How many works have not been written in modern times about the Cossacks. How many discussions unfolded on the question: Are the Cossacks a people or not? Yes, and not only on this issue. One gets the impression that a fountain of huge information is beating outward. But the authors of the dated information do not agree on one point of view.

I will not write about the late history of the Cossacks, I will not peck at the communists for the genocide of our people, because others have already done this, and I will not generally keep a long chronology. No. I set another task: to write short essay about the predecessors and ancestors of the Cossacks, as well as about the early established Cossacks.

The history of this mysterious people does not originate at all in the XV and not in XVI centuries, and much earlier, when in the steppes on the "border" of Russia and the Khazar Khaganate an unusual ethnic formation, called roamers, takes shape. Interestingly, there is so little information about them that it is believed that wanderers are a fictional ethnic group. And indeed, no matter how much I tried to find data, I constantly came across some smallest details that were not of particular importance, and of course everyone's favorite Wikipedia. However, even in this online encyclopedia, I found contradictions. I will talk about these contradictions later. To begin with, I will give all the statements of domestic historians about who the wanderers are. So let's start with the classics. it V. N. Tatishchev, N. M. Karamzin and S. M. Solovyov. Everyone has different definitions. Tatishchev writes that the roamers were a Russian tribe that did not find common language with the principalities and decided to live apart. Karamzin generally believes that it was not the people who were called roamers (tramps), but the usual crowd (convixia) of bandits, consisting of Russians, Hungarians, and Ugrians, in short, of everyone who was tired of sitting at home and doing agriculture. Boring! We, they say, want to fight! But it seems to me that a bunch of bandits could not exist for a century. Anyway, sooner or later, such a conviction would turn into an ethnos, that is, a people. Solovyov has a very similar statement. He also considered the roamers to be a gang of bandits. True, Solovyov has already developed this topic in a more interesting way. He spoke about the participation of wanderers in the civil strife of the Russian princes, as well as external wars with nomads. It is mentioned that one of the Chernigov princes enlisted the support of the Polovtsians and wanderers, but a mistake was clearly made here. Brodniki have been enemies of the Polovtsian khans since ancient times, and the war between them was much more cruel than that of the Polovtsy with the Russians. You ask, how can I say this without having full-fledged data on roamers? The fact is that when the Mongol noyons approached Russia, the roamers immediately chose the side of the Mongols in order to beat the Polovtsy well. I repeat that the choice fell on the Mongols instantly, voluntarily, without coercion. Therefore, it seems to me that wanderers could not be together with the Polovtsy, helping Chernigov princes in the fight against the people of Kiev and other princes.
Remained information about wanderers from the Flemish Franciscan Guillaume de Rubruk who traveled across Eurasia to the headquarters of the Khan Batu in the middle of the thirteenth century. He wrote that wanderers were a rabble of warlike people who served the one who threw the most coins.

Also, the words about the mysterious people can be found in the text of the letter of the Hungarian king Bela IV to the Pope, where among the subjects of the Tatars, those same roamers were called (1254).

Even before the battle on the Kalka, they accepted the Mongol-Tatars, clearly as their own, and it is unlikely, as Rubruk claimed, they fought for money. If that was the case, would the roamers choose the side of the Tatars, whose number was 20 thousand compared to the combined army of Russians and Polovtsians of 80 thousand soldiers? What advantage could there be if a defeat happened and your head was impaled on a Polovtsian spear? If you don’t see the white light, then what kind of money can we talk about!

In the Ipatiev Chronicle of the time of the arrival of the Mongols, the leader of the roamers is called - Ploskinya. He fought together with the commander's Tatars subdaya against the princes until the last, when the battle was going on at Kalka. Historians accuse Ploskin of meanness towards the Russians. Ploskinya lured the Russians out of the camp fortified with a palisade by kissing the cross Mstislav, thereby giving the word that the surrendered Russians would not shed a single drop of blood. Later, as you know, the Tatars tied the Russians and squeezed them with boards, sevning the victory. True, this may seem mean to us, but indeed, the Russians were killed without losing a drop of blood. This is not a trifle. For Tatars and wanderers, this was not a trifle. On the contrary, death without blood was supposed only for worthy warriors. Cowards were chopped off. Therefore, Ploskinya did not break his word. And if you look at the princes, then they completely committed a real meanness - the murder of the Tatar ambassadors and heralds. The writer intercedes for the leader of wanderers Evgraf Petrovich Savelyev. Although the reader has his own point of view. So choose him.

The final conclusion about the ethnogenesis of wanderers came Lev Gumilyov, which I refer to quite often. Just the same, he argued that it was wanderers who were the ancestors of the Cossacks.
Studying the traces of the Khazar Khaganate, L. Gumilyov told that the remnants of the Khazars, who fled from Jewish rule, mixed with the Slavic population of Belaya Vezha, i.e. Sarkel, who settled after big war Svyatoslav Igorevich. And so, this formed people became the beginning for wanderers, not at all nomads, but close to them in spirit. The logic of Gumilyov is very interesting, which refutes the myth about the Cossacks, as the descendants of fugitive peasants. Well, unorganized groups of simpletons with pitchforks could not have escaped and settled in the North Caucasus, organizing resistance to the surrounding enemies. It really is! Think for yourself. And now the well-known ethnographer leads us to the idea that someone accepted these runaway freedom-loving and proud peasants. And who could it be, if not wanderers!? Brodniki nevertheless survived in the harsh conditions of the steppe wars with the Nogays and Karanogays, who captured a large territory of the North Caucasus. They continued to develop, expanding their distribution area. Brodniki improved their culture by communicating with nomads and highlanders.

And now, after two or three centuries, the very Cossacks we know are formed. Those who met the troops Ivan the Terrible, after a trip to Kazan. The very ones who terrified the Tatars, Turks, Nogays, etc. The very ones who conquered Siberia. Those who participated in the "Azov seat", having only 4 thousand Don and Zaporozhye brave men against 200 thousand Ottoman Janissaries.

Already this concept proves that the Cossacks are a people. After all, there were so many examples in history when the Cossacks did not equate themselves with the Russians. The Cossacks have always considered themselves an ethnic group with their own history and traditions. And now, they say that they say that the Cossacks speak Russian in Russian, which means they are Russians, they are just stubborn such that they do not want to admit it. But the signs of an ethnos are not language at all, but ethnic self-consciousness. The Cossacks sometimes spoke both Tatar and Kalmyk. Among the Terek Cossacks, the Chechen language was fashionable. Take the Brazilians and the Portuguese. The same language! But rightly noted Valery Shambarov that Brazilians are not Portuguese! Although they can understand each other. But I repeat that I am not going to impose this point of view. However, even though there are very few real Cossacks left, you can see for yourself that the Cossacks consider themselves a people. Nevertheless, they have always been and will always stand with their breasts for Russia. But the Cossacks are offended. Firstly, some people ridicule them and call them clowns, and secondly, the Great Russians forget about how much blood the Cossacks shed for our common, great power. And we are obliged to revive this glorious people, and not let the wonderful Cossack Orthodox culture fade away.

Brodniki

or "wanderers" and "bronniks" (in the annals) - according to the interpretation of V.N. Tatishchev, people settled on the Don to show fords and crossings, belonging to the Russian tribe and professing the Christian religion. Karamzin believed that by roamers, which means "tramps", one must understand those Russian, Alanian and Hungarian robbers who, according to Rubrukvis (see), who knew roamers, lived between the Volga and Don, making up, as it were, a special people and serving that who paid them more. According to S. M. Solovyov, wanderers are rabble, wandering gangs, like the later Cossacks. All named historians in their definitions of "wanderers" proceeded from the following annalistic references to them. In the Ipatiev Chronicle, under 1147, in a story about the struggle of Svyatoslav Olgovich with the Chernigov Davidovichs and the Grand Duke of Kyiv, Izyaslav Mstislavich, it is said that wanderers and Polovtsians "many" came to his aid, in the land of Vyatichi. The second time they are mentioned under 1216, during the struggle of the Vsevolodovichs, when they replenished the troops of Yaroslav Vsevolodovich. For the third and last time, in the annals under 1223, we see them in conjunction with the Tatars on the Kalka, i.e. on the banks Sea of ​​Azov. The name of their leader "Ploskin" is also mentioned here, who kissed the cross to Prince Mstislav, but then cheated on him. These chronicle reports give the right to conclude that B. lived somewhere in the steppe, in the vicinity of the Polovtsy, and perhaps along the Don and along the shores of the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov, and became known in history from military campaigns undertaken by them together with their Polovtsy neighbors. This conclusion is fully consistent with the news cited by Mr. Golubovsky from other sources. So, in a letter of the Hungarian king Bela IV to Pope Innocent, written in 1254, it says: “When the state of Hungary from the invasion of the Tatars, as from the plague, was mostly turned into a desert, and, like a sheepfold with a hedge, was surrounded by various tribes of infidels , namely: Russians, wanderers from the East, Bulgars and Bosnian heretics from the South ... the Tatars forced to pay tribute especially to countries that border our kingdom from the East, namely: Russia, Cumania, Brodnikov, Bulgaria "... This is news, so Thus, in addition to confirming the annalistic report about the place of residence, B. introduces new details about them, namely, that they were Christians, since they are mentioned next to the Russians, under the name of infidels, and not pagan heretics, which confirms V.N. Tatishchev, who was based only on the kissing of the cross of Ploskin, and that they were subordinate to the Tatars. Another source pointed out by Golubovsky - a letter from Pope Gregory to the Bishop of Granson, written in 1227 - directly indicates that Cumania (the Polovtsian country) is adjacent to the lands of wanderers. And, finally, Nikita Acominatus, in his speech of 1190, even calls them "a branch of the Russians" and points to their warlike spirit. All this information, taken together, allows Mr. Golubovsky to conclude in the end, and it seems quite fair that B. is a community that developed from the remnants of the settled population near the Don, under the influence of the historical. and ethnographic conditions in which it was placed, and representing the prototype of the Cossacks.

Wed Tatishchev "Lexicon." and "History"; Karamzin "Histor. State. Ross." (vols. II and IV, note 66); Solovyov "History of Russia", vol. II and III, and art. Golubovsky: "Pechenegs, Torks and Polovtsy before the invasion of the Tatars", roomed. in "Kyiv University Izvestia" for 1883, volume 6.

Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron. - St. Petersburg: Brockhaus-Efron. 1890-1907 .

See what "Rodniki" is in other dictionaries:

- (bordniki, prodniki, armored) ethnically mixed population of the coast of the Sea of ​​Azov, the lower Don and the Dniester in the XII-XIII centuries. Contents 1 Ethnicity 2 Places of residence ... Wikipedia

The population of the coast of the Azov m. and the lower Don in the 12th-13th centuries, possibly Slavic. They participated in the civil strife of Russian princes, Russian Polovtsian and Russian Tatar battles ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

BRODNIKI, the population of the coast of the Sea of ​​Azov and the lower reaches of the Don in the 12th-13th centuries, possibly Slavic. Participated in civil strife of Russian princes, Russian Polovtsian and other battles. Source: Encyclopedia Fatherland militant Russian population ... ... Russian history

Warlike population of the shores of the Sea of ​​Azov and the lower Don (12th-13th centuries). Apparently, B. is the remnants of the ancient Slavic population of the southern Russian steppes, greatly weakened by the invasion of the Polovtsy (See Polovtsy) and Tatars. Lit .: Volynkin N. M ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Hosts. population of the shores of the Azov m. and lower. Don (12th-13th centuries). Apparently, B. remains of other Slavs. the population of the south. Russian steppes, greatly weakened by the invasion of the Polovtsians and Tatars. Lit .: Mavrodin V.V., Slavic Russian. the population of the lower Dona and Sev. Caucasus in... Soviet historical encyclopedia

The population of the coast of the Sea of ​​Azov and the lower Don in the XII-XIII centuries, possibly Slavic. Participated in civil strife of Russian princes, Russian Polovtsian and Russian Tatar battles. * * * BRODNIKI BRODNIKI, the population of the coast of the Sea of ​​Azov and ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Wanderers- a tribe of recent Cossack ancestors who lived on the Don already in the first half of the Middle Ages. In the 8th century The Arabs considered them Sakalibs, a white people, predominantly of Slavic blood. In 737, the Arab commander Mervan marched with the troops throughout the indigenous ... ... Cossack dictionary-reference book

Wanderers- [Old Rus. wanderers, wanderers], inhabitants of South Russian. steppes from the Danube to the Don, formed in the middle. XII 1st half. 13th century military political entities next to Kievan Rus, Cumans and Hungary. Sources testify... Orthodox Encyclopedia

wanderers- iv, pl. The population of the coast of the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov and the lower Don ... Ukrainian glossy dictionary

This term has other meanings, see Brodniki. Village Brodniki Country Russia Russia ... Wikipedia

[Old Russian. wanderers, wanderers], inhabitants of South Russian. steppes from the Danube to the Don, formed in the middle. XII - 1st floor. 13th century military-political formations in the neighborhood of Kievan Rus, Polovtsy and Hungary. Sources testify to the large number of B. and the presence of their own governors. In ancient Russian chronicles B. are mentioned together with the Polovtsy as participants in the strife of the Russian. princes (under 1147 and 1216). During the Battle of the Kalka in 1223, a part of B. (“old wanderers”), led by the governor Ploskynya, went over to the side of the Mongols, breaking the alliance with the Russians. princes. In 1254, the Hungarian box Bela IV, in a letter to Pope Innocent IV, mentions B. (lat. Brodnici) on a par with Russia, Kumania and Bulgaria as east. neighbors of Hungary - tributaries of the Tatars.

The origin and ethnicity of B. remain the subject of debate. The most important evidence is one of the speeches of the Byzantine historian Nicetas Choniates (spoken in 1190), where B. (according to the most probable interpretation of the Greek ethnonym οἱ ἐκ Βορδόνῃ) are defined as a branch of the “Tauroscythians” (traditional name of the Russians in the Byzantine sources of that time), which clearly distinguishes them both from the Komans (Polovtsians) and from the Vlachs. Based on this, F.I. Uspensky expressed an opinion about the predominantly Old Russian. the ethnic character of B. To date, this hypothesis remains the most substantiated, although other terms have also been expressed. Regarding the social origin of B. in historiography, there is an opinion that they were based on fugitive serfs and peasants from neighboring and distant regions of Russia, who flocked to the steppes, where they became a kind of predecessor of South Russians. Cossacks who lived in settlements near river fords (N. F. Kotlyar). In Romanian. historiography established opinion about the Romanians. B.'s ethnicity, but in present. time there is no evidence that gives grounds for identifying this people with the ancestors of the modern. Romanian (V. P. Shusharin).

Among B. was, obviously, widespread Orthodoxy. Christianity, as evidenced by the mentioned in Russian. chronicles the fact that their voivode Ploskinya took the oath on the cross to the Kyiv prince. Mstislav Romanovich in 1223. In the message of Kor. Bely 1254, Russians and B. are called tribes of "infidels", as Orthodox (along with pagans) were often referred to in the West. sources. The Roman Church sought to convert B. along with the Polovtsians to Catholicism. Thus, in 1227, Pope Gregory IX sent missionaries “to the Cumans and to the neighboring country of wanderers” (in Cumanis et Brodnici terra vicina).

Source: Codex diplomaticus Hungariae ecclesiasticus et civilis. Bdpst., 1829. Vol. 1, pars 1. P. 108; Vetera monumenta historiam Hungariae Sacram illustrantia. R., 1860. Vol. 1. P. 93. No. 127; PSRL. T. 1. Stb. 494, 508; T. 2. Stb. 342; NPL. S. 63; Nicetae Choniatae Orationes et Epistulae / Ed. J. L. van Dieten. b.; N.Y., 1972.

I. O. Knyazky

Wanderers

Wanderers - a tribe of recent Cossack ancestors who lived on the Don - already in the first half of the Middle Ages. In the 8th century The Arabs considered them Sakalibs, a white people, predominantly of Slavic blood. In 737, the Arab commander Mervan marched with his troops throughout the indigenous Khazaria between the Don and the Volga, and beyond Perevoloka he met the semi-nomadic horse breeders Sakalibs. The Arabs took their horse herds and took with them up to 20 thousand families, who settled on eastern border Kakheti. Persian geography of the tenth century (Gudud al Alam) indicates the same place where the Arabs met the Sakalibs, i.e. along the rivers Ilovla and Medveditsa, the country of the pagans B.radasov: "To the east of it is the Atil (Volga) river; to the south of it are the Khazars; to the west - V.n.nd.r; to the north of the Pechenegs-Turks. The people of this country profess the same faith as the Guzes; they live in felt tents and burn their dead; they depend on the Khazars, and their wealth consists of the skins of the weasel animal; they have 2 princes who are kept separately. It is quite obvious that these are the same Sakalibs, and by name none other thanBrodniki.

Such evidence gives the right to see in Brodniki not a random rabble of people who fled from somewhere in the steppe, but an ancient tribal formation that lived under the rule of its leaders. Persian geography also indicates another people with a similar name, the Mohammedans Burtasov, but places them on the eastern side of the Volga. Burtasov and some other authors of that time also indicate beyond the Volga. There is no doubt that B. radas and Burtas are peoples different in name, faith, and place of residence. Starting from 1147, Russian chronicles and acts recall B-kov and their cities, "Brodnich from the Place", somewhere not far from the Upper Don. But probably the event of the end of the 11th century, recorded in the will of Vladimir Monomakh, also belongs to them: “That winter, we went to Yaropolk, to swim together on Brody,” where Brody should be understood as the same B-kov, against whom two Russian princes united . The last chronicle report about the B-kas refers to 1223, when they, together with the Tatars, opposed Russia and the Polovtsy on the Kalka. The tone of the Kyiv chronicler shows that there was no special friendship between the Don and Dnieper populations. The acts of Western Europe remember B-kov for the last time in the message of the Hungarian king Bela IV to Pope Inokentii (1254): "The Tatars forced to pay tribute especially to the countries that border our kingdom from the east: Russia, Cumania, Brodnikov, Bulgaria." Further, instead of them, a new name appears, known from Russian church acts. These are the Cossacks of Chervleny Yar, Christians of the Sarsk diocese, participants in the battle on the Kulikovo Field. Russian archaeologists during the last excavations on the Don discovered for the era between the eighth and tenth centuries material culture mixed type(Slavic, Yassian and Turanian) and skulls of the Podonsk population with clear signs of complete miscegenation (V.V.Gintsburg, Anthropological composition of Sarkel-Belaya Vezha. Mat. and research on the architecture of the USSR, volume 109). On this basis, it is concluded that B. came from a mixture of tribes that lived along the Don and Donets under the Khazars. Archaeologist M.I. Artamonov assumes in them a Slavic-Turanian mixture (M.I. Artamonov, Sarkel - Belaya Vezha. Mat. and. about the burial of the 11th century, he even thinks that "the warrior with a mace buried in Taganch was probably a koshev of one of the wandering detachments, laid with the attributes of his power - a mace, according to the Brodnitsky, i.e. Cossack custom with a horse and weapons"

The story of the ill-fated first encounter with the Mongols is told in various ways in the Russian chronicles.
In particular, she reports in different ways about the role of roamers in this battle - people in general are quite mysterious.
The Galician-Volyn Chronicle, a continuation of the Ipatiev Chronicle, and the Suzdal Chronicle, a continuation of the Laurentian Chronicle, are generally silent about wanderers in this battle. The news that the voivode of the wanderers Ploskinya betrayed the Russian princes to the Tatars is contained in only two sources, in the Novgorod First Chronicle and in the academic list of the Suzdal Chronicle.

this is how it looks in the Novgorod First Chronicle

And so - in the Academic list.

By the way, Gumilyov heaped, as usual, some incredible nonsense - the de Tatars promised not to shed the blood of the Russian princes, and they didn’t shed blood, they say, but strangled them under the boards. Once again, the pope of all the Eurasians lied in order to give the obvious - and another, if we recall at least Rashid ad Din - perjury of the nomads dearly loved by him at least a remote appearance of honesty. In the sources, as usual, there is nothing of this. The Tatars violated the oath quite serenely - as always - the prisoners were tortured not for the sake of observing some decency, but for their own pleasure.

But here we are more interested in the role of roamers and Ploskynya. I believe that the version of the Novgorod First Chronicle that Ploskinya and his roamers were "with the Tatars" is caused by a misunderstanding. How did they end up with the "Tatars". and what does the cross-kissing of Ploskyny have to do with it? Did the princes trust the roamers so much that they agreed to surrender? And how the roamers, known to chronicles since 1147 under the banner of Svyatoslav Olgovich, the father of the heroes of the Tale of the Campaign, Igor and Vsevolod, who in 1190 came to the aid of the Bulgarians against Byzantium, managed to mark themselves in the Battle of Lipitsa in 1213 on the side of the younger sons of Vsevolod Bolshoy Nest, suddenly become allies of these strangers who have just appeared at the borders of Russia?

Apparently, "with the Tatars" of the Novgorod Chronicle is a simple slip of the tongue instead of the "old" - that is, the old allies-federates of the Russian princes. The mistake was aggravated by the treacherous role of Ploskin, who kissed the cross, of course, not that the Tatars would spare the prisoners - but kissed the cross. joining the princes in the service. He did not join the Tatars before the battle - but tied the princes and opened the gates to the enemy. The slip of the Novgorod scribe only shifted the time of the governor's betrayal - who, with a high probability, himself became a victim of his crime.

Brodnik (drawing by I. Dzysya)