Crimean campaigns. Peter I firmly settled in Kerch Crimea during the reign of Peter 1
Moscow agreed subject to the settlement of relations with Poland. After two years of negotiations with the Poles, their king Jan Sobieski, who was experiencing difficulties in the fight against the Turks, agreed to sign the “Eternal Peace” with Russia (1686). It meant Poland’s recognition of the borders outlined by the Truce of Andrusovo, as well as the assignment of Kyiv and Zaporozhye to Russia.
Despite its duration, this Russian-Turkish conflict was not particularly intense. It actually came down to only two large independent military operations - the Crimean (1687; 1689) and Azov (1695-1696) campaigns.
First Crimean campaign (1687).
It took place in May 1687. Russian-Ukrainian troops took part in it under the command of Prince Vasily Golitsyn and Hetman Ivan Samoilovich. The Don Cossacks of Ataman F. Minaev also took part in the campaign. The meeting took place in the area of the Konskie Vody River. The total number of troops that set out on the campaign reached 100 thousand people. More than half of the Russian army consisted of regiments of the new system. However, the military power of the allies, sufficient to defeat the Khanate, turned out to be powerless in the face of nature. The troops had to walk tens of kilometers through deserted, sun-scorched steppe, malarial swamps and salt marshes, where there was not a drop of fresh water. In such conditions, the issues of supplying the army and a detailed study of the specifics of a given theater of military operations came to the fore. Golitsyn's insufficient study of these problems ultimately predetermined the failure of his campaigns.
As people and horses moved deeper into the steppe, they began to feel a lack of food and fodder. Having reached the Bolshoi Log tract on July 13, the Allied troops were faced with a new disaster - steppe fires. Unable to fight the heat and the soot that covered the sun, the weakened troops literally collapsed. Finally, Golitsyn, seeing that his army could die before meeting the enemy, ordered to go back. The result of the first campaign was a series of raids by Crimean troops on Ukraine, as well as the removal of Hetman Samoilovich. According to some participants in the campaign (for example, General P. Gordon), the hetman himself initiated the burning of the steppe, because he did not want the defeat of the Crimean Khan, who served as a counterweight to Moscow in the south. The Cossacks elected Mazepa as the new hetman.
Second Crimean Campaign (1689).
The campaign began in February 1689. This time Golitsyn, taught by bitter experience, set out into the steppe on the eve of spring so as not to have a shortage of water and grass and not to be afraid of steppe fires. An army of 112 thousand people was assembled for the campaign. Such a huge mass of people slowed down their movement speed. As a result, the campaign to Perekop lasted almost three months, and the troops approached the Crimea on the eve of the hot summer. In mid-May, Golitsyn met with Crimean troops. After volleys of Russian artillery, the rapid attack of the Crimean cavalry choked and was never resumed. Having repelled the onslaught of the khan, Golitsyn approached the Perekop fortifications on May 20. But the governor did not dare to storm them. He was frightened not so much by the power of the fortifications as by the same sun-scorched steppe lying beyond Perekop. It turned out that, having passed along the narrow isthmus to the Crimea, a huge army could find itself in an even more terrible waterless trap.
Hoping to intimidate the khan, Golitsyn began negotiations. But the owner of Crimea began to delay them, waiting until hunger and thirst would force the Russians to go home. Having stood for several days at the Perekop walls to no avail and being left without fresh water, Golitsyn was forced to hastily turn back. Further standstill could have ended in disaster for his army. The Russian army was saved from a larger failure by the fact that the Crimean cavalry did not particularly pursue the retreating ones.
The results of both campaigns were insignificant in comparison with the costs of their implementation. Of course, they made a certain contribution to the common cause, since they diverted the Crimean cavalry from other theaters of military operations. But these campaigns could not decide the outcome of the Russian-Crimean struggle. At the same time, they testified to a radical change in forces in the southern direction. If a hundred years ago Crimean troops reached Moscow, now Russian troops have already come close to the walls of Crimea. The Crimean campaigns had a much greater impact on the situation within the country. In Moscow, Princess Sophia tried to portray both campaigns as great victories, which they were not. Their unsuccessful outcome contributed to the fall of the government of Princess Sophia.
The struggle continued with the later Azov campaigns (1695) of Peter I.
About the secret mission to Crimea (under Peter I) about the transition of Crimea to Russian citizenship
NEGOTIATIONS ABOUT THE TRANSITION OF THE CRIMEAN KHANATE TO RUSSIAN NATIONALITY UNDER PETER THE GREAT
The topic of negotiations on the transition of Crimea to Russian citizenship in the first half of the Northern War of 1700-1721 was not touched upon by anyone except the Polish historian Yu. Feldman, who in his book cited two lengthy extracts from the report of the Saxon ambassador in St. Petersburg Loss to Augustus II. Locc reported on the preparation of a secret mission by the tsar to the Crimea in 1712. 1 And although the negotiations ended in vain, nevertheless, in the Crimean direction, as well as in the Balkans, Caucasus and Far East, Peter I blazed real paths for his descendants.
At the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th century. The Crimean Khanate remained a large military-feudal state formation, which, under the threat of devastating raids, kept the population of vast territories of Europe, right up to Voronezh, Lvov and Vienna, in fear.
In the system of the Ottoman Empire, Crimea enjoyed the widest autonomy of all the vassal principalities - it had an army, a monetary system, an administrative apparatus and the right of external relations with its neighbors. But, being a powerful military shoulder for the Tatars, the Porte greatly limited their autonomy. The feudal lords of Crimea were afraid that “they would be completely destroyed by the Turks”
Turkish cities and fortresses scattered throughout the Khanate - Bendery, Kaffa, Kerch, Ochakov, Azov - fettered the nomads, and the income from trade in these cities bypassed the treasury of the khans. The appointment of Turkish judges and officials in the areas under the jurisdiction of Bakhchisaray, for example in Budzhak, as well as the Turks’ incitement of hostility between the Murzas, were irritating.
The foreign policy goals of Istanbul and Bakhchisaray also differed.
From the end of the 17th century. Crimea sought to maintain peaceful relations with the clearly weakening Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and, if possible, drive a wedge between it and Russia, completely subjugate the Circassians of the North Caucasus, push Russia’s military potential away from its borders and achieve the resumption of payment of Russian “commemorations” - tribute. The Khans of Crimea, as “experts” on Polish and Russian issues, “took over” in the 17th century. mediation in matters with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Russian state.
Crimean, not Ottoman, troops were the main enemy of Russia in the south until the 18th century. Crimea’s claims to the Middle Volga region were not forgotten either. Under Khan Muhammad-Girey (1654-1666), an agreement was concluded with the Polish king John II Casimir on the annexation of the former territories of the Astrakhan and Kazan khanates to the Crimea. In relations with the tsars, the rulers of the Crimea were guided by the outdated concept that they were (at least formally) tributaries of the Khanate. The khans' claims to the steppe Zaporozhye were quite real.
In contrast to the Khanate of Porta, for tactical reasons at the end of the 17th - in the first decade of the 18th century. sought to maintain peaceful relations with both the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Petrine Russia, since the greatest threat to it at that time came from the Habsburg monarchy.
The obligation to supply Tatar warriors to the Balkan and Hungarian fronts, labor for the construction of new Turkish fortresses - Yenikale and Temryuk in 1702-1707, as well as prohibitions on raiding Ukraine (up to orders to give up full and loot) aroused strong discontent. The historical self-awareness of the Girays - the descendants of Genghis Khan - allowed them not to consider themselves inferior to European kings, kings, and sultans.
The khans were painfully aware of the infringement of their liberties. (First of all, Turkish tyranny during their replacement.) They sought to ensure that the “kings of the kings of the Universe” - the Turkish sultans - give them at least lifelong confirmation for the position.
Perhaps a complex of such political differences was the reason for the negotiations on the transition of the “Great Horde of the right and left hands” to Russian citizenship in 1701-1712.
In the XV-XVI centuries. Kasimov, Volga and Siberian Tatars lived in Russia. Moscow's protectorate over the Kazan Khanate was first established in 1487. Ivan the Terrible completely subjugated the Tatar "kingdoms" in Kazan and Astrakhan.
The Siberian “kingdom” from 1555 to 1571 recognized vassal dependence on Russia on the terms of paying an annual tribute in furs, and in 1582 it was conquered. But Russian campaigns along the Dnieper, Don and from Taman in 1555, 1556, 1558, 1560. did not lead to the conquest of the fourth Tatar “kingdom” - in the Black Sea region. Nevertheless, in 1586, Tsarevich Murat-Girey (son of Khan Devlet-Girey I), who went over to the side of Moscow, was sent to serve in Astrakhan, and the Russian government was going to place him in Bakhchisarai.
In 1593, the government of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich agreed to send “an army with fiery battle” to the aid of Khan Gazi-Girey, who was going to “transfer all the Crimean uluses to the Dnieper and straight away from the Turks” and be with Russia “in brotherhood, friendship and peace and Crimean Yurt with the Moscow state... to be eaten." The traditions of allegiance of the Nogai hordes to the Russian tsars can be called centuries-old. They depended on Moscow in 1557-1563, 1590-1607, 1616-1634, 1640.
From the end of the 17th century. Vlachs and Moldovans, Serbs and Montenegrins, Ukrainians from Right Bank Ukraine, Greeks, Hungarians, peoples of the North Caucasus and Central Asia (Khivans) applied for release and acceptance into Russian citizenship. Russian-Crimean relations have never been exclusively hostile, and the theme of Russian-Crimean mutual assistance and alliances in the 15th-17th centuries. still awaiting its researchers.
After the Azov campaigns, the situation on the border became unfavorable for the Crimean Yurt. Peter I, having strengthened the outpost fortresses in the south - Azov, Taganrog, Kamenny Zaton, Samara, tried to block the northern borders of the Khanate's nomads. On a small section of the Russian-Turkish border near Azov and Taganrog, the Ottoman authorities tried to prevent its violation by the Tatars and insisted on the speedy demarcation of the Nogai steppes. However, in the Dnieper region, on the Azov seaside and the Don, the “small war” never stopped. Neither the Turkish, nor the Moscow, nor the Hetman administration could keep the Nogais, Donets, Crimeans, Cossacks, Kalmyks, Circassians and Kabardians from mutual raids. At the beginning of the 18th century. Nogais literally rushed about in search of a new tread. Among them, revolts periodically broke out “against the Khan and the Turk.” Hetman Mazepa wrote to Peter I that “there are voices throughout the Crimea that the Belogorodsk Horde has the intention of beating you, the great sovereign, with its forehead, asking that you be accepted under the sovereign hand of your royal majesty.”
In 1699, 20 thousand Budzhak Nogais really rebelled against Bakhchisarai, “expecting help and mercy” either from the Sultan or from the Tsar, and “if they were completely refused by the Turks, they want to bow to the Poles, which is already sent there."
The rebels were led by the brother of the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey II Nuraddin Gazi-Girey, who went with the Nogais to Bessarabia, to the Polish borders. In addition to contacts with the Polish king, in 1701 Gazi-Girey, through Mazepa, asked the “white king” to accept him “as a citizen of the Belogorod Horde” 9. (In the same year, the Armenian meliks of Karabakh asked Peter I to liberate Armenia, at the same time the Georgian kings of Imereti , Kakheti and Kartli turned to Russia with the same request 10.)
In 1702, Kubek-Murza came to Azov with a request for Russian protection over the Kuban Nogais. However, the Russian government, not risking breaking the peace with the Porte, informed the Sultan of its refusal to the Nogais.
Under military pressure from the Janissaries and Crimean troops, Gazi-Girey fled to Chigirin, then went to war and was sent to Fr. Rhodes.
The freedom of maneuver of Crimean diplomacy was expanded by the attractiveness of the “Threshold of the Highest Happiness” - Bakhchisarai for Muslims of Eastern Europe and Central Asia as an outpost of Islam.
Partial relief for the khans was that the Russian outskirts, where the traditions of freedom were not destroyed by the autocracy - the Astrakhan region, the region of the Don and Zaporozhye Army, Bashkiria - did not immediately submit to Russian absolutism. Just in the first decade of the 18th century. the population of the outskirts tried to get rid of the burden that tsarism had placed on them. But all the uprisings that broke out almost simultaneously - on the Don, in Zaporozhye (1707-1708), in Astrakhan (1705-1706), in Bashkiria (1705-1711), mass desertion from the army, increased robbery and unrest in Central Russia (1708 and 1715) occurred in isolation. The rebels could not use each other's support and tried to rely on external forces - Turkey, Crimea, Sweden.
With such instability in Baturin, and then in Moscow, information spread about the intention of the Crimean Khan to transfer to Russian citizenship. On December 26, 1702, the Ottoman government, dissatisfied with the insufficient information of Devlet-Girey II about the strengthening of Russian fortresses and the Azov fleet, appointed his father, the 70-year-old old man Hadji-Selim-Girey I (December 1702 - December 1704). Devlet-Girey by that time had proved himself to be a brave and skillful ruler (in 1683 he fought in Austria) and enjoyed authority among the Tatar Murzas. The deposed khan disobeyed the order, again raised the Nogais and sent troops under the command of his brother Kalgi Saadet-Girey to Budzhak, to Akkerman and Izmail. Along the way, the rebels burned several Ukrainian villages. 12. The “spawn of vipers,” as Mazepa called the Cossacks, also joined the rebellious khan. The rebels spread the rumor that they were marching on Istanbul.
Apparently, at the end of 1702 - beginning of 1703, Devlet-Girey, in search of additional support, sent two envoys to Mazepa in Baturin - Akbir and Absuut, according to Mazepa, to persuade him and the Cossacks to “revolt” against the tsar 13.
At the beginning of 1703, the Ottoman government equipped a fleet from Sinop to “pacify the pride of the Crimean Tatars” and ordered Hadji-Selim-Girey to lead against the rebels of the Black Sea and Kuban Nogais 14.
The Ottoman government exhorted the Cossacks not to enter into treaty (allied) relations with the Crimeans, because “the Tatars, who are invited and accept friendship with them, then they trample him with their horses.” 15. The Belgorod rebellion was suppressed 16. Devlet-Girey, who left the Crimea , had to stop with Ochakov, then he moved to Ukraine, finally retreated to Kabarda, and later confessed to his father. The Cossacks had to ask for the Sultan's and Crimean protectorate from Selim-Girey I. But the Ottoman government, as well as the earlier Russian government in relation to the Budzhak Nogais, through Ambassador P. A. Tolstoy verbally promised not to accept them into Turkish citizenship.
In January 1703 (or, perhaps, in December 1702) the former captain, Moldavian Alexander Davydenko, who had left his land “for the wrath of the ruler” and intended to enter the Russian service, came to Mazepa.
Judging by the surviving autograph letters in poor Russian and Polish, Davydenko earlier, during the third reign of Hadji Selim Giray I (1692-1699), served in the Crimea and heard that most of the Murzas and beys asked the Sultan to restore the deposed Devlet- Girey, with whom the Moldovan had a chance to talk. Devlet-Girey allegedly told him that he was ready, together with the beys, “to bow to the almighty royal power and go to war against the Turk.” There is nothing unusual in the fact that the khan, who was losing ground under his feet in 1702, found out the positions of Mazepa and Moscow. The motives for the behavior of Davydenko, who energetically set about establishing contacts between the rebellious khan and the tsar, are easily explained. He, like many of the Balkan Christians, proposed a far from new project for the liberation of his homeland from the Turks by the forces of the Orthodox Tsar. What was original in it was only an indication of the possibility of using the separatism of the Crimean feudal lords 19. In the Polish version of Davydenko’s letter it is more definitely stated that he persuaded the khan with his entire army to seek support from Peter I and would like to convey advice to the tsar himself about waging the Turkish and “Swedish” wars 20.
A skillful and cautious diplomat, Mazepa, whose authority and experience was highly valued by the Moscow government, characterized Davydenko as “a person who clearly does not know a secret, or does not know how to keep it with him,” because of which, supposedly, not only the Wallachian ruler K . Brynkovyanu, but also the entire Wallachian people. In the summer of 1703, Mazepa was going to send Davydenko to Wallachia and wrote to Brynkovyanu “to take him away from that language.” But on July 30, Davydenko sent Mazepa from Fastov a new project for organizing a common Wallachian-Crimean-Ukrainian front against the Turks. The capital became interested in this project, and Davydenko was in Moscow for a year and three months from 1704. It was dealt with not only by the Ambassadorial and Little Russian orders, but also by the head of the government, Admiral F. A. Golovin, and even the Tsar himself, judging by the notes in the notebook of Peter I for 1704: “About David... the man that the Danish envoy has, should he let him go? About Voloshenin, who was brought by the Danskaya, and what does the Multyanskaya say about him?" 23
The topic was a secret, they wrote about it in silence, not all documents are yet known. But we know the decision of the Russian government on the issue of accepting the Khanate into Russian citizenship: as in 1701 - in the case of Gazi-Girey, it was negative. In the conditions of the Northern War, it was risky to aggravate relations with the Ottoman Empire on the Crimean issue. In addition, the rebellion of Devlet-Girey was suppressed, and the new khan Gazi-Girey III (1704-1707) did not want or could not “show”, as in 1701, his previous “goodwill” towards Russia. Moscow had information that a Tatar raid on Kyiv and Sloboda Ukraine was being prepared in order to prevent the strengthening of Russian-Polish relations after the Treaty of Narva in 1704, which formalized the entry of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth into the Northern War. 24. The new Crimean administration detained a messenger from Mazepa to Gazi-Girey with congratulations and a gift from the convoy Troshchinsky under the pretext that he was a spy, and demanded the return of her former envoys Akbir and Absuut, exiled to Solovki. Although the envoy of Gazi-Girey in May-June 1705 promised Mazepa “privately the khan’s affection,” the Crimean feudal lords demanded compensation for Cossack raids on the Tatars 25. Therefore, F. A. Golovin’s hint that Russia would favorably agree to consider a change in political the fate of Crimea, was excluded from the new edition of Admiral I. S. Mazepa’s letter dated February 5, 1705 and replaced by the wish to live in peace and friendship.
Refusing to begin new relations with the Sultan's vassals, the Russian government thus sought to neutralize the ties of its Turkic peoples and Kalmyks with Istanbul and Crimea. In Moscow, they knew well about the secret contacts of Khan Ayuki with Bakhchisaray, the governors from the Volga reported about the possible departure of some Kalmyks to the Crimean Khanate, 27, and Ambassador P. A. Tolstoy from Istanbul reported about the connections of Khan Ayuki with the Sultan. At the end of 1703 or at the beginning of 1704, Khan Ayuka, through the Nogai envoy Ish Mehmel Agu, sent Sultan Ahmed III an act of oath of loyalty and submission with a reminder that the Kalmyk khans had already twice turned to his predecessors since 1648 with a request to transfer to the Ottoman Empire. citizenship 28.
It was considered risky to start a serious deal with Crimea through such an untested communication channel as Davydenko, and Ambassador P. A. Tolstoy was instructed to assure Ahmed III that the Tsar would not accept anyone into Russian citizenship and expected the same from the Porte in relation to the nomadic peoples of Russia.
In Moscow, Davydenko was given forty sables worth 50 rubles. and by decree of the tsar he was sent to Kyiv, where he was “politically” detained for a year and two months, although he himself continued to hope that he would be transported under the guise of a merchant across the Sich to Bakhchisarai 30. All this time Mazepa kept him “under a strong guard”, not even allowing him to attend church, and then sent him to Moldova in chains 31. From F.A. Golovin, the Moldavian received a not very flattering description 32.
The next khan Kaplan-Girey I (August 1707 - December 1709), who ruled in Crimea three times (the last time in 1730-1736), was an irreconcilable opponent of Moscow. 1708 was a critical stage for Russia in the Northern War. Charles XII was advancing on Moscow, the south and east of the country were engulfed in uprisings. The hetman's troops were going to be used in Moscow against a possible union of the Don rebels with the Tatars and Cossacks, but in October 1708 Mazepa changed his mind. In order to drag Crimea into the war, he promised to pay Kaplan-Girey the tribute that Moscow had dumped in 1685-1700, and promised to convince the Polish king Stanislaus I to give up all the unpaid “grub” of Poland over the past years. Kaplan-Girey sought permission from Istanbul to unite with the Swedes in Ukraine. G.I. Golovkin sent P.A. Tolstoy a request: did the Porte really allow Crimea to demand the previous “commemoration” tribute from Russia?
The Ottomans were again reminded of Russia’s refusal to accept the Nogais, hoping for reciprocity from Istanbul regarding the rebel Don 3
The situation was unexpectedly defused by the deposition of Kaplan-Girey in December 1709 as a result of the defeat of his troops by the Kabardians at Mount Kanzhal 35.
On January 3, 1709, P. A. Tolstoy from Istanbul through Azov sent envoy Vasily Ivanovich Blyokly to congratulate his old acquaintance, Devlet-Girey II, on his second elevation to the Bakhchisarai throne and to thank him for the “sincere friendly announcement” that the khan conveyed to the Russian embassy in Istanbul upon his departure to Crimea on December 14, 1708, the Russian ambassador asked to extradite the Nekrasovites who had gone to the Nogais in Kuban, but in reality Blyokly was supposed to prevent the Tatar-Swedish rapprochement in Ukraine 36. There is nothing incredible in the fact that Devlet-Girey II was sent 10 thousand ducats as “the amount due to him before the war, in order to appease him with this and get him into his party” 37. Khan, taking care of restoring the former prestige of Crimea and traditional forms of Russian-Crimean relations (since 1700, Russia interrupted official relations with the Khanate as with a full-fledged state), during conversations on June 10-13, 1709, he reproached Blyoklom for the fact that the tsar had stopped writing on his behalf to the Crimea, that correspondence with Istanbul was conducted through the head of the khan, that the Russians were complaining to the padishah about minor border incidents. According to A. Davydenko, recorded later, in 1712, the khan was allegedly interested in why the Russian government was slow to respond to his proposal to transfer the khanate to the side of Russia. 38 Judging by Blyokly’s reports, the khan on June 13, 1709 said vaguely: . The Turks don’t like you... Both Crimea and I so want Moscow and Crimea to be one land... If the country of the Tsar’s Majesty were completely in alliance with me, then there would not be a Swede in your land. And the Poles, nor the Cossacks, did not rebel against you. They all look at me" 39.
Devlet-Girey II avoided talking about the extradition of the Nekrasovites along with their ataman I. Nekrasov and about the specific details of the alliance, but he accepted the gifts and, well aware of the difficult condition of Charles XII in Ukraine, promised “to keep his Tatars and other peoples in fear, so that did not cause any offense to the Russian people, about which decrees were sent out from him” 40. The khan did not raise the issue of resuming the “wake.” In Crimea at that time there was a rumor that the tsar, having offered Devlet-Girey II gold, treasures and the rank of governor in the Kazan land, nevertheless received a refusal: “I don’t want either stings or honey from the tsar * 41.
In general, Bakhchisarai, like Istanbul, satisfied the position of Russia, which fought on the front from Finland to Ukraine, and Russian diplomacy established quite satisfactory relations with Crimea and the Porte in the pre-Poltava period. Neither Swedish, nor Polish, nor Mazepa, nor Nekrasov embassies to Crimea yielded results. The Porta did not allow the Tatar cavalry to appear near Poltava.
The Poltava victory over the Swedes on June 27, 1709 led to the confirmation of the Russian-Turkish truce of 1700 on January 3, 1710. It was possible to swing Sultan Ahmed III into war with Peter I only after a powerful diplomatic onslaught of a surging wave of emigrants - Charles XII, supporters of Stanislav Leszczynski, Mazepa and the Cossacks After the Turks declared war on Russia in November 1710, the Russian government, recalling secret contacts with the Crimeans and Nogais, called not only Christians, but also Muslims of the Ottoman Empire to come under the protectorate of the tsar, promising the latter an expansion of their autonomy. In manifestos to the Nogais of all hordes and Crimeans, Peter I referred to the call of the Budzhaks and Gazi-Girey to Russia in 1701. 42 Among the Orthodox, Montenegrins, Serbs and Moldavians rose up to fight the Turks, and among the Muslims, Kabardians. In mid-June 1711, information was received from defectors that the Budzhak Horde would not fight and was ready to transfer to Russian citizenship on the terms of paying a certain tribute in cattle 43.
The Crimean troops fought successfully in 1711. In winter, Devlet-Girey II sent his cavalry to Kyiv and the Voronezh shipyards and captured several thousand full. In the summer, the Tatars successfully prevented the expedition of I.I. Buturlina from Kamenny Zaton to Perekop. But most importantly, they cut off all rear communications of the Russian army in Moldova and the Black Sea region and, together with the Turks, tightly blocked it at Stanilesti.
These military merits allowed Devlet-Girey to believe that the main demand of the Khanate - the restoration of the Russian "commemoration" - tribute would be included in the Treaty of Prut. This was promised on the Prut, although not in writing, but in words.
After the second declaration of war in 1711, Devlet-Girey insisted on a concession to the Crimean Khanate of Zaporozhye and Right Bank Ukraine 44. However, the Turkish side, having achieved the main goal - Azov, wanted to end things peacefully as soon as possible and did not insist on the Tatar demands. The persistent defense of the interests of the Crimea by Devlet-Girey II caused discontent among the highest dignitaries of the Porte, who intended to remove the overly zealous khan 45.
On February 20, 1712, in the midst of another aggravation of the conflict with Turkey, General K. E. Renne sent an old acquaintance Davydenko to the headquarters of Field Marshal B. P. Sheremetev in Priluki, who by that time had managed to serve both the Polish king and the Russian Tsar (in the division General Janus von Eberstedt). On February 24, the Moldavian reported a very incredible thing: Devlet-Girey and the Crimean Murzas are asking the field marshal and the tsar for “a secret rebuke...whether they want to accept him on the side of the Tsar’s Majesty or not,” as well as “the points at which he should be granted citizenship” 46. Davydenko had no supporting documents, except for the travel document to Moscow issued by the khan. The Khan explained the reason for his appeal to the Tsar by the Turkish arbitrariness over him 47 and conveyed that his anti-Russian position was only “for face, so that the Turk would show his goodwill... And to the King of Sweden it seemed that in virtue it was mostly all about money” 48.
Davydenko proposed the following plan: with the help of the khan, to capture Charles XII and the Mazeppians in Moldavia 49. The temptation to capture the Swedish king, who had eluded his hands three times (at Poltava, Perevolochnaya and Ochakov), forced the Russian government to turn a blind eye to the hostile actions of the khan in Istanbul and Ukraine and agree to secret negotiations with Devlet-Girey II.
On March 22, G.I. Golovkin informed Sheremetev that Peter I gave an audience to Davydenko and “accepted his proposal and gave him an oral answer and sent him back to where he came from, only so that he could be trusted that he was here at the court of the Tsar’s Majesty , a passport with a state seal was given." Considering the secrecy of the operation, the chancellor wrote that the field marshal would be notified of Peter I’s response after his arrival in St. Petersburg. You can judge the king’s response from the document given at the end of the article. It cannot be dated, as indicated in the entry below the text, to 1714, when the Ottoman Empire and Russia were no longer in the state of war that the tsar wrote about. Nor can it be dated to the period between November 1712 - June 1713, the time of the third state of war with the Sultan, since Peter I was outside Russia from July 1, 1712 to March 14, 1713, and Devlet-Girey was on April 3, 1713 already deprived of the Khan's throne. Considering that the recording of Davydenko’s “questioning” was made on March 20, 1712, that Golovkin wrote to Sheremetev on March 22 that the tsar had received the Moldavian, that the draft version of the “pass” for Davydenko was written on the 13th, and Belova “for the state seal" (as mentioned by Peter I) - March 23, 1712 50, then the document can be dated March 13-23, 1712 - most likely, this is nothing more than a version of the instructions for Davydenko.
In it, Peter I expressed his readiness to conclude a Russian-Crimean treaty through Sheremetev with Devlet-Girey II, accepting all its conditions, and the Khanate into Russian citizenship. For the head of Charles XII, the Khan was promised 12 thousand bags of levki (1 million = 450 thousand rubles). In order to thus gain freedom of hands in the north, they promised to send all Russian forces to help Crimea. Given the impossibility of capturing the Swedish king, Peter I asked to burn Turkish military and food warehouses in Moldova.
On April 4, the captain received riding horses, 100 ducats and, together with the three Moldovans accompanying him, was sent from St. Petersburg. But he barely managed to get to Kyiv when the first information about the conclusion of a 25-year truce in Istanbul (April 5, 1712) arrived there.
Kiev governor D.M. Golitsyn detained Davydenko, informing St. Petersburg that if the khan handed him over to the Turks, the war would begin again.
On May 29, the Chancellor approved the “retention” of the secret agent, ordered all his documents to be taken away, but allowed him to expel his wife from Moldova. On the advice of P.P. Shafirov, instead of the Moldavian, in response to the “Khan’s request”, Lieutenant Colonel Fedor Klimontovich was secretly sent with a formal purpose - for the exchange of prisoners and with a real one - to find out the true intentions of the Khan. Chikhachev was ordered to give Devlet-Girey II “for his goodwill” plate furs worth 5 thousand rubles, i.e. in the amount of the previous traditional “salary” to the khan, but only secretly, face to face, so that this offering would not be perceived as a past tribute, it was forbidden to give furs if they were asked to hand them over openly. According to the instructions, Chikhachev was allowed to promise to send letters personally from the tsar to Bakhchisarai and even make occasional “rewards” if the khan raised the issue of renewing the tribute, but the main thing was to find out “about his inclination, the khan, towards the country of the royal majesty and about his intention in that is, in all sorts of ways through whom it is possible to scout. And don’t mention the weather (tribute)” 53. The Russian government may have judged the future nature of subject relations in Crimea by analogy with the Russian-Moldovan treaty of 1711.
The Turkish-Tatar victory on the Prut, Russia's open reluctance to fight in the south, the compliant position of the Russian ambassadors in Istanbul - all this raised the prestige of the khan in his own eyes. For 10 days Devlet-Girey II did not receive Chikhachev in Bendery under the pretext that he arrived without a letter from the tsar. Only on August 23, 1712, the lieutenant colonel was honored with a short and cold reception, at which the khan stated that he would not allow prisoners to be exchanged, and henceforth he would not allow anyone to come to him without letters from Peter I, after which he rejected the secret offering. When asked what could be told to the tsar about Davydenko’s case, the khan replied, “I have nothing to say now and didn’t say anything more.” This ended the audience. One of the Tatar officials later explained to Chikhachev that the Khan would like to have “cordial love” with Russia, but that he was dissatisfied with the fact that Russia twice, in 1711 and 1712, ignored Crimea when concluding treaties with the Turks, that Russian-Crimean relations are characterized by a state of “no peace, no battle,” and if they had entered into negotiations with the Tatars, then the Russians would have received peace in the south in a week. Only if, in addition to the agreement with Ahmed III, a separate Russian-Crimean agreement is drawn up, the khan will “gladly” accept any gift, even one sable 54.
Defiantly emphasizing his equal rank with the tsar, the khan, following the example of Peter I, ordered his vizier Dervish Mohammed Agha to write to B.P. Sheremetev that there would be no “offences” to Russia from the Crimea, that prisoners would be allowed to be ransomed, but not exchanged , so that the Russians would let Charles XII through Poland to Pomerania and that after the departure of the Swedish king, the khan would accept any offering “as a great gift” 55. The field marshal answered the khan’s vizier that Russia wanted to live in peace with Crimea, that the king “would not leave the khan forgotten.” for his good,” and reproached the Cossacks for robbing the royal convoys 56.
Apparently, Devlet-Girey avoided discussing the issue of changing vassalage in 1712. But Davydenko’s proposals were not his, Davydenko’s, fantasy. Five times - in 1699, 1703, 1708 or 1709, 1711, 1712. - he addressed the Russian government on the same issue. He could only learn some information from the khan, for example, the content of his conversations with V.I. Faded in Crimea in 1709. Only ignorance of the political realities in Eastern Europe forced Davydenko to exaggerate the significance of the diplomatic game of the Crimeans, however, without any intent. The contradictions between the hostile actions of Devlet-Girey II and his promises to submit to the “white king” should not surprise us, just as they did not surprise his contemporaries. With the help of the “bait” that the khan “threw” through Davydenko, he apparently tried to draw Russia into negotiations and return Russian-Crimean relations to the state of 1681. The connection between the khan’s proposal and his desire to start negotiations with the Russians is most clearly visible from his conversations that same summer with the lieutenant colonel of the dragoon grenadier regiment of the Russian service, Pitz, who was looking for his wife and children captured by the Crimeans in Bendery. Devlet-Girey, confident that his words would be conveyed to their intended destination, “reprimanded” Pitza for the Tsar’s refusal to negotiate with Crimea and pointed out that Russia, first of all, should conclude a peace treaty with him as a sovereign sovereign, “who can go wherever he wants.” , and that the Tatars “people go wherever they want, and the werewolf goes there” 57.
Russian-Crimean secret contacts had one positive result: they worsened relations between the Swedes and Tatars. Since September 1712, Russian ambassadors in Istanbul warned the sovereign about the inevitability of a new war if he did not withdraw his troops from Poland. And indeed, on November 3, 1712, Ahmed III declared war for the third time in order to achieve the maximum possible concessions from the Russian ambassadors. The same goal was pursued by the Turkish plan - to “drop” the Swedish king with the Poles and Cossacks into Poland, if possible without Turkish escort. The Swedes by that time had intercepted part of Devlet-Girey II’s dispatches to Sheremetev and the Saxon minister Ya.G. Flemming, from which Charles XII learned that his head was a stake in the game not only for the khan. Former great Lithuanian hetman J.K. Sapega agreed with the Crimean ruler to hand over the “northern lion” to the great crown hetman A.N. Senyavsky during the passage of Charles XII through Poland and receive an amnesty from the Polish king for this. If successful, Khan could enter into an alliance with Augustus II, which would have an anti-Russian orientation 58. Charles XII refused to go on the winter campaign of 1712/13 in Poland and after a battle with the warriors of Devlet-Girey II and the Janissaries he was exiled to Thrace. In March 1713, Ahmed III threw 30 thousand Tatar cavalry into Ukraine, which reached Kyiv. In Left Bank Ukraine, the son of Devlet-Girey II with 5 thousand Nogais of the Kuban Horde, Nekrasovites and 8 thousand Cossacks destroyed villages and churches in several districts of the Voronezh province.
Therefore, the irritation of the Russian government against Davydenko is understandable; On January 26, 1714, he was arrested in Moscow, in the Posolsky Prikaz, and exiled to the Prilutsky Monastery in Vologda for two years. On December 8, 1715, Golovkin ordered the Kyiv governor D.M. Golitsyn to expel Davydenko through Kiev abroad, giving him 50 rubles, “without listening to any of his lies, and in the future, if he comes to Kiev, and therefore expel him, because Your Excellency knows about him, what a man he is the most formidable" 59.
The increased potential of the new Russia, on the one hand, and the infringement of the autonomous rights of Crimea by the Ottomans, on the other, forced the khans, who more than once found themselves in critical situations, to consider the possibility of transferring to Russian citizenship. Requests from Nureddin Gazi-Girey in 1701 and Devlet-Girey in 1702-1703. can be compared with similar appeals of the Moldavian and Wallachian rulers, Georgian kings, Balkan and Caucasian peoples to the rulers in the 17th-18th centuries. But the real possibility of a Russian protectorate over Crimea under Peter the Great was small. Under him, Russia had not yet accumulated the great power experience that allowed Catherine II to annex the “independent” Crimea (and Eastern Georgia) in 1783 with relative ease.
The difficult Northern War forced us to worry about maintaining peace with the Ottoman Empire, and in Russian politics the topic of changing the khan's vassalage, as a rule, was discussed silently, if at all. Crimea had to be abandoned, as well as Azov in 1637. In addition, events on the Russian borders - the uprising on the Don, Mazepa’s betrayal, the separation of the Zaporozhye Sich in 1709, the formalization of the transfer of Mazepa’s heir (Ukrainian hetman F. Orlik) to the protectorate of Crimea in 1710, the Ottoman-Crimean victory on the Prut - showed the Tatars that the Russian-Turkish confrontation was not over yet. Therefore, the Crimean proposals regarding submission to Peter the Great in 1711-1712. were rather a sounding board of Russian politics. In addition, the rulers of Bakhchisarai foresaw that after the transition to Russia, enrichment through robbery and the sale of Ukrainian slaves would become impossible. Therefore, it can hardly be assumed that the diplomatic game of the khans with Russia had widespread support in Crimea. The policy of the feudal leaders of the Crimea remained basically anti-Russian, and in 1711-1713 Russian diplomacy barely managed to “fight off” the resumption of the annual “security tribute”, which was stopped in 1685. Nevertheless, the Nogai and Crimean feudal lords began talking about switching sides northern neighbor at the moments of the “tide” of Russian power to the south. This was the case after the Azov campaigns in 1701-1702, during the Prut campaign and during Minikh’s campaigns against Khotyn and Iasi in 1739. From the second half of the 18th century. The Crimeans realized that organizing round-ups of East Slavic slaves was not only risky, but also almost impossible. The semi-nomadic population of Crimea began to settle on the earth when the military superiority of the Russian Empire over Turkey became obvious. In 1771, 60 years after Peter the Great’s manifesto to the Nogais and Tatars, when the second Russian army of Major General V.M. patronage" of Catherine I. Following ten years of "independence" (1774-1783), on April 9, 1783, the last of the "Tatar kingdoms" was included in Russia. The Romanov Empire finally acquired the legacy of Genghis Khan in Northern Eurasia.
The Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA) contains a handwritten undated instruction note from Peter I, indicating his agreement to accept the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey II (reigned 1699-1702, 1708-1713) under the Russian protectorate.
What he (Moldavian captain Alexander Davydenko) had previously proposed about the case of the Crimean Khan and then was not accepted because there was peace, and did not want to give reasons for war.
And now, when the Turks do not want to be satisfied with anything, but urgently declared war for the sake of malice alone, then we, in our truth, hoping for God in this war, and for this reason we are glad to accept the Khan and fulfill his wishes,
Why would he, without wasting time, send a man of his own with full power to Felt Marshal Sheremetev, to whom he also sent a full power from the Tsar's Majesty for interpretation, without writing to the Tsar's Majesty, so as not to lose time in those clerical errors.
It was not given to him in the letter so as not to fall into enemy hands. And in order for the khan to believe that he was with the royal majesty, he was given a herd under the state seal.
There is nothing the Khan can do better to show loyalty (hereinafter crossed out: and friendship) and pleasantness to the Tsar's Majesty than by taking away the Swedish carol, which will also be of benefit to him, for when the king is in his hands, we will be free from the Swedish side and We will help the Khan with all our might. And in addition to this, we promise the khan (Next crossed out: you. Perhaps it was supposed to be written: thousand) two thousand meshkof (A bag (kes) is a unit of monetary measurement equal to 500 levkas. 1 levok was then 45 kopecks).
If the king cannot be brought, then at least they would burn the shops that are found from the Danube to Bendery and in other places.
Under the text: These points were removed from the case of the Voloshan resident Alexander Davydenka, who was sent from Moscow under arrest to Vologda to be kept there in a monastery in which he was decent, in 1714.
RGADA, Original royal letters Op. 2. T. 9. L. 112-113. Handwritten copy. Right there. L. 114-115
The text is reproduced from the publication: Negotiations on the transition of the Crimean Khanate to Russian citizenship under Peter the Great // Slavs and their neighbors, Vol. 10. M. Science. 2001
**There is evidence that Peter I visited the Crimean land, in Kerch.
*Vyacheslav Zarubin, Deputy Chairman of the Republican Committee of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. 2013
In 1694, Peter suffered a huge loss. In January, before reaching the age of 43, his mother, Tsarina Natalya Kirillovna, died. Until the very end, she had a strong influence on Peter, with difficulty restraining her son from the desire to finally break with the ceremonial and boring life for him that the Moscow tsars lived. This life was already unbearable for Peter I. He took the death of his mother hard. She was the closest and dearest person to him. Nevertheless, even after the death of the queen, he did not take up public administration. The largest event of 1694 was the so-called Kozhukhov maneuvers near Moscow - multi-day exercises of a large number of troops with shooting and storming of fortifications. Moreover, both amusing and rifle regiments took part in the maneuvers.
But soon the war games unexpectedly ended - a real war loomed. Actually, it has been going on for a long time, since the government of Sophia, fulfilling its allied duty to the members of the anti-Turkish Holy League - Poland, Venice and Austria, opposed Turkey and its vassal, the Crimean Khanate. In 1687, and then in 1689, two Crimean campaigns took place, led by Prince V.V. Golitsyn. They turned out to be extremely unsuccessful. And although there were no significant military actions before 1695, Russia was still at war with the Crimea and the Ottoman Empire. The League allies insisted that Russia fight the Tatars and Turks. After all, in exchange for participation in the war, Russia received Kyiv into its possession (more precisely, it bought the city for 100 thousand rubles). Now this great prize had to be worked out on the battlefield. In order not to be like Prince Golitsyn, who barely escaped Perekop, it was decided to attack Azov, a Turkish fortress at the mouth of the Don at its confluence with the Sea of Azov.
Then, in 1695, it seemed to Peter I that the experience of the Kozhukhov maneuvers and assaults on Presburg would be quite enough to take Azov, a small, outdated fortress. But the tsar was cruelly mistaken: neither he nor his generals had enough skill and experience to take possession of Azov. Moreover, the bold attacks of the Turks caused significant damage to the besiegers. The garrison of the fortress courageously repelled the assault of the superior forces of the tsarist army. On October 20, to their shame and disgrace, the Russians had to lift the siege of Azov in order to hastily retreat home - a difficult winter was approaching.
Under the walls of Azov, Peter I for the first time showed those qualities that later made him a great statesman and commander. It turned out that failures did not depress him, but only spurred him on and gave him strength. Peter had the courage to take responsibility for the defeat, was able to soberly assess his own mistakes, think through all the circumstances that led to the offensive breakdown, and draw the necessary conclusions. This was the case after the Azov campaign in 1695. Peter realized that to take the fortress, professional military engineers were needed, whom he urgently hired in Austria. In addition, he realized that without a fleet that could cut off Azov from the sea and prevent the delivery of everything necessary to the fortress, it was impossible to fight. Returning from a campaign in November 1695, Peter I made a historic decision: he ordered the construction of a fleet.
It is noteworthy and symbolic for land-based Russia that the Russian navy began to be built far from the sea shores - such was the situation in Russia, cut off from the seas. From Arkhangelsk near Moscow, to the palace village of Preobrazhenskoye, in the winter of 1695-1696, a Dutch galley was delivered disassembled (it was ordered in Amsterdam back in 1694). After this, teams of carpenters began to copy all its elements and send them to Voronezh, where the galleys were already assembled and launched. Meanwhile, thousands of peasants were herded into Voronezh groves. They began to cut down timber and float it down the rivers to Voronezh, where Dutch, English and other shipwrights began building ships in hastily erected shipyards. Incredible, but true: by April 1696, there were 22 galleys, the galleas "St. Peter" and 4 fireships in service. At the head of the fleet that descended to Azov was the galley “Principium,” commanded by Peter I himself. In May 1696, this entire fleet appeared before the astonished Turks, who were too lazy to even dismantle the Russian siege works at the city walls. They believed that the king, after the bitter lesson of the previous year, would forget the road to their fortress for a long time. On May twenty-seventh of the same year, that is, less than two months later, the Sea of Azov saw the Russian flag for the first time. A fleet of galleys, surrounded by small ships, went out to the open sea. And it is not so important that the Russians did not have the ability to manage a fleet, that the ships were built hastily, from damp wood, with many imperfections. The very fact of the appearance of the fleet was important. On July 19, 1696, Azov, taken under close siege, surrendered.
The Azov victory inspired Peter, and he ordered the restoration of Azov, which had been devastated to the ground, and the settlement of it and the surrounding area with Russian settlers and disgraced archers. Without waiting for the conclusion of peace and having received access to the sea, the tsar ordered the founding (on the basis of the Voronezh squadron of 1696 and the Voronezh Admiralty) of the Azov Navy, which already consisted of large sea ships. On October 20, 1696, the Boyar Duma made a historic decision: “There will be sea vessels.” The cost of the ships was distributed in proportion to the number of taxpayers in the form of an emergency tax, with some wealthy boyars and monasteries - owners of hundreds of households - having to finance the construction of entire ships.
During the Azov campaigns, another important feature of Peter I as a future reformer emerged. He did not limit himself to restoring the destroyed Azov, but decided to found a harbor and the city of Taganrog on Cape Taganrog. According to the idea and the original plan, which quickly began to be implemented, they began to build a city on the shores of the Azov Sea, so different from traditional Russian cities. The Azov experience in building a European city turned out to be important for the future construction of the Neva capital and fortress, St. Petersburg, in 1703, and Taganrog itself became a testing ground for methods and techniques of building a city in a deserted place. Russia has declared its claims to access to the Black Sea.
Near Azov, Peter for the first time felt the full burden of enormous responsibility for Russia, the dynasty, the army, and the people. And this burden now fell on his shoulders. It is no coincidence that the tsar begins the countdown of his service to the Fatherland with the Azov campaigns. It was the idea of serving Russia that became the main core of Peter the Great’s life. The idea that he was not just sitting on the throne, but was carrying out his hard service in the name of Russia and for the sake of its future, filled his whole life with a higher meaning, a special significance. The protracted games and fun of the young king ended - he became an adult.
Military campaigns of the Russian army under the command of V.V. Golitsyn against the Crimean Khanate as part of the Great Turkish War of 1683-1699.
Russia and the anti-Ottoman coalition
In the early 1680s, important changes took place in the system of international relations. A coalition of states emerged that opposed the Ottoman Empire. In 1683, near Vienna, the united troops inflicted a serious defeat on the Turks, but the latter put up strong resistance, not wanting to give up the positions they had conquered. The Polish-Lithuanian state, in which the processes of political decentralization intensified in the second half of the 17th century, became increasingly unable to conduct long-term military campaigns. Under these conditions, the Habsburgs - the main organizers of the coalition - began to seek the entry of the Russian state into it. Russian politicians used the current situation to achieve recognition by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of the results of the Russian-Polish war of 1654-1667. Under pressure from the allies, she agreed to replace the truce agreement with Russia in 1686 with an agreement on “Eternal Peace” and a military alliance against the Ottoman Empire and Crimea. The issue of Kyiv, acquired by Russia for 146 thousand gold rubles, was also resolved. As a result, in 1686 the Russian state joined the Holy League.
When deciding on war, the Russians developed a program to strengthen Russia's position on the Black Sea coast. The conditions prepared in 1689 for future peace negotiations provided for the inclusion of Crimea, Azov, Turkish forts at the mouth of the Dnieper, and Ochakov into the Russian state. But it took the entire next 18th century to complete this program.
Crimean campaign of 1687
In fulfillment of their obligations to their allies, Russian troops twice, in 1687 and 1689, undertook large campaigns against the Crimea. The army was led by Princess Sophia’s closest ally V.V. Golitsyn. Very large military forces were mobilized for the campaigns - over 100 thousand people. 50 thousand Little Russian Cossacks of Hetman I.S. were also supposed to join the army. Samoilovich.
By early March 1687, troops were supposed to gather on the southern borders. On May 26, Golitsyn conducted a general review of the army, and at the beginning of June he met with Samoilovich’s detachment, after which the advance to the south continued. The Crimean Khan Selim Giray, realizing that he was inferior in numbers and weapons to the Russian army, ordered to burn out the steppe and poison or fill up the water sources. In conditions of lack of water, food, and fodder, Golitsyn was forced to decide to return to his borders. The retreat began at the end of June and ended in August. Throughout his time, the Tatars did not stop attacking Russian troops.
As a result, the Russian army did not reach Crimea, however, as a result of this campaign, the khan was unable to provide military assistance to Turkey, which was engaged in a war with Austria and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Crimean campaign of 1689
In 1689, the army under the command of Golitsyn made a second campaign against the Crimea. On May 20, the army reached Perekop, but the military leader did not dare to enter the Crimea, as he feared a lack of fresh water. Moscow clearly underestimated all the obstacles that a huge army would face in the dry, waterless steppe, and the difficulties associated with the assault on Perekop, the only narrow isthmus through which it was possible to get to the Crimea. This is the second time the army has been forced to return.
Results
The Crimean campaigns showed that Russia did not yet have sufficient forces to defeat a strong enemy. At the same time, the Crimean campaigns were the first purposeful action of Russia against the Crimean Khanate, which indicated a change in the balance of forces in this region. The campaigns also temporarily distracted the forces of the Tatars and Turks and contributed to the successes of the Allies in Europe. Russia's entry into the Holy League confused the plans of the Turkish command and forced it to abandon the attack on Poland and Hungary.
In the 17th century, the Crimean peninsula turned out to be one of the fragments of the old Mongol empire - the Golden Horde. Local khans staged bloody invasions of Moscow several times during the time of Ivan the Terrible. However, every year it became more and more difficult for them to resist Russia alone.
Therefore it became a vassal of Turkey. The Ottoman Empire at this time reached the peak of its development. It extended over the territory of three continents at once. War with this state was inevitable. The first rulers of the Romanov dynasty looked closely at Crimea.
Prerequisites for the hikes
In the middle of the 17th century, a struggle broke out between Russia and Poland for Left Bank Ukraine. The dispute over this important region escalated into a long war. Eventually a peace treaty was signed in 1686. According to it, Russia received vast territories together with Kiev. At the same time, the Romanovs agreed to join the so-called Holy League of European Powers against the Ottoman Empire.
It was created through the efforts of Pope Innocent XI. Most of it was made up of Catholic states. The Republic of Venice and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth joined the league. It was this alliance that Russia joined. Christian countries agreed to act together against the Muslim threat.
Russia in the Holy League
Thus, in 1683, the Great War began. The main fighting took place in Hungary and Austria without the participation of Russia. The Romanovs, for their part, began to develop a plan to attack the Crimean Khan, a vassal of the Sultan. The initiator of the campaign was Queen Sophia, who at that time was the de facto ruler of a huge country. The young princes Peter and Ivan were only formal figures who did not decide anything.
The Crimean campaigns began in 1687, when a hundred thousandth army under the command of Prince Vasily Golitsyn went south. He was the head and therefore was responsible for the foreign policy of the kingdom. Under his banners came not only Moscow regular regiments, but also free Cossacks from Zaporozhye and the Don. They were led by Ataman Ivan Samoilovich, with whom Russian troops united in June 1687 on the banks of the Samara River.
Great importance was attached to the campaign. Sophia wanted to consolidate her own sole power in the state with the help of military successes. The Crimean campaigns were to become one of the great achievements of her reign.
First trip
Russian troops first encountered the Tatars after crossing the Konka River (a tributary of the Dnieper). However, the opponents prepared for an attack from the north. The Tatars burned out the entire steppe in this region, which is why the horses of the Russian army simply had nothing to eat. Terrible conditions meant that in the first two days only 12 miles were left behind. So, the Crimean campaigns began with failure. The heat and dust led to Golitsyn convening a council, at which it was decided to return to his homeland.
To somehow explain his failure, the prince began to look for those responsible. At that moment, an anonymous denunciation against Samoilovich was delivered to him. The ataman was accused of being the one who set fire to the steppe and his Cossacks. Sophia became aware of the denunciation. Samoilovich found himself in disgrace and lost his mace, a symbol of his own power. A Cossack Council was convened, where they elected ataman. This figure was also supported by Vasily Golitsyn, under whose leadership the Crimean campaigns took place.
At the same time, military operations began on the right flank of the struggle between Turkey and Russia. The army under the leadership of General Grigory Kosagov successfully captured Ochakov, an important fortress on the Black Sea coast. The Turks began to worry. The reasons for the Crimean campaigns forced the queen to give an order to organize a new campaign.
Second trip
The second campaign began in February 1689. The date was not chosen by chance. Prince Golitsyn wanted to reach the peninsula by spring to avoid the summer heat and the Russian army included about 110 thousand people. Despite the plans, it moved rather slowly. The Tatar attacks were sporadic - there was no general battle.
On May 20, the Russians approached the strategically important fortress of Perekop, which stood on a narrow isthmus leading to the Crimea. A shaft was dug around it. Golitsyn did not dare to risk people and take Perekop by storm. But he explained his action by the fact that there were practically no drinking wells with fresh water in the fortress. After a bloody battle, the army could be left without a livelihood. Envoys were sent to the Crimean Khan. Negotiations dragged on. Meanwhile, the loss of horses began in the Russian army. It became clear that the Crimean campaigns of 1687-1689. will lead to nothing. Golitsyn decided to turn the army back a second time.
Thus ended the Crimean campaigns. Years of effort have not given Russia any tangible dividends. Her actions distracted Turkey, making it easier for the European allies to fight her on the Western Front.
Overthrow of Sophia
At this time in Moscow, Sophia found herself in a difficult situation. Her failures turned many boyars against her. She tried to pretend that everything was fine: she congratulated Golitsyn on his success. However, already in the summer there was a coup d'état. Supporters of young Peter overthrew the queen.
Sophia was tonsured a nun. Golitsyn ended up in exile thanks to the intercession of his cousin. Many supporters of the old government were executed. Crimean campaigns of 1687 and 1689 led to Sophia being isolated.
Further Russian policy in the south
Later he also tried to fight with Turkey. His Azov campaigns led to tactical success. Russia has its first naval fleet. True, it was limited to the internal waters of the Sea of Azov.
This forced Peter to pay attention to the Baltic, where Sweden ruled. Thus began the Great Northern War, which led to the construction of St. Petersburg and the transformation of Russia into an empire. At the same time, the Turks recaptured Azov. Russia returned to the southern shores only in the second half of the 18th century.
