Mountaineers and cossacks of the north caucasus in the history of Russia's time of troubles of the late XVI - early XVII centuries

Abstract

The death of Ivan the terrible and the accession to the Russian throne of first his son Fyodor Ivanovich, and then Boris Godunov, did not make significant changes in Russian policy in the Caucasus. Moscow continued to support the tsars of Eastern Georgia, and its diplomatic ties with the rulers of Transcaucasia were involved in the highlanders and Cossacks of the North Caucasus. In its geopolitical plans of the Imperial administration relied on the Terek Cossacks and the mountaineers of the Northwest Caucasus, seeking at the same time military and political measures to attract shamkhalov Tarkovsky, which controlled the territory of the Caspian region R. Sulak to the river Ullu-tea. The latter were the main allies of the Crimean khanate and Turkey. In this, one of the most difficult in the history of Russia in the periods of end of the XVI - early XVII centuries, when actively brewing, and then came the development of a deep crisis of the time of Troubles, when the Russian government particularly acute was the question of the state and its territorial integrity, the highlanders and the Cossacks of the North Caucasus was among the supporters of the legitimate government and supported the Royal Governor on the Terek and Astrakhan. Later, after the accession to the throne of Mikhail Fedorovich, they unanimously sided with the new Russian dynasty, which refused to support the self-styled contenders for the Russian throne. However, at the beginning of the XVII century, in the midst of turmoil in the сentral regions of the state, the Terek Cossacks, unlike the Grebensky Cossacks, along with significant masses of the don, Zaporozhye, Volga, Yaitsky Cossacks, were involved in the turbulent events of the Russian state of this time and actively participated in the Russian turmoil, leaving a bright trace in the historical events of this period. The attempt of ataman Zarutsky and Marina Mnishek at the final stage of the troubles to raise a rebellion in the South of Russia did not find support from the Cossacks and mountaineers of the North Caucasus, who came to defend the Romanov dynasty