Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian Sea, the Crimea, the Caucasus, &c.

by Xavier Hommaire de Hell; Adèle Hommaire de Hell

At first the new conquest was put under the direction of the military governor of Astrakhan; but the state of the southern frontiers soon became so serious in consequence of the war with the mountaineers, that it was found advisable to form all the provinces conquered by Catherine II. north of the Caucasus, into a distinct province. The government of the Caucasus thus constituted, is bounded on the north by the Kouma and the Manitch, which divide it from the territory of Astrakhan and from that of the Don Cossacks; on the west by the country of the Black Sea Cossacks; on the east by the Caspian, and on the south by the armed line of the Kouban and the Terek.

At the foot of the Caucasus, as everywhere else, the Russian occupation occasioned great migrations. All the black Nogais of the right bank of the Kouban, who had fought against Russia, withdrew beyond the river among the tribes of the mountain. The Kabardians forsook the environs of Georgief, and sought refuge deeper in the Caucasian chain, and it was only the black Nogais of the barren plains between the Terek and the Kouma that remained in their old abodes. Cut off from the independent tribes since the erection of the fortresses of Kisliar and Mosdok, they took no part in the events of the war, and so they remained in peaceable possession of their territory. As for the Kalmucks, who had been very bold and active auxiliaries of Russia, they preserved intact all the pasturages they now possess in the government of the Caucasus.

The Muscovite sway once established, and the frontiers put in a state of defence, the next step was to occupy the country along the northern verge of the Caucasus in some other way than by light troops. It was therefore determined to form numerous colonies of Muscovites and Cossacks, a project which the absolute power of the tzars enabled them quickly to fulfil. The present villages in the centre of the province along the banks of the Kouban, the Terek, the Kouma, the Egorlik and the Kalaous, were erected, and the military colonies of the Black Sea Cossacks were founded; several large proprietors seconded the efforts of the government, and prompted either by the spirit of speculation, or by the superabundance of their slaves, formed large establishments on the lands that had been gratuitously conferred upon them. Attempts, too, were made to settle some of the German families of Saratof on the Kouma.

But the results were far from realising the hopes of the government. Compressed between the narrow limits in the districts of Stavropol and Georgief, bounded on the north and east by the uncultivated lands of the Turcomans and Kalmucks, on the south by the armed lines, continually attacked and overrun by the mountaineers, the colonies soon ceased to wear a thriving appearance; many sacked and burnt villages never rose again from their ashes, the German colony on the Kouma was destroyed, and now there remains no hope that the number of agricultural inhabitants will ever become sufficient to lend any real aid to the projects of the tzars. We have been in a great many villages on the Kouma, and the confluents of the Manitch, and found them scarcely able to supply their own wants. Their contributions to the commissariat are almost nothing, and the armies are always obliged to procure their stores from the central provinces of Russia.

Some settlements, indeed, such as Vladimirofka and Bourgon Madjar on the Kouma, directed by able men, have attained a high degree of prosperity; but these are exceptions, and they owe their wealth to the cultivation of the mulberry and the pine, and their numerous corn-mills, which constitute for them a virtual monopoly. The cultivation of corn has had no share in the welfare of these colonies, the nature of the climate having always been unfavourable to it: the people of Vladimirofka and the neighbouring villages think themselves fortunate if they can raise corn enough for their own consumption.

Thus, while we cordially approve of the principle that suggested the foundation of these advanced posts of the Slavic population, and that strives to enlarge their growth, we are nevertheless convinced that in the present state of things, with the war in the Caucasus becoming every day more formidable, these colonies can never be conducive to the progress of Russia; unless, indeed, that should happen, which we think most unlikely, namely, that the government should so extend its conquests as to become undisputed possessor of the fertile regions beyond the Kouban, where the colonist could command sufficient natural resources.

The Cossacks better fulfilled the purpose for which they were settled on the frontier. Active, enterprising, and accustomed to partisan warfare, they were admirably adapted for resisting the incursions of the mountaineers. If they have been less efficient of late years, the blame must be laid on the inordinate demands of the government, the extreme contempt with which they are treated by the Russian generals, and, above all, the extinction of the privileges which had been wisely conferred on them in the beginning, and which alone could guarantee to the empire the maintenance of their vigorous military organisation.

The Black Sea Cossacks, as every one is aware, are descended from the Zaporogues of the Dniepr, whose famous military corporation appears to have been established towards the end of the fifteenth century. Continually engaged against the Tatars of the Crimea, the Ukraine Cossacks founded at this period a sort of colony near the mouths of the Dniepr, consisting exclusively of unmarried men, whose special avocation it was to guard the frontiers. Their numbers rapidly increased, deserters from all nations being attracted to them by the hope of booty, and their setcha, or head-quarters, on an island of the Dniepr, became famous throughout the land for the military services and the valour of its inhabitants. In 1540, such was the importance of these colonies to Poland, that King Sigismund granted a large tract of land above the cataracts to the Zaporogues, in order to strengthen the barrier erected by them between his dominions and the Tatars.

The new settlements on the Dniepr for a long time followed the fortune of the Cossacks of Little Russia. But as their strength augmented continually, they at last detached themselves from the mother country, and became an independent military state. The supremacy of the tzars was imposed on Little Russia in 1664, and from that time the Zaporogues, deprived of their allies, and left entirely to their own resources, owned allegiance, according to circumstances, to the Turks or the Tatars, to Poland or Russia, until the rebellion of Mazeppa, in which they took part, led to the total destruction of their power. Some years afterwards we find them again rallied under the protection of the khans of the Crimea; but Russia soon assumed so formidable an attitude in those parts, that they were at last constrained, in 1737, to acknowledge themselves vassals of the empire.

But the political decline of the unfortunate Zaporogues did not stop there. During the war that preceded the treaty of Koutchouk Kainardji, a strong desire for independence was excited among them by the arbitrary acts of Russia. Many of their detachments fought even in the ranks of the Turks. Then it was that Catherine determined on completely rooting out the military colony of the Dniepr. The Zaporogues were expelled by force from their territory, which was given to other cultivators; and some of them emigrated beyond the Danube, while others were transported to the neighbourhood of Bielgorod. Ten years afterwards, when war broke out again with Turkey, a great number of the latter volunteered into the Russian armies. After the peace of Jassy, Prince Potemkin, who had formed them into regiments, was so pleased with their valour and fidelity, that he induced Catherine to settle them beyond the strait of the Kertch, and intrust them with the defence of the Circassian border. They were also granted, along with the peninsula of Taman, the whole territory comprised between the Kouban and the Sea of Azof, and extending eastward to the confluent of the Laba, and northward to the river Eia. The Zaporogues then took the appellation of Cossacks of the Black Sea, and their organisation was assimilated to that of their brethren of the Don. They had an attaman, nominated for life by the emperor, out of a list of candidates chosen by themselves; and the civil and military affairs of the community were directed, under this supreme chief, by two permanent functionaries, and four assessors changed every three years. Other privileges were likewise accorded to them, consisting chiefly in exemption from all taxes, the free use of the salt-pools, the right of terminating all litigations without having recourse to the St. Petersburg courts of appeal, and in the pledge given to them by the government, that their regiments should never be required to serve beyond their own territory.