Area of the Don Army: history. Map of the Don Region

The Don Cossack army occupied the territory of the Don Military Region. In our time on these lands are Rostov, Volgograd, Lugansk, Voronezh regions and Kalmykia. Although Rostov was added here last, most documents about the population and the history of the Region are preserved in its museums and archives.

History of the formation of the Don Army

The date of the official formation of the Don Army is the time of the release of the first written source, which has survived to the present day. It is about the reading and writing of Ivan the Terrible, in which he asks the ataman Mikhail Cherkashenin about the obedience of the ambassador Tsar Novosiltsev, directing to Tsargrad. His path passed through the Don. For this, the authorities promised to pay tribute to the Cossacks. Date of reading and writing - January 3, 1570. Although it is quite obvious that the Cossack Union, the Donskoi Area was formed much earlier. Because in the opposite case, the king simply did not have anyone to turn to.

But the document shows that it was from this time that the Don Cossacks officially guarded the southern borders of the kingdom. At the end of the 16th century, it occupied an area with a border with 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 Cossack Region were the main armed force fighting with the Turkish and Polish interventionists. For their service they received money, gunpowder, lead, cloth and bread.

Autonomy and self-government

Don Cossacks gradually divided into two groups: domovitye and golutvnye. The former were mostly old-timers and were located on the lower lands, the latter were settlers and settled in the headwaters of the river. Until the beginning of the XVIII century. The lands of the Don Military Region were autonomous and were under the control of the military circle and elective executive bodies. Before the campaign, elections were held for the ataman, who had unlimited power. The army was divided into hundreds and fifty, at the head of which were the centurions, the Pentecostals and the chorus. After the Bulavin uprising, the Don Cossack Host was subordinated to the Military Collegium.

Since 1763 the Cossack service began to have an obligatory lifelong character. The peasants' war of 1773-1775 was the end of the autonomy of the Cossacks. Don captured the king's troops. But this was not the end of their "self-will", which lasted long after that.

The Distortion of the Don

1769-1775 - the formation of the Cossack team of the Petersburg Legion and the 500th Army of the Don Ataman Regiment.

1797 - the foundation of the Don Cossack artillery. A year after this, the Cossacks were separated into an independent regiment, and their ranks became like the army. At the same time, there was an equalization of the salary of the Cossacks to the payments of the corresponding ranks.

In 1798-1800 the Cossack sergeants received the same rights as the Russian nobility, and got serfs. The following innovations took place:

• The introduction of a 30-year period of military service;
• The definition of the military kit;
• The introduction of the post of military sergeant-major as an assistant to the regimental commander, his deputy;
• Separation of clothes into military and everyday home.

The Reform of 1835

The innovation of 1835 provided for each Cossack a share of 30 dessiatins. But already in 1916 this size was reduced to 11, and the convenient land was only 9.8 desyatinas of land. In the early twentieth century, more than half of the Cossack families were forced to lease these allotments in order to pay debts for military equipment. Only a fifth of the farms were prosperous at that time.

After the reform of 1835, all Cossacks split into military and civilian. The area of the Don Army expected the following changes:

• Rearmament;
• Partition of the military territory;
• Mandatory compulsory military service of the male population from 18 to 43 years;
• The prohibition of settlement on the territory of the troops of strangers;
• The transformation of the Cossacks into a closed class with a lifelong attachment to it;
• Approval of a new military kit.

Adoption of the Don Region

In 1874, the approval of a new internal management staff took place. It consisted of an army headquarters, the administration of separate military departments and artillery. 1875 - the introduction of the official name of the Region of the Don Army. In the same year, the term of military service was reduced to 20 years.

During the reign of Alexander III, the Region of the Don Army (Donetsk district) was joined to the mayor of Taganrog and Rostov Uyezd. Of these, new civilian districts were created. 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. Its head was the ataman AM Kaledin. It opposed the emergence of the Soviets. In 1918 the formation of the Don Soviet Republic took place, where anti-Soviet uprisings constantly flared up. In 1920, the Don Cossack Host ceased to exist and was restored only in the 90s of the twentieth century.