Ural Cossack Host
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Ural Cossack Host was a
cossack host A Cossack host (; , ''kazachye voysko''), sometimes translated as Cossack army, was an administrative subdivision of Cossacks in the Russian Empire. Earlier the term ''voysko'' ( host, in a sense as a doublet of ''guest'') referred to Cossack o ...
formed from the Ural Cossacks – those Eurasian cossacks settled by the
Ural River The Ural, also known as the Yaik , is a river flowing through Russia and Kazakhstan in the continental border between Europe and Asia. It originates in the southern Ural Mountains and discharges into the Caspian Sea. At , it is the third-longes ...
. Their alternative name, Yaik Cossacks, comes from the old name of the river. They were also known by the names: *
Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...
: Ура́льские каза́ки (ура́льцы) (''Uralskiye kazaki (uraltsy)''); Ура́льское каза́чье во́йско (''Uralskiye kazachye voisko''), Яи́цкое каза́чье во́йско (''Yaitskoye kazachye voisko'') * Bashkir: Урал казактары (уралец) (''Ural kazktaryo (uralets)''); Урал казак ғәскәре (''Ural kazak ğəskərye''), Яйыҡ казак ғәскәре (''Yiyok kazak ğəskərye'')


History

The Yaik (Ural) Cossacks although speaking Russian and identifying themselves as being of primarily Russian ancestry also incorporated many
Tatars Tatars ( )Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary
are a group of Turkic peoples across Eas ...
into their ranks. According to Peter Rychckov some of these Tatars called themselves Bulgarians of
Khazar The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, an ...
origin, and the first Yaik Cossacks, including these Tatars and Russians, existed by the end of the 14th century. These Tatars might be both
Chuvash people The Chuvash people (, ; , ) also called Chuvash Tatars, are a Turkic ethnic group, a branch of the Oğurs, inhabiting an area stretching from the Idel-Ural region to Siberia. Most of them live in the Russian republic of Chuvashia and the ...
and Mishari (Meschera in Russian,
Mişär Mishar Tatar or Western Tatar (Мишәр, ''Mişär / Mişər'', Мишәр Татар, ''Mişär / Mişər Tatar'', көнбатыш татар, ''könbatış tatar'') is a dialect of Tatar language, Tatar spoken by Mishar Tatars, mainly in Pen ...
in Tatar language), the latter had not only Muslims and Jews, but Christians among them to facilitate their merge with Russians. Meschera were important on Don as well. Later, as Pushkin wrote, a lot of Nogai joined Yaik Cossacks. Twenty years after the conquest of the Volga from Kazan to Astrakhan, in 1577 Moscow sent troops to disperse pirates and raiders along the Volga (one of their number was Ermak). Some of these fled southeast to the Ural River and joined the Yaik Cossacks. In 1580 they captured Saraichik together. By 1591 they were fighting for Moscow and sometime in the next century they were officially recognized. In 1717 they lost 1,500 men on the
Alexander Bekovich-Cherkassky Prince Alexander Bekovich-Cherkassky (), born Devlet-Girei-mırza (; died 1717), was a Imperial Russia, Russian officer of Circassians, Circassian origin who led the first Russian military expedition into Central Asia. Background A Muslims, Mus ...
expedition to
Khiva Khiva ( uz-Latn-Cyrl, Xiva, Хива, ; other names) is a district-level city of approximately 93,000 people in Khorazm Region, Uzbekistan. According to archaeological data, the city was established around 2,500 years ago. In 1997, Khiva celebr ...
. A census in 1723 showed 3,196 men fit for military service. Yaik Cossacks were the driving force in the rebellion led by
Yemelyan Pugachev Yemelyan Ivanovich Pugachev (also spelled Pugachyov; ; ) was an ataman of the Yaik Cossacks and the leader of the Pugachev's Rebellion, a major popular uprising in the Russian Empire during the reign of Catherine the Great. The son of a Do ...
in 1773–1774. Their main livelihood was
fishery Fishery can mean either the enterprise of raising or harvesting fish and other aquatic life or, more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place ( a.k.a., fishing grounds). Commercial fisheries include wild fisheries and fish far ...
and the taxation on it was a major source of friction between the Cossacks and the state. A revolt broke out in 1772, marked by the murder of General von Traubenberg. Traubenberg headed a commission which was to investigate and settle Cossack complaints and grievances, but his behaviour only antagonized them further. In reprisal, many were arrested, executed and outlawed. Pugachev appeared shortly after and managed to rally them to his cause. The Yaik Cossacks were renamed as part of the Ural Host after the rebellion. The Ural regiments later took part in
Suvorov's Italian and Swiss expedition The Italian and Swiss expedition of 1799 was a military campaign undertaken by a combined Austro-Russian army under overall command of the Russian Marshal Alexander Suvorov against French forces in Piedmont and Lombardy (modern Italy) and the H ...
, the Great Patriotic War of 1812, the
Russo-Turkish War The Russo-Turkish wars ( ), or the Russo-Ottoman wars (), began in 1568 and continued intermittently until 1918. They consisted of twelve conflicts in total, making them one of the longest series of wars in the history of Europe. All but four of ...
, the
November Uprising The November Uprising (1830–31) (), also known as the Polish–Russian War 1830–31 or the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in Russian Partition, the heartland of Partitions of Poland, partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. ...
of 1830 and in the
Crimean War The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont fro ...
. They also played a significant role in the Turkestan campaigns of the 1870s. In the Ural-Guryev operation of 1919–1920, the Red
Turkestan Front The Turkestan Front () was a front of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, which was formed on the territory of Turkestan Military District by Order of the Republic of Turkestan on February 23, 1919. It was formed a second time by the direc ...
defeated the
Ural Army The Ural Separate Army was a military formation of the White Army during the Russian Civil War, which operated in the Volga region and the Southern Urals and was formed on December 28, 1918 from units of the Ural Cossack Army and other military ...
, which was formed from Ural Cossacks and other troops which rebelled against the Bolsheviks. During winter 1920, Ural Cossacks and their families, totaling about 15,000 people, headed south along the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea towards Fort Alexandrovsk. Only a few hundred of them reached Persia in June 1920.


Distinctions

The distinguishing colour of the Ural Host was crimson/red; worn on the cap bands,
epaulette Epaulette (; also spelled epaulet) is a type of ornamental shoulder piece or decoration used as insignia of rank by armed forces and other organizations. Flexible metal epaulettes (usually made from brass) are referred to as ''shoulder scale ...
s and wide trouser stripes of a dark blue uniform of the loose-fitting cut common to the Steppe Cossacks. Individual regiments were distinguished by yellow numbers on the epaulettes. High fleece hats were worn on occasion with crimson cloth tops. No spurs were worn by the Ural and other cossack hosts. After 1907 a khaki-grey jacket was adopted for field uniform, worn with blue-grey breeches. The
astrakhan Astrakhan (, ) is the largest city and administrative centre of Astrakhan Oblast in southern Russia. The city lies on two banks of the Volga, in the upper part of the Volga Delta, on eleven islands of the Caspian Depression, from the Caspian Se ...
hats and broad crimson/red trouser stripes of the peacetime uniform were however retained during World War I.


References

{{Reflist Russian Cossacks Cossack hosts History of Ural