Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps and illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 The Don region
- 2 The wider world of the Don steppe frontier
- Introduction
- 1 Beyond borders, between worlds: Russian Empire and the making of the Don steppe frontier
- 2 People and power on the frontier: liberty, diversity, and de-centralization in the Don region to 1700
- 3 A middle ground between autonomy and dependence: the raiding economy of the Don steppe frontier to 1700
- 4 Boundaries of integration or exclusion? Migration, mobility, and state sovereignty on the southern frontier to 1700
- 5 Testing the boundaries of imperial alliance: cooperation, negotiation and resistance in the era of Razin (1667–1681)
- 6 Between Rus' and Rossiia: realigning the boundaries of Cossack communities in a time of migration and transition (1681–1695)
- 7 The era of raskol: religion and rebellion (1681–1695)
- 8 Incorporation without integration: the Azov interlude (1695–1711)
- 9 From frontier to borderland: the demarcation of the steppe and the delegitimization of raiding (1696–1710)
- 10 Boundaries of land, liberty, and identity: making the Don region legible to imperial officials (1696–1706)
- 11 The Bulavin uprising: the last stand of the old steppe (1706–1709)
- 12 Reshaping the Don in the imperial image: power, privilege, and patronage in the post-Bulavin era (1708–1739)
- 13 Closing the Cossack community: recording and policing the boundaries of group identity (1708–1739)
- 14 A borderline state of mind: the closing of the Don steppe frontier (1708–1739)
- Afterword
- Index
- References
12 - Reshaping the Don in the imperial image: power, privilege, and patronage in the post-Bulavin era (1708–1739)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps and illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 The Don region
- 2 The wider world of the Don steppe frontier
- Introduction
- 1 Beyond borders, between worlds: Russian Empire and the making of the Don steppe frontier
- 2 People and power on the frontier: liberty, diversity, and de-centralization in the Don region to 1700
- 3 A middle ground between autonomy and dependence: the raiding economy of the Don steppe frontier to 1700
- 4 Boundaries of integration or exclusion? Migration, mobility, and state sovereignty on the southern frontier to 1700
- 5 Testing the boundaries of imperial alliance: cooperation, negotiation and resistance in the era of Razin (1667–1681)
- 6 Between Rus' and Rossiia: realigning the boundaries of Cossack communities in a time of migration and transition (1681–1695)
- 7 The era of raskol: religion and rebellion (1681–1695)
- 8 Incorporation without integration: the Azov interlude (1695–1711)
- 9 From frontier to borderland: the demarcation of the steppe and the delegitimization of raiding (1696–1710)
- 10 Boundaries of land, liberty, and identity: making the Don region legible to imperial officials (1696–1706)
- 11 The Bulavin uprising: the last stand of the old steppe (1706–1709)
- 12 Reshaping the Don in the imperial image: power, privilege, and patronage in the post-Bulavin era (1708–1739)
- 13 Closing the Cossack community: recording and policing the boundaries of group identity (1708–1739)
- 14 A borderline state of mind: the closing of the Don steppe frontier (1708–1739)
- Afterword
- Index
- References
Summary
A new era dawned in the history of the Don Cossacks during the destructive crushing of the Bulavin uprising. The region would be rebuilt from the ashes of rebellion, but it would now become a hub for the networks of patronage, protection, cronyism, and corruption that were central features of the Petrine system. Cossack leaders sought to distance themselves from rank-and-file Cossacks by cultivating the favor of well-connected imperial officials. Just as in the metropole the “fledglings of Peter's nest” could corruptly accrue wealth and power with impunity as long as they enjoyed the personal confidence of the tsar, the ataman of the Don Host became a “little autocrat” who ignored local and imperial laws and lorded over the Host for as long as he enjoyed the confidence of the ruler's confidants.
In spite of the fact that the most critical transformations of Cossack politics took place soon after 1708, the decade after the uprising is the most neglected period in the historiography of the region. V. D. Sukhorukov, the liberal Don Cossack historian, ended his extensive survey of Don history with the Bulavin rebellion, signifying that Cossack liberty had been crushed. Others only gave limited treatment to the period, probably due to the fact that the Donskie dela could no longer serve as an anchor in a period in which Petrine generals began to determine Cossack policy and when documents were displaced due to administrative reforms and changes of jurisdiction over the Don.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Imperial BoundariesCossack Communities and Empire-Building in the Age of Peter the Great, pp. 187 - 207Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009