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The Danubian Sich (Template:Lang-uk) was a fortified settlement (sich) of Zaporozhian Cossacks who settled in the territory of the Ottoman Empire (the Danube Delta, hence the name) after their previous host was disbanded and the Zaporizhian Sich was destroyed.
History
By the late 18th century the combat ability of Zaporozhia was greatly reduced, especially after the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca and the Russian annexation of Crimea, when the need was lost for the Host to guard the now extinct borders. At the same time the Zaporozhian's other enemy, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, was also weakened and on the verge of being partitioned. This meant that militarily the Zaporozhian Sich was becoming increasingly superfluous, but at the same time their existence caused friction with Imperial Russian authorities who wanted to colonise the New Russia lands that the Cossacks inhabited. After a number of attacks on Serbian colonies and with the support offered to Yemelyan Pugachev, the Russian Empress Catherine the Great issued an order to General Pyotr Tekeli to end the troublesome Sich.
Tekeli's operation, carried out in June 1775, was bloodless. The Zaporozhian Sich was surrounded with infantry and artillary. However while the Kosh Otaman Petro Kalnyshevsky was deciding on how to approach the Empress's ultimatum. Under the guidance of a starshyna Lyakh, behind Kalnyshevky's back a conspiracy was formed with a group of 50 Cossacks to go fishing in the river Ingul next to the Southern Buh in Ottoman provinces. The pretext was enough to allow the Russians to let the Cossacks out of the siege, but in total the 50 Cossacks grew to five thousand (approximately 30% of the Zaporozhian Cossacks), and instead of fishing they fled to the Ottoman controlled Danube area for good, where the Turkish Sultan allowed them to build a new Sich.
In order to counteract the cossacks living in the Danube on Ottoman-controlled territory, in 1784 the Russian government settled the remaining Zaporozhians between the Southern Buh and Dniester rivers. These were allowed to retain their Cossack status and formed the Buh Host and, later, the Black Sea Host. After a portion of the runaway Cossacks returned to Russia they were used by the Russian army to form new military bodies.
In 1828 the Danubian Sich ceased to exist when it was pardoned by Emperor Nicholas I and resettled with the Azov Cossacks, who in 1832 left the Azov shores for the North Caucasus to form the Caucasus Line Cossack Host. The 30,000 descendants of those cossacks who refused to return to Russia in 1828 still live in the Danube delta region of Romania, where they pursue the traditional Cossack lifestyle of hunting and fishing and are known as Rusnaks.
References
- Taras Chukhlib Alexander Suvorov in Ukrainian history, Pravda.org.ua Retrieved on 21st of April
- "Dobrudja". Encyclopedia of Ukraine.
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