The term “Novorossiya” was officially enshrined in legal acts Russian Empire in the spring of 1764. Considering the project of Nikita and Peter Panin for the further development of the province of New Serbia, located in the Zaporozhye lands (between the Dnieper and Sinyukha rivers), the young Empress Catherine II personally changed the name of the newly created province from Catherine to Novorossiysk.
Catherine the Great
What guided the ruler of Russia when choosing this name is not yet known for certain. Perhaps this is a tribute to the administrative fashion of that era, when such provinces of European metropolises as New England, New Holland and New Spain were popular. It is possible that the Novorossiysk region was considered Catherine II as the “alter ego” of the Russian Empire - a territory that, being connected with the rest of the country, will simultaneously become a platform for working out socio-political and economic transformations. In any case, this majestic name obliged a lot. A province with such a name simply did not have the right to remain a sparsely populated and economically backward backwater of the empire.
Before joining Russia, the region of the Northern Black Sea region - the future Novorossiya - was often called the Wild Field. Back in the beginning In the 18th century, the lands from the southern suburbs of Poltava and Kharkov to Perekop itself were one continuous steppe. It was untouched virgin soil with black soil more than one meter deep. The sparse population of the region consisted mainly of Crimean Tatars and Cossacks. The Tatar hordes roamed with their herds and herds along the Black Sea coast, regularly raiding the lands of Russia and Poland.
An important source of income Crimean Khanate Trade in slaves captured during raids remained. Cossacks settled along the banks of rivers, engaged in hunting, fishing, farming and various crafts. They were at enmity with the nomads, attacked Tatar troops, and stole herds. Often the Cossacks undertook expeditions to the Crimean coast, ravaging Tatar villages and freeing Christian slaves there.
The permanent steppe war went on for centuries. Serious changes in the appearance of the Black Sea region began to occur only in the middle. XVIII century, when, by decision of the empress Elizaveta Petrovna in the Russian part of the Black Sea steppes, the Novoserbsk and Slavyanoserbsk colonies were established. The Russian authorities tried to organize a mass resettlement of immigrants from the Balkan Peninsula to the created provinces: Serbs, Bulgarians, Moldovans, Volokhs and others. Colonists were attracted by the generous distribution of land, payment of “lifting” benefits, compensation for moving expenses, and benefits on taxes and duties. The main responsibility of the settlers was to perform military service to protect the border of the Russian state.
Russian settlers from Poland (especially Old Believers) were attracted to New Serbia. In the newly built fortress of St. Elizabeth (near which the city of Elisavetgrad, now Kirovograd, later arose), a large community of Old Believers merchants was formed, who were allowed to freely perform religious services and conduct very profitable internal trade. A special decree prohibited local authorities from forcibly shaving beards and preventing the Old Believers from wearing traditional clothing.
The resettlement campaign of the 50s of the 18th century contributed to the formation of a multinational composition of the population of the Novorossiysk region. The control of the Russian authorities over the Zaporozhye Sich increased, and the economic development of the region received a tangible impetus. Balkan colonists developed animal husbandry, gardening, and viticulture. Among the desert steppes, more than 200 new villages, strongholds and fortresses grew up in a short time, strengthening the defense of the southwestern borders of the Russian Empire.
At the same time, this stage of development of the Northern Black Sea region showed that it was impossible to solve the problem of settlement and economic development of a vast region only at the expense of immigrants. Attracting foreign settlers was too expensive (it took an astronomical sum of almost 700 thousand rubles for the development of the provinces over 13 years). Many people from the Balkan Peninsula were unprepared for the hardships of life in an undeveloped region and returned to their homeland.
Catherine II noticeably intensified the process of development of the Black Sea steppes. In the apt expression of one of the first researchers of the history of the Novorossiysk region Apollo Skalkovsky, “34 years of Catherine’s reign is the essence of 34 years of Novorossiysk History.”
The fragmentation and lack of control in the actions of local civil and military authorities was eliminated. For this purpose, the position of Novorossiysk governor (chief commander) was introduced. In the summer of 1764, in addition to the Novoserbsk province, which had lost its autonomous status, he was subordinated to Slavic-Serbia (the region on the southern bank of the Northern Donets), the Ukrainian fortified line and the Bakhmut Cossack regiment. To ensure better controllability of the province, it was divided into 3 provinces: Elisabeth, Catherine and Bakhmut. In September 1764, at the request of local residents, the Little Russian town of Kremenchug was included within the boundaries of Novorossiya. The provincial office later moved here.
Lieutenant General became the first governor of Novorossiya Alexander Melgunov. It was under his leadership that land management work began in the province. The entire land of the former New Serbia (1,421 thousand dessiatinas) was divided into sections of 26 dessiatines (on land with forest) and 30 dessiatinas (on treeless land). “People of any rank” could receive land as hereditary possession, provided they entered military service or were enrolled in the peasant class. The land plots were assigned to eight local regiments: the Black and Yellow Hussars, the Elisavetgrad Pikemen (on the right bank of the Dnieper), the Bakhmut and Samara Hussars, as well as the Dnieper, Lugansk, Donetsk Pikemen Regiments (on the left bank of the Dnieper). Later, on the basis of this regimental division, a district structure was introduced.
In the 60s of the 18th century, the settlement of the Novorossiysk province began at the expense of internal Russian settlers. This was greatly helped by the permission for residents of Little Russia to move to the new province (previously the resettlement of Little Russians to New Serbia was not welcomed). The migration of peasants from the central provinces of Russia was facilitated by the distribution of land to military and civil officials - nobles. To develop their new possessions, they began to transport their serfs to the south.
In 1763–1764, special laws were issued to regulate the situation of foreign settlers. They received permission to settle in cities or rural areas, individually or in colonies. They were allowed to establish manufactories, factories and factories, for which they could buy serfs. The colonists had the right to open trades and fairs without imposing duties. To all this were added various loans, benefits and other incentives. An office of guardianship of foreigners was specially established.
The “Plan for the distribution of state-owned lands in the Novorossiysk province for their settlement,” approved in 1764, solemnly announced that settlers, regardless of where they came from, would enjoy all the rights of “ancient Russian subjects.”
Nevertheless, during this period, conditions were formed for the predominantly Great Russian-Little Russian colonization of Novorossiya. The result of this policy was rapid population growth in the southern reaches of European Russia. Already in 1768, excluding regular troops stationed in the region on a temporary basis, about 100 thousand people lived in the Novorossiysk Territory (at the time of the formation of the province, the population of Novorossiysk was up to 38 thousand people).
The conclusion of the Kyuchuk-Kainardzhi Peace Treaty in 1774 led to a significant expansion of the Novorossiysk region. Its territory was expanded by the Bug-Dnieper interfluve, Azov and Azov lands, as well as the fortresses of Kerch, Yenikale and Kinburn in the Crimea.
Grigory Potemkin
Shortly before the conclusion of peace (by decree of March 31, 1774), he was appointed governor of Novorossiya Grigory Potemkin. In the beginning In 1775, the staff of Potemkin's office was equal in number to the staff of the Little Russian governor. This indicated an increase in the status of the young province.
In February 1775, the Azov province was separated from it, which included part of the Novorossiysk province (Bakhmut district), new acquisitions under the Kyuchuk-Kainardzhi Treaty and “all the dwellings” of the Don army, which actually retained its autonomy. However, this administrative division of the region was softened by the appointment of Grigory Potemkin as governor-general of the formed administrative units. At the same time, he became the commander of all troops settled in the Novorossiysk, Azov and Astrakhan provinces.
Russia's advance along the Black Sea coast led to the fact that the Zaporozhye Sich was not on the external borders, but inside Russian territory. Together with the weakening of the Crimean Khanate, this made it possible to abolish the restless Cossack freemen. On June 4, 1775, the Sich was surrounded by troops under the command of Lieutenant General Petra Tekeli, and she surrendered without resistance.
After this, a census of Sich people was carried out in settlements; for those wishing to settle in the Dnieper province (as the Zaporozhye Sich began to be called), places for further residence were assigned. The funds remaining after the liquidation of the Sich (120,000 rubles) were used for the improvement of the Black Sea provinces.
In 1778, Grigory Alexandrovich presented to Catherine II the “Establishment for the Novorossiysk and Azov provinces.” It consisted of seventeen chapters with approximate staff of provincial institutions.
In the Novorossiysk province it was planned to rebuild the cities of Kherson, Olga, Nikopol, and Vladimir; Novopavlovsk and Novogrigoryevsk fortresses along the Bug. In addition to those mentioned, there remained the provincial city of Slavyansk (Kremenchug), New Sanzhary, Poltava, Dneprograd; Fortress of St. Elizabeth, Ovidiopolskaya. Cities were to appear in the Azov province: Ekaterinoslav, Pavlograd and Mariupol. Among the old ones, the fortresses of Aleksandrovskaya and Belevskaya are mentioned; cities of Tor, Bakhmut and others.
The resettlement policy in the 70–80s of the 18th century is often called the landowner colonization of Novorossiya. At this time, the state not only generously distributed land for estates, but also in every possible way encouraged landowners to populate their estates with tax-paying people.
On July 25, 1781, a decree was issued that ordered the transfer of economic (state) peasants to Novorossiya “voluntarily and at their own request.” The settlers received in the new places “a benefit from taxes for a year and a half, so that during this time the taxes would be paid for them by the residents of their former village,” who in return received the land of those leaving. Soon, the period of relief from paying taxes on land was significantly extended. This decree ordered the transfer of up to 24 thousand economic peasants. This measure encouraged migration primarily of middle and wealthy peasants who were able to organize strong farms on the lands being populated.
Long-time Governor-General of Novorossiya Count Mikhail Vorontsov
Along with the legal resettlement sanctioned by the authorities, there was an active people's unauthorized resettlement movement from the central provinces and Little Russia. B O The majority of unauthorized migrants settled on landowners' estates. However, in the conditions of New Russia, serf relations took the form of so-called subjection, when peasants living on the land of the landowners retained personal freedom, and their responsibilities to the owners were limited.
In August 1778, the transfer of Christians (Greeks and Armenians) from the Crimean Khanate to the Azov province began. The settlers were exempt from all state taxes and duties for 10 years; all their property was transported at the expense of the treasury; each new settler received 30 acres of land in a new place; the state built houses for poor “villagers” and supplied them with food, seeds for sowing and draft animals; all settlers were forever freed “from military posts” and “dachas for recruiting into the army.” According to the decree of 1783, in “villages under Greek, Armenian and Roman law” it was allowed to have “courts of Greek and Roman law, an Armenian magistrate.”
After Crimea was annexed to the empire in 1783, the military threat to the Black Sea provinces weakened significantly. This made it possible to abandon the military-settlement principle of the administrative structure and extend the effect of the Institution on Governorates of 1775 to Novorossia.
Since the Novorossiysk and Azov provinces did not have the required population, they were united into the Yekaterinoslav governorship. Grigory Potemkin was appointed its governor-general, and the immediate ruler of the region was Timofey Tutolmin, soon replaced Ivan Sinelnikov. The territory of the governorship was divided into 15 counties. In 1783, 370 thousand people lived within its borders.
Administrative changes contributed to the development of the region's economy. Agriculture spread. A review of the state of the Azov province in 1782 noted the beginning of agricultural work on “a vast expanse of fertile and rich lands, which had previously been neglected by the former Cossacks.” Land and government money were allocated for the creation of manufactories; the creation of enterprises that produced products in demand by the army and navy was especially encouraged: cloth, leather, morocco, candle, rope, silk, dyeing and others. Potemkin initiated the transfer of many factories from the central regions of Russia to Ekaterinoslav and other cities of Novorossiya. In 1787, he personally reported to Catherine II about the need to move part of the state-owned porcelain factory from St. Petersburg to the south, and always with craftsmen.
In the last quarter of the 18th century, active searches for coal and ores began in the Northern Black Sea region (especially in the Donetsk basin). In 1790, the landowner Alexey Shterich and mining engineer Carl Gascoigne entrusted the search for coal along the Northern Donets and Lugan rivers, where the construction of the Lugansk foundry began in 1795. A village of the same name arose around the plant. To supply this plant with fuel, the first mine in Russia was founded, in which coal was mined on an industrial scale. The first mining settlement in the empire was built at the mine, which laid the foundation for the city of Lisichansk. In 1800, the first blast furnace was launched at the plant, where cast iron was produced using coke for the first time in the Russian Empire.
The construction of the Lugansk foundry was the starting point for the development of South Russian metallurgy, the creation of coal mines and mines in the Donbass. Subsequently, this region will become one of the most important centers of economic development in Russia.
Economic development strengthened trade ties between individual parts of the Northern Black Sea region, as well as between Novorossiya and the central regions of the country. Even before the annexation of Crimea, the possibilities of transporting goods across the Black Sea were intensively studied. It was assumed that one of the main export items would be bread, which would be grown in large quantities in Ukraine and the Black Sea region.
To stimulate the development of trade, in 1817 the Russian government introduced a “porto-franco” (free trade) regime in the port of Odessa, which at that time was the new administrative center of the Novorossiysk General Government.
Free and duty-free import of foreign goods, including those prohibited for import into Russia, was allowed into Odessa. The export of foreign goods from Odessa into the country was allowed only through outposts according to the rules of the Russian customs tariff with the payment of duties on a general basis. The export of Russian goods through Odessa was carried out in accordance with existing customs rules. In this case, the duty was collected at the port when loading onto merchant ships. Russian goods imported only to Odessa were not subject to duty.
The city itself received enormous opportunities for its development from such a system. Buying raw materials duty-free, entrepreneurs opened factories within Porto Franco that processed these raw materials. Since finished products, produced at such factories, was considered manufactured in Russia, it was sold within the country without duties. Often, products made from imported raw materials within the Odessa borders of the free port did not leave the customs posts at all, but were immediately sent abroad.
Quite quickly, the Odessa port turned into one of the main transshipment points for Mediterranean and Black Sea trade. Odessa grew rich and expanded. By the end of the period of porto-franco, the capital of the Novorossiysk General Government became the fourth largest city in the Russian Empire after St. Petersburg, Moscow and Warsaw.
The initiator of the experiment to introduce porto-franco was one of the most famous governor-generals of Novorossiya - Emmanuel Osipovich de Richelieu. He was the great-great-great-nephew of the French Cardinal Richelieu. It was this official who made the decisive contribution to the mass settlement of the Black Sea region. In 1812, through the efforts of Richelieu, the conditions for resettlement of foreign colonists and internal migrants to the region were finally equalized. Local authorities received the right to issue cash loans to needy settlers from other provinces of the empire “from the amounts for wine farming” and bread for crops and food from bread stores.
In the new places, food was prepared for the settlers for the first time, part of the fields were sown, and tools and draft animals were prepared. To build houses, peasants received in new places building materials. In addition, they were given 25 rubles for each family free of charge.
This approach to resettlement stimulated the migration to Novorossiya of economically active and enterprising peasants who formed favorable environment for distribution to agriculture civilian labor and capitalist relations.
The Novorossiysk General Government lasted until 1874. During this time, it absorbed the Ochakov region, Taurida and even Bessarabia. Nevertheless, the unique historical path, combined with a number of other factors, continues to determine the general mentality of the inhabitants of the Northern Black Sea region. It is based on a synthesis of various national cultures (primarily Russian and Ukrainian), love of freedom, selfless work, economic entrepreneurship, rich military traditions, and the perception of the Russian state as a natural defender of its interests.
Igor IVANENKO
In the 19th century Mostly people from the Ukrainian lands of the Russian Empire moved to Novorossiya. The share of Ukrainians in the Kherson and Yekaterinoslav provinces was 74%. And there were only 3% of “Great Russians” in the Kherson province (including the Odessa region). From the editor: recently, the deputy chairman of the Party of Regions faction in the Verkhovna Rada, Oleg Tsarev, announced plans, with the help of local referendums, to create a “new federal republic of Novorossiya” on the territory of 8 regions of Ukraine - Kharkov, Lugansk, Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye, Nikolaev, Kherson and Odessa. “Novorossiya will be located within the Novorossiysk province,” Tsarev clarified.
It is not a fact that the separatist people’s deputy understands the history and geography of the region at all. Rather, Tsarev simply repeated Putin's April speech that the South and East of Ukraine, "to use Tsarist terminology, is Novorossiya," which the Bolsheviks allegedly illegally transferred to the Ukrainian SSR in the 1920s, and the local population are ethnic Russians who immediately need to be protected .
Oleg Gava, a historian from Odessa, talks about who inhabited the South and East of Ukraine in tsarist times.
But first, let’s take an excursion into the past of the so-called “Novorossiya”.
In the history of Ukraine, two Novorossiysk provinces are known - administrative units of the Russian Empire in the second half of the 18th century. They did not exist for long on the territory of the Northern Black Sea region, the Azov region and Crimea.
And thousands of years before, this steppe territory was a route for the migration of nomadic tribes.
The largest Eurasian steppe on the planet stretches for 7000 km - from Hungary to China, from the Danube to the Yellow River. It occupies 40% of the territory of modern Ukraine.
The ancient Greeks called this territory Great Scythia, the Europeans of the Middle Ages - Great Tartary, the Byzantines - Cumania, the Persians and Turks - Desht-i-Kipchak, i.e. “Kypchak [Polovtsian] field”, inhabitants of Ukraine of early modern times - Wild Field or simply Field.
The Ukrainian part of the Eurasian Steppe is a place of constant interaction and struggle between nomadic and sedentary lifestyles, between the Field and the City.
Medieval Kievan Rus, which the Vikings called the “Land of Cities” and from which modern Ukraine and Russia trace their state traditions, was born in the Forest. And she left there to fight, trade and marry with the people of the Steppe.
Borders of Kievan Rus and the Steppe in the 11th century. Tmutarakan, Oleshnya, White Tower - conquered islands of power of Russian princes among the steppe sea
In the 13th century, the Field attacks the City, shifting the border between nomadic and sedentary civilizations. The Eurasian Steppe became the core for the creation of the Mongol Empire by Genghis Khan - from Podolia to the Pacific Ocean, from Novgorod to the Himalayas.
The huge nomadic state, whose area reached 22% of the entire Earth, quickly disintegrated into smaller ones. Since the 14th century, the Black Sea steppes have been part of the Golden Horde, centered on the Lower Volga.
Over the next 200 years, the Horde also disintegrates. Separate states break away from it - the Siberian, Kazan, Astrakhan, Kazakh, Uzbek and Crimean khanates, the Grand Duchy of Moscow and the Nogai Horde
In the 14th century, sedentary civilization strikes a nomadic blow. Young and ambitious Lithuanian tribes emerge from the Baltic forests. In alliance with the Western Russian principalities, they liberated the right bank of the Dnieper from Horde power, defeating the Tatars in the Battle of Blue Waters (in the territory of the present Kirovograd region) in 1362.
This is how the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia comes to the Steppe. In the 1480s, the state, which is the historical predecessor of modern Ukraine and Belarus, controls the territory from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
Meanwhile, the fragments of the Golden Horde waged a long family struggle among themselves - which of the numerous descendants of Genghis Khan would receive the right to the supreme Golden Horde title of Khakan - “khan above khans”. Crimean Yurt won these conflicts.
In 1502, the Crimean Khan Mengli I Giray defeated the last ruler of the Horde in a battle at the confluence of the Sula River with the Dnieper (in the south of the present Poltava region) and burned the Horde capital Sarai on the Volga. The Genghisid title of “lord of two continents and khakan of two seas” moves to Bakhchisarai.
The map below shows the borderland between sedentary and nomadic civilizations in the 1480s. Blue indicates Ukrainian cities that already existed at that time. In red are those that will appear later:
Although, of course, life was in full swing in the place of modern regional centers in the 15th century. Let's say, on the territory of present-day Odessa, since the Middle Ages there was a place called Khadzhibey (Katsyubeev), inhabited by Nogai Tatars. Before that, there was a Lithuanian port, even earlier - an Italian colony, and later - a Turkish fortress.
Long before the arrival of the imperial administration, Ukrainians lived in the farmsteads around Khadzhibey. And it was the Cossack regiments led by Jose de Ribas who were the first to climb the walls of the Hadzhibey fortress in 1789. Ukrainians cut out the first shell rocks for the construction of Odessa, and they also became the first residents of the new multinational city.
But first things first.
In the same 1480s, the Northern Black Sea region experienced Turkish expansion. The Ottoman Empire, which has just destroyed Byzantium, places military garrisons on the shores of the Black Sea. Istanbul, having conquered the Italian colonies on the southern coast of Crimea, is increasingly taking control of the Crimean Yurt policy.
Gradually, the border between sedentary and nomadic civilization in the Wild Field turns into the border between Christianity and Islam.
And, as often happens on the border of two civilizations, people of the Border appear. The then inhabitants of the Dnieper region combined nomadic and sedentary traditions, conquering the steppe spaces with a European plow in their hands, an Asian saber on their side and a Turkish musket on their shoulder.
Cossacks and townspeople, pirates and industrialists advanced along the Dnieper deep into the Steppe. On the island of Khortytsia, where the Kiev prince Svyatoslav once died in an ambush by steppe dwellers, already in the 1550s there was an outpost of sedentary civilization in the form of a castle built by Baida Vishnevetsky.
In the same 16th century, a new political force entered the Steppe - the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which called itself a kingdom.
Thanks to the Golden Horde tradition of the bureaucratic apparatus and the centralization of power, Moscow subjugates the nearby Russian principalities, and in the 1550s it destroys the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates and begins to threaten the Lithuanian-Russian state.
In 1569, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania united with the Kingdom of Poland into a federal state called the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (literal translation of the Latin "res publica"). It was a noble democracy with an elected ruler.
The map below shows the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of the 16th century against the backdrop of modern state borders:
Red dots show the location of the largest cities of modern Ukraine - Lviv, Kyiv, Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye, Kharkov and Donetsk
The Ukrainian recolonization of the Horde territories on the Left Bank began precisely during the time of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, at the end of the 16th century. Our ancestors settled the south of the present-day Chernihiv region (the north was recaptured from the steppe inhabitants back in the Middle Ages, in “Lithuanian times”), Cherkasy region, Sumy region and Poltava region - often founding new cities on the old settlements of Kievan Rus.
For 200 years, Ukrainians moved to the East and South, developing the fertile steppe black soils.
In the 17th century, the center of Ukrainian life moved to the Left Bank, because on the Cossack lands of the right bank of the Dnieper, a bloody conflict continued for several decades between the Hetman State, Zaporozhye, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Ottoman Empire, the Crimean Yurt and the Muscovite Kingdom.
Settlers from the Right Bank colonized the territory of what is now Kharkov, parts of Sumy, Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine and three eastern regions modern Russia. This is how Slobozhanskaya Ukraine appeared, which Tsarev and Putin so persistently attribute to Novorossiya.
In the 1670s, in particular, the cities of Tor and Bakhmut (present-day Slavyansk and Artemovsk) belonged to the Slobozhanshchina.
On the map below there are three constituent parts of the modern Ukrainian Left Bank - Hetmanate, Slobozhanshchyna and Zaporozhye (cities that did not exist at that time are marked in red):
Gray indicates the territory of the Hetman State, green - Slobozhansky Ukraine (where the Cossack regimental administration recognized the power of the Moscow Tsar), orange - the lands of the Zaporozhye Army. The Black Sea coast west of the Dnieper belonged to the Ottoman Empire. The coastal steppes east of the Dnieper were part of the Crimean Yurt
During the breaks between campaigns, the Cossacks were able to colonize a significant part of the future “Novorossiya”, developing settled agriculture in the Steppe (see map below).
In the 1690s, Hetman Mazepa's army captured Turkish fortresses on the Dnieper. In their place appeared the current Kakhovka and Berislav (Kherson region).
Colored dots indicate the location of modern cities. Green - Nikolaev, blue - Kherson, red - Dnepropetrovsk, yellow - Donetsk. Cossack Domakha - present-day Mariupol, so named by the Greeks who moved to the Azov region from Crimea in the 1780s
In the 18th century, Ukrainians took an active part in the creation of the Russian Empire.
In several wars, Russian-Cossack troops ousted the Turks from the Black Sea region, conquering the Steppe for the first time since the time of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania - first the sea coast between the Dnieper and the Bug, then between the Dnieper and the Dniester.
In 1783, the empire annexed Crimea, eliminating the statehood of the Crimean Tatars. The sedentary civilization finally (?) defeated the nomadic one, receiving from the latter vast and sparsely populated spaces of the coastal Steppe east of the Dnieper - all the way beyond Kalmius, beyond the Don, beyond the Kuban River, to the Caucasian foothills.
On topic: One of the first deportations of the Russian Empire. How the Crimean Greeks settled the Wild Field
The resulting steppe lands were colonized by the ubiquitous Ukrainians. The remnants of the Zaporozhian Army also set off to explore the vastness of the Kuban, which was part of the possession of the Crimean Yurt.
And the imperial authorities decided to rename the lands of the Zaporozhye Sich. It was then that the term “Novorossiya” first appeared, which Putin and his repeater Tsarev are now trying to revive.
In 1764, the Novorossiysk province was created on Cossack territory with its center in the “Rzeczpospolita” Kremenchug. The province existed for 19 years.
The imperial administration founded new cities in the south of Ukraine - Kherson, Nikolaev, Odessa, Tiraspol, Sevastopol - and invited foreign colonists to the region. But these cities were built and the region was populated mainly by the same Ukrainians. So, in particular, from Ekaterinoslav (present-day Dnepropetrovsk), founded in 1777 on the site of Cossack settlements.
It was planned to turn Ekaterinoslav into the third capital of the empire, but after the death of Catherine II, these grandiose plans were forgotten. But the city remained.
In 1796, the Novorossiysk province was created for the second time. The center of the new administrative unit was Yekaterinoslav, which was hastily and briefly renamed Novorossiysk.
This is the territory occupied by the Novorossiysk province in 1800:
"Novorossiya"
As we see, the “Novorossiya” cherished for Putin-Tsarev does not include the Kharkov region and most Lugansk region, colonized earlier, during the time of Slobozhana Ukraine. But the “new Russian” ones are Taganrog and Rostov-on-Don in the current Russian Federation.
The cities of Donetsk and Lugansk were among the last to appear on the described territory. The region's rapid industrialization - and massive influx of labor - only began in the 1870s. Capitalists from Western Europe turned the remains of the Ukrainian steppe into the industrial Donetsk coal basin, although small-scale coal mining had been going on here since Cossack times.
The metallurgical plant, from which the city of Donetsk originates, was founded by the British mining engineer, Welshman John Hughes in 1869. But Novorossiya ceased to exist much earlier.
Because in 1802 the Novorossiysk province was liquidated. The term “Novorossiya” continued to be used, as Putin stated, for “royal terminology” and for political purposes.
The Empire regularly created similar terms - for example, on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War, it was planned to create an administrative unit called “Zheltorosiya” on the territory of Manchuria.
According to the “tsarist terminology”, historically there were “triune” Little Russia (core ancient Rus', Cossack Hetmanate), Belarus and Great Russia (Northern Rus', around Moscow).
And in the 18th century, they say, to these three historical “-Russies”, New Russia was added - the Black Sea coast, conquered from the Turks and Tatars, a deserted steppe emptiness. And only the empire, they say, began a new life in this void, inviting Christian colonists and founding cities. There was no Ukrainian colonization of the region, nor of the Ukrainians themselves.
Putin said something similar not so long ago: “Kharkov, Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson, Nikolaev, Odessa were not part of Ukraine in tsarist times. These are all territories transferred in the 1920s by the Soviet government, but the [Russian] people remained there.”
In fact, you can easily find out what kind of people lived in “Novorossiya” in tsarist times.
In the 19th century, the first demographic studies were carried out in the Northern Black Sea region. Oleg Hawaii, a historian and local historian from Odessa, wrote about the data from these studies for Historical Truth.
According to the results of the first audit (population census) in the Russian Empire, 85% of the residents of “Novorossiya” were Ukrainians. Data are given according to Kabuzan V.M. Settlement of New Russia at the end of the 18th century - trans. floor. XIX century (1719-1858). M., Science. 1976 pp. 248.
In 1802, the Novorossiysk province was finally liquidated, having existed for 6 years. It was divided into three smaller provinces - Kherson, Tauride and Ekaterinoslav provinces.
The administrative reform was associated with the government program of foreign preferential colonization - Germans, Greeks, Bulgarians and other peoples were invited to the expanses of the Cossack-Tatar steppe.
As a result, the share of Ukrainians in the south of Ukraine became smaller, but until the very end of the empire, Ukrainians made up more than 70% of the population of the entire region.
The most variegated (and therefore the most revealing) in the ethnic dimension was the Kherson province. It included modern Kherson, Nikolaev, Odessa, parts of the Kirovograd and Dnepropetrovsk regions of Ukraine plus Transnistria.
According to military statistician, Colonel of the General Staff of the Russian Empire A. Schmidt, in the middle of the 19th century (1851), a total of 1,017,789 “souls of both sexes” lived in the Kherson province.
In a report to Emperor Alexander III, temporary Odessa Governor-General Joseph Gurko noted that it is difficult to call the region “Russian in spirit” because large quantities“elements alien to the Russian people.”
Infographics: tyzhden.ua
Gurko (himself a native of the Belarusian-Lithuanian gentry) included Moldovans, Tatars, Greeks, Jews, Bulgarian and German colonists among these elements.
The Governor-General also spoke about the “peculiarity of the Russian contingent.” By peculiarities, he meant specifically Ukrainians who were exposed to traditions uncharacteristic of the Moscow state - Polish, Cossack, Zaporozhye...
Population of the Kherson province and Odessa city government in 1851:
Data source: Schmidt A. “Materials for geography and statistics collected by officers of the General Staff. Kherson province. Part 1". St. Petersburg, 1863. Pages 465-466
Additionally, Colonel Schmidt reports a population of “mixed tribal composition” of both sexes.
“Mixed commoners [intellectuals who came from the lower classes, not from the nobility - IP] and families of retired lower [we are talking about military - IP] ranks - 48,378 souls.
There were 16,603 “mixed” nobles in the Kherson province, foreigners [obviously, we are talking about citizens of other states] - 10,392 people.
“The commoners and families of retired lower ranks can more likely be classified as a Little Russian people than any other people,” Schmidt notes in his comments to the table above.
Research by A. Schmidt - cover
As can be seen from the table, the reports of the Odessa Governor-General Joseph Gurko about the “non-Russianness of the region” were well founded.
Among the more than a million population of the Kherson province, including the Odessa city government [a separate administrative unit that covered the territory of the city of Odessa - IP], in 1851 there were 30 thousand “Great Russians of both sexes” - that is, about 3%.
But the share of Ukrainians was more than 70%.
According to annual gubernatorial reports, during 1861-1886 the population in the Kherson province underwent the following dynamics:
Due to natural increase, it increased by 675,027 people;
Due to the settlement by immigrants from other territories, the empire increased by 192,081 people;
Due to the eviction of some peasants, the number of peasants decreased by 2,896 people.
Governor's report of 1868 (Kherson province):
The total increase in the province was 864,312 people (85.8%). The population grew by almost 78% due to the excess of birth rates over deaths and only 22% due to immigrants from all provinces of the Russian Empire.
To more accurately establish shifts in the ethnic composition of the Kherson province over a period of 36 years (1861-1897), we need to turn to the results of the First General Census of the Russian Empire in 1897.
Origin of settlers in the Kherson province (1897):
Data source: Kabuzan V.M. “Settlement of New Russia at the end of the 18th century - trans. floor. XIX century (1719-1858)". Moscow, publishing house "Nauka". 1976
As we can see, during the period 1861-1897, almost 260 thousand people moved to the Kherson province, that is, less than 10% of the total population of the province - 2,733,612 people.
Of these 260 thousand people came from the Right Bank and Left Bank Ukraine, there were 193,607 people or 74% of the total number of migrants. And there were 66,310 people from other provinces (2.5% of the total population of the province).
During the second half of the 19th century. the share of immigrants from Ukrainian provinces in “Novorossiya” was predominant.
According to the famous researcher of historical demography, Muscovite Vladimir Kabuzan, the share of Ukrainians in the Kherson and Yekaterinoslav provinces (together) in the middle of the 19th century was 73.5%.
Map of the Ekaterinoslav province in 1821. Donetsk has not yet been founded, this will happen in 1869. The city of Lugansk will officially appear in 1882 - on the basis of a workers’ settlement of a foundry built by the Scotsman Gascoigne in 1799.
The then names: Dnepropetrovsk - Ekaterinoslav, Zaporozhye - Aleksandrovsk, Slavyansk - Tor, Artemovsk - Bakhmut
The territory of Crimea at that time was part of the Tauride province, together with the southern part of the present Kherson region.
According to the First General Census of 1897, the Ukrainian language was the most common (42.2%) in the districts of the Tauride province. Russian is in second place (27.9%), Tatar is in third (13.6%).
But among the urban population of the Tauride province, the most common language was Russian (49%), while Ukrainian was in fourth place (10.4%) after Tatar (17.2%) and Yiddish (11.8%).
Conclusions:
In the Kherson province, from the time of its creation (1802) until the end of the “tsarist times” (1917), the overwhelming majority - up to 3/4 of the total population - were Ukrainians.
The proportional trend in the ethnic composition of the Kherson province remained until the outbreak of the First World War.
The share of Ukrainians among the population of the Yekaterinoslav province was slightly higher.
The share of the Russian-speaking population of the Tauride province was somewhat smaller, but the Ukrainian language still remained one of the most common, along with Russian.
In the XVI - first half of the XVII centuries. The territory of modern Donetsk region was populated spontaneously. Its main part was under the influence of the Muscovite kingdom and the Zaporozhian Army. Only a small territory of the Azov region was occupied by the Nogais and Crimean Tatars. In 1577, the Crimean Tatars built the city of White Sarai to the west of the mouth of the Kalmius (where, obviously, the name Belosarayskaya Spit came from). However, already in 1584 it was destroyed. The Tatars gave preference to cattle breeding. As Venetian travelers testify, in the 15th century. they raised cows, sheep, horses and Bactrian camels. Cattle raised in the Azov region were sold in Wallachia, Transylvania, Poland, Germany and Italy; Bactrian camels, horses - in Persia. The Tatars were partly engaged in hunting and fishing. They exchanged handicraft goods for traditional products of their own production at bazaars, which were held in the locations of the uluses. Merchants from different countries West and East, delivering various handicrafts.
Ukrainian and Russian population, penetrating into the Azov region, at first gave preference to different types of fisheries. In the steppes and oak forests they hunted fur-bearing animals, in rivers, rivers and the Sea of Azov they caught different types fish. Self-planted salt was mined in sea estuaries and salt marshes. From the end of the 16th century. they began to boil salt from the brine of the Tor salt lakes. Beekeeping has also become widespread.
Beekeeping and fishing were the main occupations of the monks of the Svyatogorsk Monastery, who considered themselves the owner of forest and fishing lands from the Oskol River to Bakhmut and Zherebets. Part of the profits in the middle of the 17th century. The monastery received money from maintaining the ferry across the Seversky Donets. It was usually used by Chumaks heading to Tor for salt. Since 1620, the tsarist government began to allocate money and provisions for the monastery for the fact that it provided certain services to the Russian border service. In 1624, the tsar ordered that grain and monetary “salaries” be allocated annually to the monastery from government money.
The Cossacks preferred fishing. On the coast Sea of Azov they maintained fisheries, and to process the caught fish they used self-planted salt from the Berdyansk salt lakes. In addition to satisfying their own needs, they delivered salt mined on the Berdyansk Spit to other regions of Ukraine. The otkhodniks, who came to the Azov region from Slobozhanshchina and the southern districts of Russia, most often hunted fur-bearing animals and boiled salt from the brine of the Tor salt lakes. From the end of the 16th century. Hundreds of salt workers came to Tor every year to buy salt. To prevent sudden attacks on the Tatars' fisheries, they settled down near the lakes in a "camp", fencing the fisheries with Chumatsky boundaries. Usually people came for salt in the summer, during their free time from agricultural work. After boiling the required amount of salt for 2-3 weeks, we went back. Thus, in addition to the population of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Tor trades provided the southwestern counties of Russia with salt.
IN early XVII Art. the process of development of Donbass continued. Since 1625, salt has been mined in the area of present-day Slavyansk. “Eager” people from Valuyki, Oskol, Yelets, Kursk and other “outlying” cities of Russia went to the Donetsk steppes to “trade” it. The first settlement is the Svyatogorsk Monastery, written mention of which dates back to 1642. In 1646, the fort Tor was built to protect against 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.
Active settlement of the region began after the beginning of the Khmelnytskyi region (1648-1654), when thousands of 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.
In 1702, the second city of Donbass appeared - Bakhmut was founded by the “Salt Workers”.
In 1676, “Cherkasy” (Ukrainians who escaped from the yoke of the Polish gentry) settled along the Seversky Donets. They built the Salt Town next to Tor. In January 1677, there were already 245 Cherkasy families who settled in courtyards, while others continued to arrive and settle. 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 on Bakhmutka, a tributary of the Seversky Donets.
In connection with the intensification of Tatar raids on Sloboda Ukraine during the war for Chigirin (1673-1679), the tsarist government ordered the construction of the Izyum defensive line. As its continuation, the Tor fortified line was built in 1684. The report of Kharkov Colonel G. Donts, under whose leadership the Tor line was built by the Cossacks of the suburban regiments and servicemen of the southern cities, indicates that in the summer of 1684, at the mouth of the Tor River (Kazenny Torets), where V. Strukov proposed to move the Mayatsky town, a new town was built prison. Initially it was called the Town, and after it was transferred at the beginning of the 18th century. to a more convenient place, since in the previous place it was flooded by spring floods, the name Raigorodok was assigned to it. From this, along the left bank of the Tor and Sukhoi Torets, the Naked Valley, and then through the steppe to the Seversky Donets, earthen ramparts were built, and abatis were cut down in forest areas.
Frequent raids of the Tatars on the Tor salt mines and the low quality of salt brine in the lakes prompted local salt workers, primarily residents of the Salt Town, to search for new sources. In 1683, the Cossacks of the Sukharevsky yurt, which was first mentioned in 1666 at the mouth of Bakhmut, discovered salt springs in the middle reaches of the same river. They were initially exploited “on the fly”, that is, they arrived in the summer with cauldrons and firewood, boiled the required amount of salt and returned home. The Toryans and Mayans, who grazed cattle on Bakhmut, mowed grass, kept apiaries in the summer, having become convinced that the Bakhmut salt springs were many times higher in salt concentration than the Tor ones, after the devastation of the Varnitsa on Tora by the Tatars in 1697, moved to Bakhmut and started a new one here. settlement, and to protect it in 1702 a small fort was built. Thus, the beginning of another fortified city was laid - Bakhmut.
Along with Podontsovye, other regions of the region were also settled. Zaporozhye winter camps are mentioned along the Volchaya River and its tributaries. By the end of the 17th century. The first mentions of the winter quarters of the Cossacks in the upper reaches of Kalmius (now the city of Donetsk), Krivoy Torets, Krynka and other rivers include. However, the destruction of the Old (Chertomlytsky) Sich in 1709, the transition of the Cossacks to the Crimean Khanate and the transfer of the Russian-Turkish borders established in 1700 from the coast of the Azov Sea on the Temernik River (the right tributary of the Don), Tuzlov, the upper reaches of the Mius, Krynki , Lugan, Bakhmut, Krivoy and Sukhoi Torets in the area between the Samara and Orel rivers led to an outflow of population from the Dontsovo and Azov regions. In this regard, at the beginning of the 18th century. intensive settlement of the region stopped, and there was even a decrease in the number of residents of cities and villages.
V. M. Kabuzan. Settlement of the Northern Black Sea region (Novorossia) in the 18th century (1719-1795) // Soviet ethnography. - 1969. - No. 6. - P. 30-41.
Abstract of the article
The main source for observations and conclusions is audits, that is, population censuses conducted in the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries, local and national.
The territory of the Ekaterinoslav and Kherson provinces within the borders of the early 19th century is considered. According to the modern administrative division - Odessa region (along the Dniester estuary), Kirovograd, Nikolaev, Kherson (except for its Trans-Dnieper part), Dnepropetrovsk region and parts of Zaporozhye, Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
The settlement and economic development of Novorossiya on any significant scale began only in the 18th century, and until the end of the 1780s this process was hampered by frequent Turkish-Tatar raids, which led to the fact that many fully developed and populated places were repeatedly ruined and returned to desolation.
Initially, Ukrainian and Russian settlers inhabited only the northern regions of the study territory. Until the 1730s, the overwhelming majority of settlers flocked to the Bakhmut province and, in slightly smaller numbers, to the Dnieper region (the northern part of the future Kherson province). In the first two decades of the 18th century, only about two thousand male souls lived on the territory of the entire future Ekaterinoslav province (within the borders of the early 19th century).
The entire population of Novorossiya at the beginning of the 1720s is determined to be 3950 male souls (1950 in the future Ekaterinoslav and 2000 in the future Kherson province).
By 1745, the population of Novorossiya was approximately 22.4 thousand male souls (14.5 thousand souls in the Yekaterinoslav province and 7.9 thousand in the Kherson province). At the same time, the overwhelming majority of residents of Novorossiya were Ukrainians. Russians lived then only in Bakhmut and Donetsk districts.
In the city of Bakhmut in 1719, Russians made up 25.65% of the total population, and in 1745 - 44.15%. The increase in the proportion of Russians was temporary and was caused by the attraction of Don Cossacks to the city of Bakhmut to guard it. The fact is that part of the Bakhmut province, which was later included in the Ekaterinoslav province, was the most remote from the developed areas of the country and the least protected. This area was the first to be attacked and suffered the heaviest damage.
In the 1750s, Novorossiya was developed exclusively by Ukrainian settlers, but in 1751 the transfer of foreign military colonists - Moldovans, Serbs, Bulgarians and others - began here. The tsarist government tried to populate the border areas of the country with foreigners, adjacent to the Turkish border and Zaporozhye lands. It was assumed that these settlers would defend Russian borders from invasion, but these hopes were almost unfulfilled.
The overall share of colonists from the Turkish and Austrian empires as a whole turned out to be low, although in certain parts of the Northern Black Sea region they made up the majority of the existing population.
The lands in the northwestern part of the Zaporozhye region, which in general from the 16th to the 18th centuries covered the territory of modern Dnepropetrovsk, Donetsk, Lugansk, Kirovograd regions, certain areas of the Zaporozhye, Nikolaev and Kherson regions, during the development of New Russia were called New Serbia. This territory was settled slowly from 1751 to 1764. In December 1754, 2225 male souls lived here, including 257 Serbs, 124 Macedonians, 57 Bulgarians, 1676 Volokhs, 32 Germans, 79 Hungarians males and a total of 1694 females. By the beginning of 1757, there were already 5,487 foreign settlers within New Serbia (3,089 males and 2,398 females), and in 1761 - 11,179 people (6,305 males and 4,874 females).
In the 1740-1750s, the population of the future Kherson province grew from 7,965 to 25,065 male souls, solely due to the influx of Ukrainian settlers.
On the lands of the future Ekaterinoslav province, a region was also formed, intended for settlement by foreign colonists - Slavyanoserbia. This area later became part of the Bakhmut and Donetsk districts. In mid-1755, a total of 1,513 foreign colonists were counted here. By 1763, thanks to the influx of Ukrainians, the population of Slavic Serbia increased to 10,076 male souls, but there were 3,992 male foreign colonists, including Moldovans - 2,627 people and Serbs - 378, and all the rest were Ukrainians.
In the future Bakhmut district of the Yekaterinoslav province in 1745, the population was Ukrainians (57.48%) and Russians (42.52%). In 1763, the figures changed significantly: Ukrainians made up 75.41% of the population, Russians - 4.72%, Moldovans - 17.08%. In addition, a few Serbs and Hungarians lived here.
The main settlements of foreign colonists were located within the future Donetsk district. In 1745, this territory was still almost completely uninhabited (there were two villages here), but in 1763 there were already 15 villages, in which 65.12% of the population were Ukrainians, and the second largest group of the population were Moldovans (26.77%) ; the rest accounted for 8.11%.
From 1763 to 1782, the population of all Novorossiya increased from 64,460 male souls to 193,451 male souls. The population of the future Kherson province grew faster, and the population of the Yekaterinoslav province grew more slowly. What explains the significant increase in the population of Novorossiya during this period?
In the 1760s, due to the low influx of foreign settlers, Ukrainian colonization of New Serbia and Slavonic Serbia was allowed. At the same time, the resettlement of foreign colonists and Russian schismatics continued. The population grew despite the ongoing Tatar raids (in the fall of 1769, the Crimean Tatars burned about 150 villages in the Elisavetgrad province, created from New Serbia and the Novoslobodsky Cossack settlement, and took approximately 20 thousand people captive).
The most significant population growth was due to the placement of peasants in Novorossiya on lands given to landowners. This process began actively in 1775 after the liquidation of the Zaporozhye Sich, and in the Elisavetgrad province the proportion of the privately owned population began to increase rapidly from the mid-1760s, as in other lands of earlier development. But this applies only to the territory of the future Kherson province. The population of the future Ekaterinoslav province for the period from 1763 to 1782, as mentioned above, did not increase so much.
The statistical data for individual areas is interesting and eloquent. Here are some of them.
1) In the Elisavetgrad province by the end of 1764, Ukrainians made up 65.37% of the population, Moldovans - 15.40%, Russians - 12.66%, Serbs - 3.22%, Poles - 1.56%, others - 1.70 %.
2) In the early 1770s, 3,595 Moldovans who surrendered during the Russian-Turkish War arrived in the Donetsk district of the future Yekaterinoslav province.
3) From 1776 to 1781, on the lands of the former Zaporozhian Army (Ekaterinoslavsky, Kherson, Novomoskovsky, Aleksandrovsky, Rostov and Pavlovsky districts) 487 new villages were formed, of which 409 were privately owned, and only 78 were state-owned.
4) In the second half of 1778, 18,047 Greeks, 12,598 Armenians, 219 Georgians and 162 Volokhs, a total of 31,386 people, were resettled to the Aleksandrovsky and Rostov districts of the future Ekaterinoslav province.
5) In 1779, the national composition of the population of the entire Novorossiya was as follows: Ukrainians - 64.76%, Moldovans - 11.30%, Russians - 9.85%, Greeks - 6.31%, Armenians - 4.76%, Georgians - 0.45%, others - 2.57%. The share of Ukrainians in the future Kherson province accounted for 70.39% of the total population, and in Yekaterinoslav - 59.39%.
6) In the early 1780s, Greeks and Armenians were resettled from 174 villages that had previously been located in Crimea to uninhabited parts of the future Ekaterinoslav province.
From 1782 to 1795, the population of all Novorossiya grew from 193,451 male souls to 343,696 male souls. As before, population growth in the Kherson province was higher than in the Ekaterinoslav province.
In the 1780-1790s, Novorossiya remained the leading populated region of the Russian Empire. The main population growth (62.94%) occurred in the period from 1775 to 1795. It was at this time that the Zaporozhye Sich was liquidated and the Crimean Khanate was destroyed, which made it possible to calmly populate the Novorossiysk steppes without fear of attack from the outside.
A characteristic feature of Novorossiya at the end of the 18th century was the rapid growth of the share of the privately owned peasant population, and at the beginning of the 19th century this growth slowed down.
The full text of the original article is available for copying at the link:
The liquidation of the Old Sich and the transfer of the Cossacks to the Crimean Khanate, the movement of the southern borders from the coast of the Azov Sea to the upper reaches of the Mius, Lugan, Bakhmut, Torets, the interfluves of Orel and Samara increased the threat of Tatar raids on the southern borders of Russia. In this regard, the tsarist government was forced to take a number of measures to protect them.
On February 2, 1713, Peter I signed a decree ordering the recruitment of 3,500 people from among dragoons, soldiers, archers, Cossacks, gunners and retired “officials” in the Azov and Kyiv provinces. landmilitia (territorial troops) and place them along the new border. It was also prescribed to strengthen the defense capability of the fortresses located along the southern border, primarily Bakhmut and Torskaya, which, after the destruction of the Azov and Trinity (Taganrog) fortresses under the terms of the Prut Treaty, turned out to be closest to the Crimea. Most attention was paid to Bakhmut, destroyed in early July 1708.
On the site of a wooden fortress that was burned down in 1710, an earthen fortress is being built. The town's suburb is surrounded on three sides by a palisade, and on the fourth by an earthen rampart. After the devastation of Azov and Taganrog, some of the guns, as well as the garrisons, were transported to Bakhmut. At the beginning of 1727, the city garrison numbered 503 people, incl. 14 staff and chief officers, 474 non-commissioned officers and privates, 15 non-employees. After the administrative reform of 1719, in connection with the liquidation of the Azov province, the Bakhmut province of the Voronezh province was created on the site of the Bakhmut district. It included the following settlements: Raigorodok, Sukharev, Yampol, Krasnyansk, Borovsk (the last two are now in the Kharkov region), Old and New Aidar (now in the Lugansk region). The city of Tor with its surroundings and Mayatsky remained part of the Izyum Regiment of Sloboda Ukraine. The population of the province was 5103 male souls.
Due to the fact that the Crimean Tatars most often carried out raids on the southern districts of Russia, Sloboda and Left Bank Ukraine along the Muravskaya Road, it was decided to block it with a fortified line - an earthen rampart and fortresses, under the cover of which to place Landmilitsky regiments. The so-called Ukrainian line was supposed to stretch from the Dnieper along the right bank of the Orel, Berestovaya to the peaks of Bereka, its left bank to the Seversky Donets, along the Donets to the confluence of the Lugan. Since the eastern section of the line was fortified with Izyum, Mayatskaya, Torskaya, Raigorodskaya and Bakhmutskaya fortresses, work began in 1731 with the construction of a continuous earthen rampart and fortresses along the Bereka, Berestovaya and Orelya rivers. For three years in a row, up to 30 thousand Ukrainian Cossacks and peasants with carts were employed in the construction of a 12-meter earthen rampart and 16 fortresses in the summer. But the war with Turkey that began in 1735 did not allow the entire volume of work to be completed. Therefore, during the war, most attention was paid to strengthening the Bakhmut fortress, which became the support base of the 2nd Russian army, Tor and Izyum. There were 56 guns installed on the fortress steppes in Bakhmut, and 40 guns in Tora. In order to cover the approaches to the Tor and Izyum fortresses from the Muravskaya road, in 1729 the Serbian Hussar Regiment, which had been in Russian service since 1723, was settled between Tor and the latter. This was the first compact settlement of foreigners on the territory of our region, and at the same time the beginning of the resumption of Russia’s purposeful policy of settling the Northern Azov region after the uprising of K. Bulavin.
The Cossacks continued to play an important role in the settlement and economic development of the region, whom the government allowed to return to their old places on the eve of the war with Turkey. On the territory of our region they created the Kalmius palanka. During the war, the advance of Don Cossacks, who participated in military operations, into the territory of the modern Donetsk region intensified. After the war, according to the Belgrade Treaty of 1739, the Russian-Turkish border was moved to the coast of the Azov Sea. Azov and Taganrog were returned to Russia. From the Miussky Estuary the border ran in a straight line until its left tributary, the Karatysh River, flows into Berda. True, the Cossacks were allowed free fishing in the Sea of Azov, which was the cause of clashes between the Don and Zaporozhye Cossacks. To avoid unforeseen incidents between them, the Senate on April 30, 1746 decided to establish a border between the Don and Zaporozhye Armies along the Kalmius River. From that time on, the left side of Kalmius was considered Don, and the right side - Zaporozhye. On October 27, 1748, by decision of the Senate, the Bakhmut Cossack Regiment was formed from the Bakhmut, Tor and Mayak Cossacks, following the model of the Azov Cavalry Regiment, which was entrusted with the responsibility of defending border places.
In order to speed up the settlement and development of southern Ukraine, to create a reliable support in the fight against the Cossack freemen, in 1751 the tsarist government decided to settle on the flanks of the city built in 1731-1733. Ukrainian line of Serbs and Croats who transferred to military service in Russia. Under such circumstances, in 1753, the settlement of the people of R. Preradovich and I. Shevich began between the rivers Bakhmut and Lugan. Colonels Preradovich and Šević promised to form one hussar regiment each from their fellow countrymen. However, they managed to recruit only 1513 people, from whom it was impossible to form even one full regiment. Therefore, the government allowed Preradovich and Ševich to accept into the regiments the local population - Ukrainians and Russians who had previously lived on lands allocated for Serbs and Croats. Therefore, from the first steps of its creation, Slavyanoserbia (as this settlement was called) became a multi-ethnic entity. Since the regiments of Shevich and Preradovich settled in companies, the company numbers along with their names were assigned to the created settlements: 1st company - the village of Serebryanskoye, 2nd - Krasnoe, 3rd - Verkhnee, 4th - Vergunka, 5th - Privolnoe, 6th - Crimean, 7th - Nizhne, 8th - Podgornoye, 9th - Zheltoye, 10th - Kamenka, 11th - Cherkasskoe, 12th - Horoshoe, 13th - Kalinovskoe , 14th - Trinity, 15th and 16th - Lugansk. The administrative center of Slavonic Serbia was the city of Bakhmut. In 1763, the population of Slavic Serbia was more than 10,000 male souls. In general, for the district from 1745 to 1762. the population more than doubled and amounted to 13,217 male souls. Among them, Ukrainians accounted for more than 75%, Russians - about 5%, Moldovans - a little more than 17%. And only about 3% were Serbs, Hungarians, Tatars, Kalmyks and representatives of other ethnic groups.
The territory to the west of Bakhmut in the 40-60s. was mainly populated spontaneously by immigrants from Sloboda Ukraine. On the plan of the Bakhmut district in 1767, 132 farmsteads and 8 settlements were marked on the right side of the river, including the Nikitovskaya settlement. Thus, Cossack, as before, remained the main form of settlement in the area. Only a small part of them were settlements and villages, which in most cases belonged to representatives of the local administration and officers. Thus, the commandant of the Bakhmut fortress near the Near Stupki River, on the site of urban farms, founded the village of Ivanovka with 6 thousand dessiatines of land, and in the early 80s. he owned the villages of Ivanovka, Kremennoye and Shabelkovka. In addition, he fought over land with the peasants of Krasnaya Luka and Yampol.
In 1765, after the liquidation of the hetman's power in Ukraine, the tsarist government decided on a new administrative reform in the south. On the basis of the Ukrainian line, New Serbia and Slavyanoserbia, the Novorossiysk province was created. The Bakhmut province from the Voronezh province was transferred to Novorossiysk.
Simultaneously with the implementation of administrative changes aimed at strengthening the central government in the south of Ukraine, the government in every possible way promotes the spread of landowner service land ownership in the region. It approves a plan for the distribution of land, according to which persons of non-noble origin could become landowners if they served in the army or in the bureaucracy of Novorossiya.
However, the massive distribution of land in Novorossiya occurred in the last quarter of the 18th century. Having destroyed the Zaporozhye Sich in June 1775, the tsarist government carried out a new administrative reform - on the site of the Novorossiysk province and the lands of the Zaporozhian Army, two provinces were created: to the west of the Dnieper and partly from the hundreds of the Poltava regiment close to it, the Novorossiysk province was formed, and between the Dnieper, Seversky Donets and Don - Azov. Initially, it consisted of the Catherine and Bakhmut provinces, Rostov, Azov and Taganrog districts, the Dnieper line and the fortresses of Kerch and Yenikale in the Crimea, as well as counties formed on the lands of the Cossacks: Samara, Lychkovsky, Konskovodsky, Kalmiussky, Barvenkinostensky, Protovchansky and Zemlya Voiska Donskoy. Then, during the formation of the districts, changes occurred and in 1778 the province was divided into 9 districts: Ekaterinoslavsky (now Novomoskovsk), Aleksandrovsky (now Zaporozhye), Pavlovsky, Marienpolsky, Taganrog, Bakhmutsky, Torsky, Natalinsky (later Konstantinogradsky - now the city of Krasnograd, Kharkov region ) and Tsarychansky. This division of the province remained until its merger with Novorossiysk and the formation of the Yekaterinoslav governorship in 1783, which in January 1784 was divided into 15 districts. The districts of Bakhmutsky and Torsky are completely absorbed by the modern Donetsk region, and Donetsk, Mariupol and Pavlograd - partially.
The massive distribution of Zaporizhian lands occurred in 1776-1782. During these years, 488 settlements were founded within the lands of the Zaporozhian Army, among which 84% were landowner settlements, including Zaporizhian elders, and 16% were all other forms, primarily state and military settlements. Often, the Cossacks, not wanting to serve the government that liquidated the Zaporozhye Sich, signed up with the landowners, who provided them with benefits for at least 10 years to set up a farm, exempting them from all duties. Such concessions were made because uninhabited lands were subjected to double taxation or were completely returned to the state.
A striking example of such a mutually beneficial deal between landowners and Cossacks can be the latter’s settlement of the dachas of Evdokim Shidlovsky at the upper reaches of the Kalmius. On the lands provided to him in more than 15,000 acres (more than 16 thousand hectares), the Cossacks helped the descendant of the former Izyum colonel to organize two settlements - Aleksandrovka and Krutogorovka (now the Kiev and Voroshilovsky districts of Donetsk), in which, according to the 1782 audit, 142 men and 83 women lived . Only for 1776-1778. In the Azov province, 146 landowner and 14 state settlements were founded, two urban districts with a population of 19,159 men and 14,720 women. For example, the former officer of Slavic Serbia, Colonel Shterich, in the Bakhmut district, owned the settlements of Belaya, Ivanovka, Shterichevka and three farms, in which in 1782 there were 1,486 “Little Russians”. In addition to the Ukrainians, Moldovans, taken from the theater of military operations during the war with Turkey in 1768-1774, also settled on his estates. Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy I. Gildenshtedt, who visited these places in 1774, noted that they quickly adapted to local life and it was difficult to distinguish them from Ukrainians by their clothing and language.
Among those compactly located within the modern Donetsk region at the end of the 18th century. the settlers should be attributed to the Greeks brought out of the Crimea. In order to undermine the economic position of the Crimean Khan after the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi Treaty, the tsarist government invited Crimean Christians to move to Russia. Through Metropolitan Ignatius, it persuaded Greeks, Armenians, Moldovans and Georgians to move to the Azov province. In the early autumn of 1778, on carts delivering provisions and weapons to the Crimea for Russian troops, 31,098 Christians of Crimea were delivered to the Azov province. For the winter they were placed in the abandoned Cossack estates of Novoselitsa (on the Samara River), in the Alexander Fortress, in the villages of the Samara Monastery and other bridges. In the fall of 1779, some of the Greeks were transferred to Bakhmut and Tor districts, and more than 12,000 Armenians asked for permission to settle near Rostov, where they built the city of Nakhichevan (now part of Rostov).
The unsettled situation of Crimean Christians led to the fact that almost 4,000 people died in new places during the first two years, some returned to Crimea. This prompted Metropolitan Ignatius, the initiator of the resettlement, to lobby the government to provide the promised benefits to the settlers. On May 21, 1779, Catherine II signed the Letter of Complaint, which determined the conditions and locations for the placement of the Greeks, who demanded that they be settled compactly in places reminiscent of those they had abandoned in the Crimea. The places of their settlement were finally allocated by order of G. Potemkin at the end of 1779.
The settlement of Greeks, Moldovans and Georgians in the area between the Kalmius, Berda and Volchya rivers took place in 1780. On August 15, 1780, about 3,000 Greeks, led by Metropolitan Ignatius, entered the village abandoned by the Cossacks at the mouth of the Kalmius and held a prayer service in the place designated for the church. This event can be considered the beginning of the construction of the city of Mariupol on the site of the former Domakhi. In the same year, the Greeks founded 21 rural settlements: Byshev, Bogatyr, Great Karakuba, Great Yanisol, Georgievka, Kamara, Karan, Kermenchik, Constantinople, Laspa, Small Yanisol, Mangush, Sartana, Old Crimea, Styla, Ulakly, Chemrek, Cherdakly, Chermalyk, Urzuf and Yalta. All affairs of the Greek settlers were managed by the Mariupol Greek Court as the highest authority of the Mariupol Greek district. His powers extended only to the Greek population, by whom he was elected.
Thanks to the measures taken to populate the region by the end of the 18th century. within the modern Donetsk region there were about 500 settlements (cities, villages, settlements, etc.), the population of which reached 250 thousand people. The most populated was the Slavyansky district (229 villages), and the least populated was the Mariupol district (136 villages). According to the census of 1793, about 142,000 male souls, or about 250,000 people, lived in these counties. More than 60% of the population were state peasants and military peasants, foreign colonists, about 38% were landowner villagers, among whom the proportion of serfs was relatively insignificant. All other population groups accounted for less than 2%. Among them, city dwellers did not make up even 1% of the total population. And although the proportion of the Russian population increased somewhat due to resettlement from the central provinces of Russia, still about 2/3 of all residents were Ukrainians, followed by Russians, followed by Greeks, and in fourth place were Moldovans. True, in the Bakhmut district they occupied third place after the Ukrainians and Russians, and in the Mariupol district the Greeks made up the bulk of the population, followed by the Ukrainians and Russians.
