Soldiers of the Tsar. Army and Society in Russia, 1462-1874 - John L. Keep

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(^74) Muscovite Roots, 1462-1689
high risk was involved: at moments of social tension these men might be temp-
ted to flee back to the Don or Dnieper, much as they or their ancestors had
done earlier, or else to turn their weapons against their commanders and make
common ..:aust wiili ilu:: uppressed and with invading parties of autonomous
Cossacks. This became a general phenomenon during the Titre of Troubles.
To avoid a repetition of this the authorities tried to avoid cotlce~trating a large
number of service Cossacks in any one place. In garrisons on the southern
frontier they were usually intermingled with musketeers, soldiers (soldaty)
etc., and within the Cossack detachments local ex-civilian recruits, who were
likely to be more pliable, were added to the original nucleus. A recent student
of the Belgorod region in the seventeenth century reckons that no less than
three-quarters of all non-privileged servitors were former peasants, townsmen,
or vagrants rather than hereditary members of the caste.^77
By this time the service Cossacks had as a rule lost the right to elect their
own atamans. Instead their chiefs were appointed from above, by the Razryad
through the intermediacy of the local voivode. They belonged to the privileged
servitor class, as did the officers in charge of musketeer units. Simultaneously
a natural process of social promotion was at work within the Cossack con-
tingents: atamans, sotniki, and others in command positions, who received
more generous land allotments than most of their men, were able to augment
their holdings and to rise up into the ranks of the provincial gentry, whose
military duties and life-style differed but little from their own. Some Cossacks
even owned serfs, although this privilege was taken from them towards the
mid-seventeenth century. Initially the land allotment norm (oklad) for Cossack
chiefs was much smaller than that of a privileged servitor: in lS77 it was fixed
at 50 quarters, whereas the lowest gentry servitor's entitlement was 100
quarters, and their monetary compensation was a mere one rouble a year.^78
However, in 1589 atamans at Putivl' received 11 to 15 roubles and their men 3
to 6 roubles; perhaps this was in lieu of remuneration in land, about which
nothing is said in the source.^79 By the seventeenth century differentiated scales
were in use. In 1630 we hear of 'landed atamans' at Sevsk whose norm ranged
from JOO to 200 quarters, according to their grade in the serv'ice, and their cash
payment from 5 to 7 roubles.^80 Other tables from the 1650s specify fairly
similar scales for these senior men, who were thus treated liltt the humblest
provincial gentry, whereas an ordinary Cossack received 16 quarters and 6
roubles (plus a generous allowance of cereals).^81 When considering such
figures it has to be remembered that their actual landholdings will have been
smaller than their entitlements. At the little border town of Bolkhov in 1646
Cossacks were supposed to have 10 quarters of land and musketeers 7. The
77 Vazhinsky, Zemlevladeniye, p. 58.
78 AMG i. 23.
7Y Anpilogov (ed.), Novye dokumenly, pp. 128-30; cf. p. 329 and Belyayev, Ostorozhevoy ...
sluzhbe, p. 32 (3-4 roubles in 1594).
MO AMG I. 285.
SJ DA I iii. 36; PSZ i. 86, 273; Brix, Geschichre, p. 486.

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