Terek Cossacks
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Terek Cossack Host (Russian: Терское казачье войско) was a Cossack host created in 1577 from free Cossacks who resettled from Volga to Terek River. In 1792 in was included into the Caucasus Line Cossack Host and separated from it again in 1860, with the capital of Vladikavkaz. In 1916 the population of the Host was 255,000 within an area of 1.9 million desyatinas.
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[edit] Pre-1917 history
The formation of the Terek Cossacks was largely a result of Russian expansion into Transcaucasia. In the mid-15th century, Andrei Shadra, an Ataman of the Don Cossack Host, led a band of three Cossack sotnias to the Kumyk lands, founding the town of Andreev. One of Shadra's motives may have been his tense relations with Yermak Timofeyevich.[1] In 1580, by official decree, Shadra, along with several cossacks and soldiers, relocated to the Terek, settling in the frontier town of Tersky.
Most of the mountain peoples refused to accept Russian sovereignty in the 18th and 19th centuries. Their tactics included guerilla raids upon Russian convoys and settlements, and the regular army was unable to deal with them effectively in the mountains. So Russia settled the foothills with Cossacks, who acted as guards and eventually helped bring the mountain peoples under Russian control. Prince Potemkin founded the fortress of Mozdok in 1763, settling 517 families of Volga Cossacks in stanitsas around it. Five sotnyas formed the Mozodksky Regiment, guarding a line of eighty versts along the Terek. Another hundred families were sent from the Don.[2]
[edit] Terek Cossacks during the Soviet times
The Terek Cossacks were split between both sides of the conflict during the Russian Civil War (just like the other Cossacks), though most were anti-bolshevik. The Host was officially disbanded in 1918, following the de-Cossackisation policies of the new Bolshevik State. In 1920 some Terek Cossacks were deported to Ukraine and northern part of European Russia. The indigenous peoples of the Caucasus were encouraged to settle in the empty stanitsas and the Terek oblast was split into the Autonomous Soviet Socialist republics of Dagestan, Checheno-Ingushetia and North Ossetia.
During the Second World war most Terek Cossacks fought for USSR although a few joined the German 1st Cossack Division (they made up the VI Regiment of the 2nd Brigade).
The alleged Chechen collaboration in 1942 caused the whole Chechen and Ingush populations to be deported to Kazakhstan. The successors of the Terek Cossacks became once again the absolute majority in the newly established Grozny Oblast within the RSFSR. After the rehabilitation of the Chechens in 1957, it was split between the Dagestan and Checheno-Ingushetia republics. This time even the regions north of the Terek River, which had previously been part of Stavropol Krai, were handed over to the expanded ASSRs. Afterwards the systematic emigration of Russians from the Northern Caucasus into other parts of the USSR, notably the Baltic states, took place.
[edit] Post-1990 history
During the separatist regime of Dzhokhar Dudayev in Chechnya in 1990s, many non-ethnic Chechens found themselves threatened by criminal elements and faced with an indifferent government that showed no intention to protect them. Many of the educated elites also lost their positions in government, industry and academia to locals connected with those in power.[3] Nadteretchny, Naursky and Shelkovskoy raions of the Republic of Chechnya practically lost the traditional Cossack population. In both Chechen wars many Terek Cossacks fought against the Chechen separatists.
Today, part of the traditional Cossack land was lost due to the exodus of Russians and the conflict in Chechnya. In Northern Dagestan, North Ossetia and the adjacent regions of Stavropolye a strong minority still remains.
