-researcher of KIGI RAS P.E. are of considerable interest. Alekseeva. Her book “Stanitsa Grabbevskaya (XVII century-December 1943)” was published, as well as works on the ethnic composition of the Don Kalmyks.
The history of the Salsky Cossack district was carefully studied in the book by L.P. Alexandrovskaya “Bound by one fate.” This is a multifaceted work telling about the events that took place in the Salsky steppes, the first book about the youngest district of the Don Army Region.
Studies of Kalmyk emigrants began to be published more often. Starting from the 80s, works by A. Bormandzhinov, B.N. began to appear on the history of the Don Kalmyks. Ulanova, S.B. Balykova, I. Mikhalinova, L. Montukova, P.S. Dzhevzinova. Published essays by A. Lenivov “Don Kalmyks”, E.S. Remileva-Shluter, “The shelter in Dornstadt became home,” she published a book in Germany about the fate of Kalmyk emigrants.
The newspaper “Izvestia of Kalmykia” regularly covers issues of the history of the Don Kalmyk Cossacks. These are articles by P.E. Alekseeva “Bakshi of Erketenevsky khurul Dambo Ulyanov”, L. Ilishkina “N. Ulanov and D. Ulyanov - intelligence officers of the Russian Empire." There are articles about the history of Kalmyk Cossacks written by the leaders of the Kalmyk Cossack Society (E.N. Manzhikov).
Writer N.D. Ilyumzhinov in the books “Abil”, “In line with the people’s destiny”, “Ancestors. Data. Time." spoke about the history of the Don Kalmyks, their way of life and beliefs; his works tell the story of the economic structure of the Kalmyk villages.
Donskoy writer G.S. Kolesov in his books “White Snow”, “Cossacks - God’s People” tells about the bitter fate of the Donets and Kalmyk Cossacks during the Civil War.
In the book by V.A. Dronov’s “Essays on the History of the Dubovsky District” published a chapter of “Buzava”, which tells about the way of life of the Don Kalmyks who lived in the region.
Journalists and local historians of the three eastern regions of the Rostov region have published several collections that tell about the joint life of Kalmyks and Don Cossacks and peasants. A book about the history of Zavetinsky rural settlements “And only the feather grass of the past still rings” has been published, edited by V.S. Sokirkina. Remontnenets by the team of authors E.A. Shipulina published their detailed history “In the name of the future of the Remontnaya land.” Edited by V.V. Fonyakov published historical and local history essays about the Zimovnikovsky district “The Land Where We Live.” These works tell the story of the settlement history, the life and way of life of the Don Kalmyks.
In general, the history of the Kalmyk-Cossacks who lived in the Trans-Don region has not been sufficiently studied in historical and local history literature.
The author of this work does not always manage to understand the nuances of the mentality and psychology of the Kalmyks of that time. Therefore, he apologizes for inaccuracies and variable interpretations of certain facts and events.
NOMADS, KHOTONS, HUTORS, STANITS
Any people leaves behind the names of certain elements of the earth's surface. On the territory of the Dubovsky district there are many villages, farms, ravines and rivers that received their name from the Kalmyks. For example, hydronyms (names of water bodies) of Kalmyk origin clearly dominate
The designation of the Sal River from Kalmyk is translated as beam. Another interpretation: the Kalmyks crossed the river holding on to the tail of a horse, and behind them on a dry raft “sal” they dragged equipment and clothes. The Kara-Sal River in Kalmyk means black Sal. Dzhurak is a proper name; most likely, when naming this river, such an honor was awarded to the rich Kalmyk Jurak. Another translation is fast, stormy. The name of the Gashun River is quite clear: in translation from Kalmyk “gashun” means bitter; in the Kalmyk steppes many rivers carry bitter-salty water. Another explanation: the name has Turkic roots; the river received its name from the name of the Nogai Murza, who roamed these places. Erik River - running water, river bed, small stream. Near the village of Erketinskaya there was a drying river called Urtugur (Urtugul).
The steep steep slope of the Sal River and the hill stretching behind it is called Ergeni, from the Kalmyk word Erge - yar.
Not far from the Gureev farm there is a ravine, colloquially called Churyumka. According to legend, the Kalmyk woman Churyumka crossed a ravine in heavy rain and drowned. After the publication of this book on the Internet, the author received a call from Elista resident I.A. Lidzhi-Goryaeva: “This was my mother’s older sister, whose last name was Churyumova. She divorced her husband a long time ago and took her son. In a fit of revenge, her husband drowned her in a beam.”
Kalmyk hundreds and villages were named in accordance with the names of ethnic groups. Baldra, Chonsa, Erketna are the names of the historically established division of the Don Kalmyks into hundreds. Chunusovskaya (Bag-Chonsa) from Iki-Chonos - “Big Wolves”, they once formed part of the ancient Chinos ethnic group. The name of the village of Erketinskaya comes from the word “Erktn” - powerful, strong, mighty, possessing power, this name was given to those who especially distinguished themselves for their services to the ruler. The village of Potapovskaya was previously the Baldyr Hundred. This is the name of the Kalmyk family Baldr, from the Tibetan Bal Dar - the bestower of happiness, an epithet of the deity of wealth. Then the village received its name from the name of the ataman of the Don Army A.L. Potapova.
The residents of the new villages themselves retained their own names for the 13 aimags. Therefore, Kalmyk villages have double and triple names.
Next to it, between the village of Andreevskaya and the Sirotsky farm, there was for some time the Baldyr, Boldyrev farm. Perhaps it was named in honor of Dorzhi Boldyrev, a foreman of the Erketi hundred in the 19th century. Another version is that if a Russian woman married a Kalmyk, the children were called baldyrs, balderkas. This name may have originated in honor of the Kalmyk-mestizo founder.
Until the end of the 19th century, Kalmyk nomadic camps, then settlements, were khotons, then they became hamlets. Khoton, and then the Khudzhurtinsky farm existed until 1926. The Kalmyks called it with inspiration - “a place that brings pleasure.”
The Adyanovs are a Kalmyk surname; four Adyanov families lived in the Khurulny farmstead; D. Adyanov was a Chunusovsky centurion in the 19th century. Apparently, this is why the new farm, which arose after the Civil War 15 kilometers from the village of Chunusovskaya, was given such an unusual name for the Russian language.
The Kholostonur farm is the former Kalmyk khoton Khulsta-Nur, then the temporary settlement of Kholusta, translated from Kalmyk as “lake, lowland, overgrown with reeds” (khulsn - reeds, nur - lake). Next to it is the Myska River, along the banks of which dense thickets of reeds grow.
In the names of villages and farms, rivers and hills, one can feel the smells of the steppe, the centuries-old poetics of ancient Kalmyk families.
ONE SKY, ONE DESTINY
IN early XVII century, Kalmyks, descendants of the Mongolian ethnic group of the Oirats, moved to the Russian kingdom from Dzungaria (Eastern Mongolia). The reasons for this phenomenon have not yet been established in historical science. Several have been put forward: the warlike nature of nomads; strengthening the onslaught of the Khalkha Mongols, Han feudal lords and Kazakh khans; overpopulation of the steppe; the need to supplement the extensive pastoral economy by raiding more stable agricultural societies; personal qualities of the leaders of steppe societies; passionarity. None of the concepts yet answers the question: what prompted the Kalmyks to take such a path?
We are also interested in what caused their migration from the northern Caspian region to the Don. Researchers put forward the version that the process of transition of the Kalmyk uluses to the lands of the Don Army was a consequence of internecine clashes between groups and growing class contradictions. Fleeing from feudal oppression or the ruinous raids of the victorious Noyons, the Kalmyks began to separate and move beyond the Kalmyk nomads.
The Kalmyk taisha Daichin began a new stage of preparation for the Kalmyk advance from the banks of the Volga to the west. Some of its uluses moved to the Right Bank of the Don in 1637. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich allowed the Kalmyks to roam along the Manych and Sal rivers. Then two more uluses, owners Ilbek-Batyr and Etisan-Batyr, arrived on the Don, who, together with Bok, took the oath to the Don ataman Frol Minaev in 1682 and “kissed the Kuran with their ulus people” as proof of faithful service in the interests of the state and the Don army. The reason Taisha Bok left for the Don was armed conflicts with relatives.
The first reconnaissance detachments of Kalmyks appeared on the Sal River in 1642-1643. After the Crimean campaign
A 30,000-strong Kalmyk army was leaving for the Volga from the Don up the Sal River. In 1662, four thousand Kalmyks under the command of Monchak organized a gathering point on the Sal River, where their troops flocked from various uluses to march on the Crimea. Nine years later, Ayuka Khan migrated to the town of Kurman Yar (Verkhne-Kurmoyarskaya station) with the intention of roaming the Salsky steppes. As a result of negotiations with the Cossacks, an agreement was concluded: “And those Kalmyk people, having migrated, want to live on the Don, and do not stand for those people and do not ask them, the Cossacks, back. And tenacious, they will not cause any offense among themselves..."
The first mention of Kalmyks accepted into the Don Cossacks dates back to 1670. 25 years later, the status of Cossacks was extended to the Don Kalmyks, and lands were allocated in the Sal and Manych steppes. A new wave of arrivals to the Don took place, Ayuka Khan released up to three thousand tents (about 10 thousand people) near Azov to guard the border line and fight the Crimean Tatars. Then he sent another 10 thousand to the Don, led by the Torgout owner Chimet and the Derbet owner Four to guard the southern borders from Kuban raids.
Peter I ordered all Kalmyks wandering along the Don to remain in the Cossack class and no more representatives of this nation to be accepted into these lands. In 1745, the entire populated Western steppe was given over to the Kalmyks, who were assigned to the Don Army, as nomads. Kalmyks became part of the population of the Army and were subordinated to the Directorate of Military Cossacks.
In the second half of the 18th century, Kalmyk nomads were scattered throughout the Cherkasy, 1st Don, Donetsk, and Khopyor districts of the Don Army. Kalmyk Cossacks were subordinate to the Don Ataman. On a short time, from 1791 to 1803, they were entrusted to the jurisdiction of the fortresses of St. Anna and St. Demetrius (now the city of Rostov). In 1798, a census of the Don Kalmyk population was conducted, 20 hundreds of 3,724 tents, four khuruls, and 9,325 souls of the male population were identified. From the number of Kalmyks of Astrakhan, Stavropol and Terek Don in different time it was 16-18%.
A specially created commission in 1801 proposed transferring the Kalmyks to the uninhabited Zadonsk steppes. This is how Kalmyks appeared on the Don Left Bank. In April 1803, the Highest decree was issued to transfer the Chuguevsky and Dolomanovsky (Belyaevsky) Kalmyks, nomadic in the Mariupol district, to migrate to the lands of the Don Cossacks.
The mass arrival of Kalmyks to the Don occurred most often on a voluntary basis, which was rare for those centuries. The local military sergeant-major always willingly accepted into his service “... good horsemen, excellent in courage, always ready and zealous for service, and so necessary for the owners of shepherds and farriers, very useful to the army.” As the assistant N.E. spoke remarkably. Ulanov: “The inclination of both to an easy life, to robbery and violence, to a large extent brought together these diverse inhabitants of the spacious southern Russian steppes.”
The Kalmyk nobility constantly turned to Russian government with requests to prohibit Kalmyks from settling on the Don. This could be explained simply: the Noyons and Zaisangs' profits from feudal taxes were decreasing. But this did not stop the Kalmyks from coming to the Don.
The ethnic composition of the Don Kalmyks was mixed. In general, the basis of the Don subethnic group was the Torguts and Derbets. According to some historians (K.P. Shovunov), Chonosovskaya consisted more of Derbet groups, Erketenevskaya - of Torgoutovskaya, Baldyrskaya (Potapovskaya) - of Chuguevskaya groups. However, there was not a single village in which representatives of one or another ethnic group did not live. The parishioners of the khuruls of the Don Kalmyks were people from:
- Potapovsky (Baldyrsky): Baga-Buruls, Bargases, Shara-Mongols, Shara-Merkits, Tsoros, Tyachuds (Taichiuts),
- Chonosovsky (Baga-Chonosovsky): tugtuns, shara-hapchins, burguds, hotguds, kevtyuls, tsoros,
- Erketenevskaya: erketens, bartskhas, kevtyuls, hods, tsarmuds, merkets, khara-merkets.
Over time, the community of Don Kalmyks began to be designated as a local, possibly sub-ethnic independent group of the Kalmyk ethnos.
The Don Kalmyks were called buzaav (buzav, buzava, basic Cossacks). Most historians believe that this antonym comes from the phrase “buzava halgud” (base Kalmyks), associating them with the establishment of bases - stationary buildings for livestock. Writer N.D. Ilyumzhinov proposed the following interpretation: “In order to distinguish the Don Kalmyk Cossacks from the nomads, Ataman M.I. Platov ordered to call them “basic Kalmyks.” Perhaps the word “buzavy” came from the word “base”. Another version is “bu zaav” (handed a gun), that is, they were called up for permanent military service, in the sense: they were handed a gun (weapon), assigned to public service. In Kalmyk speech the name was not declined, but among the Cossacks “buzava”, “buzava” were more common.
Their habitat was harsh: arid climate, light chestnut soils with solonetzes, wormwood-fescue vegetation, poor food supply water resources. Geographer V.F. Bogachev described the climate of the Trans-Don region as follows: “The water in the rivers and ravines is bitterly salty and worthless in the middle of summer, and only small digs dug to a shallow depth in the upper sediments hardly satisfy the unpretentious nomad and his livestock.”
Almost from spring itself, strong dry winds begin to blow from Astrakhan. By mid-summer, the steppe becomes sparse, only in spite of everything the gray feather grass, interspersed with grayish wormwood, proudly sways, and the kermek, beloved by camels, is knocked out along the rafters. In winter, forty-degree frosts kill all living things, in summer the earth is dried out by the heat, and the heat is debilitating.
However, there is an attractive force in these spaces. The steppe is intersected here and there by gullies and ravines. It is beautiful in spring, when tulips bloom and the earth breathes the smells of mixed herbs. Wormwood and thyme smell bitterly, and reeds and chakan are found along the banks of the rivers. This is the Kalmyk Steppe.
In 1806, the Kalmyk district was formed; previously it was called the Nomadland of the Don Kalmyks. An administrative division took place into three uluses: Upper, Middle and Lower. Each ulus was divided into hundreds (buzun), of which there were 13 in total. Each hundred had from 10 to 15 khotons, each khoton from 10 to 25 yurts (or families). The southern border of the Upper Ulus extended to the Kudinov farm of the modern Dubovsky district; it was “border”. From Kudinov to the Manych River - Middle Ulus. During the arrangement, the boundaries of the khotuns and hundreds were determined; commissions were appointed for this work, which included three honorary old men, a baksha (bagsha), a gelyung and a judge of the Kalmyk Board. In terms of management, uluses and hundreds were equated to Cossack villages and farmsteads.
All nomadic camps located on the modern territory of the modern Dubovsky district were part of the Kalmyk district. In 1822, 13,622 people were counted.
About three thousand serving and retired Kalmyk Cossacks participated in the Patriotic War of 1812 as part of combat and militia Don regiments. The commander of the 2nd Kalmyk regiment, Major Serebdzhab Tyumenev, was promoted to colonel for his distinction in the battles near Leipzig and was awarded the Order of St. George by order of Barclay.
In the Russian-Turkish war, the Don Cossacks-Kalmyks showed how real warriors fight. In 1835, silver medals with ribbons were awarded to:
— Muchurgi Sharmazhinov Middle ulus 2nd hundred (Chonos),
- Perunish Dobchinov of the Middle Ulus, 1st hundred,
- Pitinubibi Noev Verkhniy Ulus 3rd hundred,
— Sanudurshov, Sangra Burinov, Patin Dibinov, Tatish Dybanov,
Sergeant Nakaush Bitelykov from the 1st hundred of the Upper Ulus.
Nalainov Mundzhigon was awarded for the Turkish campaign
Insignia of the Military Order of St. George.
The dry lines of the archival file briefly and restrainedly list the injuries received by the Kalmyk Cossacks of the Erketin Hundred during the French, Turkish, and Persian campaigns: “In cases against the enemy, the Kalmyk of the 4th Hundred of the Upper Ulus, Pyats Zungudinov, was wounded. In 1805, while serving in Sysoev's regiment, he was wounded by a bullet in his left arm above the hand. In 1813, Ilyumzha Sharapov, while serving in Kuteynikov’s regiment, was indirectly wounded by a bullet in the forehead. Ualdyk Ishinov, while serving in Chernozubov's regiment in 1812, was wounded by a bullet in left breast indirectly. Manzhik Bashalinov was wounded in 1812. Grytska Baldashinov, while serving in Colonel Karpov’s regiment, was wounded during the Turkish campaign in 1828. Sergeant Alata Salomov in Colonel Protopopov's regiment No. 15 in 1859 in Persia, while catching smugglers traveling with foreign goods, was wounded by a bullet in the left rump. Signature: centurion commander Churyumov, assistant constable Churyumov. And due to his illiteracy, Jumbo Churyumov signed it for himself. Seal. Clerk Badakov."
From 1806 to 1846 there were the following hundreds names:
- Boldyrskaya Middle Ulus 4th hundred,
- Chonosovskaya (Baga-Chonos, Small Wolves) of the Middle Ulus, 2nd hundred,
- Erketinskaya Nizhny ulus 1st hundred.
Administrative reforms followed one after another. After 1846 the hundreds were called:
- 3rd Baldyrskaya of the Upper Ulus,
- 1st hundred Chonosovskaya (Baga-Chonos) of the Middle Ulus,
- 4th Erketinskaya of the Upper Ulus.
By 1849, to the territory of the modern Dubovsky district, the Verkhnetarannikovaya hundred (Chonsa aamig) were additionally resettled to these hundreds, it was renamed the 1st hundred of the Middle ulus, and the 4th hundred of the Lower ulus into the 3rd hundred of the Upper ulus,
The 1st hundred of the Lower Ulus - to the 4th hundred of the Upper Ulus.
In 1871, hundreds received new names:
- Boldyrskaya Upper Ulus, third hundred.
- Chunusovskaya (Chonosovskaya) of the Middle Ulus, first hundred,
- Erketinskaya Upper Ulus fourth hundred.
In 1877, the 3rd and 4th hundreds of the Upper Ulus became part of the village of Potapovskaya, and the 1st hundred of the Middle Ulus became part of the village of Vlasovskaya.
In Kalmyk transcription: Chunusovskaya - Chonosa amek, Erketinskaya - Erketene amek, Potapovskaya - Baldara amek.
In 1892, new farmsteads of Khudzhurtinsky and Starokhurulsky appeared.
The system of ataman rule among the yurt Kalmyks on the Don was introduced in the late 20s - early 30s of the 18th century. The military authorities transmitted orders and orders for service through military interpreters. The leaders of the uluses and hundreds subsequently independently carried out the implementation of these instructions.
In the settlement of Ilyinka, a new Kalmyk government was formed in 1836. Its official opening took place on February 25. Sloboda Ilyinka has never known such guests; senators arrived, Lieutenant General B.Ya. Knyazhnin, Privy Councilor B.I. Bulgarian, appointed Ataman, cavalry general Kuteynikov, judge of the Kalmyk Board, military foreman Isaev, deputy from the Kalmyk population Churyum Balzarov.
The board consisted of a judge, two assessors and two deputies from Kalmyks. Judges and assessors were appointed from among Russian military officials. They pursued a flexible policy, avoiding open interference in inner life society The deputies were Kalmyks, one representing the Zaisang class, the other the clergy. The judge received a salary of 600 rubles, assessors 400, deputies 100 rubles, which at that time was an impressive amount. The board had a seal. Here was the seat of the judicial investigator of the Kalmyk nomads, a prison building for prisoners and barracks for the lower ranks of the Board were built.
Each hundred was led by a centurion and two Pentecostals; the khoton was headed by a khoton clerk. All were elected from serving or retired wealthy Kalmyks at a meeting of the population of hundreds and villages. Each of them gave an oath to the Regional Board, everyone signed their name in the Kalmyk alphabet todo bichig (“clear writing”), the leadership of those times owned the Kalmyk script. The Kalmyks had a centurion that was like an ataman in other Don villages. He watched the line when Kalmyks were called up for service, stopped disputes, and maintained military discipline in the khotons.
In 1862, an administrative reorganization was carried out, instead of the centenary administration there became a stanitsa one. At stanitsa assemblies, 15 old men were annually elected to consider cases related to the Kalmyk faith. Elected judges were guided by national customs, as well as the voice of conscience. The local leadership was elected at a centenary or khoton meeting by the male part of the population for a period of three years. Stanitsa societies gained independence in forming the budget, distributing taxes and duties among the residents of the villages, concluding land lease agreements, and disposing of benefits from military capital. The competence of village societies included social functions: opening new schools, providing benefits to those in need, and others.
Like all Don Cossacks, military discipline was introduced among the Kalmyks; in 1841, a Decree was issued to end the unauthorized absences of Kalmyks within the Don Army.
Many Kalmyks roamed the eastern part of the modern Dubovsky district in the territories of the farmsteads: Tulipny, Dalniy, Snezhny, Vishnevyi, Prisalsky, Mirny, Kholostonur.
For a long time, the steppe people led a nomadic lifestyle. The dwelling is a tent, a yurt of the Mongolian type. At first, stationary buildings were dugouts and semi-dugouts made of mud bricks or cut from turf, from the second half of the 19th century century, Russian-type buildings, log and brick, began to spread.
Unlike other relatives, the Don Kalmyks more often consumed flour dishes. The Russian population adopted the original National dishes shulun, dotur, Kalmyk tea jomba with milk, butter and salt. This drink was especially revered among the Kalmyks. They even put together a proverb: “Even though a thin thing is paper, religious books are written on it; even though a thin thing is tea, it is still divine food.”
The main intoxicating drink was arka (araka), vodka made from milk. Writer N.D. Ilyumzhinov gives a parable. Genghis Khan issued a formidable decree on death penalty for those who will prepare the arka. One day he saw a lonely wagon in the steppe with smoke rising upward. This decrepit old man built a device using a camel bone instead of a pipe. Genghis Khan thought: “If such an ancient old man finds a way to persecute araku even under the threat of the death penalty, then it is impossible to fight this evil. We need to cancel the decree!” Since then, Kalmyks have consumed this drink whenever possible.
The Donets adopted some forms of winter clothing from the Kalmyks - a malakhai hat, a casing, a sheepskin coat.
In 1854, there were 13 hundreds in the Kalmyk district, with a population of 20,635 people. 377 Kalmyk farmers were engaged in arable farming; they had 192 plows, collected 2,359 quarters of grain, and cut 26,494 haystacks. There were 28,137 horses, 62,227 cattle, 57,495 sheep, and 71 camels.
In the Kalmyk khotons of the villages of Potapovskaya, Irketinskaya, Chunusovskaya, 1,324 people roamed, which was a quarter of the total population of settlements located within the borders of the modern Dubovsky district. In total there were 5,033 people here.
Kalmyks considered theft from their own nomadic territory an unforgivable sin. At the same time, stealing from the Cossacks is a matter of boasting to one’s comrades. One of the researchers of folk life noted: “Until the very beginning of this century, the Cossacks and Kalmyks, despite all the efforts of the Russian government to make them peaceful citizens, did not cease to wage open hostility, expressed in mutual raids on each other with the aim of robbing, mainly horses, cattle and sheep. Military commanders often did not know about any raid. Neither side complained, but waited for a more convenient moment when they could pay their enemies with the same coin. Thanks to this, the Cossacks and Kalmyks always carefully looked after their livestock and vigilantly guarded them from raids. As soon as the clatter of horse hooves is heard in the steppe, the entire Kalmyk ulus or Cossack village “gets to its feet” and hurries to repel the attack.”
The Cossack of the village of Verkhnekurmoyarskaya, Afanasy Zemlyanukhin, was captured by the Kalmyks in 1814. They “brought him to the ravine opposite the village and flogged him, demanding bread from the village across the Don” (currently this place is near the village of Krivsky Dubovsky district). Victory was for the Kalmyks, they achieved their goal and “we were exporting bread to them” from the village.
There was a great temptation to hire free workers to herd livestock and help on the farm. Cossack Chenka Churyumov of the Middle Ulus of the 2nd hundred (Chonos) sheltered fugitive deserters from the village of Aksai - Timofey Semyonov and his comrades. However, you can’t hide anything from the bailiffs. The judges of the Kalmyk Board were also not a gift: they ordered to pay a fine of 100 rubles for each, a total of 300 rubles.
Still, there was much more connecting element than contradictions. Military ataman Frol Minaev wrote to Moscow, “that the Don Cossacks now live in peace with the Kalmyks and there is no enthusiasm between them, many Kalmyks brought bulls and sheep for sale and exchanged supplies for wine on the Don.” Time worked in favor of assimilation, ethnic groups mutually enriched themselves in matters of culture, life, customs, economic and production activities. Common interests in trade, in organizing veterinary care for livestock, in improving everyday life, in the construction of housing and outbuildings came to the fore. The Cossacks negotiated with the Kalmyks, drove the young animals to them, and by the fall or next year they took the grown-up livestock and sold it at fairs, repaired their livestock with them, and destined the best horses of the Kalmyk breed for the youth to conscript.
In addition, both sides began to take a harsh attitude towards troublemakers. There is a case when the stanitsa collection of the village of Nizhne-Chirskaya for the theft of cattle from the Kalmyks sent the Cossacks to Siberia with its sentence.
The district chief of the Second Don District in 1883 examined the case of imprisonment of Kalmyks. It turned out that the ataman of the village of Atamanskaya A.I. Fomichev, not entirely righteously, placed Kalmyks Akuda Umadykov and Pinda Bukhurdinov under three-day arrest. They took away three bulls and one cow from the sheepfold of Cossack Yakov Karasev, on the Mokraya Savdya ravine, and were then detained. The zealous ataman, not having a prison facility under the village administration, illegally deprived the Kalmyks of their freedom. P.O. stood up for the Kalmyks. Dudkin, an assessor of the Kalmyk Board in charge of the Kalmyk nomad camp in the settlement of Ilyinka on the Don (that was the full name of the position). The zealous ataman was not punished for his misconduct; the Cossacks and Kalmyks settled for 35 rubles in compensation for damage. The district chieftain decided to leave the case without consequences, the Military Chancellery approved this decision. The conflict was resolved.
On the other side, they didn’t spare their own either. The judge of the Kalmyk Administration, military foreman Isaev, considered the case of the theft of a cow from the peasant Leon Lutilin from the Ilovlinsky farm. Kalmyks Taltachimov, Egorov and Sintonov of the Upper Ulus of the 4th hundred (Erketinskaya) stole a cow and calf from a Cossack. To be discouraging, they punished each of them with 30 lashes.
The Cossacks realized that “the teachings of the Lamaites are alien to the preaching of hostility and hatred towards followers of other religions, and the Kalmyks themselves are a gentle people, alien to fanaticism and intolerance.” This allowed the Kalmyks to quickly, although not without conflicts and clashes, fit into the Cossack community. Buddhist ethics also contributed, calling for humility and non-resistance to evil, believing that evil in the soul and resentment multiply evil in the world. The moral basis of Kalmyk psychology was the concept of love, compassion, sin, shame, mercy for the life of every creature, no matter how that life manifested itself. Unfriendliness among the Kalmyks was excluded; they had an established wise proverb: “Without a good look, you can’t talk about any person. Having turned around yourself three times and looked closely at yourself, you must then talk about the other person.”
Kalmyks and Don Cossacks were united by an innate sense of pride; they valued a worthy opinion of themselves and their family. A contemporary noted: “Kalmyks never beg, even when in extreme poverty.”
Everyday contacts, interest in efficient housekeeping, and the development of everyday and interfamily ties gradually eliminated former confrontations. An example is the adoption of Ivan Timofeevich Kolesov by the ataman of the village of Ilovlinovsky village of Atamanskaya. When the Kalmyk baby Baturka from a neighboring farm was left without parents, the ataman took him into his family, raised him, and gave him the name Nikolai Kolesov. Joint service in the Don Cossack regiments, often associated with mortal risk, and mutual assistance on the battlefield united the relationship, which in extreme conditions became friendly. For the Cossacks’ motto was: “Perish yourself, but save your comrade.”
Communication with the Russian population had an impact on the Don Kalmyks. Special anthropological examinations revealed some weakening of the Mongoloid features; they had a Caucasoid admixture: the hair was more curly and softer, the beard was more developed, and the cheekbones were smaller. A considerable share of Kalmyk blood also poured into the Cossacks. The East was visible in the steep cheekbones and narrowed eyes of the Don great-grandmothers.
Russians and Kalmyks realized that they were connected by the same fate, living under the same sky.
The work uses the transcription that existed in the 19th century.
Khoton is a group of tents, a nomadic settlement of Kalmyks.
Kolesnik V.I. The last great nomad camp: the transition of the Kalmyks from Central Asia V Eastern Europe and back in the 17th and 18th centuries. Elista, 2003. P. 3.
Shovunov K.P. Kalmyks as part of the Russian Cossacks (second
half of the XVIII-XIX centuries) Elista, 1992. P. 35.
Tsapnik G.E. Formation and development of Kalmyk Cossack settlements on the Don. Astrakhan, 2006. P. 14.
Tepkeev V.T. Kalmyks in the Northern Caspian region in the second third of the 17th century. Elista, 2012. P. 41.
Quote according to Shovunov K.P. Kalmyks are part of the Russian Cossacks. P. 33.
Svatikov S.G. Russia and the Don (1549-1917). Rostov n/a. : “Rostovbook”, 2013.P. 208.
Bograshikhinsky aimak and Bograshikhinsky people. / Ed. Alekseeva P.A.
Elista. 2002. P. 5.
Avliev V.N. Kalmyk population in late XIX-XX centuries Elista, 2004. P. 8.
The highest - signed by the Emperor.
Svatikov S.G. Russia and Don. P. 330.
Cossack foreman is a category of officials (atamans, clerks, judges, etc.) who belonged to the top of the Cossacks, several dozen clans, whose representatives began to be elected to ataman posts and other positions more often than people from ordinary Cossacks.
ON RK. F.R.-145. Op. 1. D. 138. L. 9.
Quoted from: From the Volga to Lhasa: The Journey of Dambo Ulyanov and Naran Ulanov to Tibet. / Comp. Bicheev B.A. Elista: KIGI RAS, 2014. P. 151.
Baskhaev A.N. Dyakieva R.B. Oirats - Kalmyks: XII-XV centuries. Elista.
2007. P. 88.
Noyon is a prince, a secular feudal lord, a tribal ruler. Zaisang is a secular feudal lord, hereditary elder.
Orlova K.V. On ethnic groups and Buddhist khuruls of the Don Kalmyks (XIX - early XX centuries) / Coll. Tibet through the eyes of Russian travelers. Elista, 2014. P. 44.
Ilyumzhinov N.D. "Abil." Elista, 2003. P. 133.
Quoted from: Collection of the Regional Army of the Don Statistical Committee, issue 4, 1904. Novocherkassk, 1904. P. 54. Nomads are migrating peoples living off cattle breeding.
Kermek is a perennial herbaceous plant up to 50 cm tall.
Khurul baksha is the abbot of a Buddhist monastery. Gelyung is a clergyman with the highest degree of monastic initiation.
Statistical description of the land of the Don Cossacks, compiled in 1822-1832. Novocherkassk, 1891. P. 96.
Maksimov K.N. Kalmyk Cossacks in the Don regiments in the Battle of Borodino. // Bulletin of KIGI. 2012. No. 2. P. 14.
Sandzhiev B.S. Kalmyks in the War of 1812. Elista, 1964. P. 121.
GARO. F. 309. Op. 1. D. 359.
Courtesy of V.M. Khokhlov.
Maksimov K.N. Administrative reforms on the Don and the formation of the Kalmyk district as part of the Don Army. // Bulletin of KIGI. 2014. No. 3. P. 17.
Military foreman - Cossack rank, lieutenant colonel.
GARO. F. 309. Op. 1. D. 85. L. 8.
Tsekeeva T.E. Social structure of Kalmyk society at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. Elista, 2005. P. 45.
GARO. F. 338. Op. 4. D. 318.
Proverbs and sayings of the Don Kalmyks / Collected by N.N. Popov. 1892. Own stud farm on Srednyaya ravine. GARO. F. 55. Op. 1. D. 1387. L. 23.
Ilyumzhinov N.D. The memory is alive. Moscow, 2009. P. 247.
Collection of the Regional Troops of the Statistical Committee. Vol. 2. Novocherkassk, 1901. P. 58.
Kalmyk Cossacks of the Salsk District of the Don Army Region in the 1st World War.
As is known, Kalmyks appeared within Russia at the beginning of the 17th century. They migrated from the Dzungar Khanate and formed the Kalmyk Khanate in the lower reaches of the Volga River, which strengthened under Ayuk Khan. Archival documents indicate that Kalmyks were called to the Don by local Cossacks to jointly fight the Crimean Tatars. Thus, in 1642, the Don Cossacks turned to their new neighbors with a proposal to jointly fight the Crimeans for the capture of Azov. And in 1648, Kalmyks first appeared near the Cherkasy town. A defensive and offensive alliance was concluded between the Kalmyks and the Cossacks, according to which 1000 Kalmyks opposed the Crimeans. From that time on, agreements were concluded between them and oaths were taken about faithful service to Russia.
In 1696, Ayuka Khan sent up to three thousand tents (about ten thousand people) to the Don near Azov to guard the border line and fight the Azov people. These Kalmyks did not return back to the Kalmyk Khanate; they remained on the Don, near Cherkassk. Some of them accepted the Orthodox faith. 
In 1710, Ayuka Khan sent an additional ten thousand Kalmyks to the Don, led by the Torgout owner Chimet and the Derbet owner Four, to guard the southern borders from Kuban raids. 
Cornet of the Life Guards Cossack Regiment Ochir-Garya Sharapov, 1861
In 1723, Peter I ordered all Kalmyks wandering along the Don to remain in the Cossack class and no more representatives of this nation to be accepted into these lands. Thus, in 1731, the Kalmyks who crossed to the Don became part of the population of the Don Army and were subordinated to the Directorate of Military Cossacks. In 1745, the entire populated Western steppe was given over to the Kalmyks, who were assigned to the Don Army, as nomads. On these lands, three Kalmyk uluses with farmsteads and population were formed: Upper, Middle and Lower. 
Cornet Toki Dakuginov. 1912 Stanitsa Platovskaya
In 1856, in the Kalmyk district there were 13 villages, in which 20,635 people lived (10,098 men, 10,537 women). There were 31,455 horses, 63,766 cattle and 62,297 sheep. 
Cornet Toki Dakuginov. Stanitsa Platovskaya
In 1862, stanitsa administration was introduced for the Don Kalmyks, subordinate to the Don Army. According to the administrative structure, the Kalmyk nomad community was divided into three uluses, and 13 hundreds were transformed into villages. 
In 1891, according to the regulations, the land share per man was 15 dessiatines, the rest of the lands belonged to the village society, which, when a Kalmyk Cossack was called up for military service, provided him with a horse, weapons and clothing. From September 1, 1891, the Don Kalmyks legal terms were equated with the Don Cossacks and began to build civil relations following the model of the Don Cossacks. At the same time, the previous hundreds were renamed into villages: Batlaevskaya, Burulskaya, Vlasovskaya, Denisovskaya, Grabbevskaya, Kuteynikovskaya, Novo-Alekseevskaya, Potapovskaya, Platovskaya, Erketinskaya, Chonusovskaya and farmsteads: Baldyrsky, Atamansky, Kamensky, Potapovsky and Elmutyansky. 
Astrakhan Governor I.N. Sokolovsky with the Kalmyk nobility. 1909
In 1898, the Don Kalmyks had a district school and seven stanitsa elementary schools. According to data for 1913, 30,178 people lived in the territory of the Salsky district, excluding those working in other districts and stud farms. There were 13 villages and 19 Kalmyk farms in the district. After the end of the Civil War in 1920, only 10,750 Kalmyks lived here, i.e. the population decreased three times. Such a sharp reduction in the number of Kalmyks living on the Don for the period from 1897 to 1920 (over 23 years) is explained by the losses of Kalmyk Cossacks on the battlefields of the Russian-Japanese (1904-1905), World War I (1914-1920) gg.) and Civil (1918-1920) wars. 
Podesaul Tseren Dzhivinov is a full Knight of St. George. The Cossack hundred under his command captured 800 Austrians during the First World War.
Cossack of the Potapovskaya village of the All-Great Don Army Badma Martushkin
Colonel Bator Mangatov, commander of the 19th Don Cossack Regiment.
Colonel, Prince Danzan Tundutov-Dondukov, ataman of the Astrakhan Cossack army.
White officers Volunteer Army: Colonel Gabriel Tepkin, Ulanov, Prince Tundutov.
Cossacks of the 80th Dzungarian Regiment near Rostov. 1918
Naran Ulanov. Novo-Alekseevskaya village. Don Army Region
Imkenov??
Ataman of the Don Cossacks, General Bagaevsky inspects the Kalmyk khurul on the Don destroyed by the Bolsheviks. 1918
Cossack Mushka Kutinov 
Don Kalmyks. 1922 
Ataman of the Don Cossacks, General Bagaevsky at an audience with the lama of the Don Kalmyks. 1918
Ataman of the Don Cossacks, General Bagaevsky, on the threshold of the Kalmyk khurul. 1918
Don Cossacks and Kalmyks go ashore. The beginning of emigration. Lemnos Island. Greece
In Turkey with the British Army. 1921 D. Ulanov
Camp Kabakja. Türkiye. 1921
In exile. 
Sanzha Baldanov (left), Sanzha Targirov (right) In exile.
Constantinople. Türkiye. Russian white emigrants.
Don Kalmyks in exile. Türkiye. The photo was presumably taken in 1921-1923.
White Army officers in Gallipoli. Türkiye
Evacuated Don Kalmyks and their descendants 35 years later, in DP Dom, New Jersey, USA
After the end of the Civil War, in connection with the formation of the Kalmyk Autonomous Region within the RSFSR, work began on the resettlement of the remaining Kalmyks from the Don Region to the territory of the Kalmyk Autonomous Okrug. It was planned to resettle 13 thousand people to Bolshe-Derbetovsky ulus (now Gorodovikovsky district). As of January 1, 1925, 8,451 people resettled from 13 villages of the Don region.
The chairman of the Bolshe-Derbetovsky ulus executive committee, Harti Badievich Kanukov, in his report “On the resettlement of the Don Kalmyks as of January 1, 1926,” noted that in three years 15,171 people resettled from all 13 villages of the Salsky district.
On April 29, 1929, the presidium of the North Caucasus Regional Committee adopted a decision “On the creation of an independent Kalmyk region as part of the Salsky district.” According to information as of April 1, 1932, in the Kalmyk region there were 11 village councils and 23 collective farms with a population of 12 thousand people, including 5 thousand Kalmyks. The district administrative center was located in the village of Kuteynikovskaya, which existed from November 6, 1929 until the date of deportation of the Kalmyk people to Siberia.
After returning from exile, natives of the Kalmyk district of the Rostov region in Kuteynikovskaya built a monument to fellow countrymen who died during the Great Patriotic War. The embedded capsule contains the names of more than 800 Kalmyk soldiers, natives of the Rostov region, who died for the honor and independence of our Motherland.
Who are the Don Cossacks?
The Don Cossack Army was located on the territory of the Don Army Region (modern Rostov, parts of the Volgograd, Lugansk, Voronezh regions and the Republic of Kalmykia).
Most modern Russian historians consider the Don Cossacks to be an ethnosocial community that had a dual nature. On the one hand, it was a subethnic group in relation to the Great Russian ethnic group, on the other hand, it was a military service class, which was recorded in “ Full meeting laws of the Russian Empire."
At different times, the tribes of the Meotians, Scythians, and Sarmatians lived in the Don steppes. At the mouth of the Don in the 4th-3rd centuries. BC. there was a Greek colony of Tanais (on the site of modern Azov), and in the 1st-3rd centuries. AD—two Meoto-Scythian settlements mentioned by Ptolemy under the names Panardis and Patarva. At the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. in the area of the lower reaches of the Don the Huns and Bulgarians roamed; after their departure, settlements of the Eastern Slavs (acts) arose on the Don. In the 7th-9th centuries. The Lower and Middle Don were under the rule of the Khazars, who later created their own state here - the Khazar Khaganate, which in 954 was defeated by the Kyiv prince Svyatoslav Igorevich. In the 10th-12th centuries. on the site of Azov there was a Slavic settlement (founded in 965 or 966), which was part of the ancient Russian Tmutarakan principality. I don’t rule out that Cossacks lived there, but no one knows for sure. In the 11th century The Polovtsians came to the lower reaches of the Don from the Volga region. In the 13th century The Great Trade Route to China passed through the mouth of the Don, and in the same century the Lower Don region came under the rule of the Mongol-Tatars (Golden Horde).
In 1265, the Sarai Christian diocese was established, which covered the population of the territory between the Volga and the Dnieper, not paying attention to any yoke. That is, we can assume that Christians were already there then, while the Don continued to function as a trade route. In 1354, along the banks of the Don, a division took place into the new Ryazan diocese (left bank) and the former Sarai diocese (right bank). It is also known that the Don Cossacks in 1380 presented Prince Dmitry Donskoy with an icon of the Mother of God on the eve of the Battle of Kulikovo. But they did not live sedentary lives. Historian V.N. Tatishchev believed that the Don Army was formed in 1520, and the Don historian I.F. Bykadorov - from 1520 to 1546. It was at this time that the Cossacks switched to a sedentary, permanent way of life, building the first “winter huts and yurts.” And forms its own statehood. If it were not for Ivan the Terrible, no one would doubt the existence of the Cossack nationality.
When were the Don Cossacks formed?
The lack of chronicle sources, both Russian and foreign, does not allow us to accurately determine the time of the birth of the Don Cossacks as an independent free paramilitary community with its own organization and its own characteristics. Some authors find the starting points of the history of the Don Cossacks even in the era of the Amazons.
But most are inclined to believe that the process of formation of the Cossacks on the Don took place in parallel with the process of Christianization of Kievan Rus. So, in 1265, i.e. Even during the reign of the Tatar-Mongols in Rus', the so-called Sarai Christian diocese was established, which covered the population huge territory between the Volga and the Dnieper, and therefore the Don region. It was along the banks of the Don that in 1354 the division took place into the new Ryazan diocese (left bank) and the former Sarai diocese (right bank). And already from 1360 there is a historical document - a message “to all Christians located within the Cherlenago Yar and on guard near Khopor and Don.”
Historian V.N. Tatishchev believed that the Don Army was formed in 1520, and the Don historian I.F. Bykadorov - from 1520 to 1546. It was at this time that the Cossacks switched to a sedentary, permanent way of life, building the first “winter huts and yurts,” i.e. e. settlements in which it was possible to spend the winter in the “Wild Field,” as the remote, sparsely populated Don steppes were then called.
Naturally, dugouts and huts eventually gave way to fenced settlements, i.e. towns, around which there was a sharp palisade, holding back sudden attacks by nomads or robbers. Later, such places began to be called “stanitsa”, from the word “stan”, a parking lot.
The Nogai prince Yusuf wrote about the first Cossack towns in 1549 to the Moscow Tsar Ivan the Terrible in his complaint about the robbery of the Don Cossacks led by Ataman Sary-Azman. The Cossacks at this time practically did not recognize anyone’s authority over themselves and fought with the Tatars on the one hand and the Turks on the other. In 1552, in the person of Ermak and his squad, the Cossacks participated in the conquest of the Kazan kingdom by Ivan the Terrible, and later the Siberian kingdom.
“The first official written source that has survived to this day is a letter from Tsar Ivan the Terrible dated January 3, 1570, that Ataman Mikhail Cherkashenin and the Don Cossacks listen to the Tsar’s ambassador Novosiltsev, traveling to Tsar-Grad through the Don and Azov, and “thereby You served us... and we want to reward you for your service.” It is this royal document that is considered the day of the official formation of the Don Army.
Since that time, the Don Cossacks have constantly interacted with the tsarist authorities and Orthodox Church in Moscow in the defense of the southern borders of Rus' as our only begotten in language, faith and way of life” By the way, about the word “ataman”. It was not always written with an “a”: “...they turned all of Little Rus' into Cossacks, having elected a hetman or an Otoman, all the Circassians were called...”.
Is it a coincidence that the name of the creator of the Ottoman Empire and the Cossack
rank: “...Otoman was already the Sultan of the Turks...”?
Raising a Cossack
Each newborn Cossack or Cossack woman, in addition to his blood father and mother, had a godfather and godmother. The blood parents took care of the choice of godparents in advance. It didn't have to be a relative. The godfather was selected by the father - he must be a reliable person (kunak, one-sum, brother-in-law, etc.) from whom there was something to learn. It was he who primarily shaped the spirit of the Cossack. And an important factor, both the godfather and godmother must be able to participate in raising the child - live not far from the godson (goddaughter).
After the christening, a checker (dagger) or a bullet (formerly an arrow) was placed on the Cossack girl, which is called “on the tooth.” And they watched his reaction: if he starts playing with her, he will be a kind Cossack, but if he bursts into tears, there is something to think about.
In general, such “fortune telling” was carried out throughout the entire period of training and education of the Cossack. Nowadays these would be called “tests”. Therefore, among the Cossacks it was customary to do this: first, the Cossack girl was placed in certain conditions, then they looked at his reaction, identified his shortcomings and advantages, and only then began to correct him and develop the necessary skills and qualities.
With this approach, both the speed of thinking and an adequate reaction to a suddenly changed situation and the emergence of something new were developed. All this was constantly accelerating in time.
When the Cossack girl turned one year old, he was led to his first communion. This year the Cossack boy experienced many things for the first time. For the first time, he was put on a horse alone, his father’s sword was put on him, his father took the horse by the bridle and led him around the yard.
The first steps in training and education were taken in the family. The entire system, if you can call it that, was built precisely on the tribal and comradely principles of existence.
The entire process of development of the Cossack was built in a spiral. Each turn in it is a closed cycle, and it occupied a certain age period.
The next circle began with the same thing, but at a new qualitative level.
Each of these levels included physical, intellectual and moral (spiritual) development.
Depending on the age, one of these categories was dominant, and the others were, as it were, accompanying.
I know that physical development was basic from the age of 8 years (in some families from 7 years) to 12 years.
(Modern children probably need to add a couple of years. Compare: 200 years ago, a Cossack began military campaigns at the age of 16, but now young men and by the age of 20, not all are ready for trials).
Until the age of 7-8 years, the Cossack boy lived in the female half of the kuren.
At this moment, education came from both the female part of the family and the male part. It was mainly based on visibility. And the main thing here is personal example elders and immersion of the boy in the appropriate environment.
And what exactly did the Cossack habitat include for a Cossack girl? On the wall in the kuren is my father's (or grandfather's) saber. Whips are at the door and in the hands of the Cossacks. Stripes, hats, caps on people close to the boy. Crosses and medals on the chest of a grandfather, father, uncle or godfather. Horses. Horses are everywhere, at home, on the street, with neighbors, in the steppe outside the village...
And the elders’ answers to them: a stripe is a symbol of a Cossack, a saber is our Cossack weapon and a symbol of the Cossack will, a horse is a friend and comrade of a Cossack, crosses and medals are a distinction for participation and exploits in military campaigns.
And also bedtime stories about how Cossacks defeat witches and utter monsters, and how they come out of this or that situation with honor.
And also the songs that Cossacks and Cossacks constantly sing. About the glory of the Cossacks, past campaigns, battles and heroes.
And also proverbs and sayings from the lips of elders. Village holidays, where Cossacks and Cossack women sing and dance - who is better. Competitions in fists, shooting, horse racing and horse riding, fencing.
All this is before the eyes of the little Cossack boy. All this forms in him involvement in this particular group of people. TO THEIR OWN.
During this period, men watched how the Cossack woman was formed. Women were less and less allowed to coo with him: “Don’t spoil the Cossack, women!” If I hurt myself somewhere and cried, they taught me: “Don’t cry, you’re a Cossack, and a Cossack doesn’t cry!”
And then the Cossack girl gradually developed the conviction that what the elders sing about and what the elders say, that’s what they do, and commit the same actions. And it's all real. And he himself will do the same.
Well, and, on top of everything else, playing outside with peers. The games have been established for centuries, and are naturally aimed at the development of Cossacks. Almost all of them took place under the supervision of village (farm) elders, who strictly monitored the behavior of each of the Cossack children. And in the event that someone behaved unworthily, the old people inspiredly instructed and corrected the negligent person.
From the age of 8, the Cossack girl was moved to the male half of the kuren. At this time, the ceremony was again held in the tract. From that time on, the Cossack learned to wield a whip.
In general, the whip is a very symbolic item for the Cossacks and very ancient. The legend of Yegor the Brave and even more ancient legends about snake fighters are connected with it. By the way, the Cossacks had never sorted things out with each other using their fists before. They say they were afraid to kill each other. But they often attacked each other with whips in the heat of argument.
From that time on, the Cossack woman began to be invited to “conversations.”
The main point in raising a Cossack during this period was the following: to teach him to cope with his own fear in all its manifestations. And, observing the reaction of the Cossack girl, the elders said: “Don’t be afraid, the Cossack is not afraid of anything!”, “Be patient, Cossack, you will be an ataman!”
There were many exercise games for the development of Cossacks. Exercises are naturally not in the form in which we understand them. These are more like test exercises. They identified the presence of one or another quality or skill among Cossacks. And the Cossacks did these test games, competing with each other (playing). And the Cossacks played these games almost their entire lives.
At the age of 12, the process of physical learning was basically completed. Precisely training, but not development. From the age of 12, a Cossack girl was taught to use military weapons - a saber (dagger).
I’ll tell you about Spas (the Cossack survival system) in the words of one of the Cossacks.
Cossacks are a tribal people firm rules behavior, both in the family and in society.
The beginning of the Cossack child’s entry into Spas began with his baptism. At this moment, his spiritual parents appeared - his godfather and godmother!
As he grew older, Spas's tasks became more complicated, but the main direction of the upbringing of a young Cossack or Cossack woman was not physical, but spiritual. Only through the concept of spirituality did young Cossacks return to physical development again and again. Without prayer and the concepts of God, the life of the Cossacks, both before and now, was not possible.
In Spas itself there are no techniques as such, and there are no weight categories.
Proverb - “The Cossack is not the one who won, but the one who turned out - was saved!”
Exactly I was saved!..
That is, “Spas”.
In Spas, when a person is already ready for the first level, there are only two fundamental actions combined into one:
1) very fast thinking to make the only correct decision;
2) very quick action to carry out the only correct decision, sometimes not even noticeable to the enemy.
Upon reaching the second and third levels of Spas, the young Cossack develops intuition. This sixth sense of a warrior is practically the most important thing. It helps the Cossack man both in worldly battle and in spiritual battle. He always distinguishes a scoundrel from an honest person. The real fight is always fleeting, but the preparation for it is long. A prepared person wins it even before the fight!..
The first thing that is necessary in educating the non-Cossack younger generation is to develop the ability to manage their own fear. A person cannot overcome fear, since it is necessary to preserve his life. But fear can be controlled.
The main criterion for a person involved in Spas is morality. At first this is not felt, but as the speed of thinking increases, this criterion is not easily felt. He begins to be present first in every training session, and then in a person’s life itself. A person begins to understand that he is a driven being in this system of the universe. That without dialogue with God he will not be able to enter other levels of the Savior if his moral image is low. Anyone who tries to use cunning here quickly becomes convinced of these warnings. These people begin to acquire, first minor, and then more and more serious injuries. Up to muscle rupture.
Some, having understood what is happening, begin a different life, where the Savior becomes one of the indicators of correct behavior. Others simply stop studying Spas. It becomes clear to them which side they are on.
About the role of the father and the role of the godfather in education.
From the age of 8, the main role belonged to the godfather. It was he who, by and large, taught the boy Cossack science. But the blood father was, as it were, the leader of this process. The godfather and bloodfather seemed to complement each other. The father could have been too soft towards his son. The godfather could be too harsh. Therefore, the father stopped the godfather when things could take a dangerous turn, and the godfather did not allow the father to feel sorry for his son.
An example of the process of learning to see a flying bullet:
It is carried out at the bend of the river, the shooter (godfather) is 80-100 steps from the Cossack with his son,
There is a target 10-15 steps away from those watching the shot,
At the father’s signal, the godfather fires a shot at the target, the Cossack boy must notice the flying bullet.
From 12 to 16 years old is another cycle in the upbringing of a Cossack. And again, it began and ended with rituals in the tract.
From the age of 12, Cossack girls began to be taken to circles (gatherings) and other socially significant events. Its main task is to watch and remember.
And at the age of 16, when the Cossack was ready, a more serious test awaited him - mainly it was a hunt for a predator (wolf, wild boar, etc.).
And after such upbringing and training, the result was a “seasoned Cossack”. True, there is one clarification: the “seasoned” Cossack appeared in the third generation. Naturally, if the first and second generations were carefully prepared and survived battles and battles.
And what such a Cossack could be like can be better described artistically:
“...The Austrians came out of the forest into the loose. About thirty people. The rifles are overweight. An officer with a drawn broadsword on horseback. In the clearing there is knee-deep grass, beginning to turn yellow from the sultry August sun. The Austrians moved fifty steps away from the edge of the forest.
Suddenly something incomprehensible happened. Something unusual, black and green in color, flew out from under the horse, knocked the officer out of the saddle, spun like a top over the fallen man, glinting either fangs or teeth, and crashed into the midst of the petrified soldiers. It was impossible to make out what it was, because this something was constantly moving and spinning like a loach in unimaginable planes.
The Austrians on the edge began to come to their senses and prepare to shoot, forgetting that this would not save their comrades, since the spinning mass was in the very center of the unit, leaving behind the broken and bloodied bodies of Austrian soldiers.
But suddenly another unclear silhouette rushed from the left flank. He rushed in front of those preparing to shoot so quickly that no one could catch his outline. And in general I couldn’t see anything else in this life, because the silhouette moved roaringly and snarling with fire.
Four soldiers were the luckiest. They, driven by their fear, dropped their rifles in time and now watched scary picture: in the center, a dozen and a half people were lying side by side, as if after a tornado, with terrible stab wounds; another seven people lay lifeless on the side of the forest with gunshot wounds; and on the sides of the surviving four, two froze - the reason for everything that happened. Both were dressed in low black lambskin hats with a protective top, tunics and trousers of the same color, and boots the soldiers had never seen before with a woolen foot and a boot made of thin leather. One had two long daggers in his hands, the other had two revolvers.
And the faces of these unknown people... Their eyes - both of them bulging - did not express either anger or hatred. The soldiers read only one thing in them - that death had come, led by the Almighty himself.
After all this, probably no one could have found more obedient prisoners of war than these four on the entire Russian-German front...”
Of course, such upbringing was not in all Cossack families, and I suspect that by 1914 there were very few families where all this lived. But the older the family was, the more thorough and extensive the upbringing was. And the Cossacks themselves did not always go into the essence of this process - as they themselves were taught, so they teach. Ancestors bequeathed!
That's about all I can say on this issue. I tried to describe the general outline of a Cossack’s upbringing. The rest, as they say, is nuances. Anyone who has anything to add would be very welcome. Because the time has come to restore our Cossack culture bit by bit. And the first thing is to restore the culture of raising Cossacks. Because they are the future of the Cossacks. And what we put into them will come out later.
As one old Cossack said, “There are never too many Cossacks, but there are never enough!”
Cossacks living on the territory of the Republic of Kalmykia, being an integral part of the Russian Cossacks, having a common historical destiny with the Cossacks of other subjects of the Russian Federation, at the same time have a number of specific features. The history of the Kalmyk Cossacks is great.
Early archival documents indicate that the Kalmyks appeared on the Don at the request of the Don Cossacks to jointly fight the Crimeans.
So in 1642, the Don Cossacks turned to their neighbors, the Kalmyks, with a proposal to jointly fight the Crimeans for the capture of Azov.
In 1669, Ayuka Khan sent up to three thousand tents to the Don near Azov to guard the border line and fight the Azov people. Having knocked out the Turks from Azov along with the Cossacks, these Kalmyks did not return and remained nomadic near Cherkassk.
In 1710, at the request of Peter 1, Ayuka Khan sent 10 thousand Kalmyks to the Don, led by the Torgut owner Chimet and the Derbet owner Four, to guard the southern borders from Kuban raids.
In 1731, the Kalmyks who crossed to the Don became part of the population of the Don Army and were subordinated to the Directorate of Military Cossacks.
In 1771, the Don Kalmyks did not take part in the departure of the Kalmyks from the Volga to Dzungaria.
From September 1, 1862, the Don Kalmyks were legally equal to the Don Cossacks. At the same time, the former hundreds were renamed into the villages: Batlaevskaya, Burulskaya, Vlasovskaya, Denisovskaya, Grabbevskaya, Kuteynikovskaya, Novo-Alekseevskaya, Potapovskaya, Platovskaya, Erketinskaya, Chonosovskaya and farmsteads: Baldyrsky, Atamansky, Kamensky, Potapovsky, Elmutyansky.
The Kalmyk Cossacks of the Astrakhan, Don, Zaporozhye, Terek, Kuban, Orenburg, and Ural troops covered themselves with unfading glory, defending and expanding the borders of the Russian state. Over a centuries-old history, confirmed by written sources, the brotherhood of Russian and Kalmyk Cossacks, proven in battles and campaigns, formed their unique culture. Respectful attitude towards each other's religions created a special cultural and ethnic community - the Kalmyk Cossacks. On October 12, 1951, more than 60 years ago, in the poem “Pokrov”, the “singer of the Don Cossacks” - Nikolai Nikolaevich Turoverov, wrote to his friend Badma Naranovich Ulanov:
We have a verb: to Cossack,
What does it mean: never change
And the secret music of Cossack rivers,
And the songs of the winds above us
We are baptized from century to century,
Year after year we are born as relatives!
The Kalmyk Cossacks never knew serfdom. Hence their first and main advantage: a sense of inner freedom. At the same time, an organic feature of the Cossack has always been his inherent commitment to order, conditioned high level organization of Cossack formations. The harmonious combination of these two principles made the Cossacks the most faithful support and reliable stronghold of Russian statehood.
The main function and most important sphere of activity of the Kalmyk Cossacks for centuries was military public service. It was she who largely determined their cultural identity.
But due to the historical events of the 20th century: the civil war, forced emigration, subsequent repressions and terror in connection with the “liquidation of the Cossacks as a class,” deportation to Siberia, 13 years of exile, the Kalmyk Cossacks came to the brink of extinction.
This can be confirmed by statistical chronology:
In 1897, according to the All-Russian Census of the Russian Empire, 32,283 Kalmyks of both sexes lived on the Don.
According to the 1920 census, only 10,750 Kalmyks lived on the Don, that is, the population decreased three times.
In 1922-1925, in connection with the formation of the Kalmyk Autonomous Region as part of the RSFSR, 15,171 people moved from all the villages of the district in three years.
On November 29, 1929, by the Resolution of the North Caucasus Regional Committee, the Kalmyk National District was formed as part of the Salsky District with its center in the village of Zimovniki. On April 1, 1932, 5,000 people of Kalmyk nationality lived in the area.
After returning from Siberia, the Cossacks - Kalmyks, natives of the Kalmyk district of the Rostov region moved to the KASSR to revive their restored Republic.
Currently, the identity of the Cossacks is subject to destructive influence general processes globalization, unfavorable socio-economic living conditions and needs new methods for the preservation and development of our ethnic group.
Peculiarity The Republic of Kalmykia as a region of historical residence of the Cossacks is that the lands of residence of the Kalmyk Cossacks in the modern period are located in enclaves in the regions of the republic and in the city of Elista. As a result of migration processes, significant changes occur in the character of the descendants of the Cossacks on the territory of the Republic of Kalmykia. On the one hand, due to the departure of our respected elders to another world, their children are losing their roots, on the other hand, Cossack youth, settling outside their historical territories of residence, are not interested in and forget their culture and traditions.
In November 1989, the 1st round of Cossacks of the Republic of Kalmykia took place in the Republic of Kalmykia. It elected the first ataman of the revived Kalmyk Cossacks, Dzhengurov Maxim Gabunovitch, Board of the Cossacks of Kalmykia. This year is considered the year of the beginning of the revival of the Cossacks in the Republic of Kalmykia.
A significant step was taken in 1994. Decree of the President of the Republic of Kalmykia dated June 6, 1994 No. 107 was organized State Committee for Cossack Affairs and approved temporary Regulations on the State Committee.
Since 1998, the activities of the State Committee have been regulated by the Regulationson the State Committee for Cossack Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan, approved by decree of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstandated April 21, 1998 No. 74.
The State Committee was the executive body of state powerRepublic of Kalmykia.
The main functions of the State Committee were:
- development of a unified state policy for the revival, formation anddevelopment of the Cossacks on the territory of the republic, its traditional formsself-government, based on historical traditions and modernthe needs of the state and the creation of conditions for its implementation;
- coordination of activities created and created in the territoryrepublics of Cossack communities included in the structural divisions ofCossack army of Kalmykia, to prepare and recruit their members topublic service and their inclusion in the state register, coordination of this activities;
- development and implementation of state support programs Cossacks.
A lot of good and positive things were done for the revival of the Cossacks by the Cossacks of Kalmykia: atamans Khakhulov, Shovunov, Aninov, Cossacks Sarginov, Baduginov, Dzhelachinov, Kuvakov, Namsinov, Burkhinov, Logachev and many others who are no longer among us, but their names will be inscribed in golden letters. the history of the revival of the Kalmyk Cossacks.
But due to the irrational and sometimes criminal decisions of some leaders of the Cossack Army of Kalmykia, Decree of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated January 10, 2003 No. 15 “On issuesexecutive power of the Republic of Kalmykia" State Committee forCossacks of the Republic of Kazakhstan was abolished.
In 2007, by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation,Based on the decision of the Great Circle of Cossacks in 2006, the Cossack societies of the Republic of Kalmykia, in order to build a vertical line of Cossack troops, became part of the military Cossack society “The Great Don Army”.
On July 2, 2008, the President of the Russian Federation D. Medvedev adopted a new “Concept of state policy of the Russian Federation regarding the Russian Cossacks”, No. 1355. The main goal of the concept is to actively involve the Russian Cossacks in state and municipal service. To implement it, a Council under the President of the Russian Federation for Cossack Affairs was created, which is today headed by the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for the Central Federal District - Alexander Dmitrievich Beglov.
The Kalmyk Cossack District sees the implementation of this concept today in the implementation of the following primary tasks:
1. develop short-term and long-term regional socially significant target programs for the development of the Cossacks;
2. create a legislative framework regarding the activities of Cossack societies in the Republic of Kalmykia;
3. organize methodological and information mechanisms for attracting Cossacks to public and other services;
4. consolidate the population (youth) in rural areas, by combining into Cossack peasant farms and personal subsidiary plots with the provision of agricultural land plots for cultivation on preferential terms;
5. enter Cossack societies into republican, federal and other targeted programs and grants;
6. to involve Cossack societies in the military-patriotic education of children and adolescents, including the creation of conditions for active interaction with pre-conscription youth in order to prepare them for military service;
7. make every effort to organize the Presidential Cossack Cadet Corps with federal funding on the basis of the State Primary Educational Institution vocational education named after B.B. Gorodovikov, as well as continue to create Cossack classes with a regional ethnocultural component in educational institutions Republic of Kalmykia;
8. save the original ethno-culture of the Cossacks of Kalmykia;
9. popularize the historical, cultural and spiritual traditions of the Cossacks.
FEAT OF A COUNSELOR
Both Austro-German and Hungarian hussars and dragoons tried to avoid direct meetings with the Cossack cavalry, which made up a quarter of the Russian cavalry in the First World War. The Cossacks were superior to them both in horsemanship and in the use of bladed weapons. Once, a Cossack patrol led by centurion Nikolai Mangatov destroyed a German unit that was three times larger in number. “The Germans don’t have Cossacks, and they never will,” Mangatov told his Cossacks after the battle. - People are born Cossacks, only here in Russia. That’s how Burgudukov is the Knight of St. George...”
This year, 2012, the first holder of two St. George Crosses of the 3rd and 4th degree of the First World War, a Kalmyk Cossack from the village of Kuteynikovskaya (Kevyudovskaya) of the Salsky district of the Don Army region, Sereda Burgudukov, turns 124 years old. The award, according to Volgograd local historian E. Makatsky, was awarded for saving the life of the regiment commander on August 24, 1914 in a battle in East Prussia near the town of Franpolen. And on June 3, 1915, despite heavy rifle and machine-gun fire, he carried the wounded cornet Filimonov from the field, “thus preventing his capture.” For this feat, Burgudukov, by order of the commander of the 5th Army, was awarded another St. George Cross, now of the 3rd degree.
Sereda Namsynovich Burgudukov's niece Zinaida Badminovna Astralinova had heard a lot about her heroic uncle from her aunt. “He was born in 1888, lost his father early and was forced to leave the Don in search of income,” she says. - I got hired as a herd keeper and learned to speak Russian well. And like all Zadonsk Kalmyk herdsmen, he perfectly mastered the art of throwing a lasso, taming neuks (untrained horses), and horseback riding. At the end of 1910, he went into active military service and, having completed a course at the regimental school, was assigned to the 6th separate Cossack hundred, stationed in the city of Bogorodsk, Moscow province. The only Asian in a hundred, you understand, could not help but attract the attention of the residents of this town. He tirelessly told everyone who mistook him for a Chinese that he was a native of the Salsky steppes, in the Don region. “Maybe you heard that there is such a people - Kalmyks, of the Buddhist faith,” he said. - Well, I’m baptized. The so-called “Zadon Kalmyk”. If not for the civil war, he would have lived... The Cossacks elected him in 1917 as chairman of the regimental committee, then as regimental commissar. “Having returned from the front as a convinced supporter of the socialists, my uncle took part in the establishment of Soviet power in the village of Kuteynikovskaya,” Zinaida Badminovna continues to say. - At the end of February 1918, a group of Cossacks from General Popov’s detachment burst into the village. The Kuteynikovites took out their weapons, mounted their horses and said: “The Reds and I are not on the same path. We don’t want a commune, shared houses.” Soon the bound commissar, my uncle, was brought to Perfilov, the group commander. They shot him beyond the Kuberle (Kevrlya) river on the territory of the village of Ilovaiskaya (Zungarskaya).
Photo 1. Sergeant of the 19th Don Cossack Regiment Sereda Namysovich Burgudukov. Art. Kuteynikovskaya
Photo 2. Don Cossack, Kalmyk Sarang Remilev and Terek Cossack Mikhail Barantsev 1930s, (Belgium)
Indeed, the revolution of 1917 and the civil war that followed were tragic events in the fate of several million Russians who called themselves Cossacks. A number of villages refused on principle to participate in what was happening and, as was stated in the order to the delegates of the military circle, “until the matter of the civil war is clarified, remain neutral.” However, the Cossacks still failed to remain neutral and not interfere in the civil war that had begun in the country. The opposing forces at that time could not forget about the Cossacks. Thousands and tens of thousands of armed, military-trained people represented a force that was impossible not to take into account. The intense confrontation between the “reds” and the “whites” eventually reached the Cossack regions, primarily in the South and the Urals. By force of circumstances, the Cossacks were doomed to participate in a fratricidal war. It is generally accepted that the destruction of the Cossacks began from the moment when the Bolsheviks managed to organize a split within the class: the previously united Cossacks were divided into “us” and “strangers”.
The period from 1917 to 1930 was truly tragic for the Kalmyk Cossacks; about thirty thousand of them perished during this period of liquidation of the Cossacks. Remembering Sereda Burgudukov, the first Kalmyk Cossack, who was awarded such a high reward like the St. George Cross, we did not set out to set political accents. For us, his descendants, something else is important: that the Cossacks of the Kalmyk Cossack district, the inhabitants of the Republic of Kalmykia, always carefully preserve the memory of warriors of all generations and never divide them according to political and other views, only in unity is our strength.
Held annually since September 18, 2009, with the assistance of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the festival of Cossack culture “In a United Family” has become traditional in the Republic of Kalmykia. The main objectives of the festival are:
Revival of Kalmyk national culture;
Patriotic education of the individual and the development of his self-awareness;
Strengthening solidarity, friendship and unity of cultures of nations and nationalities of the Russian Federation.
The preservation and revival of the Kalmyk Cossack national musical culture is urgent task, closely interconnected with the formation of interethnic self-awareness, spiritual development and mutual respect of the peoples of the Russian Federation.
At the II Republican Festival of Cossack Culture “In a United Family,” which took place on December 12, 2010, the solemn consecration of the banner of the Kalmyk Cossack district of the East Kazakhstan region “All Great Don Army” took place by Archbishop of Elista and Kalmyk Bishop Zosima and Kalmyk Buddhist lamas.
By order of the Kalmyk Cossack District, the banner was made in Moscow at World Class Flags CJSC with the help and assistance of the deputy general director, hereditary Cossack, our fellow countryman Sarmutkin Vyacheslav Valerievich.
On the reverse side of the banner of the Kalmyk Cossack District in accordance withDecree of the President of the Russian Federation of February 9, 2010 N 168 "On the establishment of coats of arms and banners of military Cossack societies included in the state register of Cossack societies in the Russian Federation" The coat of arms of the military Cossack society “The Great Don Army” is embroidered.
On the front side, the color background repeats the tricolor of the historical flag of the Great Don Army.Paragraph No. 46 of the Basic Laws of the All-Great Don Army, adopted by the Great Military Circle on September 15, 1918, was approved: “The Don flag consists of three longitudinal stripes of equal width: blue, yellow and scarlet, meaning the national colors of the three nationalities living on the Don land since ancient times: the Don Cossacks, Kalmyks and Russian peasants".
Therefore, on the yellow stripe, which symbolizes the Kalmyks, we restored the image of the god of war Daichi-Tengri - patron of the Mongols in battle and granting them victory.
In 1998 designer Josephine Boule(Moscow) reconstructed and donated the banner Daichi-Tengri according to the author's description G.N. Prozriteleva in the book “The Military Past of Our Kalmyks” (Stavropol, 1912), which is now kept in the local history museum named after. Palmova in Elista.
G.N. Seer wrote in his book that this relic is kept in the Khosheutovsky khurul, at the beginning XVII centuries, Kalmyks came to Russia under this banner, and with it they participated in all wars as part of Russian army. 2nd Kalmyk Regiment under the command of Serebdzhab Tyumen went on a campaign under the ancient Kalmyk military banner with the image of the god of war Daichi-Tengri. It was made of fawn-colored silk, measuring 1.5 arshins in length and 2 arshins in width. The edges and middle of the banner were decorated with a red silk ribbon 10 cm wide. The god of war was depicted in the middle of the banner Daichi-Tengri, patron of warriors in battle and granting them victories, riding a galloping horse. His face is calm and impassive, as he knows that victory is already predetermined and he will win. In the rider's left hand was an unfurled banner, signifying the sign of the Victorious. The animals and birds around symbolized his power, strength and power in heaven and earth. The red branches at the horse's head and legs symbolized fast, fiery running, and the whip in the rider's right hand showed the horse's path. During the Patriotic War of 1812 and the foreign campaign of the Russian army in 1813-1814, this banner was pierced by grapeshot in six places. After the Great October Revolution, this banner was lost.
By making this banner, we want to restore the historical memory of the banner under which the Kalmyk people, for three hundred years, participated in the formation of statehood, preservation and expansion of the borders of the Russian Empire.
Dating back to 1670. In 1694, the status of Cossacks was extended to the Don Kalmyks, and lands were allocated in the Sal and Manych steppes. The mass arrival of Kalmyks to the Don occurred on a voluntary basis, which was rare for those centuries. The local military sergeant-major always willingly accepted into his service “... good horsemen, excellent in courage, always ready and zealous for service, and so necessary for the owners of shepherds and farriers, very useful to the army.”
In 1806, the Kalmyk Okrug was formed; previously it was called the Nomadic Territory of the Don Kalmyks. There were difficulties in the relations between the Kalmyks and the Don Cossacks, but there was much more connecting element than contradictions. Back in 1682, military ataman Frol Minaev wrote to Moscow, “that the Don Cossacks are now living in peace with the Kalmyks and there is no enthusiasm between them.”
The Cossacks realized that “the teachings of the Lamaites are alien to the preaching of hostility and hatred towards followers of other religions, and the Kalmyks themselves are a gentle people, alien to fanaticism and intolerance.” This allowed the Kalmyks to quickly, although not without conflicts and clashes, fit into the Cossack community. Buddhist ethics also contributed, calling for humility and non-resistance to evil, believing that evil in the soul and resentment multiply evil in the world.
Kalmyks and Don Cossacks were united by an innate sense of pride; they valued a worthy opinion of themselves and their family. A contemporary noted: “Kalmyks never beg, even when in extreme poverty.”
Everyday contacts, interest in efficient housekeeping, and the development of everyday and interfamily ties gradually eliminated former confrontations. An example is the adoption of Ivan Timofeevich Kolesov by the ataman of the village of Ilovlinovsky village of Atamanskaya. When a Kalmyk baby from a neighboring farm was left without parents, the ataman took him into his family, raised him, and gave him the name Nikolai Kolesov.
In connection with the transition to a sedentary lifestyle, the Kalmyks gave new names to farmsteads. Evidence of respect for religion was the appearance of the names of the farms - Khurulny (there were three such farms).
On the territory of the modern Dubovsky district of the Rostov region, the Cossack hundreds of Baldrskaya, Erketenevskaya and Chunusovskaya roamed. At first they had Khurul tents.
In Baldra Hundred, a khurul was founded in 1804.
In the yurt of the village of Potapovskaya there were five Kalmyk khuruls; in the village itself there was a Kalmyk temple, which bore the Tibetan name “Banchey-choylin”, and in common parlance was called “Baldir-khurul”.
Khurul st. Potapovskaya
Photo from the book: Bogachev V. Essays on the geography of the Great Don Army. Novocherkassk. 1919
The Erketenevsky temple was approved by the government for construction in 1842, and before this date the Erketenevsky people built a small idol, about two and a half fathoms in size, then a wooden khurul. The organizer of the construction of the new khurul was Baksha Dambo (Dombo-Dashi) Ulyanov. At the age of 13, he arrived in the village of Erketinskaya and entered the theological school at the khurul. Then he served in the khurul of the village of Vlasovskaya. In 1886, he became a full-time military gelyung of the Potapovskaya village, opened a school at the khurul, as well as a small hospital, where he treated using Tibetan medicine. In 1889-1891, in the area between the Don and Volga rivers, a cholera epidemic broke out, claiming the lives of entire settlements. D. Ulyanov healed people and achieved undoubted success. However, according to short-sighted officials, he treated illegally, for which he was tried, but acquitted due to the success of his treatment and according to the testimony of his patients.
The village of Potapovskaya was divided into two villages - Potapovskaya and Erketinskaya. D. Ulyanov made a trip to St. Petersburg, where he presented new project Erketinsky temple, the Emperor approved it. The khurul was built of brick, a stove, the walls and floor were lined with white tiles, and there were tiles on the walls with sketches of Buddhist symbols. It was not a separate temple, but a whole complex of buildings, which included a medical building, a school, a canteen, and the dwelling of the bakshi and gelyungs. IN medical room there were baths, carts were sent on long journeys, medicinal mud was carried on oxen, which was delivered from Manychesko-Gruzskaya sanitary station"Wagner" One of the buildings survived, now it is a residential building. And in the 60s of the 20th century, the Erketinovskaya elementary school was located here. The walls of the classrooms were tiled, the ceiling was stucco, and the stove was also covered with tiles.
Khuruly st. Erketinskaya, beginning of the 20th century.
Photo from the book. “Physical and statistical description of the nomads of the Don Kalmyks” / Comp. N. Maslakovets. Novocherkassk, 1872
D. Ulyanov was buried in the village of Erketinskaya. In the 70s, an irrigation canal was built, local residents of the village of Andreevskaya asked the Kalmyk leadership to transfer the ashes to Kalmykia.
The gelung of the khurul of the Erketenevskaya village was Lidzha Sarmadanovich Bakinov. At the end of the 20s, Gelyung hid from the authorities for a long time and came at night to his daughter-in-law, the widow of his younger brother, to buy food. He didn’t stay overnight, took his bag and left. Then he disappeared. Apparently, the servant of the khurul could not survive.
Gelyung of Erkenevsky khurul Lidzha Sarmadanovich Bakinov
Photo from the archive of N.Ts. Khudzhinova
In total, there were 14 khuruls on the Don with a staff of 653 clergy.
For the purpose of economic development, they were supported by the local authorities. The highest clergy (bakshi, gelyungs) were exempted from service, they were allocated land plots. In the village of Chunusovskaya, 200 dessiatines were given to the Khurul clergy. More than 30 persons belonging to the Kalmyk clergy rented out their shares.
The heads of the Don clergy were lamas. In 1896, the institution of lama was abolished, and Baksha-gelyung was considered the deputy supreme lama and the main clergyman. In the Kalmyk hundreds, three candidates were elected, one of them was nominated for this rank by the Nakazny Donskoy Ataman.
When the Kalmyks petitioned the Emperor for permission to receive the title of Lama, Army Ataman N.I. Svyatopolk-Mirsky summoned all the khurul bakshas to him, placed them in one line and shouted at them: “Do you want to have a religious head!? Your spiritual, religious head is the district commander! Only in 1903 did the Kalmyk people achieve the right to have a supreme spiritual head, the “Lama of all Don Cossacks.”
The Kalmyk Clergy was initially located in Ilyinskaya Sloboda, it was headed by the Bakshi of the Don Kalmyks D.G. Gonjinov, D. Mikulinov, A. Chubanov. In the villages, the Khuruls were headed by: in Erketinskaya Baksha B. Ushanov, Gelyung Bashinov Nurzun Lidzhievich (the Kalmyks more often called him Nurzun-Gelung), in Chunusovskaya N. Tsebekov and the senior Khurul Gelyung E. Khokhlov. Baksha khurul of the village of Chunusovskaya N. Tsebekov died in exile.
Gelyung of Erketenevsky khurul, participant of the reconnaissance expedition to Tibet in 1904. Badma Chubarovich Ushanov
Photo courtesy of A.A. Nazarov
A prominent representative of the clergy was M.B. Bormanzhinov. He was elected baksha of Denisovo khurul, and in 1903 Lama of all Don Kalmyks. Menko Bakerevich was a very educated man and a strong rural owner; he conducted business on a large scale in a separate winter hut; in addition to shared land, he rented a military plot of land and sown about 400 acres. He translated sacred Buddhist texts into Kalmyk language.
After the death of Lama Menko Bormanzhinov in March 1919, the duties of Bagshi Lama of the Don Kalmyks were performed by Shurguchi Nimgirov; he emigrated with units of the White Army to Turkey. Ordinary Gelyung monks were among the emigrants, some of them returned to Russia in the early 20s.
They tried to convert Kalmyks to the Orthodox faith and closed four khuruls, including Erketinsky. But the Kalmyks could not come to terms with this state of affairs and petitioned for the restoration of the temples. The Regional Office considered the issue and in 1897 the abolished khuruls were reopened.
The Buddhist and Orthodox faiths cooperated. In 1875, the Archbishop of Donskoy, Vladyka Platon, visited the settlement of Ilyinskaya. Near the Bolshoi Gashun River he was met by the assessor of the Kalmyk board P.O. Dudkin and the Kalmyk clergy.
However, relations between representatives of Orthodoxy and Buddhism were not so simple. The rivalry of trends in theology forced us to fight. At the beginning of the 20th century, Hieromonk Gury wrote: “Before, the Kalmyk clergy enjoyed enormous importance among the Kalmyks, every word of Gelyung had power. Nowadays there is a decline in reverence and respect for our clergy, thanks to their licentiousness and shameless exploitation of the dark people.”
He was echoed by another contemporary, a teacher at the Voronezh Seminary, Alexander Krylov: “You cannot expect a moral and intellectually civilizing influence on the people from the priests; because the priests constitute the highest caste of the people, so to speak, the aristocracy, which keeps the people at a respectful distance, and serves for them only as an example of idleness, drunkenness, vagrancy, etc., but not at all as an example of any virtues.”
These examples show the level of competition among ideological trends.
The Don Diocesan Committee of the Orthodox Missionary Society was created, designed to organize missionary activities among the Kalmyks. Baptized Kalmyks were given benefits from paying taxes. They began to build Orthodox churches in Kalmyk villages. To train missionaries, in 1880 a community-orphanage for Kalmyk children was opened in the bishop's house of the Ilyinki settlement. But there was no real progress; Orthodox churches and the shelter were soon closed.
Khuruls were the center for the education of the defenders of the state. The State Archive of the Rostov Region contains the “Case of placing memorial plaques in Buddhist temples to perpetuate the memory of Kalmyk military officials who died in the war with Japan.” The Department of Spiritual Affairs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs developed a sketch of the memorial plaque, text and language of signatures. The inscription “For Faith, Tsar and Fatherland” was written in the Kalmyk language, the names of the killed and deceased were in Russian. The boards were installed in all khuruls of the Kalmyk villages of the Salsky district.
During the Civil War and in the 1920s, all khuruls were destroyed. The Grabbevsky khurul burned down from machine-gun fire, the treasures of the temple were destroyed by fire. Servants - who was killed, who was evacuated abroad.
Upon the arrival of the Reds in the village of Potapovskaya, baksha khurula Sanji (Jimba) Shagashov and the Gelyung brothers Yakov and Namdzhal Burvinov were shot. In the 20s, after the departure of the Kalmyk population, Khurul was scrapped.
Khurul in the village of Vlasovskaya was burned by a local teacher.
The fate of Belyaevsky khurul was also tragic. The Whites killed the family of Abram Davydov, from the out-of-town Troilinsky farmstead. He burned the khurul. According to the recollections of old-timers, the Reds used this fire as a guide for firing artillery at the village of Belyaevskaya from the Ergeni hill.
In the 20s, the prayer part of the Erketi khurul burned down, but the healing part remained; in the 70s, the walls were still standing. Construction materials were used for the construction of a new school building in the village of Novonikolaevskaya.
In those same years, Chunusovsky khurul was dismantled for building materials.
Fate scattered the temple servants across different countries and cities. Baksha of the Grabbevskaya village, baksha of all the Don Kalmyks Zodba Buruldinov was buried in the USA, at the Cossack St. Vladimir cemetery in the town of Keesville, New Jersey. A.I. is buried there. Denikin, Terek Ataman K.K. Agoev, Marching Ataman, Major General P.Kh. Popov. Here is the grave of Colonel of the All-Great Don Army Leonty Konstantinovich Dronov.
Many years later, already at the beginning of the 21st century, A.A. came from Elista to the village of Erketinovskaya. Nazarov, a descendant of the Kalmyk Cossacks Zartynovs and Tsebekovs. In place of the khurul there are only ruins. Only here and there the remains of brickwork and the foundation of a Kalmyk temple are visible... Nearby there is a house that previously housed ministers; ceremonial dinners were held here on holidays.
The descendants of the Kalmyk Cossacks united into a community. We agreed to immortalize the place where the Erketenevsky khurul stood. In June 2013, the opening of a memorial sign took place in the village of Erketinovskaya. According to Kalmyk custom, the remains of the masonry of the ancient khurul building were placed at the base of the slab. Ataman E.N. Manzhikov and Chairman of the Council of Erketi Kalmyk Cossacks A.A. Nazarov unveiled a monument.
Opening ceremony of the Memorial Sign on the site of Erketenevsky Khurul, 2013
A Buddhist prayer sounded. According to Kalmyk custom, the territory of the khurul was walked around under the leadership of lamas.
On the territory of the Dubovsky district of the Rostov region there are settlements where Kalmyks previously lived - the village of Erketinovskaya, the farms of Adyanov, Novosalsky, Kholostonur. The gray feather grass sadly bends over the remains of the former villages of Potapovskaya and Chunusovskaya, the farms of Boldyrsky and Khudzhurtinsky. There is no trace left of their buildings
Kalmyks on the Don Land from the 17th to the beginning of the 20th century.
The formation of official vassal-service relations with the Russian state and the military service of the Kalmyks is quite clearly recorded in the charters and agreements of the Kalmyk taishas with Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov in 1618, 1623, 1630-1632ᴦ.ᴦ. In the 40s and 50s of the 17th century, tribes of Oirats (Mongols who did not convert to Islam, but professed a type of Buddhism - Lamaism), who were called Kalmyks, migrated from the Mongolian steppes to the Volga region and the left bank of the Transdon region. Initially, they often clashed with the Nogais and Don Cossacks over territory and livestock, then they began to establish connections and diplomatic contacts. In 1648, a defensive and offensive alliance was concluded between the Kalmyks and the Cossacks against the Crimean Tatars.
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Already in 1651ᴦ. a detachment of Kalmyks crossed the Don, moving on a raid on the possessions of the Crimean Khan, forestalling the campaign against the Don people being prepared by the Tatars. In February 1661, Ambassador Baatyr Yangildeev arrived in the Don capital of Cherkassk with a diplomatic mission from the Kalmyk leader Daichin-Taishi. After exchanging gifts with military ataman Kornila Yakovlev, the ambassadors held negotiations regarding joint actions against the Crimean Tatars and Nogais. In the spring of the same year, the Don embassy headed by Fyodor Budan and Stepan Razin went on a return visit to the nomads of Daichin-Taishi. The agreement they concluded was beneficial not only to the Don Cossacks, but to the Russian state, because from now on the Kalmyks turned from a hostile force into allies of Russia. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in 1663 approved the alliance of the Donets with the Kalmyks, allowing the latter to roam in the southeastern borders of the Cossack land: along the rivers Manych, Sal, Ilovlya, Buzuluk and Khoper.
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For diplomatic receptions of the Kalmyks, the government, along with the Cossack salaries, began to send two hundred buckets of vodka annually.
In the winter of 1663, a united detachment of Don Cossacks and Kalmyks made a campaign against the Tatars, to the Crimean Isthmus. The Don Cossacks were led by the young Stepan Razin, and the Kalmyks were led by Shogasha Mergen and Sherbet Bakshi. In the battle of Molochnye Vody they defeated a strong Tatar detachment led by Safar Kazy-aga.
Despite the fact that the Kalmyks (unlike the Cossacks) were not Orthodox, but professed Lamaism, a type of Buddhism (this teaching preached tolerance of other religions), they quickly fit into the cultural Don environment, becoming allies of the Don Cossacks in the fight against the Sublime Porte and the Crimean Khanate.
With the coming to power of the authoritative steppe politician Ayuki Khan, the number of Don Kalmyks increased significantly. This ruler pursued a dual policy towards the Don and Russia. “Without dwelling here on the subtle politics of Ayuki Khan,” wrote the pre-revolutionary Don historian I.I. Popov, - one can only note that this khan, ...despite the fact that he was considered a Russian subject, was the most powerful and independent of all the Kalmyk rulers, since in all his affairs he always acted only of your own free will. Through clever intrigues and resourcefulness, Ayuka Khan managed to be courteous to the Russian sovereigns, despite the fact that he plundered Russian cities and villages, to the Crimean Khan, to Constantinople, and to all the other rulers around him, even to the Bogd Khan of China and the Dalai Lama Tibetan, from whom he, the first of all Kalmyk rulers, received high title khan. In all his relations with various sovereigns, Ayuka Khan observed only his own benefits.
The authoritarian method of rule of this khan led to the fact that many Kalmyk tribal leaders left him for the Don, to the Cossacks. So, in 1686, 200 Kalmyk families asked for asylum from the Donets and were accepted by them “into the Cossack class.” Four years later, 600 Kalmyk warriors led by Batur Cherkess arrived in Cherkassk, having received permission from the Cossack Circle to roam between the Don and Donets.
After the death of Ayuki Khan in 1722, a struggle for power began among the Kalmyk leaders, with Tseren-Donduk and then Donduk-Ombo at the top. Military ataman Danila Efremov conducted successful diplomatic negotiations with the latter. This was the time when Russian empire was preparing for decisive battles with Turkey and Crimea, when Field Marshal Minikh concentrated an army on the Don for a campaign near Azov, and then to Crimea.
The Russian government needed to know whose side the Kalmyk ruler Donduk-Ombo would take in the upcoming war, whose several tens of thousands of cavalry were a formidable force at that time. Showing extraordinary diplomatic skills, Danila Efremov managed to persuade the Kalmyk ruler to an alliance with Russia. For a successfully completed mission, Danila Efremov was appointed Don Troop Ataman by decree of Empress Anna Ioannovna on March 17, 1738. And in subsequent times, the far-sighted Efremov maintained good relations with the Kalmyks, receiving their Taish leaders in his Cherkassy town and in a country dacha on the Krasny farm.
After the death of Donduk-Ombo, his grandson, Tsebek-Dorji, “migrated from 33,000 smoke holes (yurt-wagons) of the people from Russia to China.” . The Kalmyks who remained in Russia, due to their small numbers and weakness, who were subjected to attacks by warlike neighbors (Kyrgyz, mountain and other peoples), turned to the imperial government and the Don Cossacks with a request to be included in the Cossack class. In 1794, the highest permission was received for this, and the Kalmyks settled between the Don, Donets and near Cherkassk. Having all the Cossack rights, they had the right to freely practice Buddhism - the traditional religion of their ancestors. Hundreds of strong Kalmyks fit for military service were formed and included in the Don regiments. Kalmyks received grain and cash salaries for their service. Kalmyks, who were physically fit for military service, but who wanted to work as cattle breeders and herdsmen, could pay off their military service by contributing a certain amount to the Military Board to equip Cossacks for the service instead of them.
Kalmyks physically incapable of military service formed teams of rammers - workers at military fish hatcheries, where large quantities of ram fish were processed.
Representatives of the Don Kalmyks (as well as the Tatars) served as orderlies for the heir to the throne, Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich, the future Emperor Paul the First. So, at the end of April 1777, “according to His Grace Prince Grigory Alexandrovich Potemkin, to be in the “ordinaryship” under His Highness Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich, send with Colonel Pyotr Yanov... two Tatars and two Kalmyks , each with a pair of horses; Kalmyks of the Tatars with sagaidaks and darts, and the foreman Ivan Platov, who was in Moscow, was ordered by letter to send Kalmyks to the military kosht a pair of blues and labashkas and two pairs of boots each.
In 1798, the Kalmyks were subordinated to the Military Civil Government, and since 1803 they were controlled by special “bailiffs over the Kalmyks,” who necessarily had officer ranks. For greater control over the restless Kalmyk army, at the beginning of the reign of Ataman M. Platov, they were resettled on the left bank of the Don, ordered to “migrate in the spring from the Kagalnik River to Sal, in the summer along both Kuberla and Gashun, in the fall in the vicinity of the Manych salt lakes, and in the winter along Manychi itself.” .
Finally, in 1806, all Kalmyk nomadic camps were finally divided into three basic uluses: Upper, Middle and Lower, ruled by the chief - zaisang , often combining secular and spiritual power. The Kalmyks of the Upper Ulus roamed along the Sal River and its left tributaries, the borders of the Middle Ulus lay on both sides of the Manych, and the Lower Ulus along the Elbuzd (Elbuzd), Eya, and Kugey Eya rivers. The Don Kalmyks themselves defined the rights and obligations of the Cossacks and the conditions of service with the name - “buzaav”, in the sense of handing over a gun (weapon)”
The uluses, in turn, were divided into 13 hundred-aimags: Kharkov, Belyaevskaya, Baldyrskaya, Erketinskaya, Chunusovskaya, Bembekinskaya, Gelingyakinskaya, Kyuvyutskaya, Burulskaya, Bakshi, Bultukovskaya, Batlayevskaya and Namvrovskaya. Hundreds were divided into khotons .
Early 19th century most of Derbent Kalmyks migrated to the Astrakhan steppes. Only the Kalmyks of the Lower Ulus remained in the Don Army. In 1801 there were 2,262 male souls. In 1803, they were joined by about 400 Chuguev and Dolomanovo Kalmyks, who moved to the region of the Don Army.
In 1806, the Kalmyk Okrug was formed from Kalmyks roaming the Trans-Don steppes. Land area, designated as their villages, was surrounded from the north and west by Cossack and peasant lands of the 1st and 2nd Don districts; from the south - land allocated for private horse breeding; from the east - the lands of the Kalmyks Astrakhan province. In the same year they were granted all the rights and privileges of the Cossack military class. The Kalmyks themselves defined these acts as the acquisition of a new honorary status of the Cossacks - ʼʼbuzaavʼʼ (handed a gun, assigned to state military service)
Don Kalmyks-Buzaavs took an active part in the hundreds of aimaks and Cossack regiments in the War of 1812. In the vanguard of the Cossack regiments under the command of M.I. Platov in March 1814, they entered Paris, striking the French with their exotic appearance.
While serving a difficult service outside the Don Territory along with the Cossacks, the Don Kalmyks wrote a series about it folk songs. Here is one of them, recorded by the Don pre-revolutionary historian I. I. Popov:
ʼʼHow do you cross Gashun?
One remembers one’s own land and its waters.
As we ride on horseback in rows,
The wooden camp ahead is blackening,
Three camps lined up in rows
They turn black in a bluish haze.
How will we move to Kuberle,
Let's give ourselves and the horses a rest.
When we cross the Manych,
Sweat will stream from your forehead.
The fathers and mothers who gave birth to us!
Live happily according to the laws of faith.
City of Novocherkassk
Although beautiful, it is very difficult.
Speaking from Novocherkassk,
We sit on the fire machine.
On the shores of the Black Sea
I stood on guard;
On the shore of the White Sea.
I stood guard.
The winter night lasts long
And the gray tire is cool.
The Kalmyks also have several songs preserved about the epoch-making events of the fight against Napoleon.
ʼʼOn three Manych mounds
General Matvey was gathering an army,
And those collected by General Matvey
Inspected by Andrey Mitrich,
Centurion Alya sent him to work.
How the centurion Alya sent us to serve,
We rode, sad about our family.
We crossed the water of the Old Don with the help of our faithful horses,
And we crossed the water of the Young Don
we are by the power of prayer.
Can the water of the deepest river
Run out of steam entering quicksand?
The glow of the rising sun
Is it possible to eclipse the palm of your hands?
In the same way, having heard that wonderful order (about the campaign),
Our hearts were filled with satisfaction .
According to the “Regulations on the Management of the Don Army” of 1835, it was officially confirmed that Kalmyks, along with the Cossacks, were now subject to military service. In 1859, there were already 21,090 Kalmyks of both sexes.
In 1882, the total number of Kalmyks, according to the report of the internal affairs bodies of the Department of Internal Affairs, reached 28,659 people. Kalmyks, after the creation of the Salsky district in 1884ᴦ. and the transition to a sedentary way of farming and living, they lived compactly in 13 villages on the territory of the Salsky district, 1st and 2nd Donskoy. They served well as part of Cossack regiments throughout the 19th century and until the beginning of the 20th century. The Don Kalmyks also distinguished themselves in other wars waged by the Russian Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries (until 1917).
Before the revolution of 1917, 30,200 Kalmyks lived on the territory of the Don Army Region. Kalmyk Cossacks took an active part in the events of the revolution and civil war 1917 -1920ᴦ.ᴦ. Basically, Kalmyk hundreds served as part of the counter-revolutionary Don Army and in separate punitive units; therefore, most of them emigrated from Crimea along with the Cossacks in 1920.
Kalmyks on the Don Land from the 17th to the beginning of the 20th century. - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Kalmyks on the Don Land from the 17th to the beginning of the 20th century." 2017, 2018.