Materials on the Historical and Statistical Description of the Orenburg Cossack Army as a Collection of Historical Sources for the Study of Acculturation Processes on the Southeastern Frontier of the Russian Empire

Abstract

The article analyzes the historical sources collected in the Materials on the historical and statistical description of the Orenburg Cossack army. The four groups of source material identified by the author are extracts from the files of the military archive; legislative and regulatory legal acts; stories, travel notes and memoirs of Cossack officers; oral historical evidence — contains unique evidence of the imperial policy of acculturation in relation to the Orenburg Cossack army, occupying the frontier territory of the south-east of the Russian Empire and created by the government to protect this state border. The author comes to the conclusion that the historical sources presented in the Materials on the historical and statistical description of the Orenburg Cossack army reflect the confessional and ethnic processes in the army, the education of the Cossack spirit in military field conditions and in conditions of extreme captivity, allow us to understand the problem of formation among the Orenburg Cossacks and preservation of the Cossack identity.