Yaik Cossacks in the era of Peter I in the works of pre-revolutionary authors P.I. Rychkov and A.B. Karpov

Abstract

Relations between Tsar Peter and the Cossacks were not easy. On the one hand, the Cossacks took an active part in Peter’s campaigns and wars. On the other hand, the tsar made a lot of efforts to take away many of their former privileges, turning Cossacks into an obedient “service class”. After the suppression of the Don Cossacks’s uprising (1707–1708) Peter attempt to restore order in the Yaik Cossacks army, where the commissions of Lieutenant Krotkov and Colonel Zakharov search for “traitors” and “rebels”, and take the census of Cossacks and other residents of the Yaik Cossacks army. Census supposed to count the number of local population and helped to divide the Cossacks by categories (personnel, retired, minors) and also to show their ethnicity, and list the places of their or their ancestors origin, and to which social group they belonged before that. Unfortunately, the military archive of the Ural (former Yaitsky) Cossack army has not been preserved to our time. The article shows the main version of his disappearance and provides materials that can partially fill the luck of courses. In this regard, the chapters from the Rychkov and Karpov’s books is extremely important to fill this gap.