276 The Military Sel//ementsAlthough ultimately abandoned, the set1lement project affected the lives of
:;everal hundred thousand of the tsar's subjects. Its historical significance lies
in the fact that it was the first major effort in modern times to carry through a
programme of social and cul!ural change under military auspices. It may be
seen as an early experiment in state-sponsored social engineering, such as
many authoritarian regimes have attempted in our own day.
The post-Petrine rulers inherited a long, exposed border along the southern
perimeter of the empire that could not he defended, still less pushed further
forward into the fertile steppe, hy conventional methods alone. The regular
troops stationed in the area had to be supplemented by elements of the local
population, whose way of life was to some degree militarized and who there-
fore were accorded a special semi-privileged status. The outer ring of this
defence system was formed by the various Cossack hosts ( voyska), notably
those on the rivers Dnieper and Don. The hmts gradually lost the last vestiges
of their former autonomy and came under the central authorities' control. It
was exercised in the main through a pliable upper class of landowning officers,
known as 'elders' (starshiny), most of whom eventually became integrated into
the Russian nobility. 3
The Cossacks are less relevant to our theme than the farming settlers who
made up the inner ring. In return for rather shaky official recognition of their
rights to the land they worked, and for certain other privileges, such as a
measure of tax relief, they were obliged to perform specified military duties on
a selective basis. As the frontier moved south, so too did the servicemen who
protected it. They lived under a military administration patterned on that
which had originated in the lklgorod area during the late seventeenth century
(see above, p. 36). During the Imperial era this system was extended: first to
the territory of the former Hetmanate and to the so-called Slobodskaya Ukraina
to the east; then further south to the province of New Russia (Novorossiya);
and finally to the Caucasus. As each area became pacified it was brought
under the regular machinery of provincial government, broadly similar to that
prevailing in the empire's heartlands, and the bulk of the inhabitants adopted
a civilian life-style. The process was not yet complete by the end of our
period-or indeed even by 1917, when the Imperial regime collapsed. This was
partly because the ethnic make-up of the Caucasus region was even more com-
plex than it was in the south European steppe.
'Nicolaevan syslem' as a whole. ·1 hi' led lo u11bala1Ked 1rca1me111 of 1he subjc.:1, on a li111i1ed
source basis, and the few a11emph 10 defend it laded nt·dibilily. In re.:ent years Western scholars
have a1temp1ed a re-asscssmenl: see Pipes, 'Colonic,·, and cspcdally the work of A. D. Ferguson.
Of his thorough tfoscr1a1ion, 'Ku"ian Mil11ary Se11lc11H:1m. 1810-1866" (Yale, 1953) two ex.:erpls
have been published. .:itcd here as 'I and-111ili1ia' and 'Sc11lcme111s, 1825-66'. While indebted 10
bolh historian-; for valuable insight,, 1hc prc,en1 '"i1er find' 'omc of 1hdr .:ondusions excessively
'revisionisl^1 •
' Menning, 'Mil. Institution,'; id., 'hncrgen.:c'.