Cossacks in the Movement of Zemstvo Militias in Russia (1611–1612)

Introduction. The issue of the Cossacks’ participation in the events of the Time of Troubles in the last decades is one of the most relevant in connection with the modern social movement for “the recovery of the Cossacks”. Methods and materials. Studies of the late 20th – early 21st centuries show that one of the main forces of the rebel movement at the first stages of the Time of Troubles were the Cossacks who were in military public service of the cities of the southern Ukraine of Russia. Researchers have quite deeply developed the issue of the Cossacks’ participation in the movements of impostors of 1604–1610, begun studying the history of free Cossack troops in 1613–1618. However, the Cossacks’ participation in the zemstvo liberation movement is investigated insufficiently now. Analysis. The Zemstvo, an elective district and provincial administrative assembly in the prerevolutionary Russia, failed to call together a proper Assembly of the Land (Zemsky Sobor) of the correct composition. They were unable to do so due to the lack of members of the Sacred Council in the Boyar Duma detachments since the establishment of the Zemstvo militia. The lower curia of the Assembly of the Land was convened near Moscow. It comprised the members elected by the nobility and the tenements and formed the Sovet vsej Zemli. The Council appointed a three-man government which included boyar prince D.T. Trubetskoy, boyar hetman I.M. Zarutsky and Duma nobleman P.P. Lyapunov. On June 30, 1611 Sovet vsej Zemli adopted the Verdict which was a kind of Zemstvo Constitution. Under the circumstances, in the camps, there was a transformation of Cossack serving regiments from government and rebel troops into the free Russian Cossack Host on the pattern of the Don, Zaporozhye and Terek Cossack Hosts. The Cossack Circle similarly to Sovet vsej Zemli became a parallel supreme body of the state government. During one Circle gathering, P.P. Lyapunov was killed. After this, the significance of Sovet vsej Zemli in the camps near Moscow fell considerably. However, it was revived again in Yaroslavl in the regiments of D.M. Pozharsky and K. Minin. Over 1611–1612, it was the free Cossack Host that carried out the main siege of the capital and played a crucial role in saving the country. The free Cossack Host did not have constant members and in 1612 was divided into the Cossack camps headed by D.T. Trubetskoy, I.M. Zarutsky and D.M. Pozharsky. This factor subsequently led to the formation of two voluntary Cossack Hosts: Vyaznikovsky and Zaugorsky. However, the free Cossack Host and the Cossack Circle played an important role in electing the new Tsar

Cannon Gunnery of Designer I.A. Makhanov: Development, Implementation, Combat Use in the 1930s – 1950s

Introduction. The article provides an analysis of the scientific and technical activities of I.A. Makhanov – one of the leading domestic designers, head of the experimental design bureau of the Kirov (former Putilovskiy) plant, who developed several new types of artillery weapons in the 1930s. I.A. Makhanov was repressed in 1939, and therefore his contribution to strengthening the defense of the USSR on the eve and at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War was forgotten. Methods and materials. Unpublished memoirs of I.A. Makhanov written in the 1950s – 1970s, which are currently being prepared for publication, were used as one of the main sources. Analysis. In the course of the study, it was found that under the guidance of I.A. Makhanov, in addition to experimental guns, which due to design flaws were never put into serial production (L-1, L-2), the universal gun L-3, the tank guns L-10 and L-11, and the casemate gun L-17 were developed, which in their characteristics were not inferior to other Soviet and foreign models. The fact that they were not accepted into service (L-3) or were quickly removed from service and replaced with the tools of other design bureaus (L-11 and L-17) can only be explained by the struggle of groups for the influence and power within the Soviet and party nomenclature in the 1930s. Results. Using I.A. Makhanov’s achievements in the development of artillery guns, as well as the continued work of the artillery design bureau of the Kirov plant, would have had a positive effect on the course of the Great Patriotic War and on the development of the Soviet scientific and technical sphere in the war and post-war time

Documents of the Russian Archive of Jan Piotr Sapieha: Findings of 2013–2018

Introduction. The authors analyze previously unknown forty documents from the Archive of Jan Sapieha of 1608–1611 discovered over the last five years. The authors apply the following Methods: Russian and Polish Archeography, Historical Source Studies, Paleography and Linguistic Source of Studies. The new materials significantly fill in the earlier revealed “gaps” in archival fund previously reconstructed on the basis of preserved and published data on the events of the Time of Troubles. The necessity of looking for new data is determined by the demand for further exploration of one of the most important periods in the history of Russia. Introduction of revealed new documents to the scientific discourse enables us to examine previously known events from new perspectives reflecting confrontation of different political forces, to correlate the newly-appeared facts, to clear up the process of converting Russian population to Cossacks by means of robbing the populace (zemshchina) on the territories under “Tushino Regime”, to detail the circumstances of the beginning of the first militia, systematize the information about the state of peasants and orders reigning in Cossack Regiments of Tushino forces as well as in governing bodies of local administration (office environment), to reveal the sources of popular unrests in occupied Moscow, to show social and class, family and household problems of Russian people on the lands occupied by outlanders. The research performed resulted in many-faceted characteristics of the documents that significantly extend the informative value of the reconstructed archive giving new opportunities for scientific research of events of the Time of Troubles. I.O. Tyumentsev read, systematized the documents, gave description of documents from the perspective of Archeography and Source Studies. N.A. Tupikova read and interpreted the content of the texts as well as translated from Polish and commented the documents. N.E. Tyumentseva read the documents translated from Latin and commented fragments written in Latin

Two Documents from the Russian Archive of Jan Sapieha of 1608–1611 of Poshekhonsky and Uglichsky Counties

Introduction. The authors analyze previously unknown documents of the Russian archive of Jan Sapieha dating back to 1608–1611. Methods and materials. In the course of the study such methods as archaeography, paleography, historical and linguistic source studies were applied. The published materials complement significantly the fund of documents of the period and fill the existing “gaps” in available accumulated information in the preserved and previously published materials of the reconstructed archive fund, clarifying the chronology of events in Poshekhonsky and Uglichsky counties in the period from autumn 1608 till spring 1609 and expanding the scientific understanding of clerical practice in the Time of Troubles. Analysis. Two published newly found petitions of the mayors son of the boyar poshekhonets to False Dmitry II and Podorozhny, the only one of its kind that has come down to us, show that the possibilities of studying the archive of Jan Sapieha are far from exhausted. Results. As a result of the multifaceted analysis of the newly found materials, the informative value of the reconstructed archive was expanded, firstly, in terms of researching events that took place in lands that were located at a considerable distance from Sapezhin camps near Trinity and did not always fall into the field of view of the secretaries of the mercenary army leader; secondly, in the aspect of studying the genealogy of princes; thirdly, for the study of clerical documentation, including historical facts of changes in the order of promotion in the civil service of representatives of shabby families of service people during the Time of Troubles and the stages of development of business writing in terms of linguistic and documentary parameters of sources

“Folk History” of the Battle of Stalingrad (Based on the Materials of the Research Project “Stalingraders in the Battle of Stalingrad”)

In 2012–2013, a project of high social significance, novelty, and a scientific challenge was implemented in Volgograd. The goal of the project was to prepare the manuscript of a biographic encyclopedia “Stalingraders in The Battle of Stalingrad”. The database of sources that have never been published consists of materials of 80 museums and archives of Volgograd and 30 municipal subjects of the Volgograd region. The novelty of the project consists in the fact that it constitutes the first case of biographic and prosopographic research on the local aspect of the battle. The manuscript includes more than 5 000 biographic articles. The project bears high social significance since it generalizes the data on people for whom the Battle of Stalingrad was the battle for their “little Motherland”. Introducing the biographies of Stalingraders into the research has a memorial goal. The research problems under the project are also important. The new research paradigm, defined as “human dimension of war” leads to collecting a huge amount of empirical data. The idea of the project, as well as the difficulties in its completion, are very characteristic for the current stage of Russian research of the Great Patriotic War. Data collection, large-scale search projects on war cites, interest to all new resources go beyond the professional society of historians. However, generalizing this material, and verifying sources remains within the competence of experts. The historians must evaluate the conceptual idea of quantitative methods in studying war history of Russia. In the project, the quantitative methods lead to supported conclusions about close interaction of the front and the rear at the level of everyday life; they remove the stereotypes of exclusively sacrificial role of civilians in the Battle of Stalingrad. The project overcomes the one-sided look at the war generation as to the “chosen” one, having a special part in history; this allows the return to the historic justice in the space of memory. Description of the project work, analysis of problems and prospects of using prosopographic methods in the study of the Battle of Stalingrad are performed by E.V. Ogarkova. Collection of biographical articles, work with sources, selection of fragments of biographies of Stalingradians for publication in the article are performed by A.A. Ogarkov. General editing of the article is carried out by I.O. Tyumentsev

Unknown Fragment of King Sigismundus III’s Diary about Campaign to Russia, 1609–1611

Events of the Time of Troubles of the early 17th century played a great role in the history of Russia. In the year of 1609, the Polish royal army under high command of hetman Stanislav Zholkevsky and the King Sigismundus III himself invaded Russia and resiged Smolensk. At this time, a massive offensive to Western, South-Western and North-Western regions of Russia was launched by some detachments under Aleksander Korvinus Gosievsky, some of Polish colonels who were at the head of their regiments and the Cossacks of Zaporozhye. The role of this invasion was very important. The Polish authorities viewed the Russians as a potentially oppositional force, though actual economic collapse and repressions from the state authorities of Vasily Shuiski and the false Dimitry II considerably undermined their enthusiasm and brought social apathy among the Russians. Nevertheless, a garrison of Smolensk refused to surrender and decided to fight against the enemy. History of this siege was described by the King’s secretaries in King Sigismundus III’s Diary about Campaign to Russia. It belongs to the main sources about Russia’s Time of Troubles and about these events, as well as other documents of foreign observers. Using the procedures developed by R.G. Skrynnikov and I.O. Tyumentsev, the authors found and analysed unknown fragment of the “King Sigismundus‘ journal”, which are edited in this publication for the first time. Comparison of this document with the another data of King Sigismundus III’s Diary about Campaign to Russia and other Polish-Luthuanian sources from the beginning of the 17th century enables them to carry out a complex examination of the materials and to cross-verify their data. Experience shows that this technique works effectively