МЕЖДУ ЧУМОЙ И ХОЛЕРОЙ: ИРРЕГУЛЯРНЫЕ ВОЙСКА ОРЕНБУРГСКОГО КРАЯ В БОРЬБЕ С ЭПИДЕМИЯМИ ПЕРВОЙ ТРЕТИ XIX в.

Abstract

The first third of the 19th century gives an example of the massive involvement of the irregular troops of the Orenburg region (the Ural and Orenburg Cossacks, Bashkir-Meshcheryak, Stavropol Kalmyk, Teptyar horse regiments) in the quarantine service. During the first 1829–1832 cholera epidemic the region’s military leadership adopted the correct strategy, creating an advisory body with doctors, introducing the Quarantine Regulations, sending mobile irregular troops to carry out quarantine services on the border and inside the province. The local population showed a high degree of understanding of the situation related to quarantine measures. It independently organized quarantine posts, showed confidence in the doctors, maintained pickets and lines of irregular troops at its own expense, which ultimately made it possible to defeat cholera in the province. The region’s population also initiated local quarantines related to epizootics. At the same time, mixed regiments of the Orenburg Cossacks and Bashkirs sent to the border with Turkey and participated in the Russian-Turkish war of 1828–1829 faced an epidemic of plague. In addition to participating in hostilities, they maintained quarantine lines and posts. In terms of mass involvement in sanitary and epidemiological measures, the irregular troops of the Orenburg region were second after the Don Cossacks. The first experience of involvement of irregular troops in the fight against epidemics on this scale has been generally successful. The successful implementation of quarantine measures by the Cossacks and Bashkirs of the Orenburg province was based on the experience of the border service, the previous massive participation in the Russian-Turkish and Napoleonic wars, integration into the empire’s administrative institutions.