Chapel-memorial in the Sergievskaya Stanitsa: Kuban Cossacks and the commemoration of Russian Emperor Alexander II

The article examines the perceptions of the Kuban Cossacks regarding Russian Emperor Alexander II through the lens of the establishment of a chapel-memorial in the Sergievskaya stanitsa in 1882. The study used comparative-historical and historical-genetic methods, as well as a systems approach. The novelty of the work is determined by both the study of an insufficiently covered topic and the source base, represented by the office materials of the state archives of the Stavropol and Krasnodar regions. Based on the documents introduced into the scientific circulation for the first time, the process of creating a chapel on the territory of the church in the name of the Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Sergievskaya stanitsa was restored. It is shown that the initiative to perpetuate the memory of the emperor came “from below”, since a positive image of Alexander II as a defender of the Fatherland and Orthodoxy was formed in the consciousness of the Cossacks.