Two Sieges of the Cossack Village of Sarkand in August 1918 on the Pages and Maps of the Diary of N. D. Koltz

Abstract

The paper presents the so-called diary of a White officer — lieutenant colonel of the Siberian Cossack Nikolai Dionisievich Koltz. As our research has shown, it is more correct to call it the journal of military operations of the White partisan Cossack detachment. This historical source makes it possible to reconstruct a little-known episode of Russian Civil War in the region of Semirechye in Central Asia — two sieges of the Cossack village of Sarkand by the Reds in August 1918. During these sieges, the Cossacks of the Lepsinsky and Kopalsky counties of the Semirechensk region, who rebelled against the Soviet government, successfully repulsed several assaults of the village by the Red Guard detachments sent to pacify the uprising from the city of Verny (now Alma-Ata). A distinctive feature of this document is the accompaniment of the text by three croquis showing the course of military action during both sieges of the village.