Material for the presentation "nomadic tribes in the territory of Donbass". Ancient history of Donbass
The territory between the Dnieper and Don, bounded from the south by the Sea of Azov, and from the north by a conventional line of forests, is called Donbass, from the abbreviation DONETS COAL BASIN. In a broad sense, Donbass (Greater Donbass) is a vast region that includes the territories of modern Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine, certain areas of the Dnepropetrovsk region, and a small strip along the Ukrainian border of the Rostov region of the Russian Federation with the cities of Shakhty and Millerovo. But usually by Donbass they mean the territory of two Ukrainian regions with a population of 8 million people (Small Donbass).
Currently, the northern half of the Donetsk and southern half of the Lugansk regions, closely connected with each other, constitute one continuous metropolis of seven million - one of the largest in Europe. A metropolis stretching for 250 km. from west to east and 200 km. from south to north, with extensive suburbs, agricultural and recreational areas, a developed communications network, including a large seaport and several airports. The third part of large cities in Ukraine with a population of more than 100,000 people. is part of this metropolis. In total, the metropolis includes about 70 cities with a population of more than ten thousand people each.
Donbass occupies a special place in the ethnic, as well as in the economic and political life of historical Russia.
The main wealth of the region is coal. It was coal, which until the middle of the 20th century was called the “bread of industry,” that radically changed this region, turning it into one of the most important industrial centers in Russia. But it was coal, when it lost its importance to a certain extent, that became the cause of the economic depression of Donbass.
This region emerged at the junction of Slobozhanshchina and Novorossiya in a historical sense relatively recently - at the turn of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Although this region has been inhabited since ancient times, and became part of Russia back in the 17th century, it acquired truly all-Russian and global economic significance much later. Feather-grass and wormwood grasses scorched by the sun and dried by eastern winds-hot winds, bare areas of moisture-deprived and cracked earth, rocky outcrops of limestone and sandstone, occasionally supplemented by thickets of bushes, and even less often by small forests - this was the landscape of the Donetsk region in the recent past. For many peoples living in the region, the Donetsk steppes were only a place of grazing livestock with isolated centers of agriculture. The Donetsk steppes stood on the path of migrations and were open to all winds. It is not surprising that the Scythians, Sarmatians, Huns, Goths, Alans, Khazars, Pechenegs and Cumans passed through the steppes, leaving considerable traces of their material culture here.
From the 8th century, the Slavs began to dominate in the region, especially the tribe of the Northerners. The names of the Seversky Donets River and the city of Novgorod-Seversky (where Igor reigned, sung in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”) remained from the northerners. The Slavs did not last long in these steppes. Already at the end of the 11th century, the Polovtsian onslaught threw them to the north and west, under the saving canopy of forests, and the Donetsk steppes again became a “Wild Field”. In the area of the current city of Slavyansk there was the headquarters of Khan Konchak. It was on the territory of the present Donetsk region that the Battle of the Kayala River took place in 1185, when Prince Igor was defeated and captured by the Polovtsians. On the Kalka River, now Kalchik, a tributary of the Kalmius, in 1223 the first battle of the Russian princes with the Mongols took place.
From that time until the 17th century, the Tatars were the masters of the region. The remains of some Golden Horde settlements have survived to this day. As the Golden Horde declined and the Tatar population of the region, subordinate to the Crimean Khan, turned into professionals in raiding Rus', the Tatar cities disappeared, and the steppes again took on their primitive desert appearance. Politically, the Donetsk region turned out to be a "no man's land" between the Crimean Khanate, the Muscovite Kingdom, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Zaporozhye Sich. In the 17th century, the border of the Russian state and the lands of the Don Army with the Crimean Khanate passed along the Seversky Donets. Above the Svyatogorsk Monastery it was guarded by Sloboda Cossacks, and below, along the Donets, there were fortified towns of the Donets.
In 1571, after another Tatar raid, on the orders of Ivan the Terrible, Prince Tyufyakin and clerk Rzhevsky visited here on an inspection trip and installed a border sign in the form of a cross at the source of the Mius. In 1579, the government formed special mobile horse units to patrol the steppe roads from the Mius River to the Samara River.
However, already in the 16th and especially in the 17th centuries, Zaporozhye and Don Cossacks were active in the Donetsk steppes. Moving along the Kalmius River to the Sea of Azov, the Cossacks began to create fortified winter huts along the banks of the river. At the beginning of the 17th century, Russian service people of the Izyum Line began to settle here, as well as Cherkassy (Little Russians who left Polish rule from the territory of Polish possessions in Ukraine). In 1600, Alekseevka, Chernukhino, the settlement of Staraya Belaya (now the Lugansk region) arose, in 1637 - the Osinov fort, in 1644 the fort Tor (named after the river of the same name) was built to protect the saltworks from the raids of the Crimeans. The Don Cossacks did not lag behind: in 1607, after the defeat of Bolotnikov’s uprising, his comrade-in-arms, Ataman Shulgeiko, went to the Wild Field and founded the Shulgin town on Aidar. In 1640, the Borovsk town arose on the Borov River, in 1642 - Old Aidar, then Trekhizbyanka, Lugansk, and other Cossack towns.
In the second half of the 17th century, a large-scale migration of Little Russians began to the east, to Sloboda Ukraine. The northern part of present-day Donbass became part of Slobozhanshchina in those days. Mayatsky (1663), Solyanoy (1676), Raigorodok (1684), and a number of other settlements grew on the Tory Lakes, which indicated rapid population growth. Don and Zaporozhye Cossacks, fugitive peasants from Left Bank Ukraine and Southern Russia settled here mixed together. In 1668, for example, 100 Russian Moscow “people” and 37 “Cherkasy” (Ukrainians) lived in Mayaki.
In the northern part of the region, in the area of the current city of Slavyansk, Russian settlers began mining salt back in 1625. In Cossack settlements and towns along the Seversky Donets and the Don, metallurgical, mining and blacksmithing production was established. Izyum and Don Cossacks began to cook salt not only in Slavyansk, but also on Bakhmutka, a tributary of the Seversky Donets. The town of Bakhmut (known since 1663) grew up near the new salt mines. In addition to salt, the Cossacks knew very well about coal, which they used to light fires. In addition, the Cossacks learned to mine lead ores by smelting the metal in special ladles. However, the proximity to the Crimean Khanate, which turned the conditional steppe border of Russia and Crimea into a permanent battlefield, did not at all contribute to the development of the region.
However, the development of the region did not stop. In 1703, Bakhmutsky district was created (as part of the Azov, later Voronezh province), which included almost all the settlements of modern Donbass existing at that time.
In 1730, a new fortified Ukrainian line was created, connecting the middle reaches of the Dnieper with the Seversky Donets with a chain of fortified places. Under Catherine II, the Dnieper line of fortifications was drawn along the southern border of the Ekaterinoslav province. As a result, vast desert areas, covered by fortified lines, became available for settlement.
According to the first revision of 1719, 8,747 souls lived in the district (6,994 Great Russians and 1,753 Little Russians). In 1738 there were 8,809 of them (6,223 Russians and 2,586 Ukrainians). As we can see, the pace of settlement was weak, which caused some concern in St. Petersburg. It was in this region that for the first time in Russia attempts were made to create settlements of foreign colonists.
During the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna, the resettlement of the South Slavs took on large proportions. Serbian settlers began arriving in the region in 1752. They founded a number of military-agricultural settlements, divided into regiments, companies and trenches and making up Slavyanoserbia in the northeastern part of the Ekaterinoslav province (Slavyanoserbsky district).
The number of Serbs among the settlers was not large; by 1762, the entire population of Slavic Serbia was 10,076 people. (2,627 Moldovans, 378 Serbs, the rest of the population consisted of Bulgarians, Great Russians - Old Believers, Little Russians and Poles). Subsequently, this motley and multilingual mass assimilated with the indigenous Little Russian population and adopted its language and appearance.
After the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-74. The coast of the Sea of Azov became part of Russia. Now the region could develop in peaceful conditions. As in all of Novorossia, the rapid emergence of new cities began. So, in 1795, a village appeared at the plant, which soon became the city of Lugansk.
The systematic settlement of the region by foreigners continued: back in 1771-73, during the ongoing war with the Turks, 3,595 Moldovans and Volokhs who surrendered during the next Russian-Turkish war settled here (they founded the village of Yasinovataya, now a railway center).
Already in 1778, as already mentioned, the Greeks withdrawn from the Crimea, numbering 31 thousand people, settled on the southern coast, settling in the territory from the Berda River to the Kalmius River. The city of Mariupol became the center of Greek settlements. However, later Greeks from Anatolia and Thrace began to be added to the Crimean Greeks, who founded a number of settlements.
In 1788, German colonists began to settle. The first group of Mennonite settlers (the so-called pacifist Protestant sect) of 228 families (910 people) settled on the river. Konka and near Ekaterinoslav. In 1790-96, another 117 families moved to the Mariupol district. Each colonist was allocated 60 acres of land. In addition to the Mennonites, more than 900 Lutherans and Catholics arrived in Russia. By 1823, 17 German colonies had emerged in the Azov region, the center of which was Ostheim (now Telmanovo).
In 1804, the government allowed 340,000 Jews to leave Belarus. Some of them settled on these lands, forming 3 colonies here in 1823-25. A new wave of Jewish settlement dates back to 1817, when the Society of Israelite Christians was created to “convert Jews to Christianity and to agricultural pursuits.” Several hundred Jews from Odessa took advantage of this call and settled between Kalchik and Mariupol on lands not occupied by the Greeks.
Finally, in the 60s of the 19th century, the Azov region was abandoned by the Nogais who had previously roamed here and moved to Turkey (together with part of the Crimean Tatars), but settlements of Bessarabian Bulgarians appeared, who left southern Bessarabia, which in 1856 departed from Russia to the Principality of Moldova.
So, by the middle of the 19th century, Donbass was developing on a par with other regions of New Russia. Everything changed dramatically with the beginning of industrial mining of Donetsk coal, as well as the development of ferrous metallurgy.
In 1696, returning from the Azov campaign, Peter I became acquainted with Donetsk coal. While resting on the shore of Kalmius, the king was shown a piece of black, well-burning mineral. “This mineral, if not for us, then for our descendants, will be very useful,” said Peter. During his reign, coal mining began to acquire quite large proportions. The Russian ore explorer, serf Grigory Kapustin, discovered coal near the tributaries of the Seversky Donets in 1721 and proved its suitability for use in blacksmithing and iron-making industries. In December 1722, Peter by personal decree sent Kapustin for coal samples, and then it was ordered to equip special expeditions for the exploration of coal and ore. It would seem that this discovery would serve as an impetus for the development of the coal and metallurgical industries, but after the death of Peter, Donetsk coal was forgotten for a long time in St. Petersburg.
Interest in Donetsk coal was revived in the 19th century. In 1827, under the leadership of E.P. Kovalevsky, a major scientist and industrial organizer, who later became the Minister of Finance of Russia, three geological expeditions were organized. Based on the results of the expeditions, E.P. Kovalevsky published an article in which he first mentioned the name “Donetsk Basin,” which in abbreviated form became the name of the region.
In the middle of the 19th century, rapid railway construction began in Russia. It requires metal and coal. All this was in the Donetsk steppes, which were also located next to the Black Sea and Azov port cities.
In 1841, to organize fuel supplies to steam ships of the Azov-Black Sea flotilla, the first technically equipped Donetsk mine was put into operation. In 1858, on the territory of modern Yenakievo, a blast furnace plant was founded, named Petrovsky in honor of Peter I. In 1869, the Englishman John Hughes, who was called Yuz in Russia, acquired a concession for cast iron and rail production in the south of Russia, built the first large metallurgical enterprise on the banks of the Kalmius River, around which the village of Yuzovka soon grew.
In total, in the Donbass by 1900 there were up to 300 different kinds of enterprises and establishments in the metalworking, chemical, local manufacturing and food-flavoring industries.
Railways connected Donetsk coal with Krivoy Rog ore, creating favorable conditions for the rapid development of heavy industry in the region. Coal production increased from 295.6 million pounds in 1894 to 671.1 million in 1900, i.e. 2.5 times. By 1913, more than 1.5 billion poods of coal were mined in the Donbass. The share of the Donetsk basin in the country's coal industry increased to 74%, with almost all coking coals being mined in the Donbass.
The rapid growth of industry also caused rapid population growth. By the end of the 18th century. the population of the Donetsk region was 250 thousand people. By the middle of the 19th century, the majority (about 500) of modern settlements with a population of about 400 thousand people already existed in Donbass. In the second half of the nineteenth century. The population of the territory of modern Donbass increased 5 times faster than in other regions of the Russian Empire. According to the 1897 census, 333,478 people already lived in Bakhmut district of Yekaterinoslav province, and 254,056 people lived in Mariupol district. At the beginning of the 20th century, the major industrial centers of the Donetsk region became: Gorlovka - 30 thousand inhabitants, Bakhmut (now Artemovsk) - more than 30 thousand, Makeevka - 20 thousand, Enakievo -16 thousand, Kramatorsk -12 thousand, Druzhkovka - more 13 thousand. Only from 1900 to 1914 the number of working population of the Donetsk region doubled.
The growth of Yuzovka, which arose in 1869, is indicative. In 1884, 6 thousand inhabitants lived in it, in 1897 - 28 thousand, in 1914 - 70 thousand. Moreover, only in 1917 Yuzovka received the status of a city!
Donbass, which was initially distinguished by its multinationality, during the period of rapid development at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. accepted hundreds of thousands of immigrants of various nationalities.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, the size and national composition of the population of Donbass (Bakhmut district, Mariupol district, Slavyanoserbsky district, Starobelsky district, Slavyansk), according to the All-Russian census of 1897, were as follows:
Russians 985,887 - 86.7% (Little Russians 710,613 - 62.5%, Great Russians 275,274 - 24.2%, Belarusians 11,061 - 1.0%), Greeks 48,452 - 4.2%, Germans 33,774 - 3.0%, Jews 22,416 - 2.0%, Tatars 15,992 - 1.4%. Total 1,136,361 people.
In Yuzovka in 1884, according to the city census, out of 6
It was at that time that the main proportions of the ethnic structure of Donbass took shape, which have survived to this day with relatively minor changes. The result was the formation of a multi-ethnic community of representatives of about 130 ethnic groups with an absolute predominance of Russians and very Russified Ukrainians (more correctly, Little Russians), who are Ukrainians by passport.
Gradually, under the influence of a number of factors (natural environment, working conditions, etc.), the population of Donbass began to transform into a stable regional community with a single value base, worldview, culture, and way of life. The linguistic factor played and continues to play a particularly important role in the formation of a single regional community of Donbass. Its characteristic features were formed during the period of dynamic qualitative and quantitative changes in the population of Donbass in recent centuries. The result was the dominance of the Russian language, despite the large number of Surzhik-speaking Little Russians who settled in the region in the first half of the twentieth century, and the policy of Ukrainization that was carried out by various authorities starting in the 1920s.
So, in just 30-40 years, between the 1860s and 1900s, due to the flexible protectionist government policy and the efforts of Russian and foreign entrepreneurs, the vast region from the Seversky Donets to the Azov region turned into the largest industrial center in Europe, sometimes called the “Russian” Rurom".
It was at this time that Donbass formed into a single interconnected economic region, covering Ekaterinoslav, Kharkov, and partly Kherson provinces and the Don Army Region.
At the beginning of the last century, Alexander Blok, having visited Donbass, called it New America - for the unprecedented dynamism of development, the entrepreneurial spirit of managers and the mixing of nationalities in a single “melting pot”.
However, the rapid development of the region was carried out due to the merciless exploitation of local miners. Unlike the “old-fashioned” entrepreneurs of the Urals or the “calico belt” around Moscow, who retained paternalistic attitudes towards their workers, Donetsk entrepreneurs did not differ in any sentimental feelings towards the workforce. At the same time, Donetsk workers, most of them literate, almost cut off from the village, despite fairly high wages, were distinguished by a very fighting spirit and organization. It is no coincidence that Donbass became one of the centers of the strike movement in the Russian Empire. The Bolshevik Party enjoyed significant influence in the region back in 1905. After the February Revolution, the influence of the Bolsheviks grew especially significantly, which made Donbass one of the strongholds of Bolshevism in the country. By May 1917, the majority of local councils had sided with the Bolsheviks, leaving the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks in the minority. At the same time, bourgeois parties and Ukrainian independentists had no success at all. The influence of local Bolsheviks was evidenced by the results of municipal elections. In August 1917, Bolshevik Kliment Voroshilov was elected chairman of the Lugansk City Duma. Thus, the Bolsheviks took power in Lugansk even before the October coup in Petrograd. However, in rural areas the anarchists enjoyed great success, whose leader was Nestor Makhno, who already at the end of March 1917 headed the council in Gulyai-Polye. In the region of the All-Great Don Army, on the lands of which a number of mining towns existed, the monarchists enjoyed success, which turned the Don into a stronghold of the white movement.
During the Civil War, Donbass became the scene of fierce fighting, as all opposing forces sought to take control of this industrial region. From February to May 1918, the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic existed here as part of the RSFSR, ruled by the Bolsheviks. Then there was a period of German occupation, and a chaotic change of a wide variety of authorities. The fighting in the region ended only in 1921 after the defeat of the Makhnovist movement. The restoration of Soviet power led, however, to the fact that Donbass became part of Soviet Ukraine.
As a result, Ukrainization began in Donbass, as well as throughout the republic. In a region where the Russian population predominated, and where most people who considered themselves Ukrainians spoke Surzhik, the Ukrainian language became the language of office work and the press by the beginning of 1925. If in 1923 there were 7 Ukrainian schools, in 1924 -129, then in 1928 there were already 181 schools. In 1932, there was not a single Russian school class left in Mariupol.
A modern researcher of the history of the region, Yu. Nosko, counted 54 different commissions on Ukrainization in Artemovsk alone. Here, not only were documentation, signs, and newspapers translated into another language, but even speaking in Russian was prohibited in institutions. And they were no longer limited to just layoffs. In July 1930, the Presidium of the Stalin District Executive Committee decided to “bring to criminal liability the heads of organizations formally related to Ukrainization, who have not found ways to Ukrainize their subordinates, who violate the current legislation in the matter of Ukrainization,” while the prosecutor’s office was instructed to conduct show trials of “criminals.” In those days, "prosecution" could lead to the most severe penalties.
In Donbass, Ukrainization caused general rejection. Even in rural areas, residents preferred to teach their children Russian rather than “Ridna Mova”.
Resistance to Ukrainization, regarded as “counter-revolutionary,” could only be passive. It looked Soviet: critical speeches at party meetings, letters to central newspapers. Thus, a teacher from Slavyansk N. Tarasova wrote to the newspaper: “At school there is a double waste of time in connection with Ukrainization - the teacher conducts a conversation first with the students in Ukrainian, and then in Russian, so that the children understand better.” But more often people went into silent protest: they did not attend forced Ukrainian language courses, did not listen to Ukrainian radio, and did not subscribe to forced newspapers. Many Donetsk newspapers were forced to use a trick, printing all the headlines in Ukrainian and the articles in Russian. It is not surprising that with the slightest relaxation in the system of repressive measures, the numbers of “Ukrainized” schools, newspapers, and institutions in the region fell sharply. As a result of general rejection, Ukrainization in Donbass was largely curtailed in the late 30s.
However, the history of the Soviet Donbass is not limited to Ukrainization. Donbass has retained, or rather even increased, its importance as one of the most important industrial centers of the country. During the pre-war five-year plans, large-scale industrial construction continued in the Donbass, new coal mines came into operation, and metallurgical plants were built using Krivoy Rog ore. Mechanical engineering and the chemical industry, which were previously absent in the region, appeared.
In 1940, the Donbass provided more than half of all pig iron produced in the country (6 million tons), about a quarter of the union production of steel and rolled products (4.5 and 3 million tons, respectively). Many Donbass enterprises have gained worldwide fame. The giant of heavy engineering alone, the Novo-Kramatorsk plant, annually sent more than 200 railway trains of various machines and equipment to all parts of the country.
The population continued to grow rapidly, reaching 5 million by 1940, of whom 3.5 million lived in cities. Overall, Donbass has become the most urbanized region in the USSR.
An indicator can be the growth of the population of the former Yuzovka, renamed Stalino in 1924. From 106 thousand people in 1926, Stalino grew to 507 thousand inhabitants by the beginning of 1941! Over the same years, the population of Mariupol (which began to be called Zhdanov) increased 4.5 times. A similar growth was typical for most settlements in the region. The migration was facilitated by the famine of 1932-33, when many starving Ukrainian peasants moved to construction sites in Donbass. As a result, by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Ukrainians, according to official statistics, began to predominate in the population.
In the 20-30s, an education system was generally formed in the Donetsk region. The higher education system is beginning to develop. In 1939, there were already 7 universities. True, the policy of Ukrainization brought significant harm to the development of higher education in the Donbass (as well as throughout the republic), since for quite a long time teaching was carried out in the “language”. Since there was no developed scientific Ukrainian terminology, instead of the international geological terms “gneisses” and “schists”, students learned the terms “lupaki” and “losnyaki” in Ukrainian.
During the Great Patriotic War, all Donbass enterprises were completely destroyed. The restoration of the structure of the region's national economy took place with great difficulty. This process was significantly complicated by the severe drought that engulfed the Donbass and the famine of 1946-1947. But thanks to the hard work of the Donbass people, the economy of the region was quickly restored. Subsequently, the industrial growth of the region continued.
The extent of industrialization of Donbass was evidenced by the fact that at the end of the Soviet era, 90% of the population lived in cities in Donetsk, and 88% in Lugansk. Moreover, the actual urbanization of the region was even more significant, since many rural residents worked in cities. However, Donbass agriculture was also highly efficient, productivity was twice the republican average, Donbass was fully self-sufficient in bread and other agricultural products. By the end of the 20th century, Donbass provided over a quarter of Ukraine's industrial production.
In general, the population of Donbass by 1989 reached 8,196 thousand inhabitants (in the Donetsk region - 5,334 thousand, Lugansk - 2,862 thousand). About one million more people also lived in the mining areas of the Rostov region.
Cities grew quickly. Donetsk (as Stalino, the former Yuzovka, began to be called in 1961), in 1959 already had 700 thousand inhabitants, in 1979 - 1,020 thousand, in 1989 - 1,109 thousand. In Makeyevka, one of the cities of the Donetsk agglomeration, in 1989 there were 432 thousand inhabitants. Lugansk has reached 524 thousand inhabitants.
The Soviet period in the history of Donbass completed the process of creating a special regional community within its framework. As noted by researcher from Lugansk V. Yu. Darensky, “The statistical fact of the numerical dominance of “Ukrainians” (South Russians) and Great Russians among the population of Donbass, in the presence of very large non-Slavic ethnic groups here, took place approximately until the middle of the twentieth century. In the second half of the twentieth century In the Donbass, intensive processes of ethnogenesis took place, caused by the latest “wave” of urbanization and the development of mass communications... No real socio-cultural differences, for example, between the descendants of Ukrainians and Russians in the Donbass, already in at least the second generation speaking the same language and having mastered the same mental and behavioral models of life practically do not exist... Traditional ethnic identifications have a relict and marginal character in the Donbass. Ethnic Ukrainians and Great Russians, who have retained their linguistic, mental and behavioral characteristics, currently here do not exceed in number representatives of other “national minorities” ( Caucasian peoples, Greeks, Jews, gypsies, etc.)...Donbass is a completely monolingual region, in which the number of actual speakers of the Ukrainian language does not exceed the number of representatives of the Caucasian diasporas"
It is thanks to the influence of the stabilizing Russian ethnic component that there have never been serious ethnic conflicts in the Donbass, where more than a hundred nationalities live.
Donbass gave many outstanding sons to the Russian people. These are composer Sergei Prokofiev, philologist Vladimir Dal, writer Vsevolod Garshin, military and political figure Kliment Voroshilov, political figure Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet Ukrainian politician Nikolai Skrypnik, actor Vasily Bykov, singers Yuri Gulyaev and Yuri Bogatikov, polar explorer Georgy Sedov, pioneer of Russian cinema Alexander Khanzhonkov, Heroes of Socialist Labor Praskovya (Pasha) Angelina, Alexey Stakhanov and Nikita Izotov, weightlifter four-time world champion and writer Yuri Vlasov, Ukrainian poet Vladimir Sosyura and hundreds of thousands of other worthy people.
In the 60-80s. Donbass had a reputation as one of the most developed regions of the USSR with a very prosperous population. Immigrants from Donbass were abundantly represented in the Soviet economic and political elite. However, gradually the problems in Donbass began to worsen. Mineral reserves began to deplete, which made the extraction of a significant part of the coal increasingly difficult and unprofitable. Coal itself gradually yielded to oil its importance as the “bread of industry.” Finally, previously ignored environmental problems have become incredibly worse. Annual emissions of harmful substances in metallurgical centers reach 200-300 thousand tons. For each resident in Makeyevka, for example, there are 1,420 kg of polluted and toxic substances, Mariupol - 691, Donetsk - 661 kg. The concentration of dust in the air exceeds the maximum permissible standards by 6-15 times, sulfur dioxide by 6-9 times, phenols by 10-20 times. Quarry excavations and dumps have been turned into areas devoid of life with altered hydrogeology and soil structure. The Sea of Azov began to turn into an environmental disaster zone. All this made Donbass one of the most environmentally “dirty” places in the USSR.
The Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Huns, Goths, Bulgarians, Avars, Khazars, Polovtsians, and Pechenegs passed through the land that is now called Donbass. When and how long they stayed here, the mounds and stone women know (). For twenty-seven centuries, from the Bronze Age tribes: the “ancient pitmen”, “catacombs” and “srubniks” - to the medieval Polovtsians, the steppe inhabitants erected burial mounds in the Donbass - earthen mounds, on the gentle humps of which the Kipchaks erected limestone sculptures - "stone women" (from Turkic “babai”, a strong warrior - there are other interpretations). More than eight thousand mounds have been discovered on the territory of the modern Donetsk region. The land of Donbass is fully worthy of the title of Middle-earth, since it connected east and west, north and south. A variety of ethnic groups passed, lived, and mixed here.
Figure 1 – Mounds and stone women
It is known that from the 2nd millennium BC. Cimmerian tribes lived in the Azov steppes. It is assumed that in VII BC. The Cimmerians were replaced in the Azov steppes by the Scythians. The royal Scythians mastered the waterway from their trading city of Gelon, located at the mouth of the Samara River, the left tributary of the Dnieper to Meotida. This path ran up the Samara, its tributary Volchaya and further to Kalmius. Mention of the Volchya-Kalmius rivers can be found in the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (5th century BC): “Four large rivers flow from their land through the Meotian region (Azov region) and flow into the so-called Lake Meotida (Sea of Azov). Name of the rivers: Lik (Kalmius), Oar (Mius), Tanoms (Don) and Sirgis (Seversky Donets)". Herodotus calls the river Kalmius, and at the same time the Volchya River, which were parts of the same waterway - Lik (“lukos” - “wolf”). Perhaps this is the first mention of the Donetsk region. During the period of domination of the steppe by the royal Scythians, a few cities of traders from Greece appeared on the shores of the Sea of Azov.
In the 2nd century, the Scythians were replaced by related Sarmatian peoples, who previously inhabited the space between the Volga and Don. The Sarmatian settlements, in turn, were attacked by the Goths - Germanic tribes invading the Azov region and the northern Black Sea region from the banks of the Vistula. During the era of the Great Migration of Peoples, the middle of the 3rd century. AD, the Germans (Goths of Germanarich) destroyed the ancient Tanais at the mouth of the Don. Having captured these lands, the Goths headed a tribal union, which, in addition to the Goths, included Germanic, Sarmatian and Proto-Slavic tribes. In 371, Attila's Hun cavalry attacked the possessions of the Gothic tribal union in the northern Black Sea region and wiped off the face of the earth all the islands of settlement and agriculture that existed by that time on this land.
In the 7th century, in the Azov steppes, a union of Turkic-speaking proto-Bulgarian tribes formed - Great Bulgaria, headed by Kubrat Khan. After his death, this union disintegrated. The divided Bulgarian tribes were unable to resist the new conquerors who came from the east - the Khazars. In subsequent years, Alans, Ugrians, and Bulgarians roamed along the banks of the Kalmius. The Khazars founded settlements in the area of the modern villages of Bogorodichnoye, Tatyanovka, Sidorovo, Mayaki, Novoselovka. The tribal unions of the Slavs, who had plans for these lands, fought with the nomads. The devastating raids of the Pechenegs at the end of the 10th and beginning of the 11th centuries led to the fact that the population from the Kalmius zone and the entire Azov region went beyond the Seversky Donets into the forests: “Conducting a normal agricultural economy to the south... was impossible due to the Pecheneg danger.”
In the middle of the 11th century, the Polovtsians came to the land of Donbass, carrying out their raids on the southern borders of Slavic settlements. In “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” the land between the Donets and the Don is called Polovtsian.
And the sea leapt up. Through the fog
The whirlwind rushed to the native north -
The Lord himself is from the Polovtsian countries
The prince points the way to the house.
The dawns have already gone out. Igor is sleeping -
Igor dozes, but does not fall asleep.
Igor's thoughts fly to the Don,
He measures the road to the Donets.
Going on a campaign against the Polovtsians in 1185, Igor Svyatoslavovich intended to reach the Don and the Sea of Azov.
The prince said: “Brothers and squad!
Better to be killed by swords.
What am I full of from the hands of the filthy!
Let's sit, brothers, on dashing horses
Let’s see the blue Don!”
This thought came to the prince's mind -
To tempt an unknown land,
And he said, full of military thoughts,
Disregarding the sign of heaven:
“I want to break the copy
In an unfamiliar Polovtsian field,
With you, brothers, lay down my head
Or scoop up the Don with a helmet!”
It is assumed that the site of the battle on May 12, 1185 between the Russian Prince Igor and the Polovtsian Khan Konchak on the Kayaly River is located at the confluence of the Kamyshevakha River (below Starobeshevo) with the Kalmius River. According to The Tale of Igor’s Campaign, there were no permanent residents in the Donetsk steppes. The existence of the oldest Polovtsian cities is known: Sharukan, Sugrov, Balin, Surozh, Korsun and Tmutarakan. Earlier, in 1111 and 1116, Russian squads led by the warlike prince Vladimir Monomakh made “bold and long marches” to these cities.
At the beginning of the 13th century, Mongol troops pursued the Cumans, who asked for protection from the Russian princes. The three strongest princes of Rus', the three Mstislavs: Galich, nicknamed the Udaly, Kiev and Chernigov, having gathered their army, decided to protect the Polovtsians. On the Kalka River (the Kalchik River is a tributary of the Kalmius), on May 31, 1223, a battle took place between the eighty-thousandth Russian-Polovtsian army and the twenty-thousandth Mongol army. The Russian army was defeated.
The Donetsk region was depopulated for a century with the arrival of the Mongol-Tatars from the east at the beginning of the 13th century. A sedentary population has survived on the Seversky Donets, where a number of settlements with “ceramics of the Old Russian appearance” are known. In the second half of the 14th century, there was an increase in settlements on the territory of modern Donbass. The vast majority of these settlements did not survive Tamerlane's campaigns of 1391-1395. Their death marked a new stage in the history of the Donetsk steppes, which lasted until the end of the 16th century and was characterized by the complete absence of settled life in this territory and the dominance of nomadic life. Crimean Tatars, Nogai nomads, and Kalmyks appeared. These lands were an integral part of the Wild Field, which occupied a significant territory - the entire interfluve of the Dnieper and Don from the Seversky Donets to the Azov coast. In the middle of the 15th century, a significant part of the lands of the Wild Field was annexed to the Crimean Khanate, which soon became dependent on the Ottoman Empire.
The first written mention of the settlement of hermit monks in the chalk mountains on the right bank of the Seversky Donets, in the area of modern Svyatogorsk, dates back to the beginning of the 15th century (1515). Since 1571, the Seversky Donets River served as the border line with the Crimean Tatar Khanate and the Nogai horde. After the burning of Moscow by the “Krymchaks” of Devlet-Girey, the governor of Ivan IV the Terrible (1530-1584), Prince Mikhail Vorotynsky began to build in our area a system of forts and fences designed to protect the borders of the Russian land (Kolomatskaya, Obishanskaya, Bakaliyskaya, Svyatogorskaya, Bakhmutskaya, Aidarskaya watchmen). At the fords of the Seversky Donets (Abashkin, Bishkinsky, Beretsky, Izyumsky, etc.) there were guards from the Rylsky, Putivlsky, Livensky villages, whose task was to promptly notify the governors of the border cities about the approach of the Tatar and Nogai cavalry. In 1579, the Russian government organized a border guard service in the Wild Field and formed mobile units to patrol the steppe roads from the Don and Mius to Kalmius and Samara.
In 1577, to the west of the mouth of the Kalmius, the Crimean Tatars founded the fortified settlement of Bely Saray (perhaps this is where the name “Belosarayskaya Kosa” comes from). But in 1584 the Tatar White Sarai was destroyed.
The settlement of the Donetsk region began after the beginning of the Khmelnytskyi region (1648-1654), when peasants from Right Bank Ukraine fled to these lands from the horrors of the war. How little the present Kharkov, Lugansk and Donetsk regions were populated at that time can be judged by the fact that the Belgorod district, which occupied a vast territory from Kursk to Azov, had in 1620 only 23 settlements with 874 households. The new settlers studied the depths of the Donetsk basin. Since 1625, salt has been mined in the area of present-day Slavyansk. “Eager” people from Belgorod, Valuyka, Voronezh, Oskol, Yelets, Kursk and other “outlying” cities of Russia went to “hunt” for it in the Donetsk steppes. In 1645, the Tor fortress was built to protect it from the Crimean Tatars, who raided new settlers and “hunting” people (now Slavyansk). In 1650, private salt works in the fort of Tora began to operate. In 1676, “Cherkasy” (Ukrainians who escaped from the yoke of the Polish gentry) settled along the Seversky Donets. Izyum and Don Cossacks began to cook salt on Bakhmutka, a tributary of the Seversky Donets. The town of Bakhmut grew up near the salt mines.
The favorite of Sophia I Alekseevna (1682-1689), Prince Vasily Golitsyn, relied on Donetsk forts and towns in the Crimean campaigns of 1687, 1689, Peter I the Great (1682-1725) in the Azov campaign of 1695-1696 and in battles with the army of the king of Sweden Charles XII (1682-1718) in 1707-1709. The modern settlements of Mayaki (1663) and Raigorodok (1684) were founded on the fragments of these fortifications.
At the beginning of the 17th century, a guard post at Domakh (formerly Adomakha) arose at the mouth of Kalmius on the right bank. Before this, there were settlements of fugitive peasants here, periodically ravaged by Tatar raids. In the Domakha fortress there was a church and trading shops.
In 1690, the Yasinovka winter hut was founded, near the modern city of Makeevka. In 1715, the Bakhmutsky (Artyomovsky) and Torsky (Slavyansky) salt works were founded. In 1721, the expedition of Grigory Kapustin first found coal in the Donbass near the city of Bakhmut near the Kurdyuchey River (a tributary of the Seversky Donets).
On April 30, 1747, having resolved a private dispute between the “Donets” and the “Cossacks” about fishing in the Sea of Azov, the Government Senate of Elizabeth I Petrovna (1741-1761) established the administrative border of the Don army and the Zaporozhian army. The border was declared to be the Kalmius River along its entire length from its source to its mouth: to the west of it the Cossacks owned the lands and rivers, to the east – the Donets. This border, as a boundary between the region of the Don Army and the region of the Zaporozhye Army, and later the Yekaterinoslav province, remained until the revolution of 1917.
The 18th century was spent in numerous wars waged between the Russian Empire and Turkey for access to the southern seas. The wars led to the gradual settlement of Donbass by the East Slavic population (peasants from central Russia, Right Bank Ukraine and Slobozhanshchina), as well as people from the Balkans (Serbs and Romanians), and the Christian population of Crimea (Greeks and Armenians).
In 1751-1752, large military teams of Serbs and Croats under General I. Horvat-Otkurtic and Colonels I. Šević and Rajko Preradovich were settled on the flanks of the defensive line built by decree of Anna Ioanovna (1643-1740) between the Bakhmut and Lugan rivers. Following the Serbs, taking refuge from Austrian and Turkish aggression, Macedonians, Wallachians, Moldovans, Romanians, Bulgarians (Slavs), Gypsies, and Armenians flocked to the territory of Northern Donbass. As a result of the divisions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - Poles and Russian Old Believers hiding in Poland (the villages of Serebryannoye, Privolnoye, Zheltoye, Kamenka, Cherkasskoye, Horoshoe, Kalinovskoye, Troitskoye, Luganskoye). From the first days of its existence, Donetsk Slavyanoserbia was assimilated by Russians (Great Russians), Ukrainians (Little Russians) and Cossacks, so that by the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, toponyms remained from the settlers of Horvat, Shevich and Preradovich in the Donbass (the cities of Slavyansk, Slavyanogorsk, Slavyanoserbsk, etc.) and surnames (Vidovich, Popovich, Guzhva, Milovich, Mosalsky, Gnedich, Perepelitsa, Sereda and others).
As a result of the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-1774, the Turks and Tatars were forced out of the Azov steppes. According to the peace treaty of 1774, the Azov region became part of the Russian Empire. From that moment on, the centralized settlement of the Wild Field by a sedentary population began. Among the new settlers there were many Russians, Serbs and Greeks, to whom the tsarist government allocated vast lands in these places. In some places settlements of German colonists arose.
On February 14, 1775, on the territory of the modern Donetsk region, in the desert lands between the Seversky Donets, the Dnieper and the Don, by decree of Catherine II Alekseevna, the southern Russian Azov province, created by Peter I Alekseevich in mid-December 1708 (though within other borders), was revived - later Novorossiysk province.
In April 1778, the reigning Russian Empress Catherine II Alekseevna, taking into account Russia’s interest in developing lands on the coast of the Azov Sea and in the Seversky Donets basin, adopted a number of legislative acts on the resettlement of the Christian population of Crimea (Greeks, Vlachs, Georgians, Armenians, Romanians) to the southern Russian provinces. . The Greeks received a certificate of this, signed by Catherine II, in 1779, and the lands of the Azov province of Mariupol district were assigned to them. On the site of the Domakha fortress destroyed by the Turks in 1769, the district town of Pavlovsk was founded. Its construction began in 1778. In 1779, at the request of Greek settlers who arrived with Metropolitan Ignatius (Khozanov) of Gottheia and Kaffai from Crimea, it was renamed Mariupol.
People from Crimean villages headed to Kalmius and founded six villages on its right bank: Beshev, Bolshaya Karakuba, Laspi, Karan, Chermalyk and Sartana. The village, as a rule, was inhabited by people from several Crimean villages, and the newly formed village was given the name of the Crimean village from which the settlers made up the majority. Residents of the largest Crimean villages did not unite with anyone when founding new villages. This is how the villages arose: Beshev, Bolshaya Karakuba and Sartana. They all retained their names. The Greeks began building their first rural settlements in Novorossiya in 1779. They founded the villages: Velikaya Yanitol, Kermenchik, Laspa, Mangush, Styla, Cherdakly, modern cities - Urzuf, Donetsk Yalta, Mariupol and others.
After the conclusion of the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi peace between the Russian and Ottoman empires on July 10, 1774, cheaper Crimean salt became available to Russia, and in 1782, the governor-general of the region, His Serene Highness Prince Grigory Potemkin, closed the Tor salt mines.
At the beginning of 1783, Ekaterina Alekseevna abolished two southern provinces (Azov and Novorossiysk), forming from them a new Ekaterinoslav governorate with a center in the city of Kremenchug, to the Bakhmut district of which the territory of the modern Donetsk region west of the Kalmius River was assigned. In 1793, in the Slavyansk and Mariupol districts there were 20 horse breeding and 45 livestock farms.
On December 2, 1796, by Decree of Paul I Petrovich (1754-1801), the Voznesensk, Ekaterinoslav provinces and the Tauride region were united into the huge Novorossiysk province, and its center, the city of Ekaterinoslav, was renamed Novorossiysk. In October 1802, the heir of Paul I Petrovich, Alexander I Pavlovich (1777-1825), divided the vast Pavlovsk Novorossiysk province into Nikolaevskaya (in 1803 its center from Nikolaev was transferred to Kherson and the name of the province changed to Khersonskaya), Taurida and Yekaterinoslavskaya provinces. The Donetsk region was part of the Yekaterinoslav province until the creation of the Donetsk province by Decree of the Council of People's Commissars on February 5, 1919.
German colonists - Mennonites, and then Lutherans and Catholics - came to the Azov region and near Ekaterinoslav from 1788 to 1810. At the turn of the 15th–19th centuries, the Donetsk Germans founded the village of Ostheim, which during the Soviet years became the center of the Telmanovsky district of the Donetsk region. At the same time, the colonies of Kirschwald, Tiegengov, Rosengart, Schönbaum, Kronsdorf, Rosenberg, Grunau, Wienerau, Reichenberg, Kamlenau, Mirrau, Kaiserdorf, Götland, Neuhof, Eichwald, Tiegenort, Tiergart and others arose.
The first Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Vainakhs, and representatives of other Caucasian ethnic groups appeared in the Donetsk region at the end of the reign of Catherine II the Great (1762-1796) and after the inclusion of the Caucasus and part of Transcaucasia into the Russian Empire - under Alexander I Pavlovich (1801-1825) 1801-1828.
At the end of the 18th century in the Donbass, the process of distributing free land for so-called “ranked dachas” to persons in the public service began, which gave impetus to the development of landownership. Large plots of land between Kalmius and Mius were received by the ataman of the Don Army, Prince Ilovaisky (the city of Ilovaisk still exists in the Donbass).
In 1779, Lieutenant E.S. Shidlovsky received a gift from the tsarist government of land within the boundaries of present-day Donetsk, where, with the help of local Cossacks living in winter huts, he founded the settlement of Aleksandrovka. The settlement is inhabited by family, settled people and builds housing here. Three years after the founding of Alexandrovka, as evidenced by the historical and statistical description of the Ekaterinoslav diocese, 341 people lived. Nearby, in the period 1803-1810, the villages of Avdotino, Alekseevka, Grigoryevka were formed, the inhabitants of which were engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding.
In the Svyatogorsk region, land was donated to Prince Grigory Potemkin. 400 thousand acres of land along the Seversky Donets, Samara, Byk, Volchya were left behind the royal court. In an effort to avoid double taxation for the ownership of empty lands and to get 10-year benefits for starting a farm, Donetsk Cossacks often signed up with familiar landowners from among the Cossack elders. For example, in the late 1780s, in the upper reaches of the Kalmius, Cossacks from among the colleagues of E.S. Shidlovsky, who retired, founded two settlements: Aleksandrovka and Kruglovka, within whose boundaries the Voroshilovsky and Kyiv districts of the city of Donetsk eventually arose. According to revision tales, the population of Aleksandrovka and Kruglogolovka were listed “with Shidlovsky”, but in fact they remained personally free people. It is significant that on the eve of the reform of 1861, government census workers of Alexander II the Liberator (1818-1881) in the Bakhmut district of the Azov province managed to find only 27% of landowner peasants, and in the Mariupol district they were not found at all.
In 1812, the village of Santurinovka (now the city of Konstantinovka) was founded. In 1820, coal was first discovered near the settlement of Aleksandrovka (the territory of modern Donetsk), and the first small mines appeared.
In 1820, coal deposits were discovered in Aleksandrovka and small mines appeared here - “pipes”, which developed only the upper layers.
In 1824, the construction of sea vessels began for the first time in the Azov region, and in 1830 a pasta factory was opened in Mariupol. Probably, Italianized Slavs from the Austrian provinces of the Adriatic coast, owners of trading houses: Stanislav Gogliano, and the Membeli brothers, shipbuilder Cavalotti, holders of trading offices: Radeli, Petrakokino, took part in this.
Gypsies appeared in the Donetsk lands after the annexation of Moldavia and Wallachia to Russia, after the signing of the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829, which ended the Russian-Turkish war of 1828-1829.
1832 - the Slavic resort was founded on Lake Rapnoe, treatment of people with salt water and mud began. In 1841, by order of the Governor-General of New Russia M.S. Vorontsov, on the site of modern Donetsk, the first three mines of the Aleksandrovsky mine were built. They employed 76 civilian workers and used a steam engine. By the mid-1850s, coal production at the Aleksandrovsky mine amounted to 400-500 thousand poods per year.
In 1843, on the banks of the shallow river Kamach, Ekaterinoslav forester and naturalist Victor von Graff (1820-1867) planted the man-made Great Anadol Forest in the dry Donetsk steppe.
During the Crimean campaign of 1854-1855, the Anglo-French squadron attacked the Azov cities of Taganrog and Mariupol. Arabat, Genichesk, Berdyansk and Yeysk were subjected to ship bombardment. In the shallow waters of the Azov spits, the allied squadron in full cavalry formation was met by Joseph Gladky’s desperate “double” Cossacks (who had twice fled from the authorities) who had returned from across the Danube in May 1831. In 1849, these Cossacks founded the villages of Novonikolaevskaya (now the city of Novoazovsk), Nikolaevskaya and Pokrovskaya on the coast of the Azov Sea. Among them were the great-grandfathers of the Makeevka metallurgist, and then the miner Vladislav Egorov and the Donetsk historian Vadim Zadunaisky.
In 1859, small mines on the territory of modern Makeevka were united into the Makeevsky coal mine. According to the audit, the number of residents of the Aleksandrovskaya volost of the Bakhmut district has increased significantly. In 1859, 1091 people lived in Aleksandrovka, 380 in Avdotino, 320 in Alekseevka, 154 in Grigoryevka. In 1868, the Kramatorskaya station was founded (now the city of Kramatorsk). The brilliant future of the region lay in the development of salt, chalk, alabaster, ore and coal deposits between the Donets and Kalmius rivers, which was determined by the geology of the region.
The boundless undulating steppe... Fescue-feather-feather and wormwood grasses scorched by the sun and dried out by the eastern winds-hot winds, bare areas of moisture-deprived and cracked earth, rocky outcrops of limestone and sandstone, occasionally supplemented by thickets of bushes, and even less often - small gully forests - this was the landscape of the Donetsk region in the recent past.
The Donetsk coal basin was formed on the bays and estuaries of a long-defunct sea. This sea occupied the entire eastern half of European Russia and the western Asian part, divided between them by the continuous mass of the Ural ridge and cutting to the west by the narrow, highly elongated Donetsk Gulf into the mainland. As monuments of a long-vanished sea, relatively small reservoirs filled with sea water, the Caspian and Aral seas, have survived to our era.
Kalmius River in the middle reaches
In the exposed places, a thick layer of limestone formed from shells that lived on the bottom of the sea. The seashores were covered with lush vegetation characteristic of the Carboniferous period: monstrous sigillaria, giant horsetails, tree ferns, slender lepidodendrons and calamites. The remains of these plants, very rich in fiber, covered the bottom of the shallow bay, interspersed with sand and silt, began to rot and, as a result of decay that lasted for millennia, turned into peat, coal and anthracite.
Since the time of emergence from the waters of the Carboniferous Sea, the thickness of the Donetsk deposits was again flooded by sea waves three times - during the Jurassic, Cretaceous and Tertiary periods. The advance of each sea destroyed high-lying places by erosion and filled depressions with its sediments, thus contributing to the gradual leveling of the surface.
In the end, all that remained of the mountain ranges that cut through the terrain were their broad bases in the form of ridges. A number of these ridges cross the entire basin from northwest to southeast, clearly indicating the former position of eroded mountain ranges. The most significant of these ridges is the so-called main fracture, or Donetsk Ridge.
Through joint activities over entire geological periods of ridge formation and leveling processes, the area of the Donetsk basin has been brought to its modern form, representing a type of relief known as the “Erosion Plateau”.
The Donetsk region is considered one of the most recently developed and populated regions in Ukraine. However, in reality, man and civilization appeared on the territory of Donbass a very long time ago. This is confirmed by archaeological excavations carried out by employees of the Donetsk Regional Museum of Local Lore.
Galloping goat.
Image in Scythian style
on the golden ax first half
1st millennium BC
Back in the first millennium BC, the territory of the region was part of the Scythian state, the so-called Golden Scythia - the central and main part of the ancient kingdom. In the first millennium AD, Polovtsian tribes roamed the Donetsk steppes. Moreover, both the Scythians and the Polovtsians left a memory of themselves - burials in the form of mounds. And on these man-made hills there are steles, the so-called women, respectively Scythian and Polovtsian.
Initially, the name Scythians belonged to a tribe that lived east of the lower reaches of the Volga, and then penetrated its western bank and the North Caucasus. From here the Scythians, through modern Dagestan and the Derbent Passage, rushed to the territory of present-day Azerbaijan. Here they settled and, probably including significant groups of the local pastoral population, made trips to various parts of Western Asia.
Herodotus on the ancient history of the Scythians:
“According to the stories of the Scythians, their people are the youngest. And it happened this way. The first inhabitant of this... country was a man named Targitai. The parents of this Targitai... were Zeus and the daughter of the river Borysthenes (I, of course, do not believe this). Targitai was of this kind, and he had three sons: Lipoksais, Arpoksais and the youngest, Kolaksais. During their reign, golden objects fell from the sky onto the Scythian land: a plow, a yoke, an ax and a bowl. The elder brother was the first to see these things. As soon as he approached to pick them up, the gold began to glow. Then he retreated and the second brother approached, and again the gold was engulfed in flames... But when the third, younger brother approached, the flames went out, and he took the gold to his house. Therefore, the older brothers agreed to give the kingdom to the younger. So, from Lipoxais... came the Scythian tribe called the Avhatians, from the middle brother - the tribe of the Katiars and Traspians, and from the youngest of the brothers - the king - the tribe of the Paralats. All the tribes together are called skolots, that is, royal ones. The Hellenes call them Scythians.
This is how the Scythians tell about the origin of their people. They think that from the time of the first king Targitai until the invasion of their land by Darius, only 1000 years passed. The Scythian kings carefully guarded the sacred gold objects and revered them with reverence, making rich sacrifices every year. If at a festival someone falls asleep in the open air with this sacred gold, then, according to the Scythians, he will not live even a year... Since they had a lot of land, Kolaksais divided it, according to the Scythians, into three kingdoms between his three sons . He made the kingdom where the gold was kept the largest. In the region lying even further north of the land of the Scythians, nothing can be seen and it is impossible to penetrate there because of the flying feathers. And indeed, the ground and air there are full of feathers, and this is what interferes with vision...
There is also a third legend (I myself trust it most). It goes like this. The nomadic tribes of the Scythians lived in Asia. When the Massagetae forced them out of there... the Scythians crossed Arak and arrived in the Cimmerian land (the country now inhabited by the Scythians is said to have belonged to the Cimmerians since ancient times). As the Scythians approached, the Cimmerians began to hold advice on what to do in the face of a large enemy army. And so at the council, opinions were divided. Although both sides stubbornly stood their ground, the kings’ proposal won. The people were in favor of retreat, considering it unnecessary to fight so many enemies. The kings, on the contrary, considered it necessary to stubbornly defend their native land from invaders. So, the people did not heed the advice of the kings, and the kings did not want to submit to the people.
The people decided to leave their homeland and give their land to the invaders without a fight; The kings, on the contrary, preferred to die in their native land rather than flee with their people. After all, the kings understood what great happiness they had experienced in their native land and what troubles awaited the exiles deprived of their homeland. Having made this decision, the Cimmerians divided into two equal parts and began to fight among themselves. The Cimmerian people buried all those who fell in the fratricidal war near the Tiras River. After this, the Cimmerians left their land, and the Scythians who arrived took possession of the deserted country.
It is also known that the Scythians, in pursuit of the Cimmerians, lost their way and invaded the land of the Medes. After all, the Cimmerians constantly moved along the coast of Pontus, while the Scythians, during the pursuit, stayed to the left of the Caucasus until they invaded the land of the Medes. So, they turned inland. This last legend is conveyed equally by both Hellenes and barbarians.”
Part of the casing with
ancient oriental images
and images in the Scythian style.
Found near Sakkyz (Iran)
The initial colonization of the Donetsk Ridge was most influenced by the fact that it was on the path of the great movement of peoples from the distant east to the west. The nomadic peoples of the east, for many centuries, swept through this region in a noisy stream, unwilling or unable to settle there themselves, and not giving this opportunity to others. Two opposing elements fought here: the northern, Slavic element, which sought to take possession of the region through peaceful colonization, and the eastern, Turkic-Mongolian element, which swept away all plantings of settled life and culture on its way. The struggle of these two elements for almost a millennium constitutes the entire history of the initial colonization of the region.
The beginning of the Slavic colonization of the region dates back to the 8th and 9th centuries of the Christian era, when this region, along with the entire coast of the Black and Caspian Seas, was under the rule of a people of Turkic origin - the Khazars. Their neighbors from the north, the Slavs, were also considered under the rule of the Khazars, paying them tribute and enjoying their political patronage.
The Vyatichi, Radimichi, and especially the Chernigov northerners, the most energetic colonizers among the Slavs, also took part in the colonization of the region, which is why the entire colonization was called “northern”. The name of the Seversky Donets River remains a monument to this former, subsequently destroyed colonization.
A new historical wave brings here new nomads, also of the Turkic tribe: in the 10th century the Pechenegs, who destroy the Khazars and spread their power to the Northern Black Sea region and the Azov region and Crimea; in the 11th century, the Polovtsians, who destroy the Pechenegs and take their place.
On May 12, 1185, the battle between Prince Igor and the Polovtsians took place on the Wild Field (now Donetsk region), which gave birth to the golden word of East Slavic and world literature “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.”
Illustration for the book
"The Tale of Igor's Campaign"
Leaving Novgorod-Seversky on April 23, 1185, Prince Igor’s army on May 10 near the present village of Kamenka crossed the Seversky Donets and headed towards present-day Slavyansk. Russian cavalry took part in the first battle with the Cumans under the leadership of Khan Konchak. But soon Igor’s army switched to fighting on foot: the Polovtsians were good archers, and on a flat, clean place they were able to quickly deal with the enemy’s cavalry. It was enough to shoot not at the riders, but at the horses, which, maddened by pain, would soon crush the entire army. Then the Polovtsians skillfully pushed the Russians back to the salt lakes, where they were completely defeated.
As is known, Igor’s son Vladimir subsequently married the daughter of the Polovtsian khan Konchak, and his grandson from this marriage, 38 years after Igor’s defeat from Konchak (one grandfather from another), led one of the Russian squads in the historical battle on Kalka (also on the territory of our present day region) on May 31, 1223 against the Tatar-Mongols, where he laid down his head defending the Russian land.
Khan Batu (Batu) -
founder
Golden Horde
In the 13th century, countless hordes of new nomads, the Tatars, surged into Europe from Asia, destroyed or absorbed the Polovtsians, swept through the entire Russian land like a thunderstorm, destroying Kiev, Volyn, Galich and other cities to the ground, reached Hungary and, having failed there, returned back and formed the Golden Horde, subsequently of which only one part survived - the Crimean Khanate.
Since the 16th century, the previous struggle between nomads and settled populations has entered another stage of the struggle between two cultures: Muslim and Christian. There is a continuous struggle for dominance between states: on the one hand, the Ottoman Empire as an outpost, the Crimean Khanate; on the other hand, Poland and Ukraine with their outpost, the Zaporozhye Sich, and Moscow with its outpost, the Don Cossacks. From this time on, the former Slavic colonization of the southern Russian steppes, stopped for many centuries by the influx of nomads, resumes again.
Kochevse tribes on the territory of Donbass (material for presentation).
This presentation can be used in geography lessons in 8th grade when studying their native land.
The duration of existence of our technological civilization is only 300 years. Most of human history, including the history of Ukraine, Russia and Donbass, is the history of primitive society. After the “primitive” one, the history of nomadic peoples ranks second in duration. What part? About 5200 years old! From the 4th millennium BC e. until the 1860s AD e. But we know little about these peoples. And in vain. This is also an “interesting story.”
CIMMERIANY
According to scientists, back in the 8th-7th centuries BC, Homer wrote about the Cimmerians, who are known to us from history as the most ancient nomadic tribe that lived in the Northern Black Sea region and the Azov region, that is, within the current Donetsk region. The ancient Greek historian and traveler Herodotus speaks more definitely about the Cimmerians, who calls them the predecessors of the Scythians. In confirmation, he writes: “... and now there are still Cimmerian walls in Scythia, there is a Cimmerian crossing..., there is also the so-called Cimmerian Bosporus (Kerch Strait).”
The Cimmerians led an active lifestyle and are known exclusively from burials and treasures. They did not have their own villages. The dead were buried in Bronze Age mounds, and sometimes they erected their own mounds. In the early stages, the buried were always hunched over, then elongated burials appeared.
Particularly famous is the Cimmerian burial near the village of Chernogorovka in Bakhmutsky district (part of the modern Artemovsky district), excavated at the beginning of the century by V. A. Gorodtsov. Bronze bits and all kinds of plaques were found here, a bronze forehead crown - a sign of a warrior. Cimmerian warriors wore a gold earring in their left ear. Burials of this time were also found near the villages of Luganka and Veselaya Dolina, Kamyshevakha, Artemovsky district in the Donetsk region, as well as in the village of Elino near the city of Bryanka, the village of Bezhanovka near the city of Kirovsk, in Sverdlovsk and the village. Klunikovo, Antratsitovsky district, Lugansk region.
In the 7th century BC. The Cimmerian culture of the Northern Black Sea region is completely replaced by the Scythian one. The Roman historian Plutarch writes about this event: “...The Cimmerians, who first became known to the ancient Hellenes, represented an insignificant part of the whole, which, in the form of being expelled by them as a result of indignation, under the onslaught of the Scythians, moved from Maeotis (Sea of Azov) to Asia under leadership of Ligdamis."
Other researchers suggest that the Scythians, who ousted the Cimmerians, are spoken of in the biblical book of the prophet Jeremiah as barbarians, a people who “from afar... a strong people, an ancient people, a people whose language you do not know, and you will not understand that He says. His quiver is like an open coffin; they are all brave people. And they will eat up your harvest and your bread, they will eat up your sons and your daughters, they will eat up your sheep and your oxen, they will eat up your grapes and your figs; They will destroy with the sword your fortified cities in which you trust...” Scientists attribute this mention to the 7th-6th centuries before the birth of Christ.
SCYTHIANS
The most detailed and reliable written evidence about the Donetsk region of that long-ago historical period and about the population at that time was left by the recognized father of history Herodotus, who lived in the 5th century BC: “... the nomadic Scythians who lived in Asia, being pressed by the war with side of the Massagetae (a Scythian tribe that occupied the lower reaches of the Syr Darya and Amu Darya in the 8-4 centuries BC, and in the 3-1 centuries became part of other tribal unions), crossed the Araks River and retired to the Cimmerian land (indeed, the country , now occupied by the Scythians, originally belonged, they say, to the Cimmerians).”
According to Herodotus, the Scythians were divided into plowmen, nomadic herders and the so-called “royal”, that is, the rulers. By the way, it was he who first called the lands from the Don to the Dnieper Scythia, including our region.
The large Scythian mounds studied near Mariupol and in other places amaze with the luxury of funeral equipment. The finds of Perederieva Mogila (Snezhnoye) are unique. The golden pommel of a Scythian royal ceremonial headdress, which has no analogues in archaeology, was found. The shape of the item is ovoid and resembles a helmet, its weight is about 600 g. Dimensions of the item: height - 16.7 cm, circumference at the base - 56 cm. The surface of the headdress is skillfully covered with images made by an ancient master using the technique of stamping and chasing.
With education in the 4th century. BC e. Scythian kingdom of Atea, the territory of the region became part of it and became one of the centers of settlements of agricultural and pastoral tribes.
Further, Herodotus wrote: “Beyond the Tanais (Don) River is no longer Scythian land. The first of the local plots of land belongs to the Sauromatians, who start from the corner of Lake Meotia (Sea of Azov), occupy a space of fifteen days' journey to the north; in all the land there are neither wild nor garden trees.”
The scientist Hippocrates, who worked a little later than Herodotus, also spoke about the similarity of these peoples: the Scythians did not have permanent dwellings, they lived literally on wheels - in wagons, moving from one place of good grazing to another with their herds of cattle, under the shelter there were children and their mothers, and warriors, whether men or women, spent most of their time in the saddle. The Scythian tribes were called "cart dwellers."
SARMATIA
The Sarmatians had much in common with the Scythians. The same Herodotus wrote that their women “ride on horseback to hunt with and without their husbands, go to war and wear the same clothes as them.”
The Sarmatians invaded Scythia in the 2nd century BC, as evidenced by Diodorus Siculus: “The Sarmatians, having become stronger, devastated a significant part of Scythia and turned it into a desert...” Interestingly, the Latin name of the territory of Donbass - Sarmatia - is associated with the Sarmatian tribes. Therefore, the authors consider it rational to use the definition of Ruthenia Sarmatica as a Latin analogue of the term “Donbass Rus'” as part of the Pax Ruthenica - the big world of the Russian community.
The Sarmatians, according to ancient authors, were nomads. Tents and wagons served as their homes. “Sarmatians do not live in cities and do not even have permanent residence. They live forever in camp, transporting property and wealth to wherever the best pastures attract them or force them to retreat or pursuing enemies” (Pomponius Mela).
During migrations, the Sarmatians transported their children, old people, women and property in wagons. According to the Greek geographer of the late 1st century BC. e. - beginning of the 1st century AD e. Strabo: “The tents of nomads (nomads) are made of felt and attached to the carts on which they live; around the tents livestock graze, from which they feed on meat, cheese and milk.”
Western Sarmatian tribes - Roxalans and Iazyges - occupied the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region. Around 125 BC e. they created a powerful, although not very strong, federation, the emergence of which is explained by the need to resist the pressure of the eastern Sarmatian tribes. Apparently, this was an early state typical of nomads, led by a tribe of royal Sarmatians. However, the Western Sarmatians failed to repeat the state experience of the Scythians - from the middle of the 1st century BC. e. they acted as two independent unions. In the steppes between the Don and the Dnieper the Roksolans roamed, and to the west of them - between the Dnieper and the Danube - the Iazyges lived.
The Sarmatian culture is represented by materials from the burial of a rich Sarmatian woman in a mound near the village. Novo-Ivanovka, Amvrosievsky district in Donetsk region, silver and gilded neck hryvnias, gold pendants and rings, silver and glass bracelets, bronze mirror, iron knife, bronze cauldron, horse harness. More than 45 Sarmatian burials, three treasures, and about a dozen random finds are known in the Lugansk region. The most significant excavated monuments of the Sarmatian period were discovered near the city of Alexandrovsk (Alexandrovsky burial ground), the village of Frunze (Sentyanovka), the village of Novobaranikovka, the city of Svatovo, the village. Novosvetlovka, etc. A treasure was discovered near the city of Starobelsk in 1892 (Vodyanoy Yar gully, Podgorovka village), since then it has been kept in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.
Poem "Sarmatians 150".
Yuri Galkin
Sarmatian steppe archers,
Behind the mane of a wild horse,
The fierce look of the shaggy head,
They rushed by with their sabers clanking.
Animal face, skin armor,
Frozen over the edge of the abyss,
Brown in the slanting rays of dust,
He looked around the surroundings.
The kumis smell of a mare,
Smoke trailed from distant yurts,
The river sparkles in the meander,
There are a whole bunch of carts in the steppe.
Inside nomadic settlements,
War and brazen invasion,
In the sad creaking of the wheel.
And the entire Renaissance,
It poured to the west from the valleys,
And the steppe is alive with movement,
Raging, heading towards Rome...
ALANS
In the second century BC, Alans occupied a special place among the Sarmatian tribes. Alans are Iranian-speaking tribes that emerged in the 1st century. BC. from among the semi-nomadic Sarmatian population of the Northern Caspian region, Don and Ciscaucasia and settled in the 1st century. n. e. (according to Roman and Byzantine writers) in the Azov region and Ciscaucasia, from where they carried out devastating campaigns against the Crimea, Transcaucasia, Asia Minor, and Media.
Here is what the historian Ammianus Marcellinus wrote about the Alans: “... young people, having become familiar with horse riding from early childhood, consider it a disgrace to walk, all of them, due to various exercises, are efficient warriors. Almost all Alans are tall and handsome, with moderately blond hair; they are scary with the restrained menacing look of their eyes, they are very mobile due to the lightness of their weapons... Among them, the one who gives up the ghost in battle is considered lucky.”
The last Alanian alliance of the Plenmen in the history of Sarmatia was defeated in 375 by the nomadic tribes of the Huns. Some of the Allans were forced to submit to the Huns and take part in their further military campaigns, the other part went to the North Caucasus, mixed with local tribes and participated in the formation of the Ossetian culture.
GOTH
In the 3rd century. The German tribes of the Goths established their dominance in the Northern Black Sea region, forming here the Gothic state - the Getics. The capital of the state of the Goths was the so-called "Dnieper city", which was located near one of the rapids of the Dnieper (not far from the present village of Bashmachka, Zaporozhye region. Having established themselves in the Northern Black Sea region, the Goths began their military expansion into the Balkans and Asia Minor. The political unification of the Goths reached its greatest power and strength in the middle of the 4th century A.D. under the reign of King Germanarich (332-375). At the end of the reign of Germanarich, an unsuccessful war for the Goths with the Ant tribes began. After the death of the Gothic king, the military dispute with the Antes was continued by his heir Vinitarius. It was he who insidiously killed the prince of the Arts God with his sons and 70 elders in 375. But the very next year the Goths were defeated by the nomadic tribes of the Huns, who supported the Antes in their fight against the Gothic state After this crushing defeat, Getika as a state quickly fell into decline. Most of the population moved to the lands above the Danube, while a smaller part remained on the territory of the Crimean Peninsula.
HUNS
So, in the 5th century AD, the Huns invaded the local area, causing panic even in the Roman Empire, not to mention the Sarmatians. The Christian writer of that time, Eusebius Jerome, literally wrote the following about this event: “The whole East trembled at the sudden news that from the extreme reaches of Maeotis, between the icy Tanais and the ferocious peoples of the Massagetae, where Alexander’s constipation (Derbent pass in the mountains near the Caspian Sea) held back wild tribes rocked the rocks of the Caucasus, swarms of Huns broke out, who, flying hither and thither on fast horses, filled everything with carnage and horror... May Jesus turn away such beasts from the Roman world in the future! They are unexpected everywhere, and with their speed warning the ear, they did not spare religion, merits, or age, they did not spare the crying little ones.”
Compared to other nomadic warriors, the Huns ruled our region for a short time. Under the leadership of Attila, they invaded Western Europe, but after the battle on the Catalaunian fields in Eastern Gaul, having suffered heavy losses, they were forced to retreat. And when Attila died, the alliance of the Huns completely disintegrated. Afterwards, there was no one else within these limits!
And the Avars, and the Antes, and the Bulgarians, led by Khan Kubrat, and the Khazars, and the Arabs, and the Alans, and the Hungarians, and the Pechenegs, and the Torques, and the Polovtsians, and the Mongol-Tatars, and the Nogais...
And it is quite understandable why these lands have attracted so many different peoples in all centuries. Herodotus also wrote about their wealth and attractiveness. And the Persian historian al-Juzjapi subsequently confirmed this: “In the whole world there cannot be land more pleasant than this, air better than this, water sweeter than this, meadows and pastures more extensive than these.”
But let's go back to the 5th century. The Huns erased almost all traces of settled life on the territory of the Northern Black Sea region. A period is coming when for the first time we can talk about the region as about "Wild Steppe". But the nomads did not ignore this “crossroads of peoples.” Here, three peoples appear in turn, consonant, although they had nothing in common - the Bulgarians, Avars, Khazars.
BULGARIANS, AVAR
Turkic-speaking Bulgarians discovered this list. They accompanied the Huns, pouring into the gap formed after the defeat of the Sarmatians. The Huns went to the West - and the Bulgarians remained the main masters of the steppe. However, not for long. A new people appears and makes a revolution in world history comparable to the Hun. We are talking about Avars, whose origin is unclear, but their strength was terrible. Having subjugated the entire southern steppe, they moved to tear off fatter pieces - to Byzantium, Italy, Germany. The Bulgarians, subjugated by the Avars, remained in the Black Sea region. By the beginning of the 9th century, the forces of the Avars weakened in the fight against the Franks, and their huge empire - the Avar Kaganate - collapsed. On its eastern ruins, Khan Kubrat created an impressive state - Great Bulgaria. Its epicenter was in the Azov region.
The troubled history of the Bulgarians could not grant this people long-term peace. Kubrat's death created a power vacuum in his state, which was cleverly taken advantage of by its southeastern neighbors - the Khazars. This Turkic people had prospered in the Caucasus for several centuries, combining impressive military power with subtle diplomacy, which reached its apogee after the Khazar elite adopted Judaism. Under the blows of its neighbors, Great Bulgaria disintegrated - and the Khazar Kaganate extended its influence to the Seversky Donets.
KHAZARS
The arrival of new owners brought forgotten stability to the Donetsk steppes. The Khazar Kaganate showed itself as a force - and everyone who lived nearby was drawn to this force. It was at this time that large settled settlements began to emerge again along the banks of the Seversky Donets. Most of them were inhabited by remnants of the Sarmatian Alans. A strip of stone fortifications appeared along the right (southern) bank of the river. This is how Khazaria ensured the security of its borders.
Traces of this order were found at several points in the region: in the burial ground near Raigorodok (Alan clay vessels), near the village of Mayaki in the Slavyansky region (Alan settlement with tools and household items), in the Chistyakovsky burial (weapons and weapons of the Azov steppe people). But the Khazar prosperity did not last long. By the middle of the 10th century, after the campaigns of the Russian princes Igor and Svyatoslav, the Khazars were thrown back to the Caucasus, and established themselves in the liberated territory... No, they were not victors at all. They just got not prey, but a problem. After the exodus of the Khazars from the Volga region, more Turks rushed to the steppe expanses - Pechenegs.
PECHENEGS
The Pechenegs were at that level of formation of the early forms of the state when the most energetic stood out from the mass of ordinary community members and became heads of clans and military leaders. Tribal leaders were chosen from among the Pecheneg clan nobility. Usually a tribe included several clans. Contemporaries of the Pechenegs, the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus and the Persian geographer Gardizi, wrote in their treatises that the Pecheneg union consisted of eight tribes and numbered about 40 clans. The Pechenegs were in constant motion and moved across the steppe with their herds. The basis of the herd was horses and sheep. The Pechenegs did not have long-term camps; light yurts served as their homes. A yurt is a round dwelling made of felt and animal skins on a frame of wooden poles. There was always an open fireplace in the center of the yurt.
Predatory wars were an important way to enrich the tribal elite. The Pechenegs constantly attacked their neighbors, captured people for ransom, and stole livestock. Neighboring states sought to make peace with them and pay off with tribute. The Pechenegs captured the entire Don region and Kuban and advanced to the Black Sea region. In 892 they defeated the steppe Ugrians (Hungarians) here and reached the mouth of the Danube. The Pechenegs first appeared on the borders of the Russian principalities in 915. Prince Igor immediately concluded a peace treaty with them. Konstantin Porphyrogenitus wrote that the Russians strive to be at peace with the Pechenegs, since they can neither trade, nor fight, nor live in peace if they are in a hostile relationship with this people. However, soon Byzantine diplomats bribed the Pechenegs and persuaded them to attack Rus'. The Pechenegs staged terrible pogroms in the principalities bordering the steppe. Rus' began to wage a long and grueling struggle with them.
The Alan-Bulgarian population of the Khazar Kaganate suffered cruelly from the Pechenegs. Some settlements burned down and ceased to exist. The population of the Don region and Podontsov region suffered especially hard. There were no pogroms in the Azov region. Many Alans and Bulgarians (Russian chronicles call them Black Bulgarians) entered the tribal union of the Pechenegs and began to roam with them. A significant part of the settled population remained in their places. Only in 1036 did Yaroslav the Wise manage to defeat a large Pecheneg army near Kiev and put an end to their raids.
Soon the Pechenegs began to be pushed out from the east by related nomadic tribes.
Cumans
The weakened horde was attacked from the east by the next nomadic Cumans (or Cumans) - and the Pechenegs scattered across the adjacent territories. The Torks tried to fill the void, and although they failed to gain a foothold on the banks of the Donets and Kalmius for a long time, they left an abundant mark on the geographical names of the region (Tor, Kazenny Torets, Krivoy Torets, Sukhoi Torets, Kramatorsk).
The Polovtsian time was coming. In the person of this people, Rus' received a rival even more dangerous than the Pechenegs. As they say, “there was no need to touch the Khazars”... The Polovtsian confrontation with Kive Rus lasted for a century and a half and was stopped only by the Mongol invasion. However, the relationship turned out to be peculiar. It was love and hate going hand in hand. For political reasons, Russians and Cumans sometimes fought together. The ruling families of these peoples mixed blood in dynastic marriages if it seemed necessary and beneficial. However, as in an unstable family, peace immediately gave way to quarrel. The Donetsk steppes lived like this - from surge to surge.
Polovtsian history left a specific mark in these parts. These are the famous stone “women”, which have already become a kind of “brand” of steppe life. Several copies stand in front of the regional museum of local lore in Donetsk and in the archaeological museum of Lugansk National University. Taras Shevchenko. Stone statues ranging from one to four meters in height were erected at burial sites and, contrary to their names, mostly depict warriors. The very word “baba” among the Polovtsians meant “grandfather, ancestor”...
MONGOLO-TATARS
After the conquest of the Polovtsian and Russian lands by the Mongol-Tatars, the age of the Golden Horde begins. The Donetsk steppes were of exceptional importance for the new owners - they connected two parts of their huge empire, the Turkic center and the Slavic east. Soon after the heat of the wars subsided, a settled population began to grow along familiar places (river and sea banks). The surviving Cumans also tried to find their place in this niche, maintaining their nomadic way of life, but in a more peaceful and less active form. A chain of strongholds (“pits”, “caravanserais”) is created across the steppe, facilitating movement through difficult places to travel. It seems that the khans understood that for their own well-being they needed to have a prosperous power under their control. Trade revived, goods from Europe came to the Horde, which was relieved to see that the danger from the east had diminished. Items that came with overseas merchants were found in various parts of Donbass: here is a Saxon bronze Aquarius vessel in the form of an equestrian knight with a girl, there is a candlestick in the shape of a lion...
The beginning of the period of the capture of Rus' can be considered the spring of 1223, when the Horde troops led by Genghis Khan came close to the Dnieper, where at that time the border of the state was located. The Russian princes at that time were in a state of hostility, so they could not give a worthy rebuff to the invaders. Despite the fact that the Cumans came to the rescue, the Tatar-Mongol army quickly seized the advantage.
The first direct clash between the troops took place on the Kalka River on May 31, 1223 and was lost quite quickly. Even then it became clear that our army would not be able to defeat the Tatar-Mongols, but the enemy’s onslaught was held back for quite some time. In the winter of 1237, a targeted invasion of the main Tatar-Mongol troops into the territory of Rus' began. This time the enemy army was commanded by the grandson of Genghis Khan, Batu. The army of nomads managed to move quite quickly into the interior of the country, plundering the principalities in turn and killing everyone who tried to resist as they went along. The establishment of the Mongol-Tatar yoke with new laws and orders began in Rus'.
The consequences of the Mongol-Tatar yoke in Rus' were terrible: many cities and villages were destroyed, people were killed; agriculture, handicrafts and art fell into decline; feudal fragmentation increased significantly; the population has decreased significantly; Rus' began to noticeably lag behind Europe in development.
At the beginning of the 14th century, the power of the Golden Horde weakened, and Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich, sensing this, refused to pay tribute to the Baskaks. Not wanting to tolerate such arbitrariness, Khan Mamai gathered an army and moved to Rus' - to punish the disobedient.
Having addressed all the Russian principalities with a call for help, Dmitry Ivanovich went to meet him. The two armies converged on the Kulikovo Field - and Dmitry, cutting off even the very thought of defeat, ordered the bridges behind him to be burned. At dawn on September 8, 1380, the Russian monk Alexander Peresvet and the Mongol warrior Chelubey, according to tradition, fought one-on-one battle. The battle did not bring victory to either of them - having mortally wounded each other with spears, both warriors fell. And then the Mongol army and the squad of Dmitry Donskoy, blessed by Sergius of Radonezh, began the battle. Although the Russian troops fought bravely, the Mongols greatly outnumbered them. It was already beginning to seem that Mamai would win this battle - but Dmitry Donskoy relied not only on the courage of his soldiers, but also on cunning tactics. A regiment of more than ten thousand soldiers under the command of Dmitry Bobrok was left in the ambush. At the most difficult moment of the battle, the cavalry unexpectedly flew out of the forest. Deciding that the main Russian forces had arrived at the battlefield, the Mongols fled. After this battle, Prince Dmitry Ivanovich received the nickname under which he went down in history - “Donskoy” (Kulikovo field is located not far from the Don River).
Despite the fact that the Tatar-Mongol yoke lasted in Rus' for exactly one hundred years, the Battle of Kulikovo was of great importance for the people. After it, it became clear that the Golden Horde is not invincible, that it can be broken, and that Russia’s gaining freedom is only a matter of time.
Complete liberation from the Mongol-Tatar yoke occurred only in 1480, when Grand Duke Ivan III refused to pay money to the horde and declared the independence of Rus'. Standing on the Ugra River - military actions in 1480 between the Khan of the Great Horde Akhmat and the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III in alliance with the Crimean Khanate. According to the majority of Soviet and Russian historians, it put an end to the Mongol-Tatar yoke in the north and north-east of Rus', where it lasted the longest and where the process of formation of a unified Russian state took place, which became completely independent.
100 years later, the great-grandson of Dmitry Donskoy, Ivan III, finally got rid of the Mongol-Tatar yoke. And the grandson of Ivan III, Ivan the Terrible, conquered 3 Tatar principalities: Kazan, Astrakhan, Siberian.
Since the 14th century on the territory of our region there was a “Wild Field”, into the concept of which many writers, local historians, teachers put something historically unpromising, “lifeless”, “robbery”. Even the connecting threads - roads - are sometimes called "bandit roads" in literature.
What happened in the Dontsovo region in the post-Mongol period? The main population of the steppe part of the Dontsov region in the XIII - XIV centuries. the former Kipchak (Polovtsian) tribes remained. They continued the construction of mounds, but externally their burial grounds had undergone changes. For example, mounds were built only on the high ridges of the Donetsk Ridge; they were, as it were, built in a line with the east-west direction; the earthen mounds were absent, replaced by hills built only from stones.
Large movements of nomads from the eastern zones after the 14th century. were unlikely to have taken place, but minor ones were still quite real. The Polovtsian land with its crushed population could not help but accept the Kipchak tribes of the Trans-Volga and Urals regions, which were close in ethnic roots, to the noticeably deserted territory. These could not have been massive invasions, but, on the contrary, small groups of nomads who did not change the historical and ethnic situation of our steppes. From this we can understand why both medieval authors and archaeologists of our time, although they noted the migration of nomads from the east, did not provide substantive evidence of this process. It remains to be seen the scale and consequences of such migrations; linguistic data also prompts us to do this: after all, the everyday language of the population of our region contains many Turkic words and concepts. Finally, we note that archaeological materials from Provalye give reason not to exaggerate the idea of desolation of our region: the steppe continued to be inhabited even in post-Mongol times. We think that the term “Wild Field” should be considered nothing more than a metaphorical concept, but in no way filled with historical content.
"Donetsk stapnaya"
Donetsk steppe without edge,
Thyme and feather grass...
I love you, dear,
And in tulips and in dust,
And in the snow of spicy acacias,
And in the lilac smoke,
And in the monists of pyrites,
I'll hug you like a friend.
I will cling to my native springs
Miraculous keys
So that dark-skinned miners
It sang sweetly at night.
I'll take the song out of my heart,
I'll put it on their hearts.
I will tell them: your work is honest!
I won't say another word.
1945 (Pavel Besposhchadny)
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- Introduction
- 2.1 Lands of the Dontsov region, Azov region and Kievan Rus
- Conclusion
- Literature
Introduction
Relevance of the research topic.
Donbass is a special region. And not because the lion’s share of Ukrainian industry is located here, and not because this is the most densely populated region of Ukraine. The uniqueness of Donbass lies in its special ethnic, linguistic and religious development.
Representatives of more than a hundred nationalities live in the Donbass, most of whom, ironically and at the behest of the Kyiv authorities, one day began to be considered a national minority in their native land and regularly experience oppression because of their nationality.
The first large settlements on the territory of Donbass were guard posts and forts, built to protect against nomads. Only after these lands became part of the Russian Empire did the first industrial enterprises appear here - the basis of the future industrial giants of the region. primitive society Donbass Azov region
Donbass occupies a significant part of the plains of the southeast of the country and has an independent maritime border along the Sea of Azov. Its northern part is part of the historical Donbass region.
There are many rivers here with a slow current flowing between the banks, cut by countless ravines. Some of these rivers are subject to drying out in the summer. Along the largest river, the Seversky Donets, the most important source of fresh water in eastern Ukraine, mixed forests grow, and in the Donetsk Ridge there are oak groves and bayrak broad-leaved forests growing along the bottom and slopes of ravines, called here bayraks.
Donbass is a region of steppes, all of which have been plowed for a long time: natural steppe vegetation has been preserved mainly in protected areas.
The main wealth of the region is minerals, primarily coal. During the Carboniferous and Permian geological periods, multi-meter accumulations of coal and salt accumulated here.
The first people appeared on the territory of the present Donetsk region in the Paleolithic, approximately 30 thousand years ago. When the era of nomads began, the masses of whom moved across the steppe expanses, from the 3rd century. BC e. and until the middle of the 3rd century. Sarmatian tribes dominated here. Subsequently, they were replaced by the Pechenegs and Polovtsians in this region of the Northern Azov region. Tatar-Mongol invasion of the 13th century. devastated this region, and the Azov steppe became depopulated. For several centuries to come, all this turned into a wild field, where only in some places, along river valleys, nomadic tribes roamed.
Two significant events in Russian history are associated with the lands of the Donetsk region: in 1223, the Battle of the Kalka took place here (today it is the Kalchik River, a tributary of the Kalmius) - the first major military clash of the united army of Russians and Polovtsians with the Mongol hordes; and here in 1380 the battle between Mamai and Tokhtamysh took place.
Since the 16th century. Russian watchmen (wooden fortresses), Cossack winter huts and peasant farms are being built throughout the steppes. During the XVI-XVIII centuries. the north of the future Donetsk region was part of the historical region of Slobozhanshchina, divided into the Region of the Don Army and the Wild Field, where the Nogai nogais lived, subordinate to the Crimean Khan.
Russian-Turkish War 1735-1739 subjugated the Crimean Khanate to Russia, and according to the peace treaty of 1774, the Azov region became Russian land. Only from this time did the settlement of the steppe by a sedentary population, organized by the imperial authorities, begin. Mostly Russians from central Russia, Crimean Greeks, German colonists and Jews from the western provinces settled here. But let us turn our attention to the presence of nomads on the territory of our region.
The degree of scientific research on the topic.
Perhaps there is no person who is completely indifferent to the history of his Land. The story has always aroused and continues to arouse great interest among Donbass readers. In past years, the history of Donbass as a science was largely politicized and many of its pages were reflected in literature one-sidedly. Today we have the opportunity to study the true history of our region. The book “Donbass: Ukraine and Rus'” shows how the modern Donetsk and Lugansk regions, together making up the single Donbass region, are an integral part of the East Slavic civilization, a special region of the Russian-Ukrainian borderland.
Donbass is organically included in a single cultural space, which is an indisputable historical heritage of the region. Since the early Middle Ages, the territory of Donbass was part of the area of the Old Russian state - Rus', was located on the outskirts of the Russian land, and was often the object of expansion of other tribes and peoples. Wild Field, on the territory of which modern Donbass arose in the 17th - 19th centuries, was the periphery of Rus' during the period of feudal fragmentation and the Mongol-Tatar invasion. Starting from the 16th century, the industrial development of Donbass began. In the second half of the 19th century, Donbass became one of the leading industrial regions of the Russian Empire; by the beginning of the 20th century, the Donetsk region played an extremely important role in the all-Russian coal and metal market. The basis of the modern industry of Donbass is being formed.
Donbass has become a region of close interaction between the Russian and Ukrainian peoples; its characteristic feature is Russian-Ukrainian cultural and historical dualism, with an admixture of other ethnocultural enzymes. As a result, by the beginning of the twentieth century, a special multinational community had formed in Donbass, the basis of which was the Russian-Ukrainian population, and the Russian language became the means of communication. Thus, by the time Ukraine declared its independence in 1991, the special historical, national-cultural, social and economic specificity of the Donetsk region had already taken shape, and its regional identity had been formed.
Almost until the end of the 19th century, the prevailing opinion among Russian scientists was that Donbass was settled only in the 16th century. This conviction was shaken by the findings of Vasily Fedorovich Spesivtsev, a resident of the village of Raigorodka (now Slavyansky district). An energetic and inquisitive man, fascinated by antiquities, he began to look for them in his native land. And he found it on the outskirts of his native village. Already about his first finds in 1891, V.F. Spesivtsev wrote: “Perhaps whole cartloads of the mentioned shards and flint fragments could be collected.” In subsequent years, he walked from Slavyansk to Yampol, explored Shchurovo, Stary Karavan, Brusovka, and the banks of the Zherebets River. The collection collected by V.F. Spesivtsev included objects from different archaeological eras: Golden Horde coins and clay vessels of the Bronze Age, an iron sword with an Arabic inscription and fragments of pots made by the Scythians. Among the many flint products one could distinguish scrapers for leather processing, knives, very elegant arrowheads, and ground stone hammers.
The finds of V.F. Spesivtsev aroused interest primarily among specialists in Kharkov - the nearest large scientific center, where members of the Kharkov Historical and Philological Society were studying the antiquities of the region. Just at this time, preparations were underway for the XII Congress of Russian Archaeologists, which was to be held in Kharkov at the very beginning of the new, 20th century. At the meetings of the Preliminary Committee, upcoming events were carefully discussed, and V. F. Spesivtsev’s report on the monuments he discovered in the last decade was also heard. By decision of the committee, in the summer of 1900, Professor N.A. Fedorovsky went to the site of the finds. After the trip, he reported that the territory he examined presented “a highly interesting phenomenon.” The committee soon adopted a resolution: “... pay attention to Stone Age sites, especially in Izyum district, and, if possible, examine them.” A new stage was beginning in the history of archaeological study of Donbass. Experts came to the aid of inquisitive enthusiasts, and teams began to work in place of individuals.
In 1901, an expedition led by Vasily Alekseevich Gorodtsov, at that time already a recognized scientist, arrived in Izyumsky district.
Gorodtsov’s expedition worked in Izyumshchina for four months. During this time, one hundred mounds were opened, three settlements were studied and five Neolithic sites were discovered: near Khailovka. (now Ilyichevka, Krasnolimansky district), Raigorodok, Kamenka, Dolgenky and Velikaya Kamyshevakha.
At the XII Congress of archaeologists V.F. Spesivtsev and V.A. Gorodtsov, held in 1902, reported on the results of work in the Izyum region. Particular attention was paid to the parking lot and workshop opened in Khailovka. Along with completed tools and fragments of clay vessels, large piles of flint waste were found there. This allowed us to assume that about 7 thousand years ago, flint products were made here for a very long time. Thus, already at the beginning of the 20th century it was indisputably proven that Donbass was inhabited about 7 thousand years ago.
Stories about the Stone Age of Donbass should be prefaced with a few remarks regarding the periodization and chronology of this longest period in human history.
Thanks to discoveries in recent decades, the age of human society is now estimated at almost three million years. For the convenience of studying such a long period, it was conventionally divided into a number of eras, distinguished by phenomena in nature, in the appearance of man himself, in the economic and social life of primitive people. A very important role in the periodization of the Stone Age is played by the technology of processing stone raw materials, the typology of products made from it and statistical indicators.
The subject of the study is the nomadic tribes that lived on the territory of Donbass from ancient times to the Middle Ages. The influence and consequences of the Era of Migration of Peoples on the territory of Donbass.
Goals and objectives of the study. In accordance with the subject of the study, the goal is set: to show, on the basis of well-known works of historians of Russia and Ukraine, as well as historical finds on the territory of Donbass, to determine all the nomadic tribes that were in Donbass and what are the reasons for the frequent replacement of some tribes by others.
1. “The Azov region and the Don region in ancient times (from ancient times to the 5th century AD)
1.1 Development of primitive society. Ancient nomadic tribes on the territory of Donbass: Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, etc.)
Archaeological data indicate, for example, the intensive settlement of the Donetsk region, in particular, the middle reaches of the Seversky Donets, 40 thousand years ago, during the Stone and Bronze Age. Unique finds of a flint handaxe on the territory of Amvrosievka, Makeevka, Artemovsk (city of the Donetsk region) indicate the emergence of the first settlements here about 150 thousand years ago. These nameless settlements and tribes, designated only by archaeological cultures, have come a long way in their development.
Starting from the 1st millennium BC, the tribes received their own names: Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Goths, Huns. Moving from East to West through the territory of Donbass, they settled here for centuries, exerting a significant influence on the culture and life of the indigenous population. The tribes inhabiting South-Eastern Europe underwent fundamental changes, associated primarily with the discovery of iron and the development of the technology for its production. Traces of ancient iron production were discovered, for example, in settlements of the early Timber culture near Kapitanovo (Lugansk region) and Voronezh (1500-1400 BC).
The mastery of the technology for making iron and tools coincided with another equally important event - the separation of cattle breeding from agriculture and the transition to nomadic cattle breeding. This was largely facilitated by climate change, which became drier and hotter. In the 9th century BC. climate desiccation reached its climax. In this regard, the Eurasian steppes stretched for almost 6 thousand km, but their most fertile and fertile part was located in the Donbass, which played a decisive role in the formation of a certain type of culture, psychology and civilization here, especially in its southeast. Asian nomads began to move here, encountering the local population - the Antes, as Byzantine sources called them, whose economy was associated with agriculture in river valleys and forests. However, the clashes soon developed into ever-increasing examples of cultural and economic symbiosis. Yes, it could not be otherwise, since the nomadic economy could not exist without connection with the agricultural one, and the trade union constantly grew not only into a military one, but also into a family one. For example, that many Russian princes, including Alexander Nevsky, had Polovtsian wives. At the same time, however, “... throughout the Middle Ages, the southern Russian steppes represented a separate not only natural-geographical, but ethnopolitical system, which, although it interacted with the forest-steppe agricultural system, but never constituted a single economic whole” [PL. Tolochko, s. 7].
Climatic changes significantly influenced the settlement of the territory of the Donetsk region, which for almost 15 centuries was predominantly influenced by the culture of nomads. This culture was provoked by the movement of the Turkic tribes of the Huns from east to west in the 3rd - 7th centuries. AD, known as the Great Migration.
Constant concern for the preservation of pastures, as well as the desire to seize livestock, property and lands of neighbors, determined the military way of life. The nomads were in a constant state of hostilities, uniting for the purpose of attack or defense. In this way of life, warriors and leaders, relying on priests and tribal nobility, took first place in the social hierarchy, which created the preconditions for the emergence of ancient states on the territory of Donbass.
The culture of nomads for the majority of the inhabitants of the Wild Field from ancient times until the end of the 18th century was traditional and natural. The presence of islands of settled population here did not in any way mean that, unlike the constantly expanding Asian tribes and peoples, they were one hundred percent sedentary and only agricultural, like, say, the Western or Northern Slavs living in the Forest zone. “The enclosing landscape of the ancient Russians was not so much forests as forest-steppes, fields and river valleys. With the extremely sparse population of Rus' in the 12th century (about 5.5 million), fallow farming systems were practiced in it, which required partial settlement; it was not excluded semi-nomadism based on cattle breeding, especially in the steppe zone" [L.N. Gumilyov, s. 172].
Nomadic tribes, constantly conquering and dissolving either in what came before them or in the local linguistic and cultural substrate, ensured the “similarity” of seemingly different peoples and civilizations, distant from each other in time and space.
The most powerful peoples of the early Iron Age, living on the territory of the Wild Field and embodying the civilization of nomads, were the Cimmerians and Scythians.
The oldest known people who came to the Steppe from Asia at the end of the Late Bronze Age - Early Iron Age (1st millennium BC) to replace more or less sedentary pastoralists-farmers were the Cimmerians - representatives of the Iranian-speaking ethnic group. We find written mentions of them in Homer and the ancient geographer Strabo.
The nomadic way of life of the Cimmerians and their cohesion during the war in the pre-state unions that formed gave them an absolute advantage compared to peoples who lived in a tribal system, or states during the period of their loss of unity. Progressive for that time, nomadic cattle breeding (mainly horse breeding, which allows for high mobility and at the same time a food supply for the population) assumed natural trade exchanges with the neighboring agricultural world, but at the same time required the expansion of new territories for grazing.
That is why belligerence in the name of self-preservation and survival becomes one of the main driving forces of the Cimmerian civilization. Cimmerians in the USH-UI centuries. BC. penetrate through Transcaucasia into the territory of Western and Minor Asia, devastating the lands of local peoples. Assyrian cuneiform tablets tell, for example, that in 714 BC. they defeated the troops of the Urartian king Rusa I,
Archaeological excavations of their burials, including on the territory of Donbass near the villages of Astakhovo, Beglitsa, Donskoye, Zimogorye, Kremenevka, Livishchovka, Luganskoye, Primorskoye, Provalye, Chernogorovka, etc., indicate not only the high degree of their industrial, everyday and economic culture, but and about an equally high degree of military art.
The armament of the Cimmerian warrior consisted of a bow, sword, dagger and spear. Warriors belonged, like other nomadic peoples, to the upper class. Burials in mounds with household items and weapons (ware from the West, swords and jewelry from the Caucasus), steles placed over them.
However, no matter how strong the people were, if they could not provide themselves with everything they needed without a constant infusion of human and material resources from the outside, they would necessarily either dissolve into the traditional local population or be absorbed by another, more powerful nomad who replaced them.
The latter happened with the Cimmerians, whose culture in the 7th century. BC. ceased to exist and logically intertwined with the culture of other Iranian-speaking nomads who came from Asia - the Scythians, who influenced for several centuries (until the 2nd century BC) the formation of the Steppe and the further fate of the Wild Field. According to one of the theories (the alien theory, in contrast to the autochthonous theory, the Scythians initially lived near the river Araks (Syr Darya or Amu Darya), then expanded their influence to Tanais (Don and Meotida (Sea of Azov), and later conquered the Northern Black Sea region to Istra (Danube) river.
When the Scythians appeared, as Herodotus reported, the Cimmerians retreated to the Caucasus and Western Asia. In the 7th century BC. both peoples were in Western Asia, terrifying the local population.
Gradually the Cimmerians disappear from the historical scene, and Herodotus mainly testifies only to the Scythians.
Being warlike tribes, they made campaigns in Syria, Palestine, and reached the possessions of Egypt, which redrew the political map of the Ancient East. As a result of the campaigns of two generations of Scythians, for example, the states of Urartu and despotic Assyria perished. And this despite the fact that the nomads did not have their own state education.
Traces of the presence of the Scythians in the countries of the Ancient East are clearly visible in the archaeological sites of the Caucasus, where Scythian weapons and equipment of riding horses were discovered (UI-U1 centuries BC), Babylon, Assyria, Syria, Palestine, Iranian Kurdistan, where a rich burial was discovered Scythian king (towards the 7th century BC).
In the VI century. BC. Scythian rule in Western Asia ceased, after which they returned to the Black Sea region. However, the Ancient East had a profound influence on the formation of the social structure and culture of Scythia. The military power of the Scythians raised their leaders to the level of ancient Eastern rulers who had despotic rule and were drowning in luxury.
Contacts of the Scythians with the great civilizations of the Ancient East and Caucasus enriched the material culture and art of the Scythians. They had first-class weapons and equipment for that time, consisting of iron armor, swords, daggers, battle axes, spears with iron tips, which had no analogues in the ancient world in terms of accuracy and range of bows and arrows. Originally Scythian motifs, the so-called “animal style”, observed in the decoration of weapons and clothing (images of deer, panther, bull, wild boar, horse, ram, eagle), were necessarily intertwined with artistic images borrowed from the art of the Ancient East (griffins, lions, monsters). Even the surviving sculptural images of Scythian warriors discovered on the mounds confirm the thesis about their high military culture, borrowed largely from ancient eastern civilizations.
Thus, on a stone statue discovered near the village of Olkhovchik, Shakhtarsky district, Donetsk region, a Scythian warrior is clearly of a European type with the attributes of military strength and glory: a short sword - akinak, a bow case, an ax and a helmet.
Even the Persian king Darius I, who unsuccessfully tried to defeat Scythia in 513 BC, could not shake the military power of the Scythian tribes.
In the 4th century. BC. During the reign of King Atey, Scythia reaches the limit of its power, uniting all the Scythian tribes under its leadership. Having formed an alliance with the Macedonian king Philip II (father of Alexander the Great), Atey successfully fought in the west with the Thracians, expanding his possessions beyond the Danube. However, later the alliance fell apart, relations between the two kingdoms became hostile, escalating into war, which ultimately led Scythia to death. In 339 BC. The Macedonians inflicted a defeat on the nomads, from which they were never able to recover...
The territory of the northeastern Azov region and modern Donbass up to Tanais (Don) was inhabited by the most powerful Scythians - the royal ones. In addition to them, in the territorial-hierarchical ladder there were also Hellenic-Scythians, Allazons, Scythian-plowmen, Scythian-farmers and Scythian-nomads. The last of them represented the largest group of warrior people.
And yet, the semi-nomadic, semi-military way of life of the Scythian tribes logically led them to the need to also engage in handicrafts, agriculture and cattle breeding, which indicates the beginning of the transition of part of the population to sedentary life.
The growth of economic inequality accelerated the process of decomposition of Scythian society, which, in turn, led to the decline of its former power, the collapse and gradual disappearance of Scythia.
1.2 The era of the “great migration of peoples” on the territory of the Donetsk region. Formation of Great Bulgaria and the Khazar Khaganate
In the Sh-P centuries. BC. The Scythians are gradually being replaced by the Sarmatian tribes that formed in the Volga region, and the borders of the lands of the nomadic Scythians are moving beyond the Dnieper and into the Crimean steppes. In the steppes of the Azov and Black Sea regions, over the course of six centuries, the dominance of united nomadic cattle-breeding tribes of Alans, Roxolans, Aorses and Iazyges was established, named on the map of Ptolemy (VI-VII centuries AD) as Sarmatia - a huge territory along the Tanais (Don) River. Evidence of the presence of the Sarmatians here are their numerous burials: burial mounds near the village. Primorskoe, Shevchenko, mounds near the village. Ust-Kamenka, Dnepropetrovsk region, near the village. Novoluganskoye, Artemovsky district, near the village. Vasilievka, Starobeshevsky district, in the village. Kvashino-Amvrosievsky district, in the village. Ostry, Maryinsky district, in the village. Chuguno-Kreminka, Shakhtarsky district, Donetsk region and in the village. Limarevka Belovodsky district, Lugansk region. They contained iron weapons, horse harnesses, jewelry, fragments of Roman amphorae, a silver mirror, a bronze cauldron, as well as a large number of objects indicating the nomadic culture of their owners.
The military, trade and peaceful interaction of the Sarmatians with the Bosporan kingdom and the Black Sea cities was reflected in their fine art: funerary stone reliefs, terracotta figurines, coins depicting walking and galloping warriors with swords characteristic of the Sarmatians, long spears, flowing cloaks and round phalars on horses' rumps.
Considering the closeness of the Scythian language with the Sarmatians (both languages belong to the northeastern group of Iranian languages and are similar to modern Ossetian), Herodotus noted their kinship and continuity in the entire way of life and culture.
The Sarmatians “follow their herds,” Strabo testifies, “they always chose areas with good pastures in the winter - in the swamps near Meotida (the Sea of Azov), and in the summer - on the plains.” That is why, like the Scythians, tents made of felt served as their homes. A sign of nobility for the Sarmatians were golden hryvnias and crowns, and women had numerous decorations: tiaras, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, rings, rings, gold, embroidered clothes. All this testifies to the high culture of spinning, weaving, embroidery and blacksmithing, leatherworking and bronze crafts.
The development of crafts, nomadic economy and the separation of the caste of leaders and nobility from the military environment stimulated the process of property stratification and contributed to the development of barter trade with ancient cities. The Sarmatians supplied slaves, livestock, skins, and food to numerous markets at the mouth of the Don, receiving in return clothing, wine, amphorae, red-glazed dishes and jewelry from the Bosporus; from China - silk, bronze mirrors, jade products; from India - turquoise and corrals for necklaces; from Iran - semi-precious stones carnelian and almandine; from Egypt - paste amulets and golden brooches; from Central Asia - phalars and bone artifacts; from the Caucasus - crystal beads. Products from Western countries also found their way to Sarmatian markets: Romanesque brooches and bracelets, Roman bronze ladles and glass vessels, bowls made of precious metals.
Representing a great military and political force with which European states were forced to reckon, conduct diplomatic negotiations with them, conclude international treaties and enter into military alliances, the Sarmatians continued to live in a tribal system.
As the Sarmatians moved westward, the Sarmatian culture increasingly lost its ethnic characteristics and acquired the features of new peoples with whom they came into contact. Waging constant wars with the states of the Caucasus and Rome, they gradually lost their power. In the II century. AD On the Don, the Sarmatians were supplanted by the Alans, who formed a powerful Alan tribal union, the main territory of which was in the North Caucasus and extended to the Aral Sea.
In the 3rd-7th centuries. AD the usual life of these peoples was disrupted by the invasion of new tribes. Huge hordes of nomads, different in ethnic composition, traveling thousands of kilometers, moved from the plateaus of Asia to the states of the Ancient World. This period was called the era of the “great migration of peoples.” Its result was the collapse of the powerful Roman Empire and the formation of a number of new states and peoples of ancient and modern Europe. The period of antiquity gave way to the period of the Middle Ages.
The movement of the tribes took place through the territory of the Northern Black Sea region, which lay on the route of the nomads and was part of the great corridor between Europe and Asia.
Among the numerous peoples who took part in the “Great Migration,” the most important role was played by the German-speaking Goths, Turkic-speaking Huns, Bulgarians and Khazars.
In the middle of the 3rd century. The Goths penetrate into the Northern Black Sea region from the Scandinavian region through the territory of modern Poland along the border of forest-steppe and steppe. Moving south along the banks of the Donets, they destroyed many ancient centers (including Tanais) and captured Crimea. As a result of their gradual settlement in this territory, a temporary unification of different ethnic groups arises under the auspices of the Goths - the state of Germanarich, the territory of which extends west from the Don to the Dnieper and modern Moldova. The union, which included the population of the Donetsk steppes, included Germanic, Sarmatian and early Slavic tribes.
In the 4th century. The Alan and Gothic tribal unions were defeated by the Huns, a Turkic-speaking people who formed in the 4th-5th centuries. in the Urals. About the stay of the Huns in the Northern Black Sea region in 1U-Uvv. evidenced by rare, but very rich burials where jewelry made of precious metals, items of horse harness, weapons, headdresses, buckles, phalars were found (the village of Novo-Grigoryevka and the city of Melitopol, Zaporozhye region, the mouth of the Oskol river, Krivaya Kosa, Novoazovsky district, Donetsk region, Pavlovka village, Lugansk region). The item of the last burial - a silver vessel of the 5th century, decorated with floral patterns and an oval medal - a kind of coat of arms of the Iranian rulers, the shahs of the Sassanid dynasty, is kept in the museum collections of the State Hermitage.
The few archaeological monuments of this time cannot fully recreate the picture of the struggle of nomadic peoples for possession of the territory of the Dontsov and Azov regions. It is only known that for 20 years (374-395) the Turkic-speaking Huns could not defeat the Sarmatian captivity of the Alans, whose language was close to ancient Persian, and only then took possession of the coast of the Sea of Azov and the steppe expanses of the Dontsov and Lower Don regions.
While moving across the Steppe, the Huns absorbed the local Sarmatian tribes; the defeated Alans had to leave for the Caucasus and Crimea, and subsequently occupy northern territories in the south of the forest-steppe zone. The remnants of the remaining Germanic tribes had to go further to the west and partially occupy Coastal Crimea. Having formed a powerful union of tribes, the Huns, under the leadership of Atilla, undertook devastating campaigns in many countries, finally defeated the Roman Empire, changed the ethnographic map of Europe and put an end to the slave system, opening the way for the Middle Ages. However, after the death of Atilla in 454, the union of tribes disintegrated and the Huns dissolved among many other peoples.From the Turkic-speaking peoples remaining after the collapse of the Huns, two states in Eastern Europe emerged: Great Bulgaria and the Khazar Khaganate.
In the VI-VII centuries. Bulgarian tribes related to the Huns began to penetrate into the Azov steppes from the east. This is evidenced by excavations of female burials in the city of Mariupol, us. Novogrigorievka on the river. Kalmius, near the cities of Yasinovataya and Novoazovsk, Donetsk region.
In the 30-40s. VII century The Bulgarians of the Azov and Black Sea regions united into a single state - Great Bulgaria. However, after the death of the unifier of the Bulgarians, Kurbats, and the collapse of his power, part of the Bulgarians went north and formed Volga Bulgaria, and the second part, led by Khan Asparukh I, crossed the Danube, forming Danube Bulgaria, the remaining part settled along the river valleys of the Kuban, Don and Seversky Donets basins , then becoming part of the Khazar Kaganate - one of the powerful state associations of the 1st thousand AD, whose power extended from the Volga to the Dnieper, as well as in the territory of the North Caucasus and Crimea.
The Khazars are a Turkic-speaking nomadic clan that created in the U-U1 centuries. tribal association on the territory of modern Dagestan, and in the 7th century. an early feudal state led by the Kagan, whose power extended to the Bulgarians and Alans who were part of the Kaganate, as well as the Slavic tribes of the Polyans, Northerners and Vyatichi, who were subjugated by him, who paid tribute to the Khazars.
The formation of a strong Khazar state led to the strengthening of trade and economic relations in the steppes of Eastern Europe, the growth of population, settlements, trade and craft centers. The development of the Khaganate was facilitated by Byzantium, which was interested in international trade in Crimea and the protection of trade caravans. The fact is that, in addition to a purely nomadic economy, the Khazars were engaged in agriculture, various crafts and mediation in international trade. Their military affairs were also at a high level.
In the basins of the Don, Seversky Donets and its tributaries, fortresses, settlements, large trade, economic and political centers with craft villages and trading areas are growing. Thus, on the territory of the modern Kharkov region, near Upper Saltov, there was a significant settlement, which was one of the main centers of the Khazar Kaganate on the border with the Slavs.
Changes in the psychology of the steppe nomads, economic growth, international trade, and connections with world religious centers lead to the appearance in the steppe of adherents of religious faiths carrying the “word of God.” Pagan cults are replaced by monoreligions - Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Instead of lonely graves of nomads, huge ancestral burial grounds appear under the mounds of small mounds.
The almost three-hundred-year-old Khazar civilization (from the 7th to the 10th centuries) played an important role in the history of the Wild Field. The ancient Bulgarians and Alans created a rich and unique culture based on agriculture and livestock breeding in the endless steppe. They improved the architecture and technology of fortress construction, glass casting, spinning and weaving, mastered the techniques of making jewelry, and mastered the technology of smelting and processing ferrous and non-ferrous metals, stone, bone, wood and clay. The growth of crafts, trade and economic relations led in turn to the emergence and spread of art and writing.
The largely identical fates of the nomadic peoples, who for dozens of centuries determined the geography and ideology of the Steppe, become the impetus for the arrival of new characters into the historical arena - the Slavs with their state of Rus' and numerous nomadic Turks.
2. “Donetsk region in the Middle Ages (VI-early XVI centuries)”
2.1 Lands of the Dontsov region, the Azov region and Kievan Rus
The history and fate of the Great Steppe and the Wild Field as its organic part, starting from the 6th century, is inextricably linked with the emergence of the ancient Russian ethnos and a new state, called Rus'.
The rich land, capable of providing food for a large number of livestock, a wonderful climate not subject to devastating droughts, as, for example, in the steppes of Asia, of course, attracted nomads here in ancient times, and they felt like masters here until they were replaced by new tribes of the same nomads. The Persian historian Al-Juzjani wrote about this quite figuratively: “In the whole world there cannot be land more pleasant than this, air better than this, water sweeter than this, meadows and pastures more extensive than these.” That is why in the V-IX centuries. The great migration of peoples from east to west continues. Avars, Bulgarians, Khazars and Ugrians (Hungarians) passed through the territory of the Wild Steppe into the Carpathian-Danube region during this period.
However, simultaneously with this process in the VI-VIII centuries. The Slavic tribes, the so-called Antes, are developing rapidly - a sedentary people engaged in arable farming and cattle breeding. This was the period when the Old Russian ethnos was finally taking shape, which during this period was unsuccessfully trying to resist the invasions of nomads from Asia - the Avars, Bulgarians and Hungarians.
By this time, the Slavs were experiencing the restoration of “military democracy”, the decomposition of the tribal system and the formation of a class society, which created the preconditions for the formation of statehood. The conditional date for the unification of the Slavic tribes into a single ancient Russian state with a center in Kiev (Kievan Rus) should be considered the year 882, when, judging by chronicles, Prince Oleg with Novgorod troops and the Varangian squad captured Kiev, killed Askold and Dir, who reigned there, and began to equip the cities and impose tribute on the nearby Slavic tribes of the Slovens and Krivichi, and later the Drevlyans, Polyans, Northerners, Tivertsi, Vyatichi and Radimichi.
Thus, Oleg united under his rule the two main political centers of Rus' - Kyiv and Novgorod, i.e. lands stretching along the great river trade route “from the Varangians to the Greeks.” The eastern tribes became the largest state of medieval Europe.
His economic interests required access to the borders of the Steppe, where Kievan Rus faced the interests of a rather strong enemy - the Khazar Kaganate. The center of this state was located in the lower reaches of the Volga and was a link ensuring the safety of caravans and mediation in trade with the East, the Caucasus, Crimea and Byzantium. That is why it had political superiority, and without conquering peoples and territories (there was no one to conquer and there was nothing to conquer!) the Khazars were paid a natural tribute, including some Slavic tribes (for example, the Vyatichi).
“Rus of the Dnieper, city, trade,” as the outstanding historian V.O. called it. Klyuchevsky, Rus', which has high international authority thanks to successful foreign trade, did not want to put up with the lack of control on the Great Silk Road. That is why the period of Svyatoslav’s reign (964-972) was marked by constant wars to gain such control and the opportunity to become the head of Eastern Europe.
His campaigns in 965-968. were, as it were, a single “saber strike” that drew a wide semicircle on the map of Europe from the Middle Volga region to the Caspian Sea and further along the North Caucasus and the Black Sea region. As a result of these campaigns, Volga Bulgaria was conquered and the decrepit Khazar Khaganate was defeated (965). The barriers placed at the intersection of trade routes to the east were removed. The “Great Silk Road” was open for Ancient Rus', although during this period it failed to take advantage of it.
Apparently, it was precisely to control and protect the trade route passing through the territory of the Wild Field that a new Russian principality, Tmutarakan, later arose on the Taman Peninsula.
Meanwhile, the wars with the nomads of the southern steppes did not stop. They either took on a fierce character with the appearance of new nomads in the Wild Field, or were limited to guard duty and minor skirmishes at the border. Short periods of truce and calm were followed by wars.
The situation in this region became especially aggravated with the arrival of numerous new and warlike nomads in the Northern Black Sea region - the union of the Turkic tribes of the Pechenegs, which formed in the 8th-9th centuries. The story of their arrival in the Steppe is reminiscent of all previous campaigns and conquests of nomads.
Until the end of the 9th century, the Pechenegs wandered between the Aral Sea and the Volga, fighting for pastures with the Oguzes, Cumans and Khazars. However, in the end, under their pressure, the Pechenegs were forced to cross the Volga and, displacing the Ugrians (Hungarians) who wandered between the Don and the Dnieper, occupy the Northern Black Sea region to the Danube. Nomadic cattle breeding and raids on neighboring countries - Rus', Byzantium and Hungary - became one of the means of existence and survival of the heterotrophic state. And like any heterotrophic state, it was doomed already at the stage of its power, since it could not exist without a constant infusion of human and economic resources from the outside.
The process of gradual disintegration of the Pecheneg union was accelerated by Kievan Rus during the reign of Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich (980-1015). In the 80s X century he managed to organize the state defense system of Ancient Rus', building powerful defensive lines along the border rivers Desna, Osetr, Trubezh, Sula, Ros. Fortresses, ditches and ramparts, forest clearings, fortified fords stretched for many hundreds of kilometers, reinforced by permanent garrisons recruited from all the cities of Rus', serving in border towns. The history of medieval fortification in Western Europe has never seen a defensive system of this scale. People called these earthen ramparts “Snake”.
The Pechenegs were stopped "one day's journey from Kiev, and then driven back into the steppe. It was this period of struggle against the "filthy steppe inhabitants" at the "heroic outposts" that is glorified in numerous heroic Russian epics, in which tribute of deep respect is paid to both heroes and warriors, and to ordinary warriors, and to Prince Vladimir "Red Sun".
The Pechenegs were finally defeated by Prince Yaroslav the Wise in 1036 near Kiev. Many Pechenegs died in the battle and during their pursuit by Russian warriors, another part migrated to the Danube, but there were also those who, having assimilated, naturally entered into the military structure of the Slavs, and then became part of the Slavic ethnic group.
Old Russian chronicles recorded twelve military conflicts between the Pechenegs and Russia. Is it a lot or a little? Even if we assume that there were more of them, but they did not come to the attention of the chroniclers, then even then, with all the hardships of the Pecheneg-Russian confrontation, one cannot help but notice that the war was not constant. The fact is that the structure of the Pecheneg “union” was such that the hordes that made up the union were not always united in their desire for conflicts with Russia. Therefore, Ancient Rus' could simultaneously be in a state of war with one horde, and in a state of peace with the other.
It is even known that in 979 the Pecheneg prince Ildea went into the service of the Kyiv prince Yaropolk Svyatoslavich. The Pechenegs under his control were settled in Porosye and on the outskirts of Kievan Rus, where they would live and perform guard duty, fighting off the raids of nomads together with the Russians until the Mongol invasion. The Russians called such serving Turkic nomads “black hoods,” although this name disappeared as they assimilated and turned into typical Slavs in language, faith, and culture.
The next wave of nomads after the Pechenegs, which overwhelmed the developing culture of Ancient Rus' for several centuries (X1-X1II), is associated with the arrival of the nomadic tribes of the Torks and Polovtsians on the territory of the Steppe. The situation on the border of the forest-steppe with the Wild Field began to rapidly change in favor of the nomads. In the middle of the 11th century. the Seljuk Turks blocked all routes to the south for ancient Russian merchant caravans, and the crusaders devastated the Byzantine Empire in 1096, thereby depriving Kievan Rus of its main trading partner. It was during this period that they intensified their raids on Rus'.
The Cumans, who settled in the Northern Black Sea region, were first mentioned in Russian chronicles in 1055. Old Russian chroniclers described the Polovtsian invasion very figuratively:
"...Yes, numbers - no counting!
And the moon was covered until the sun was red,
But you can’t see the gold, the light of the month,
And from the same Polovtsian spirit,
From the same thing from a couple of horses."
Evidence of the long stay of the Polovtsians on the territory of the Wild Field are also numerous stone women scattered across the steppe and collected by archaeologists from Lugansk State Pedagogical University and Donetsk National University (more than 60). Stone Polovtsian sculptures have been known since the era of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”; we find mention of them in notes about Muscovy and in Boplan.
Archaeologists have been studying them since the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 19th century, and almost every museum in Ukraine, the Don region, Stavropol region and the Kuban region has its own sculptures. They were taken from the mounds, where they stood in specially equipped sanctuaries, where offerings and sacrificial food were brought. Here, sometimes 3-5 statues depicting men or women were installed in honor of the ancestors, facing east.
So who are the Polovtsy? The name “Polovtsy” is of Russian origin, although it would be more correct to call this medieval people of the Turkic group “Kypchaks” or “Cumans”, because the Polovtsy themselves called the vast territory from the western spurs of the Tien Shan to the Danube, which they occupied , Dasht-i-Kypchak (among the Slavs “Polovtsian land”, or “Polovtsian field”).
The geography of their settlement and the chronology of mention of them in the history of the Wild Field takes about two centuries (from 1050 to 1240) and ends with an alliance with the Russians in the face of an even more dangerous nomad - the Mongol-Tatars.
By the middle of the 11th century. The Polovtsians reached the Dnieper, and by the beginning of the 70s. of the same century, they established themselves in the steppe expanses between the Dnieper and the Danube. The former nomadic inhabitants of the steppes, the Pechenegs and Torques, were either subordinated to their will and dissolved in the mass of the Polovtsian population, or went to serve in other states, in particular, Rus' and Byzantium.
The northern border of the “Polovtsian Field” passed through the territory of the Left Bank in the area between the Vorskla and Orel rivers, and on the Right Bank in the area between the Rosi and Tyasmin rivers. In the south it included the North Caucasian, Azov, Crimean and Black Sea steppes. In addition to the Polovtsians, this vast territory was home to a large number of other peoples (Alans, Khazars, Bulgarians and a mixed population).
All this left a certain imprint on the history of relations between the Polovtsians and these ethnic groups and their behavioral stereotypes with the more powerful Kyiv state. Conventionally, four periods of development of Polovtsian relations with Russia and other nomads are distinguished:
The aggressiveness of the ethnic group towards all other peoples who previously inhabited the Steppe;
The appearance of stable borders of each Polovtsian horde and permanent winter quarters;
Increased pressure on the southern borders of Ancient Rus' and the consolidation of Russian forces;
Stabilization of Russian-Polovtsian relations.
All these stages of a gradual transition from a state of militant aggressiveness to an awareness of the need for peaceful coexistence with Russia were due to the very nature of the nomads.
The basis of the Polovtsian economy was nomadic cattle breeding. At the same time, men were engaged in herding horses and camels, and women fed cows, sheep and goats. A division of functions between men and women also existed in terms of peaceful and military professions: crafts related to the household were controlled by women, and crafts related to military affairs were in the hands of men.
The trade that took place in the Polovtsian trading centers of Korsun (Chersonese), Surozh (Sudak) and Tmutarakan was partly specific, since one of the types of goods supplied to the Taman and Crimean markets were slaves, whom the Polovtsians exchanged for silk and brocade fabrics, wine , jewelry and dishes from Asia and Byzantium.
The constant invasions of the Polovtsians on Russian soil caused a natural response. Only during the reign of Vladimir Monomakh (1113-1125) did the combined forces of the Russian princes commit
numerous campaigns (in 1103, 1105, 1107, 1111, 1116) to the Polovtsian steppe, as a result of which they captured the Polovtsian cities of Sharukan, Sugrov and Balin. The constant military action on both sides, weakening and diverting the human and material resources of both sides, leads to the search not for a truce, but for permanent peace. For these purposes, dynastic marriages were used, in particular.
Thus, Vladimir Monomakh married not only Yuri Dolgoruky, but also his son Andrei the Good to a Polovtsian woman. When Andrei turned 15 years old (in 1117), his father married him to the granddaughter of the famous Tugorkan. According to S.V. Gurkina, “Andrei Bogolyubsky was the son of a Polovtsian woman, Gleb Yuryevich, probably the son of a Polovtsian woman, Mstislav Andreevich and Mstislav Rostislavovich - the son and nephew of Andrei Bogolyubsky - are the grandchildren of a Polovtsian woman. Rurik Rostislavovich is married to a Polovtsian woman. In 1163, the Kiev prince Rostislav Mstislavovich married his the son of Rurik to the daughter of the Polovtsian khan Beluk" (S.V. Gurkin, p. 85).
The Polovtsian steppe, in turn, had strong personal and dynastic contacts with Russia. A significant part of the Polovtsian khans entered the Old Russian Christian cultural arsenal. This is evidenced by the names of the Polovtsian khans of that time, such as Yuri Konchakovich, Danila Kobyakovich, Gleb Turievich, Yaropolk Toluakovich, as well as the appearance in the 14th century. the only Ukrainian princely dynasty after the Rurikovichs - the Ruzhinsky-Polovtsy princes (they descended from the Polovtsian khan Tugorkan (died in 1096) - the father-in-law of the great Kyiv prince Svyatoslav Izyaslavovich (1093-1113).
All this led to the fact that the Russians and Polovtsians met the Mongol-Tatar invasion together, and it was at the request of the Polovtsian Khan Kotyan that the Russian princes, united with him, on May 31, 1223, took part in the battle with the Mongol-Tatars on the Kalka River (now Kalchik - a tributary of the Kalmius), which ended in the defeat of the allies.
2.2 Podontsovo and Azov region in the Ordpin period (XIII - first half of the 17th centuries)
The ancient Russian early feudal state fulfilled its historical mission and gave way to new state forms. Since the 30s of the 12th century. a period of feudal fragmentation began. Here is how Academician B.A. Rybakov writes about this: “For the young Russian feudalism of the 9th-11th centuries, the united Kievan Rus was, as it were, a nanny, raising and protecting from all sorts of troubles and misfortunes the whole family of Russian principalities. They survived two centuries the onslaught of the Pechenegs, and the invasion of Varangian troops, and the turmoil of princely strife, and several wars with the Polovtsian khans, and by the 12th century they had grown so much that they were able to begin an independent life." However, this possibility of independent life was not realized due to the Mongol-Tatar invasion.
In the vastness of the Steppe and Wild Field, a change of the dominant ethnic group took place. The Polovtsian steppe was replaced by the Mongol-Tatar, Golden Horde steppe, founded in the early 40s. XIII century Khan Batu and existed until the 15th century.
Initially, the Golden Horde was dependent on the great Mongol Khan, but since the reign of his brother Batu Khan, Berke began to pursue an independent policy.
The ethnic composition of the Golden Horde was quite varied and unstable. In the sedentary regions, for example, lived the Volga Bulgarians, Mordovians, Greeks, Khorezmians, Russians, and the nomadic environment consisted of the Turkic tribes of the Kipchaks (Cumans), Tatars, Kanglys, Turkmen, Kyrgyz and other peoples.
That is why the khans of the Golden Horde did not interfere with the restoration of trade relations. Thus, when Russian trade caravans moved from Kyiv to Crimea, there was no need to fear raids, moreover, there was no need to worry about food. Throughout the entire journey, everything needed could be obtained in the steppe hotels - caravanserais, at postal stations and in coachmen's.
The Golden Horde, absorbing elements of different cultures, in a relatively short period of time created a unique art; more than 15 thousand monuments of material culture of this era are kept today only in the State Hermitage (St. Petersburg, Russia). They allow us to speak about the originality, originality and global significance of the art of the Golden Horde.
At the same time, the territory of the Wild Field was still a kind of bridge that connected Asia with Europe. Despite the elements of violence inherent in the policies of the Golden Horde khans (then they would be repeated in an equally harsh form in the practice of the rule of Muscovite Rus', and later in Russia), the intercultural and interethnic dialogue of the Forest with the Steppe, nomads with farmers, Asia was fully realized here and the East - with Europe and the West.
The steppe only benefited from this dialogue, strengthening its ideology and culture, and the Golden Horde, like many state and semi-state formations of nomads, disintegrated. In the early 20s. XV century The Siberian Khanate was separated from the Golden Horde in the 40s. The Nogaiske horde arose, and then the Kazan (1438), Crimean (1443) and Astrakhan (60s of the 15th century) khanates.
The fate of the Wild Field and Rus' as a whole after this was in one way or another connected primarily with the Crimean Khanate (from 1443 to 1783). Psychologically, after the collapse of the Golden Horde, the Crimean Tatars, having wasted their strength in internecine struggle, were no longer focused on war and for a certain period did not pose a danger either to the territory of the Steppe, or even less to the strengthening Moscow state. They were busy with peaceful life; engaged in cattle breeding, trade, and even, as Academician D. Yavornitsky emphasized, became close to the Slavic population. During the reign of the Crimean Khan Hadji-Devlet-Girey (and he ruled the Crimean Khanate for 39 years), friendly relations were established between the Slavic and Tatar populations, trade strengthened, the khan even donated considerable funds to Christian monasteries.
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