Russia the stability it required on the borderlands through the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.
In the early sixteenth century the Turkic-speaking, Islamic Nogais moved into
the lower Volga lands of the Great Horde who had been decimated by Crimean
Tatars; they were not a cohesively organized federation. Renowned as horse
breeders, the Nogais brought huge herds to sell as far as Moscow in the summer
season. In the wake of the Kazan conquest, caught between Muscovy and the
Crimean Tatars, the Nogais swore subservience to Moscow in 1557, but
the relationship was always volatile. When Kalmyks moved into the left bank of
the Volga in the 1630s, most Nogais moved east of the Sea of Azov to place
themselves under the Crimean Tatars. There they remained a thorn in Russia’s side
as it later approached the North Caucasus steppe.
From the 1630s the Kalmyks were the force that Muscovy had to deal with on
the lower Volga and Caspian steppe. These were Mongolian tribes who had been
pushed westward in Central Asian steppe infighting. Lamaist Buddhists, the
Kalmyks founded monasteries and became an outpost of eastern Buddhism. In
1655 they allied with the Muscovite tsar and participated in Russian military
campaigns in return for gifts of food, weapons, and the like. But they did not
relinquish their raiding economy and borders with the Kalmyks remained turbulent
in this century.
One expedient that Russia relied upon to protect against Kalmyk attack were the
Iaik and Don Cossacks. Unlike the small bands of Cossacks scattered across Siberia,
Cossacks on the great rivers of the western end of the Silk Road (the Dnieper, Don,
Iaik) could be populous and powerful, often attracting peasant settlers around
them. Cossack communities are cited on the lower Iaik up to southern Bashkiria
since at least 1591, when some joined in a Russian campaign. Iaik Cossacks were a
typical multi-ethnic and multi-confessional band, with many Muslims and even a
few Buddhist Kalmyks. A register of the early eighteenth century shows that they
hailed from Don, Zaporozhian, and northern Caucasus Cossack communities,
from Crimean, Nogai, and Astrakhan Tatars and included Bashkirs, Chuvash,
Mordva, Kalmyks, Swedes, and Poles. By the late seventeenth century Old Believers
had joined the group and the Host became identified with their conservative
beliefs. The Iaik Cossacks played a middle ground role with Russia, guarding the
border against the Kalmyks, but maintaining great military and political autonomy.
In addition to raiding, they lived offfishing the Iaik and benefited from grain,
weapons, and other subventions from the Russians.
DON COSSACKS
Protecting Russia against raids from the Crimean Tatars and to a lesser extent the
Kalmyks in the seventeenth century were the Cossacks of the Don. They were cited
in the lower Don already in the latefifteenth century; by the seventeenth century
they were a populous and powerful band, much more politically cohesive than the
Iaik Cossacks. Inhabiting space between the Russian and Ottoman empires, they
Assembling Empire 71