The Cossacks of the Ilimsk region in the XVIII century

The author examines the social characteristics of the Siberian Cossacks in the XVIII century. The author uses a wide range of sources on the history of the Irkutsk province Ilimsk district (voevodship) and shows the number of service people, their military and administrative duties, livelihoods, ways of acquisition and replenishment of personnel, marital status and material security. The author states that Ilim Cossacks in the beginning of the XVIII century were an sustainable ethno-cultural group, and the government, pursuing a policy of imperial social unification, tried to dissolve the representatives of the Cossacks in the mass of tax-paying population. The author comes to the conclusion that despite of the deprivation of all kinds of statuses, siberian Cossacks in fact continued to have a privileged position in the ethno-social structure of Siberia due to the fact that they performed a wide range of administrative, political, military and even diplomatic tasks.