realities very clearly indeed. Behind some of the Muslim tribal groupings of the Caucasus stood the might of the Ottoman Turks, who controlled the Crimean khan, the ally of hostile Poland. Moscow needed help to counter the power of this Turkish alliance, which was blocking its lines of advance to the west as well as to the south, and help could come only from Ivan’s nominal rival, the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian II of the House of Habsburg.
The Kremlin soon decided that practical strategic considerations must outweigh Russia’s theoretical claims to imperial primacy, and so Moscow’s relations with the Habsburgs became more cordial. Sacrificing its own unpromising claims to the elective throne of Poland, in the 1570s it supported the Habsburg candidate, Ernest. At the same time Moscow’s calls for the Emperor to join Russia in an alliance against ‘the enemies of Christ’s name’, the Muslim Turks and Tatars, became insistent. 13 It was the beginning of a long-term strategy directed against the Ottoman Empire that was eventually to give rise, three centuries later, to the notorious ‘Eastern Question’.
The Cossacks employed to shore up Russia’s position in the Caucasus - and, more particularly, to secure a line along the river Terek — were irregulars. The word ‘Cossack’
(kazak)
had originally denoted a freelance Tatar warrior, but by now the Cossacks were chiefly rootless Russian, Lithuanian and Polish subjects who had moved south to the new frontier lands, where theymade a living as traders, robbers, mercenaries and colonists. Ivan’s government engaged them in increasing numbers because they were tough, cheap and biddable. For a patch of virgin land and an annual allotment of gunpowder and grain, or a few coins, they would do any patron’s bidding.
The Lithuanian magnate Dmitry Vishnevetsky established an entire colony of them on an island beyond the Dnieper rapids, just short of Crimean Tatar and Ottoman Turkish territory. In 1557 he offered his allegiance to Tsar Ivan, and so the Zaporozhian Cossacks became the Tsar’s subjects too. Four years later Vishnevetsky returned to his former Polish allegiance, but Moscow regarded the Zaporozhian Host as a Russian asset and protectorate. So did some of its members. The Cossack community of the Don also became subject to Moscow, and proved rather more stable in its allegiance than the Zaporozhians. Even so, it was regarded as overzealous in mounting raids against the Turks, for Moscow was held responsible for them. This could be dangerous as well as embarrassing, and so Moscow found it convenient to disown the Cossacks at times. Nevertheless their links, based on mutual interests, remained close. East and south of the Volga, too, the Tsar was again the biggest patron and beneficiary of Cossack activity.
Three categories of Cossack were soon discernible. One comprised members of autonomous communities, like the Don and Zaporozhian Hosts, which were defined by their own rules and customs, and acknowledged an obligation to the Tsar in return for subsidies. Another was the ‘town’ Cossacks, who, having kissed the cross in sign of loyalty to the Tsar, were allotted a salary and assigned for policing, defence and other duties to a particular town or dependent village. Cossacks of the third type were engaged as groups collectively. Usually pioneers or frontier settlers, they were given annual allotments of gunpowder, food and other necessities, and rights to farm a stretch of virgin land in return for defending the locality and turning out on campaign when required. Such were the men who were to guard the line of the river Terek, the frontier to the Caucasus, and the river Don to the west, on the far side of the Crimea.
The imperial implications of the conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan were not fully appreciated at the time, even though the strategic importance of the northern Caucasus was clearly understood. Indeed, it very soon brought Russia into
The Kremlin soon decided that practical strategic considerations must outweigh Russia’s theoretical claims to imperial primacy, and so Moscow’s relations with the Habsburgs became more cordial. Sacrificing its own unpromising claims to the elective throne of Poland, in the 1570s it supported the Habsburg candidate, Ernest. At the same time Moscow’s calls for the Emperor to join Russia in an alliance against ‘the enemies of Christ’s name’, the Muslim Turks and Tatars, became insistent. 13 It was the beginning of a long-term strategy directed against the Ottoman Empire that was eventually to give rise, three centuries later, to the notorious ‘Eastern Question’.
The Cossacks employed to shore up Russia’s position in the Caucasus - and, more particularly, to secure a line along the river Terek — were irregulars. The word ‘Cossack’
(kazak)
had originally denoted a freelance Tatar warrior, but by now the Cossacks were chiefly rootless Russian, Lithuanian and Polish subjects who had moved south to the new frontier lands, where theymade a living as traders, robbers, mercenaries and colonists. Ivan’s government engaged them in increasing numbers because they were tough, cheap and biddable. For a patch of virgin land and an annual allotment of gunpowder and grain, or a few coins, they would do any patron’s bidding.
The Lithuanian magnate Dmitry Vishnevetsky established an entire colony of them on an island beyond the Dnieper rapids, just short of Crimean Tatar and Ottoman Turkish territory. In 1557 he offered his allegiance to Tsar Ivan, and so the Zaporozhian Cossacks became the Tsar’s subjects too. Four years later Vishnevetsky returned to his former Polish allegiance, but Moscow regarded the Zaporozhian Host as a Russian asset and protectorate. So did some of its members. The Cossack community of the Don also became subject to Moscow, and proved rather more stable in its allegiance than the Zaporozhians. Even so, it was regarded as overzealous in mounting raids against the Turks, for Moscow was held responsible for them. This could be dangerous as well as embarrassing, and so Moscow found it convenient to disown the Cossacks at times. Nevertheless their links, based on mutual interests, remained close. East and south of the Volga, too, the Tsar was again the biggest patron and beneficiary of Cossack activity.
Three categories of Cossack were soon discernible. One comprised members of autonomous communities, like the Don and Zaporozhian Hosts, which were defined by their own rules and customs, and acknowledged an obligation to the Tsar in return for subsidies. Another was the ‘town’ Cossacks, who, having kissed the cross in sign of loyalty to the Tsar, were allotted a salary and assigned for policing, defence and other duties to a particular town or dependent village. Cossacks of the third type were engaged as groups collectively. Usually pioneers or frontier settlers, they were given annual allotments of gunpowder, food and other necessities, and rights to farm a stretch of virgin land in return for defending the locality and turning out on campaign when required. Such were the men who were to guard the line of the river Terek, the frontier to the Caucasus, and the river Don to the west, on the far side of the Crimea.
The imperial implications of the conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan were not fully appreciated at the time, even though the strategic importance of the northern Caucasus was clearly understood. Indeed, it very soon brought Russia into
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