THE ROLE OF THE SERVING TATARS OF MESCHERA IN THE REPULSION OF NOGAI RAIDS AND THE POPULATION OF THE SOUTHERN CIS-VOLGA REGION’S “HILL BANK LAND”
Research objectives : To study the migration of the serving Tatars of Meschera and their economic development of the “wild field” in the southern Cis-Volga region’s “Hill Bank Land” in the context of the military confrontation with the Nogais at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries. Research materials: Bibliographic and archival materials about the military border service of the Meshchera Tatars and their colonization of the territory of the former Nogai nomads in the Volga region. Results and novelty of the research : The authors studied the military confrontation between the serving Tatars of the Arzamas and Alatyr districts and the Nogai detachments at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries. This process became the reason for the resettlement of large groups of Tatars on the territory of the Volga region. The serving Tatars of Meschera began to populate lands on a massive scale in the southern Cis-Volga region after their military clashes with the Nogais in 1571, 1577, 1581, 1593-1594, 1612, 1614, 1620, and after the construction of the city of Simbirsk and the Karsun-Simbirsk defensive line. Today, these territories include the Drozhzhanovsky, Buinsky, Tetyushsky districts, and part of the Kaibitsky district in the Republic of Tatarstan. An important historical event in this process was the defeat of the Nogais in 1612 by the serving Alatyr Tatars and Mordovians under the leadership of Bayush Rozgildeev and Yamash Mangushev. It was during this period that the serving Tatars began to receive estates in the “Dikoe pole” (”Wild field”). The settlement of the region called “Gornaya storona” (“Hill Bank Land”) by serving Tatars continued during the seventeenth and first half of eighteenth century. At this time, there was a shift in the social status of the serving Tatars that was associated with their transfer to the department of the Kazan Admiralty. This was called the Lashman Service. Due to the economic activity of the Tatar landowners, the southern Cis-Volga region became a developed agricultural region in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with a wide cooperative peasant trade and the establishment of various crafts. In conclusion, the military border campaign against the Nogais and other nomads in which the Meschera Tatars participated was a powerful stimulus for the formation of one of the key ethnocultural centers of the Tatar people.