Islam in the Russian army

The legal status of Muslims in the Russian Imperial Army in the 17th-19th centuries - the example of Bashkirs.

In the 16th century Russia was turning into a multinational state. The Russian army, the most important component of Russian statehood has been multi-ethnic and multi-confessional since then. Thus, Muslim Bashkirs constituted a large proportion of Russia’s troops. The voluntary inclusion of Bashkortostan into Russia in the 16th century stipulated that Bashkirs kept their right to land, local government and religion, Islam, but had to serve in the army.

Bashkir cavalry regiments participated in the Livonian War, the liberation of Moscow from Polish invaders in 1612, in the Azov campaign of Peter the Great, the Great Northern War against Sweden, in the Seven Years’ War in Germany (1756-1763) and other wars waged by Russia. Even after the formation of the Russian navy and Peter the Great’s military reforms, Bashkir cavalry regiments kept their usual irregular structure – with their internal regulations, Bashkir aristocrat officers, tarkhans and elders and their troop imams.

The reason was not only boosting the efficiency of Bashkir cavalry, but also the weakness of Russia’s position in Bashkortostan in the 17th–18th centuries. Bashkirs often took part in Russian military campaigns as a punishment for their participation in the grand uprisings in Bashkortostan in the 17th and early 18th centuries. These revolts were their violent reaction to their gradual oppression by the Russian Empire.

Bashkortostan lived in a state of permanent unrest during the first three quarters of the 17th century. Bashkir Tarkhan (Prince) Aldar Isyangildin, who took part in the Azov campaign of Peter the Great, was the mastermind and leader of the Bashkir uprising in 1705-1709. He ordered the assault and destruction of many Russian fortresses and Russian settlements in the basin of the Belaya and Kama rivers and on the Volga.

He was also known to attach great importance to the opening of new madrasahs in Bashkortostan, inviting teachers from Khiva, Bukhara and Dagestan. In 1756-1763, 12 regiments numbering 15,000 Bashkirs under the command of General Apraksin fought in the Seven Years’ War. Bashkir soldiers displayed bravery in the battles of Gross-Jägersdorf near Königsberg. Bashkir regiments made a significant contribution to the victory of Russian troops led by General Saltykov over the Prussian army at the Battle of Kunersdorf near Frankfurt-on-der-Oder.

In 1760 General Chernyshev temporarily captured Berlin. Bashkir regiments were in the forefront of the Russian army during the assault and capture of the city. Bashkir patrols maintained order in the urban areas and institutions of Berlin, as the Islamic ban on drinking disciplined the Bashkir soldiers.

But not all the Muslims soldiers in the Russian army had legal religious protection like the Bashkirs in the irregular cavalry. According to the ‘Fusilier Regiments Personnel in 1765’, ‘Field Infantry Regiment Personnel in 1732’, ‘Infantry Regiment Personnel in 1765’, etc., each regular regiment had a Christian priest. Among the peasant army recruits there were both Russians and Muslim Tatars. Like all other ethnic minorities, Tatars also served in the Russian regular army.

Despite the scarcity of sources regarding Muslim soldiers in the Russian regular army, we can still obtain some information. Thus, a Ufa historian, Robert N. Rakhimov, found archives which show that in October, 1741, a Tatar soldier of the Koporsky regiment quartered in St. Petersburg, Mika Zanalov, filed a petition to be baptized (the request was satisfied). In addition, Zanalov indicates he was recruited in 1737 and that until 1741he remained a Muslim for five years. (Request by a Tartar soldier / / Archives of Prince Vorontsov. Book 1. M., 1870. P. 91.)

As already mentioned, the Bashkirs did not serve in the regular army. But until the second half of the 17th century Russian authorities recruited Bashkirs into regiments in the Baltic and into the Baltic Fleet as a punishment for participating in the Bashkir riots. French historian Roger Portal in ‘Bashkiria in 17th18th centuries’ writes about the Bashkir uprising in 1735-1740 that “Repressions by Colonel Alexei Tevkelev were extremely cruel.”

Apparently, this Bashkir soldier in the Russian army felt no remorse in carrying out orders. His soldiers burned Bashkir villages, murdered men, women and children, and sent the survivors as serfs to the central regions of Russia or as recruits to the Baltic regiments. In December, 1735, the Senate Secretary Kirillov presented in St. Petersburg his plans for the assimilation of Bashkiria and persuaded the Empress to approve the plan of total extermination of Bashkirs, which he followed up to his death in April 1737.” Incomplete statistics reveal that in 1735-1740 the Bashkirs lost over 40 thousand people in battle or execution.

According to General Saimonov, Head of the Bashkir Committee, in 1737-1740 executioners burned down 880 Bashkir villages, took as serfs thousands of women and children, recruited over 500 Bashkir soldiers, and punished 300 people by flogging and cutting off their noses and ears.

After the suppression of the Bashkir uprising in 1755, “thousands of Bashkirs were sentenced to flogging and hard labor in the Ural plants or manor-houses in Central Russia. Others were sent to the army or the Baltic Fleet. Long columns of the former rebels headed to the west, most of them died of exhaustion or disease. Thus, in order to greatly facilitate the assimilation of Bashkortostan, the authorities resorted to the mass extermination of the Bashkir population” (Portal. Bashkiria in the 17th –18th centuries)

After the introduction of the military canton system in Bashkortostan, a decree of April 10, 1798 established the Bashkir Cossack Host (Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire. V. 25. № 18477).

The decree stated, “Calculate all the Bashkirs able to perform military service, aged 20 to 50 years and organize them into cantons.”

All the administrative staff of cantons and yurts (teams) went into the military. Bashkirs formed an irregular army, divided initially into 11 cantons, then 12, and eventually 28. Every adult Bashkir became a Cossack ready to fight anytime. In the case of participation of Bashkir troops in the Russian campaigns the Host formed 500-men regiments with a military imam (regimental mullah). The Bashkir Cossack regiment command consisted of 30 people: the commander, lieutenant-colonel,

5 majors,

5 senior lieutenants,

5 lieutenants, a quartermaster, a mullah, 1-2 host clerks and 10 Sergeants.

To be continued…

Taken from Spiritual and Educational Magazine ISLAM № 1 (11) / 2005. Author: Ilshat Nasyrov