Issues of emigration and re-emigration Nekrasov Cossacks enjoyed steady interest among domestic researchers during the 19th-20th centuries. Unfortunately, even at the beginning of the 21st century. some aspects of the history of a unique ethno-confessional group have remained incompletely studied.
The phenomenon of religious emigration in Russia was caused by the church reform of Patriarch Nikon in the mid-17th century, which gave rise to a split in the Orthodox Church and persecution of Old Believers by the state. The lower strata of Russian society, coming to the defense of the “old faith,” thereby expressed their protest against the strengthening of feudal oppression, sanctified by the official church.
Social protest under a religious guise took place at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries. mass character. So, Old Believers actively participated in the Peasant War of 1670-1671, the Solovetsky Uprising of 1668-1676, the Moscow Uprising of 1682. Of particular note is the participation of Verkhovsky schismatics in the Don Uprising of 1688-1689, after the defeat of which part of the Cossacks led by Ataman Lev Manotsky went to the river Kumu.
From Kuma, as a result of persecution by the authorities, Old Believers moved in groups to different regions of the North Caucasus, including 300 Cossacks to the Kuban region of Kopyl, and then to the vicinity of Anapa. Thus, already from the end of the 17th century. In the Kuban there was the first Cossack settlement, the number of which was constantly replenished by fugitive Cossacks, peasants and townspeople.
During the Bulavinsky uprising of 1707-1709. K. Bulavin’s closest associate was an Old Believer Cossack Ignat Fedorovich Nekrasov(c. 1660-1737), the most striking and extraordinary figure among the rebels. Nekrasov led Bulavin’s detachments along the Don and Volga, and after Bulavin’s death he led the uprising. However, by the end of August 1708, the rebels on the Don were defeated, and then Nekrasov with two thousand Cossacks and their families fled to the Kuban, where he settled in the area of Khan-Tepe (not far from Temryuk), founding here Nekrasov community.
The Old Believers brought the rules of Don Cossack self-government to the community they created in a foreign land. The highest authority in Nekrasovtsev a circle appeared - a general gathering of Cossacks who had reached the age of 18. The ataman was elected by the circle for one year and exercised executive power. A third of the community members’ earnings went to the military treasury for the maintenance of schools, churches, the sick, the elderly, and arming the Cossacks. All punishments were established by the circle in the community.
Over the two and a half centuries of the community's existence Nekrasovites created a unique set of laws - more than 170 “testaments of Ignatus”, recorded in “ Ignatov's book" The covenants, as a rule, were distinguished by great severity: “for treason to the army, shoot without trial”, “for marriage with non-believers - death”, “for the murder of a member of the community, the guilty person should be buried in the ground.” The religious instructions of the schismatics were equally harsh: “for blasphemy, shoot “,” “a priest who does not fulfill the will of the circle can be expelled and even killed as a rebel, a heretic,” “stick to the old faith.”
Old Believers treated women with respect: “a husband who offends his wife is punished,” “a husband must treat his wife with respect,” “for raping a woman, he must be whipped to death,”
Kuban schismatics continued to fight against tsarism for three decades. In 1709-1710 Nekrasov sent appeals to the Don about an uprising and periodically appeared in Slobodskaya Ukraine with rebel detachments. In “charming letters” to the population, the Bulavinians wrote that “we stood for the old faith and for the house of the Most Holy Theotokos, and for you, and for the whole mob, and so that we would not fall into the Hellenic faith.”
The calls of the schismatics found a wide response among the Cossacks and serfs of the South of Russia, who went to the Kuban, to the “free lands”, entire villages and villages. Already by 1710 there were up to 10 thousand Nekrasovtsev. Tsar Peter I turned to the Turkish Sultan with a request to extradite him to Russia Nekrasova and his assistants, and in 1720 he issued a special decree - the Nekrasovites and those who sheltered them were to be executed without mercy.
After death Nekrasova Empress Anna Ioannovna suggested “ Ignat-Cossacks» return to their homeland, promising to forget their “betrayal” and give them land. But they refused, remembering the ataman’s behest - not to return to Russia under the Tsar. By order of the Empress, the Don Ataman Frolov ravaged the Kuban towns of the Old Believers for two years in a row, forcing them out in groups in the 1740s and 1760s. move to Dobruja, the mouth of the Danube and the island of Razelm, which were under Turkish rule. Their main industries, as on the Don and Kuban, remained fishing, hunting and farming.
The “carrot and stick” policy with Nekrasovtsy continued Catherine II. During the Russian-Turkish War of 1787-1791. the Nekrasovites, potential allies of Turkey, are facing the threat of reprisals from Russia. After the capture of Anapa by the Russian detachment of General I.V. Gudovich in 1791, the last Kuban " Ignat-Cossacks"went to Bessarabia and Bulgaria.
The appearance of Russian troops on the banks of the Danube at the same time forced Nekrasovtsev move from Dobrudja to Asia Minor on the shores of the Aegean and Marmara seas.
Turkish authorities initially released Nekrasovtsev from taxes and duties, did not interfere with Cossack self-government, presenting them only with the requirement to participate in wars against Russia.
After the abolition of serfdom and the beginning of other liberal reforms in Russia Nekrasovites refused to fight against her - and immediately lost all their former privileges. Old Believers they were driven from their habitable places to the semi-desert island of Madu on Lake Beisheir, where epidemics and famine began among them. The Turkish authorities imposed increased taxes on the Nekrasovites, introduced military service for them not only in war, but also in peacetime, and unceremoniously interfered in the internal affairs of the community, which contributed to its destruction.
Events of the revolution of 1905-1907. in Russia and the adoption of a number of laws on religious freedom pushed Nekrasovtsev to the thought of returning home.
Their first place of settlement was Sochi district The Black Sea province is the least developed and populated among other districts and had similar climatic conditions to the place of former residence of the Old Believers.
Inviting Nekrasovtsev to settle in the Sochi district, the authorities pursued a specific goal - to oust local Turks from the fishing and coastal industries and, most importantly, to stop smuggling from Turkey, disguised as cabotage. And the Nekrasovites were not only good farmers and hunters, but also excellent fishermen and coasters, which was not typical for other Slavic settlers.
During 1908-1909 the resettlement department picked up Old Believers several plots of land: some in the coastal zone, others in the mountainous zone. In 1908, 1910 and March 1911. The areas allocated for settlement were inspected by Nekrasov walkers under the leadership of Elder Moiseev. They did everything sedately, thoroughly and leisurely. One plot in the town of Guarek (near the village of Lazarevskoye) Nekrasovites were rejected, the rest - in Matrosskaya Shchel (near Golovinka), in Imereti Bay and Babuk-Aul - were approved.
The first and, as far as the author knows, the last batch of Nekrasov settlers in the pre-revolutionary period appeared at the Dagomys roadstead on May 27, 1911. Old Believers arrived in the amount of 616 people (306 males) from the town of Hamidiye, Brus Vilayet of Turkey, from the shores of the Sea of Marmara.
The settlers were temporarily settled in the village. Volkovka, and already on June 1 a group of 100 people. went to Babukov-Aul to choose an estate, where they formed a village named after the legendary chieftain - Nekrasovka. At the same time, 36 families of Old Believers settled on the Imereti Bay site, an area of 147 acres of convenient land, where the Marlinsky village was created. Rest Nekrasovites settled on a plot of 223 des. convenient land in Matrosskaya Shchel, also naming the village in memory of its leader - Ignatyevka. None of the proper names of the Old Believers' villages took root, primarily because the majority of Sochi Nekrasovites in the mid-20s. moved to the Don region.
In all villages Nekrasovites houses of worship were opened. One of them (Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary) operated in the village. Imereti Bay until the end of the 20s. XX century
On January 1, 1915, 44 families lived in Babuk-Aul Old Believers(184 people, of which 99 men and 85 women), in Matrosskaya Shchel - 45 families (205 people, 107 men and 98 women), in Imereti Bay - 42 families (208 people, 105 men . and 103 women). The reduction in the number of migrants over 3.5 years by 19 people is due to the excess of their mortality rate over the birth rate, in particular, from malaria, which is common in the coastal zone.
The environment contributed to the formation of specialization of farms of local Old Believer communities. Thus, the coastal Old Believers were mainly engaged in coastal fishing and waste farming, while the mountain Old Believers were mainly engaged in hunting, cattle breeding and agriculture. The rate of land allotment in the coastal zone was lower (2-2.3 dessiatines) than in the mountainous zone (3 dessiatines per man), which was due to the lack of free land in the coastal zone. Despite the presence of free land in the mountainous Babuk-Aul (the total area is 2635 dessiatines, of which 675 are suitable land), the majority Nekrasovtsev preferred to settle in the coastal zone, albeit with smaller plots. This choice was due, on the one hand, to the lack of mountain roads, on the other, to the original occupation Old Believers marine fisheries.
It should be noted that re-emigration Nekrasovtsev was suspended as a result of a chain of dramatic events - the First World War, two revolutions and the Russian Civil War.
Political and economic stabilization in Soviet Russia as a result of the NEP in the early 20s. allowed to resume the return Nekrasovtsev to my homeland. This was facilitated by the Bolsheviks’ special course towards sectarians and Old Believers victims of tsarism. The Soviet government was impressed by the collective management of farms in Old Believer communities similar to communes. The Bolsheviks did not forget the fact that at the beginning of the 20th century. Nekrasov fishermen in Constanta illegally delivered the Iskra newspaper to Russia.
In the fall of 1921, to ensure the re-emigration of sectarians and Old Believers, an Organizational Commission for the Resettlement of Sectarians (Orgkomsekt) was created under the People's Commissariat of Agriculture. At the beginning of 1922, a special appeal was published by the Organizing Committee to Old Believers and sectarians who suffered from oppression by the tsarist authorities, with a call to return to Russia and join in the construction of socialism.
The commission determined the place of possible resettlement of those returning to Russia: in the Stavropol province (250 thousand dessiatins), in the Don (615 thousand dessiatinas), Terek (250 thousand dessiatinas) and Kuban-Black Sea regions (150 thousand dessiatinas). Here it was planned to create sectarian areas where the economy would be built on collectivist principles.
Already in mid-1922, the first applications were received Nekrasov Cossacks with a request to return to their homeland. On November 30, 1923, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR authorized the resettlement of Nekrasovites from Turkey in the amount of 300 households (1,500 people). For a number of reasons, this process lasted until 1926, and then, due to the curtailment of the NEP and increased political repression, it was stopped until Khrushchev’s “ thaw."
Most Sochi Old Believers by the mid-20s. decided to move to the uninhabited Don lands. A number of reasons contributed to the adoption of this decision: the lack of land suitable for farming, infertile soils, difficult living conditions in the mountainous zone, and increased tax pressure. During 1925-1926 All Old Believers 412 people moved from Babuk-Aul, Matrosskaya Shchel and part from Imereti Bay. in Mechetinsky district of Donskoy Okurg. According to the 1926 census, 202 Old Believers lived in Imereti Bay (53 households, 93 men and 83 women), but there were no Old Believers in Matrosskaya Shchel. By the end of 1926, the Sochi Old Believers remained only in Imereti Bay.
In 1962, a significant group returned to the USSR from Turkey Nekrasovtsev, who settled in the Stavropol Territory, Rostov and Volgograd regions, and Georgia. Descendants have not forgotten" Ignat-Cossacks"and Kuban, where their first community was created. They settled in the Novo-Nekrasovsky farm, Primorsko-Akhtarsky district; in the villages of Potemkinsky and Novopokrovsky of the same district and the village of Vorontsovka in the Yeisk district of the Krasnodar Territory. A small community of Nekrasovites has survived in the village. Imereti Bay, where fishing continued.
Researchers note that in the new socio-economic conditions, the isolation of communities is being destroyed Old Believers, democratization of patriarchal family relations, there is a process of moving away from religion. In the culture of modern Nekrasovites, ethnographers record the presence of both ancient elements in language, customs, clothing, folklore and the appearance of borrowings from Turkish and Bulgarian cultures. Overall a distinctive culture Nekrasovtsev still awaiting its researchers.
More than ten years ago, a center of traditional Russian culture was created in the village of Novokumskoye. Its director, Lyudmila Evdokimova, recalls how the ensemble of Nekrasov Cossacks was organized. She, having arrived in the village as a young specialist, immediately drew attention to the unfamiliar songs that the Nekrasovites sang.
Descendants of the Don Cossacks who left their homeland in the 18th century, returned home forty years ago and preserved the traditions and foundations of their ancestors
More than three hundred years ago, Ataman Kondraty Bulavin raised the Cossacks of the Upper Don and fugitive peasants from Central Russia from the tsarist regime and joined the troops of Emelyan Pugachev. After the defeat of the uprising and the death of Bulavin, almost eight thousand Cossacks with their families, fleeing from reprisals, left the Don for the Kuban, then the Danube, and from there to Turkey, to Lake Mainas. They were led by Koshevoy Ataman Ignat Nekrasov. There, far from their homeland, the Cossacks founded the settlement of Cossacks and for two and a half centuries, following the behests of their chieftain, they lived in a closed community. From an early age, the Nekrasovites were brought up in love for Russia and lived with the hope of returning.
In 1912, despite Nekrasov’s behest “not to return to Russia under the Tsar,” the first wave of Cossacks, with the permission of the Tsarist government, nevertheless came to Russia. They were forbidden to settle above the Kuban. (Today, the descendants of the first returnees live in the village of Nekrasovsky.) And after the revolution, de-Cossackization began in the Land of the Soviets, and a new stream of Cossacks poured into Turkey.
Only in 1962 did the last ataman of the Ignat-Cossacks, Vasily Porfirievich Sanichev, bring the exiles to their native land. In the middle of the last century, interfaith relations worsened in Turkey, and the Cossacks decided to leave the country. Some of them chose America, but most returned to Russia.
The daughters of Ataman Sanichev, Agafya Mironova and Maria Beresneva, say that they remember well the day when the Cossacks came to their father and “the whole world” began to ask him to take care of their return to their homeland.
My father was very afraid to take on such responsibility,” recalls Maria Vasilievna. “But one day the Mother of God appeared to him in a dream, which his father took as a sign from above. And he decided to take this important step. For several years, negotiations took place with the government of the USSR through the Embassy of the Soviet Union in Turkey. And finally, the ship "Georgia" with 999 Cossacks on board sailed from Turkey. And a thousand Nekrasovites had already arrived in Novorossiysk: a boy was born on the road, who was named Semyon. Thus, the Cossack settlement ceased to exist on the Black Sea coast of Turkey.
The USSR government settled the Nekrasovites in the Stavropol region, in the villages of Burgun-Modzhar and Novokumsky, Levokumsky district. Here they became winegrowers and gardeners. According to Don historian Igor Bondarenko, at first the Soviet way of life caused a shock among the Nekrasovites, brought up on traditional religious and ethical norms. In addition, the Nekrasovites lived and worked on wine-making state farms, where wine flowed like a river, and therefore alcoholism gradually became a scourge among them. But over time, the Nekrasovites adapted to the Soviet way of life and no longer so strictly followed the precepts of Ignat Nekrasov, of which there were more than 170. For example, “death for marriage with non-believers,” “execution for blasphemy,” etc.
According to Semyon Babaev (the same one who was born on the ship on the way to Russia), the Nekrasovites are Old Believers of a not too strict kind. Local residents also come to their church. There are many mixed marriages among them. “We have been striving to return to Russia for so many centuries. We consider ourselves both Russians and Cossacks,” emphasizes Semyon.
For more than forty years of their stay in the Stavropol region, the settlers, together with local residents, raised two winegrowing farms - “Levokumsky” and “Burgun-Madzharsky”, says the head of the district administration Nikolai Shcherbina. - Nekrasovites are an amazingly hardworking, religiously steadfast and morally pure people. It must be said that local guys give preference to brides from Nekrasov Cossack families. They are attracted by the exceptional cleanliness, homeliness and loyalty of these girls. In the village of Novokumskoye alone there are more than 300 such families.”
Not a single holiday among the Nekrasovites is complete without songs. They are put together for all occasions, even the ritual ones of the 18th century are not forgotten. At one time, an expedition from the Moscow Conservatory came to the settlers, who then recorded more than 400 Cossack songs.
More than ten years ago, a center of traditional Russian culture was created in the village of Novokumskoye. Its director, Lyudmila Evdokimova, recalls how the ensemble of Nekrasov Cossacks was organized. She, having arrived in the village as a young specialist, immediately drew attention to the unfamiliar songs that the Nekrasovites sang. The neighbors told her their story. At one of the regional meetings Lyudmila. Vasilyevna expressed the opinion that it would be good to create an ensemble of Nekrasov Cossacks. And after a while they called from Stavropol: “It’s urgent to present the team to the regional folklore festival.” A local priest helped Lyudmila Evdokimova select participants: many Nekrasovites sang in the church choir. There were about twenty people, from whom the ensemble “Nekrasov Cossacks” was created. The ensemble returned from the festival with the title of laureate, and a year later received the folk title. In 1989 "Nekrasov Cossacks" "performed in
Moscow, in the Hall of Columns of the House of Unions.
Then for the first time I thought about how to preserve this priceless wealth that came to us from the depths of centuries. This is how the idea of creating a center for traditional Russian culture arose. The state farm donated a two-story building; in the halls we placed exhibitions reflecting the history of the Nekrasov Cossacks. Today, in addition to the Nekrasov Cossacks, in Levokumsk there is a children’s group, the Nekrasov Cossacks, which is known throughout Russia and even abroad, says Lyudmila Evdokimova.
Not long ago, members of the Nekrasov Cossacks ensemble, descendants of the Don Cossacks, attended a folk festival in the ancient capital of the Don Cossacks, Starocherkassk. It is interesting that the costumes of the Nekrasovites differed sharply in their oriental brightness and variegation from the traditional outfits of local participants in the holiday. The influence of Turkish motifs in the clothing of the ancestors of the Nekrasovites is evident. But the cut of the clothes has remained original Russian, close to the costume of Central Russia.
In the Starocherkassk Museum there is a very popular exhibition telling about the history of the Nekrasov Cossacks. According to the director of the Starocherkassk Museum-Reserve, Mikhail Astapenko, traditional men's and women's clothing of the Nekrasovites is presented here, and there are also such rare exhibits as the book “Apostle”, printed in 1635, and the icon of Archpriest Avvakum. In the modern part of the exhibition you can see photographs taken during a lesson in a Turkish school, where children from the Nekrasov community studied (since 1930, schooling became mandatory for Cossack children, as did service in the Turkish army). And one of the most expensive exhibits for Nekrasovites is a handwritten book written by Ataman Vasily Sanichev in 1956 to teach Cossack children the Russian language.
Having founded the Cossack settlement in Turkey, Don people lived there for two and a half centuries
Nekrasov Ignat is a Don Cossack (ataman of the Esaulovskaya village), an associate of Ataman K. Bulavin in the fight against the tsarist regime for the independence of the Don. Bulavin entrusted him and Dranyi with the most serious military operations against the punitive troops of Peter I. Dranyi and Nekrasov took Cherkassk on June 7, 1708. Nekrasov, together with Pavlov, besieged Tsaritsyn and took it by storm. Having dealt with the governor, boyars and profit-makers (tax officials), he introduced Cossack self-government in Tsaritsyn. Nekrasov then sent his troops overland to Tambov and Penza. He himself, with a small number of rebels, moved to the village of Golubinskaya. On the way, having learned about the death of Bulavin, he sends a menacing letter to the elders of Cherkassk demanding an answer for what guilt they killed Bulavin: “... And would you please inform us for what guilt they killed him and you will not release his old men, and if they are not released, then we will immediately join forces with all the rivers and the assembled army to go to Cherkassk for the sake of a reservation and a public search...”
Nekrasov gathered significant forces in Panshin and Esaulovskaya, intending to march on Cherkassk. This worried V. Dolgoruky, who, without hiding the danger, wrote on August 5 to Colonel Dedyut: “... And on the Don Nekrasov is gathering great troops of thieves. God forbid from him, if the zberets are no worse than Bulavin.” Nekrasov, being in the village of Golubinskaya, waited for the arrival of N. Goly with rebel detachments. In order to prevent the union of the detachments of Goly and Nekrasov, V. Dolgoruky and Shidlovsky with their regiments attacked the village of Esaulovskaya, and Khovansky attacked the town of Panshin. In a fierce battle, Nekrasov was defeated. To save participants in the movement from total destruction, he takes the Bulavinites (in September 1708) to Kuban. The government considered the national liberation movement on the Don suppressed.
With the departure of Nekrasov to Kuban, a new stage of the struggle begins, which turned into a movement of Cossacks - Nekrasovites. In terms of its ethnic composition, it was more unified than the Bulavinsky one, and lasted for a long time (from 1709 to 1737). During the new stage of the liberation movement with the tsarist regime, Nekrasov created a stable Cossack community, the descendants of which are our contemporaries. Like-minded people of Nekrasov believed in him and followed him. Nekrasov’s departure to Kuban (former Turkish territory) was forced. The ideologically strong Cossacks left with him, convinced of the rightness of their struggle for the Cossack will with the tsar, boyars, landowners, and princes. V. Dolgoruky’s official message to the Tsar states that “2,000 people left.” Other accounts say that 600 families left; still others, for example Rigelman, claim that 8,000 souls of both sexes left with Nekrasov. The Nekrasovites themselves believe that “Ignat took away 40 thousand Cossacks, except for the small ones, except for the old ones.”
Peter I understood that the struggle of the Cossack people for freedom was not over, the national liberation movement became more organized, the ideology of freedom embraced ever larger circles of the Don Cossacks, so he officially made a request to the Sultan in Constantinople to extradite Ignat Nekrasov and his associates ( I. Loskut, I. Pavlov, S. Bespaly, S. Vorych, etc.). Azov Governor I.A. Tolstoy, in a special report to the Tsar dated January 12, 1709, reports on negotiations with Turkey: “I wrote about Nekrasov in Tsar-grad to my brother before this... And now, according to the letter of Your Majesty, that harasser, I will do everything in my power to give up this thief.” . Negotiations on the extradition of Nekrasov did not produce positive results.
The Nekrasovites, who came to the Kuban at the mouth of the Laba River, settled on the right bank in several villages. Later, most of them, led by I. Nekrasov, settled on the Taman Peninsula, between Kopyl and Temryuk, where the Nekrasovites founded three towns: Bludilovsky, Golubinsky and Chiryansky. Having gathered his forces, I. Nekrasov in 1711 with a large cavalry detachment of Cossacks went to the Saratov and Penza provinces, where he raised the peasants against the boyars, landowners, and governors. Having dealt with the feudal lords, he went to Kuban. Many peasants from these provinces also left with him. Such a “thieves' case” outraged the king. Peter I ordered the Kazan and Astrakhan governor Apraksin to punish Nekrasov. Apraksin with regular troops, Yaik Cossacks, Kalmyks came to Kuban on August 29, 1711, ruined the inhabitants of Kuban and destroyed many Nekrasov towns. In response to Apraksin’s campaign, I. Nekrasov marched near Kharkov in 1713. He destroyed many landowners' estates and beat the governor. Not satisfied with this, he prepared an uprising on the Don. For this purpose, he sent “charming” (seductive) letters to the Don, Khoper, Kharkov, Penza, Saratov, Tambov provinces.
In 1715, Nekrasov organized a detachment of 40 spies and sent them to the Don, to Ukrainian cities under the leadership of the fugitive peasant Sokin. Under the guise of beggars and monastic brethren, they penetrated many provinces, distributed Nekrasov’s letters and appeals, looked out for the location of the tsar’s troops, and persuaded the population to flee to Kuban. In 1717, I. Nekrasov with a large cavalry detachment made a campaign against the Volga, Medveditsa, and Khoper. P.P. Korolenko writes: “Nekrasov took out his anger against the government.” During the campaigns against the Don, Nekrasov especially dealt with the “homely” and “old-timer” Cossacks, as traitors to the Bulavin movement. The government considered the struggle of the Nekrasovites to be a “thieves’ affair,” and the schismatics’ teaching on equality to be a heresy. Beginning in 1720, Nekrasov systematically sent his spies to the Don and Russia.
In order to stop unrest among the population and prevent Nekrasov's envoys from entering Russia, Peter I in 1720 issued a decree according to which Nekrasov's spies were punishable by death, and with them those who sheltered them. Those who knew about them and did not report them were beaten with a whip, their noses and ears were cut, and they were sent to eternal settlement in Siberia. Barrier detachments were sent against those leaving the Don. In 1727, I. Nekrasov sent a detachment of 200 Cossacks to the Don and the southern outskirts of Russia. Their activities were so effective that entire villages and villages rose and went to Kuban. From 1719 to 1727, more than 200 thousand Cossacks, serfs, fled from Russia. And from 1727 to 1741, 300 thousand fled. Of course, from this number of fugitives, many came to the Nekrasovites. Documents about the Bulavinsky and Nekrasovsky movements (letters, reports, reports) were written by supporters of the government, so for the most part they are tendentious, especially in assessing the movement and in describing the facts. More objective documents were letters from the leaders of this movement, but few of them have survived. In this regard, folk stories, legends, and songs are very important and acquire great significance. They almost documentally express truly popular concepts and judgments about events.
After 1737, I. Nekrasov’s campaigns on the Don and the southern outskirts of Russia ceased. Therefore, the end of this year can presumably be considered the year of Ignat Nekrasov’s death.
During the reign of Catherine II, when Russia conquered the Kuban and the highlanders, there was only one order regarding the Nekrasov Cossacks - to exterminate them without exception. The Russian army with special care and zeal pursued the Nekrasovites leaving through the forests and Kamyshev swamps. A real hunt was organized for them, surrounding the floodplains and setting up ambushes. The reeds set on fire by the punitive forces were burning. Knee-deep, chest-deep water, Cossacks walked through the reeds at night, carrying children and weapons in their arms.
Later, about these times in the village of Novo-Nekrasovskaya, Stavropol Territory, it will be written down from the words of the Cossack Mantoev: “They walked through the floodplains and Kuban at night in the reeds, followed by Catherine’s army. If any child cried, the mother was ordered to be thrown into the water. Women covered the babies’ mouths, and they were suffocating, dying, and carried the dead babies in their arms. If a child screamed, and the mother did not give up the child, she was drowned with him so as not to betray the others with her scream. Many people drowned in the Kuban floodplains. Many mothers went crazy when the children drowned and thrown into the water."
The ugly Cossacks lived for two hundred and fifty years in Turkey, where they left the Kuban. They preserved the language, the Cossack Orthodox faith, customs, culture and traditions. They fully fulfilled the behest of Ignat Nekrasov - not to submit, under tsarism not to return to Russia." And only in the 60s of the last century they returned to their homeland and were settled in the Stavropol Territory (at the time of resettlement, the Nekrasov Cossack community numbered 700 families).
Video about the Nekrasov Cossacks
And this is the most “infatuated” photograph of the Nekrasovites in Turkey, on Lake Mainos, beginning. 20th century.
On July 6, 1707, the tsar sent a decree to Colonel Prince Yuri Dolgorukov to restore order on the Don: “... to find all the fugitives and send them for escorts and wives and children, as before, to the same cities and places from where they came.” But the autocrat probably knew very well the unwritten law of the Cossacks: “There is no extradition from the Don.” On September 2, 1707, Yuri Dolgorukov arrived in Cherkassk with two hundred soldiers. Ataman of the Don Army Lukyan Maksimov and the elders formally agreed with the royal decree, but were in no hurry to implement it. Then the prince decided to start catching the fugitives himself. However, the nobleman did not understand that he was not in the Ryazan region, and to capture the fugitives he split his forces into several detachments. On the night of October 8-9, 1707, the Cossacks, led by Kondrat Bulavin, killed Dolgorukov himself, 16 officers and clerks, disarmed the soldiers and released them on all four sides. This is how the famous Bulavinsky uprising began.
On April 12, 1708, the tsar ordered Major of the Life Guards Vasily Dolgorukov, the brother of the murdered Prince Yuri, to suppress the Bulavin uprising. Peter’s instructions for dealing with the Don Cossacks are curious: “Since these thieves are all on horseback and have very light cavalry, it will be impossible for them to reach them with regular cavalry and infantry and only for that reason to send the same ones after them. To go to those towns and villages (of which the main one is Pristannaya town on Khopra), which are pestering theft and burn them without reserve, and chop down people, and impale the owners on wheels and stakes, in order to more conveniently discourage the desire to pester theft from people, for this sary cannot be appeased except by cruelty. The rest relies on the judgment of Mr. Major.”
On July 5-6, a stubborn battle took place near the walls of the Azov fortress, during which the Cossacks of Ataman Lukyan Khokhlach were completely defeated and fled. Khokhlach himself surrendered.
On July 7, in Cherkassk, Cossack elders led by Ivan Zerschikov carried out a coup. Kondrat Bulavin was killed, and according to another version, he shot himself.
According to descriptions, Ignat Nekrasov was of strong build.
Only the raid of Ataman Ignat Nekrasov along the Volga to Kamyshin and Tsaritsyn was successful. Having learned about the death of Bulavin, Nekrasov led his people to the Perevolochna area (between the Don and the Volga). And later, Nekrasov’s men had to go over to the side of the Ottoman Empire.
Finding themselves surrounded by infidels, the Cossacks preserved their customs and rights. “Testaments” preserved in their memory the image of ancient social relations, forgotten by the Cossacks under Russian rule. One of the Russian officials (V.P. Ivanov-Zheludkov), who visited Mainos (Turkey) in 1865, spoke about the extraordinary honesty that reigned in the settlement of the Nekrasovites: “Everyone unanimously assured me that if Nekrasovets had a bag of chervonets lying under his feet, he wouldn’t even take one, on the grounds that you can’t take anything on your own land.” Also interesting is his testimony that atamans, even during their service, are responsible for misdeeds on an equal basis with other members of the community: “That an ataman can be flogged and flogged is beyond doubt and is not at all out of the ordinary events of the Maynos life. In exactly the same way, they put him on his face and in the same way force him to bow to the ground and thank him with the words: “Christ save me for what you taught me!”; then he is given a mace, a symbol of his power, which is taken away by some old man during the punishment. Having handed over the mace, everyone falls at the ataman’s feet, yelling: “Forgive me for Khryast’s sake, Mr. Ataman!” - God will forgive! God will forgive! - the people’s chosen one answers, scratching himself, and everything returns to its previous order.”.
Teaching children musical literacy using "hooks". Among the Old Believers, song books are written not with notes, but with pre-schism signs - “hooks”. This singing is called naming.
You can listen to an example here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPbFF2cCXEM
IGNAT'S TESTAMENTS
(a set of rules elevated to the rank of law by the Nekrasov Cossacks)
1. Do not submit to tsarism. Under the tsars, do not return to Russia.
2. Do not associate with the Turks, do not communicate with non-believers. Communication with the Turks only for needs (trade, war, taxes). Quarrels with Turks are prohibited.
3. The highest authority is the Cossack circle. Participation from 18 years of age.
4. The decisions of the circle are carried out by the ataman. They strictly obey him.
5. The chieftain is elected for a year. If he is guilty, he is removed ahead of schedule.
6. Circle decisions are binding on everyone. Everyone monitors the execution.
7. All earnings are donated to the military treasury. From it everyone receives 2/3 of the money earned. 1/3 goes to the cat.
8. Kosh is divided into three parts: 1 part - army, weapons. Part 2 - school, church. Part 3 - assistance to widows, orphans, old people and other people in need.
9. Marriage can only be concluded between members of the community. For marriage with non-believers - death.
10. The husband does not offend his wife. With the permission of the circle, she can leave him, but the circle punishes her husband.
11. The only way to gain wealth is through hard work. A real Cossack loves his work.
12. For robbery, robbery, murder - by decision of the circle - death.
13. For robbery and robbery in war - by decision of the circle - death.
14. Shacks and taverns should not be kept in the village.
15. There is no way for Cossacks to become soldiers.
16. Keep, keep your word. Cossacks and children must play guitar in the old way.
17. A Cossack does not hire a Cossack. He does not receive money from his brother.
18. Do not sing worldly songs during fasting. You can only use old ones.
19. Without the permission of the circle, the ataman, a Cossack cannot leave the village.
20. Only the army helps orphans and the elderly, so as not to humiliate and humiliate them.
21 Keep personal assistance secret.
22. There should be no beggars in the village.
23. All Cossacks adhere to the true Orthodox old faith.
24. For the murder of a Cossack by a Cossack, the murderer must be buried alive in the ground.
25. Do not engage in trade in the village.
26. Who trades on the side - 1/20 of the profit in kosh.
27. Young people respect their elders.
28. A Cossack must go to the circle after 18 years. If he doesn’t walk, he’s fined twice, and on the third time he’s whipped. The fine is set by the ataman and the foreman.
29. Ataman to be elected after Krasnaya Gorka for a year. To be elected Esaul after 30 years. Colonel or marching ataman - after 40 years. Military chieftain - only after 50 years.
30. For cheating on a husband, he gets 100 lashes.
31. For cheating on your wife - bury her up to her neck in the ground.
32. People beat you to death for stealing.
33. For theft of military goods, a hot cauldron is whipped on the head.
34. If you get mixed up with the Turks - death.
35. For treason to the army, blasphemy - death.
36. If a son or daughter raises a hand against their parents - death. For offending an elder - a whip. The younger brother does not lay hands on the older one; the circle will punish him with whips.
37. In war, don’t shoot at Russians. Don't go against blood.
38. Stand up for small people.
39. There is no extradition from the Don.
40. Whoever does not fulfill Ignat’s commandments will perish.
41. If not everyone in the army is wearing hats, then you cannot go on a campaign.
42. For violations of Ignat’s covenants by the ataman, punish and remove him from the atamanship. If, after punishment, the ataman does not thank the Circle “for science,” flog him again and declare him a rebel.
43. Atamanship can last only three terms - power spoils a person.
44. Keep no prisons.
45. Do not send a deputy on a campaign, and those who do this for money should be executed by death as a coward and a traitor.
46. Guilt for any crime is determined by the Circle.
47. A priest who does not fulfill the will of the Circle is expelled.
The banner of the Nekrasovites.
For more than 240 years, the Nekrasov Cossacks lived outside Russia as a separate community according to the “testaments of Ignat”, which determined the foundations of the life of the community. In total, Nekrasov left, according to various sources, from 2 thousand (500-600 families) to 8 thousand Cossacks with their wives and children . Having united with the Old Believers Cossacks who had gone to the Kuban back in the 1690s, they formed the first Cossack army in the Kuban, which accepted the citizenship of the Crimean khans and received quite broad privileges. Runaways from the Don and ordinary peasants began to join the Cossacks. The Cossacks of this army were called Nekrasovtsy, although it was heterogeneous.
Preparing the bride for the wedding.
First, the Nekrasovites settled in the Middle Kuban (on the right bank of the Laba River, not far from its mouth), in a tract near the modern village of Nekrasovskaya. But soon the majority, including Ignat Nekrasov, moved to the Taman Peninsula, founding three towns - Bludilovsky, Golubinsky and Chiryansky.
For a long time, the Nekrasovites carried out raids on the Russian border lands from here. After 1737 (with the death of Ignat Nekrasov), the situation on the border began to stabilize.
In 1735-1739 Russia several times offered the Nekrasovites to return to their homeland.
Having failed to achieve results, Empress Anna Ioannovna sent Don Ataman Frolov to Kuban. Unable to resist Russian troops, the Nekrasovites began moving to Turkish possessions on the Danube. In the period 1740-1778, with the permission of the Turkish Sultan, the Nekrasovites moved to the Danube. On the territory of the Ottoman Empire, the sultans confirmed to the Nekrasov Cossacks all the privileges that they enjoyed in the Kuban from the Crimean khans.
This year there was an anniversary, 50 years since the last Nekrasovites returned from Turkey. On September 22, 1962, from Turkey, the village of Koca-Gol (before 1938 - Bin-Evle or Eski-Kazaklar, in Nekrasov's language Mainos) 215 families living there, with a total of 985 people, returned to Russia. In total, by 1962, about 1,500 Nekrasovites moved to Russia and the USSR, of which just over 1,200 were from Mainos. Now their descendants live in the villages of Kumskaya Dolina and Novokumsky, Levokumsky district of the Stavropol Territory.
A few pictures of the first steps on our native land. Whether the Cossack women made a good or a bad decision, we cannot judge... but some of the Nekrasovites did not go to the USSR, but moved to the USA, where they are called “Turks”.
On September 5, 1962, we arrived in Prikumsk, and that is what the city of Budennovsk was called at that time, from Turkey to the USSR, for permanent residence, arrived by rail from Novorossiysk, where, in turn, we sailed on the motor ship "Georgia" from Istanbul.
By the way, one little boy was born on the ship and at the station in Prikumsk, the first on Russian soil - Kondrat Poluektovich Shepeleev.
Despite the fact that as a result of punitive expeditions of the tsarist troops into the lands of the Don Army at the end of the 17th century. Many Old Believers’ towns were destroyed, and the Moscow government failed to completely eliminate the split on the Don. In 1707, an anti-feudal uprising broke out here under the leadership of Kondraty Bulavin, which was joined by many adherents of the “old faith”. The uprising failed: already in 1708 K. Bulavin died, and the main forces of the rebels were defeated by government troops. However, the Don Cossacks-Old Believers (about two thousand people in total) under the leadership of Ignat Nekrasov, realizing that final defeat was inevitable, left for Kuban. Not the least role in the choice of the rebel Don people for a place for a new refuge was played by the fact that the Crimean rulers approved of the fugitive Cossacks.
The associates of I. Nekrasov settled in the new lands by the end of 1708 - beginning of 1709 and, having come under the protection of the Crimean Khan, merged with the Kuban Cossacks who lived there. From that time on, they began to be called Nekrasovtsy or Ignat Cossacks.
The Nekrasovites founded three fortified towns located on the Taman Peninsula between Kopyl and Temryuk: Bludilovsky, Golubinsky and Chiryansky. The immigrants from Russia who later joined them settled in Irla, Zalnik and other settlements in the lower reaches of the Kuban and on the shores of the Azov Sea. The main occupations of the Nekrasovites during their stay in the Kuban were fishing, hunting and horse breeding. The Crimean Khan granted the Cossacks internal autonomy and freed them from taxes. However, being under the rule of Crimea, the Nekrasovites were not a completely independent community and were obliged to prove loyalty to their patrons on the battlefield.
Concerned about the presence of hostile Cossacks in the Kuban, the Russian government initially tried to negotiate with the Ottoman Porte about the extradition of I. Nekrasov himself and his associates, but the Turks rejected such proposals, declaring that the Nekrasov Cossacks were subjects of the Sultan. Very soon the Nekrasovites, together with the Tatars, began to launch attacks on Russian territory. After their raid on Saratov and Tsaritsyn in 1711, the tsarist authorities launched a punitive campaign, as a result of which the towns of the Nekrasovites were burned by the army of P. Apraksin and Chapterzhan.
However, this did not stop the Cossacks, and in 1713 I. Nekrasov organized a major campaign near Kharkov. The government needed to involve additional military force in order to defeat the enemy. In 1715, a group of 40 Ignat Cossacks were engaged in anti-government agitation, calling on the residents of the Don and Tambov province to revolt. Two years later, the ataman of the Nekrasovites, at the head of a large detachment, attacked Penza; his associates appeared on Medveditsa and Khopra. In the 20s of the 17th century. I. Nekrasov's spies penetrated the southern regions of Russia, persuading people to take armed action and calling on them to flee to Kuban.
Largely thanks to this agitation, the army of Nekrasovites was constantly replenished by Don, Terek and Yaik Cossacks. The comrades-in-arms of I. Nekrasov themselves rarely left Kuban.
During the Russian-Turkish War of 1735-1739. Anna Ioannovna's government sent punitive detachments against the Nekrasov Cossacks, at the same time trying to persuade them to return to their homeland and promising forgiveness. However, those of them who nevertheless decided to flee to the Don were in most cases detained by representatives of the Turkish administration and then sold into slavery. In 1737, 150 Nekrasovites carried out a raid on the Don villages, which was accompanied by significant destruction. The tsarist government again sent troops to Kuban, and many Cossack towns were destroyed.
After the Russian-Turkish War of 1735-1739. The process of disintegration of the Cossack community of Nekrasovites began, which was accelerated by the death in 1737 of their leader I. Nekrasov. Russia expanded its influence, and the Kuban Cossacks were forced to change their place of residence. One group of them moved in 1740-1741. beyond the Kuban, the other - to Dobruja (Romania), at the mouth of the Danube. The Cossacks who settled in Romania later became known as Lipovans.
The Trans-Kuban community of Nekrasovites continued to be replenished with fugitives from the Terek and Don. In the 50s of the XVIII century. The Russian authorities tried, through negotiations through the mediation of the Caucasian rulers, to return the Ignat Cossacks to the Don, but this action had no consequences. The Nekrasovites did not want to take advantage of the offer of Catherine II, who in 1762 called on the schismatics to return to Russia.
After the annexation of Crimea and the Right Bank of the Kuban to Russia, the tsarist administration again invited the Cossacks to return, promising pardon, but they were given a new place to settle on the Volga. The Nekrasovites did not accept these conditions, continuing their raids on Russian territory. The government of Catherine II continued to repeatedly try through negotiations to persuade the Ignat Cossacks to return, but they decided to move to Turkey. This resettlement took place in the 80s - early 90s of the 18th century. From that time on, Enos (on the shores of the Aegean Sea) and the lands in the vicinity of Lake Mainos became their new place of residence.
Living in a foreign land, the Nekrasov Cossacks represented an ethno-confessional group and preserved their culture, way of life and traditions, based on the so-called “Testaments of Ignat,” a kind of “constitution” of the Nekrasov community, which consisted of 170 articles. According to the "Testaments", the highest power in the community belonged to the circle (people's assembly), the ataman was elected for one year. Every male Nekrasovite acquired full social rights upon reaching the age of eighteen: he could participate in circle meetings with the right to a casting vote.
Women had only the right of an advisory vote. Marriages with people of other faiths were prohibited on pain of death; the Cossacks were obliged to adhere to the “old faith” and not accept Nikonian and Greek priests into the service. In addition, the Nekrasovites were not allowed to return to Russia “under tsarism,” so the process of their resettlement began only in the 20s of the 20th century. The returning Ignat Cossacks settled in hamlets and villages in the Kuban.