The Cossacks’ military and economic daily life on the Caucasus frontier as described by G. K. Kalmberg, a Russian general staff officer (1834)

The article apparently for the first time in the Russian historiographical tradition attempts to analyse the rare primary source: a military statistical description of the Left flank of the Caucasus Defence Line. It was made by the officer of the Russian General Staff G.K. Kalmberg in 1834. Being virtually unknown for historians, his manuscript is kept in the State Archive of Stavropol Krai. The article specifies the conditions under which the primary source appeared and focuses on analysing its core points. In 1834 Kalmberg inspected the Cossacks’ fortified forts and villages (stanitsas), located on the Tereck’s banks. The information he collected was requested by the Separate Caucasus Military Corps’ commanding staff, in order to strengthen the defence system of the Left flank of the Caucasus Line during the Caucasian War (1817-1864). Finally, the author concludes that the Kalmberg’s manuscript reconstructs the authentic scene of both military and economic daily life of the Cossack inhabitants of the frontier area. It enables to realize the precise picture of extremely hard conditions, under which the Cossacks had to assert their right to live in the new borderland of the Russian Empire.