The Don army of Cossacks occupied the territory of the Don Army Region. Nowadays, Rostov, Volgograd, Lugansk, Voronezh regions and Kalmykia are located on these lands. Although Rostov was last attached here, most of the documents on the population and history of the Region are stored in its museums and archives.
History of the formation of the Don Army
The date of the official formation of the Don Army is considered the time of release of the first written source, which has survived to this day. This is a letter from Ivan the Terrible, in which he asks ataman Mikhail Cherkashenin for obedience to the ambassador of Tsar Novosiltsev, who is sending to Constantinople. His path passed through the Don. For this, the authorities promised to favor the Cossacks. Letter dating - January 3, 1570. Although it is completely obvious that the Cossack Union, the Region Don Cossacks were formed much earlier. Because in the opposite case, the king simply has no one to turn to.
But the document indicates that it was from this time that the Don Cossacks formally guarded the southern borders of the kingdom. At the end of the 16th century, it occupied a territory with a border of a total length of about 800 kilometers. It was located on the banks of the Don and its tributaries. And after another century, the Cossacks of the Don Don Region Province were the main armed force that fought with Turkish and Polish interventionists. For their service they received money, gunpowder, lead, cloth and bread.
Autonomy and self-government
The Don Cossacks were gradually divided into two groups: domovy and hut. The former were mostly old-timers and located on the lower lands, the latter were immigrants and settled in the upper river. Until the beginning of the XVIII century. the lands of the Region of the Don Army were autonomous and were under the control of the military circle and elected executive bodies. Before the campaign, elections were held for the chieftain, who had unlimited power. The army was divided into hundreds and fifty, led by centurions, Pentecostals, and coronets. After the Bulavinsky uprising, the Don Cossack army was subordinate to the Military Collegium.
Since 1763, the Cossack service began to have a mandatory lifelong character. The war of the peasants of 1773-1775 was the end of the autonomy of the Cossacks. The tsar’s troops captured Don. But this was not the end of their "arbitrariness," which continued long afterwards.
Don failure
1769-1775 - the formation of the Cossack team of the St. Petersburg Legion and the five hundredth Army of the Don Ataman Regiment.
1797 - foundation of the Don Cossack artillery. A year after this, the Cossacks were separated into an independent regiment, and their ranks were likened to army ones. Then the equalization of the salaries of the Cossacks to the payments of the respective ranks took place.
In 1798-1800, the elders of the Cossacks received the same rights as the Russian nobility, and acquired serfs. The following innovations took place:
- introduction of a 30-year military service;
- definition of military kit;
- the introduction of the post of military foreman as an assistant regimental commander, his deputy;
- separation of clothes into military and everyday home.
Reform of 1835
The innovation of 1835 provided for each Cossack share in the amount of 30 acres. But already in 1916 this size was reduced to 11, and convenient land was only 9.8 tithes of land. At the beginning of the twentieth century, more than half of Cossack families were forced to rent these plots in order to pay debts for military equipment. Only a fifth of the households were prosperous at that time.
After the reform of 1835, all Cossacks were divided into military and civilians. The area of the Don Army expected the following changes:
- rearmament;
- division of military territory;
- compulsory military service of the male population from 18 to 43 years;
- the ban on the settlement on the territory of the army of strangers;
- the transformation of the Cossacks into a closed estate with a lifetime membership in it;
- approval of the new military kit.
Approval of the Don Army Area
In 1874, the approval of the new internal management staff took place. It consisted of a military headquarters, control of individual military departments and artillery. 1875 - the introduction of the official name of the Don Army Region. In the same year, there was a reduction in the period of military service to 20 years.
During the reign of Alexander III, the Don Army Region (Donetsk District) was annexed to the city administration of Taganrog and Rostov County. Of these, new civilian districts were made. In the same year, the posts of atamans of the departments were abolished.
The February Revolution of 1917 contributed to the formation of the Don military government. Ataman A.M. Kaledin became its head. It opposed the rise of the Soviets. In 1918, the formation of the Don Soviet Republic took place, where anti-Soviet uprisings constantly flashed. In 1920, the Don Cossack army ceased to exist and was restored only in the 90s of the twentieth century.