ORENBURG COSSACKS AS RESIDENTS OF A COUNTY TOWN (BASED ON THE MATERIALS OF THE TOWN PHILISTINE BOOK OF CHELYABINSK, 1861)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the social characteristics of the class group of Orenburg Cossacks who lived in the middle of the 19th century in Chelyabinsk, a county town of the Orenburg province. Using the City Philistine Book for 1861 and a number of other sources, data on the Cossack population of Chelyabinsk (about 5% of the urban population), the social status of homeowners (10% of the total number of homeowners), their marital status, real estate and business activities, etc. were identified, systematized and analyzed. Based on the studied facts, using the concept of “social development” of the Polish sociologist Piotr Sztompka, the article contains a thesis about the specifics and significant social changes in the life of the Cossack citizens of the county town. In the city, unlike the countryside, the Cossacks lived in small families. A significant percentage of Cossack women acted as homeowners and economic actors. Many male Cossacks, in their free time from service or in retirement, in addition to agricultural activities, were actively engaged in trade, crafts, maintenance of inns and drinking houses. At the same time, the Cossack townspeople were, as it were, simultaneously in two social communities with their own networks of interactions. On the one hand, they were representatives of the Cossack military class with its traditional attitudes and rules. On the other hand, they lived in the space of the town, where other rules and more active economic and social life existed. Often, conflicts arose between the Cossacks and the city authorities over economic activities and the payment of various taxes.