Libmonster ID: MD-1385

Rostov-on-Don. 1983. 420 p.

The participation of the Don Cossacks in the peasant wars has already been reflected in the works of Soviet historians. However, there has not yet been any generalizing work on this problem. The book by Professor of Rostov University, Doctor of Historical Sciences A. P. Pronshtein and senior lecturer of the Rostov Institute of National Economy, Candidate of Historical Sciences N. A. Mininkov makes it possible to fill this gap. The authors conducted a comparative historical analysis of the role of the Don Cossacks at various stages of the development of the anti-feudal movement of the XVII-XVIII centuries, identified the main trends and general patterns associated with their participation in the class struggle, i.e. everything that is difficult to study in the narrow framework of individual peasant wars. This approach opened the way to clarifying the question of the correlation of national, anti-feudal and class Cossack motives in the speeches of the Don Cossacks, since this ratio was not the same in different peasant wars.

The book is characterized by a wide chronological coverage and richness of factual material, which gives a detailed idea of the problem posed. At the same time, the authors managed to avoid disunity by showing the participation of the Don Cossacks in each of the four peasant wars. All parts of the book, each devoted to one of the peasant wars, are closely related to each other. The authors achieved this due to the fact that they paid a lot of attention to-

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In order to characterize such issues as the situation in the whole country and on the Don on the eve of the peasant wars, the government's policy towards the Don Cossacks and their class and legal status in the state, their military service, the consequences of peasant wars for them, etc. Taking into account the available literature, which is rich and diverse, the authors in many cases conclusions.

In the book, the four most powerful popular movements of the XVII-XVIII centuries are rightly characterized as peasant wars. At the same time, the thesis about these mass uprisings as civil wars of the feudal period remained unresolved; in this regard, it would be possible to characterize in more detail the latest literature on general problems of the history of peasant wars. No less important is the question of the chronological framework of the peasant wars. In the first of them, the authors include events from 1601-1603 to 1615, considering the uprising of I. I. Bolotnikov as its component part, the stage of the highest rise (pp. 43-44, 69-70). Here the position is clear. This cannot be said in relation to the second peasant war - the authors date its beginning to the Volga - Caspian campaign of S. T. Razin in 1667-1669 and are not inclined to include in it the campaign of Vasily Us from the Don to the Moscow region in 1666; if the first thesis is justified, then the second cannot be said. The third peasant War of the early eighteenth century is called the "Bulavinsky Uprising (1707-1710)" (p. 203); meanwhile, the murder of its main leader by the Cossack conspirators on July 7, 1708, excluded him from the struggle; however, after his death, the movement was led by his associates-I. Nekrasov and others. But still, it is hardly correct to call the uprising, which in 1709-1710 included huge masses of peasants in the southern Russian uyezds, Bulavinsky.

The research is mainly based on the use of archival sources. This allowed the authors not only to examine more fully the various issues of the Don Cossacks ' participation in peasant wars, but also to highlight some controversial and insufficiently studied aspects of the problem in a new way. These include:: 1) a more in-depth explanation of the reasons that made the Don Cossacks rise up to fight the serfs together with all the oppressed strata of the country's population; 2) disclosure of the role of the Don Cossacks in the Peasant War of the early XVII century; 3) assessment of the significance of the campaign of Vasily Us in 1666 for the further development of the uprising of the main mass of the Cossacks on the Don; 4) a more in-depth analysis of the role of the Don Cossacks in the Peasant War of the early XVII century. analysis of the composition of participants, the nature and goals of Razin's Volga-Caspian campaign; 5) the situation on the Don in 1670-1671 and the struggle of the Razins with the senior leadership of the Don army; 6) understanding the role of the Don Cossacks in the Peasant War of the beginning of the XVIII century. and the attitude of the elders and household Don Cossacks to the movement at different stages of its development; 7 features of the Don Cossacks ' participation in the Peasant War under the leadership of E. I. Pugachev.

A significant part of the book is devoted to criticism of the views of bourgeois, primarily white-immigrant, historians on the past of the Don Cossacks and on the participation of Cossacks in popular movements. Their works are characterized by the desire to emphasize the absence of any connection between the Cossacks and the oppressed Russian and Ukrainian populations. They believed that the Don Cossacks, even participating in major popular movements, solved only very narrow-minded tasks. The Cossacks were supposedly generally alien to the anti-serfdom goals of the peasantry. These ideas of the Don bourgeois autonomists were accepted in the main features of modern Western historiography, which seeks to prove the thesis about the opposition of the interests of the Russian people and the Don Cossacks.

A. P. Pronstein and N. A. Mininkov have convincingly shown that the ordinary mass of the Don Cossacks in the XVII - XVIII centuries were close to and understood the aspirations of broad strata of the working population of Russia and Ukraine, and the leaders of popular movements from among the Don rebel atamans attached great importance to attracting Russian and Ukrainian peasants and the urban poor to their side. At the same time, the authors quite rightly note the presence of the Cossacks and their own, specific, class motives that forced them to take up arms. The book reveals the place that these motives occupied by the Don Cossacks in each of the four peasant wars, how they determined the degree of their activity in the struggle. As for the motives themselves, which were generally explained by the desire of the Don Cossacks to preserve their full rights and broad autonomy within the Russian state,

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as the authors showed, they did not exclude the anti-serf orientation at all, since they expressed opposition to the authorities ' offensive against all segments of the population that did not belong to the ruling class.

Describing the class reasons for the actions of the Don Cossacks, the authors showed that their struggle for their class rights enjoyed the sympathy of the broad masses of the Russian peasantry and working people of the city (for example, Astrakhan residents under Razin). This is not an accident. The oppressed population of Russia largely associated their thoughts about freedom, especially in the XVII century, with the Don, and the liberties of the Cossacks not only attracted them, but also seemed to them a guarantee of this freedom in the event of leaving for the Don.

Much attention is paid in the book to the internal struggle on the Don during the peasant wars. Considering this struggle, the authors come to the conclusion that only the ordinary part of the Cossacks, golytba, was a reliable ally of the Russian peasantry. It was she who played an outstanding role as the organizer and skirmisher of the peasant wars under the leadership of Razin and Bulavin, and promoted many active fighters for the happiness of the people from her midst. As for the atamans and foremen, their participation in the first, second and third peasant wars was limited and short-lived. It was determined by their attempts to direct the course of the movement only to achieve their narrow class-political goals.

The book traces how contradictions among the Cossacks and the struggle between the ordinary mass of Cossacks and the senior leadership gradually grew. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, these contradictions were still barely noticeable. Under Razin, they had already matured so much that they led to the split of the Cossacks into two "troops". In 1707-1708, the contradictions between golytba and the upper class ended with the murder of Bulavin by the domestic Cherkassy Cossacks. In the second half of the XVIII century, the elders, in fact, became part of the officials-nobles, and there could be no question of any sympathy for the Pugachevites. They became the mainstay of the autocracy on the Don. Thus, the authors lead the reader to the idea of the prerequisites for important socio-political changes on the Don, which took place already in the XIX century and were associated with the departure of the Cossacks as a class from popular movements. The elimination of petty officers from supporting the uprisings of the ordinary mass of the Cossacks under Pugachev, as well as in 1792-1794, was the first step in the development of this process.

At the same time, having ceased to be one of the leading forces of the struggle of the people against serfdom and autocracy for freedom in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Don Cossacks, even after becoming a closed, privileged military service class, did not turn, despite all the efforts of tsarism, into a force hostile to the people. An important role in this was played by the traditions of the liberation movement of the Don Cossacks, laid down in the XVII - XVIII centuries.

The reviewed work deserves high praise, although there are some omissions in it. It seems to us that in the introductory chapter, which describes the situation of the Don Cossacks on the eve of the first Peasant War, it was necessary to focus in more detail on the formation of the Don Cossacks in order to make their organic ties with the peasantry of Russia and Ukraine clearer. The introduction should focus not only on emigrant historiography, but also on the works of Western bourgeois historians, since they address the issues discussed in the book.

The book, unfortunately, very briefly describes Razin's campaign to the Caspian Sea, and on the corresponding pages (pp. 108-110) there is no clear description of it, as well as a comparison with similar previous campaigns of the Cossacks. It was desirable to draw on the available (albeit very sparse) Persian materials. An Iranian contemporary, Mohammad Tahir Vahid Qazvini, has a brief account of Razin's campaign. This part of his work was translated into Russian in the last century (according to the manuscript; now there is also an edition of the Persian text) by B. Dorn1 . The chronicler's story gives an idea of how Razin's campaign was perceived by the ruling circles of Iran at that time (Qazvini was the official historiographer of Shahs Abbas II and Suleiman).

It is difficult to agree with the statement that from April to October 1670 on the Don foreman top led by ataman K. Yakovlev was removed from power, and the latter passed to Razin and his "army" (p. 133-135, 380-381, etc.). The authors note that the differences did not touch the foreman, ataman, and their army continued to exist (Razin's words to Yakovlev: "You are the leader of the army").

1 Dorn B. Kaspiy. SPb. 1875.

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de own your army, and I de own my army"). The capital of the Don Army - Cherkassk-remained the residence of the foreman, while Razin had his own center - Kagalnitsky town. Of course, the rebels led by Razin became an impressive force on the Don, dictating their will in many ways. But Cherkassk, which was opposed to them, although quiet, went on the offensive at the first opportunity (the defeat of Kagalnik by the senior army, the massacre of the differences in September 1670, subsequent relations with the tsarist government, the arrest of Razin in April 1671). It seems in this connection that there is every reason to talk about a kind of"dual power" established on the Don at that time. It does not exclude changes in the balance of power between the opposing sides, the presence of a preponderance of one of them over the other as the movement develops. In the chapter on the Peasant War of the beginning of the XVIII century, it would probably be possible to dwell in more detail on the fate of the Nekrasovites, whose descendants, as is known, returned to their homeland only under Soviet rule.

Finally, it seems that the authors somewhat exaggerate the role of the Don Cossacks during the Peasant War under the leadership of Pugachev. Indeed, there was a ferment on the Don, but it was based primarily on dissatisfaction with the attempts of the tsarist authorities to relocate the Cossacks to the Caucasus. After the defeat, Pugachev tried to break through to the Don, but it was rather a forced act: it is unlikely that he seriously counted on a mass uprising of the Don Cossacks, whose situation was no longer what it was at the beginning of the XVIII century.

In general, the monograph is an original study of the participation of the Don Cossacks in peasant wars and introduces a lot of new things to the study of general problems of the history of class struggle in late feudal Russia.

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V. I. Buganov, A. P. Novoseltsev, A. P. PRONSHTEIN, N. A. MININKOV. PEASANT WARS IN RUSSIA OF THE XVII-XVIII CENTURIES AND THE DON COSSACKS // Chisinau: Library of Moldova (LIBRARY.MD). Updated: 29.01.2025. URL: https://library.md/m/articles/view/A-P-PRONSHTEIN-N-A-MININKOV-PEASANT-WARS-IN-RUSSIA-OF-THE-XVII-XVIII-CENTURIES-AND-THE-DON-COSSACKS (date of access: 07.02.2025).

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