Military clashes between the Siberian servitors and Kuchum Khan's descendants in 1661 and their consequences

The article is devoted to the little-known events about relations between the Russian state and Kuchum Khan's descendants in 1661. The main sources for the research are the documents from the Sibirskiy Prikaz Fund of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA). Documents published in Istoriya Sibiri [History of Siberia] by G.F. Miller, in the collection Russko-mongol'skiye otnosheniya [Russian-Mongolian relations] and in several other publications are also used. In 1661, Kuchum Khan's descendants temporarily lost the support from their patrons, the Oirat princes, because they had begun to fight among themselves. Also the Siberian Princes quarreled among themselves because of the ulus people, which led to clashes between Devlet-Giray and his younger brothers. These circumstances gave the Russians a chance to inflict a series of attacks on the forces of Kuchum Khan's descendants. In the summer of 1661, Russian service people from Ufa and the Bashkirs attacked the camp of the younger princes, defeated them, and took Prince Kansuer as a prisoner. However, the other princes managed to escape from the Russians. The main attention in the article is paid to the defeat of Prince Devlet-Giray by the Tobolsk detachment of B. Markov. The ulus of Devlet-Giray was situated at the confluence of the small Zhelezenka River with the Irtysh River. This place is near the modern village of Zhelezinka, Pavlodar region of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The defeat is likely to have occurred on 28-29 July, 1661. The Russians had a numerical advantage over the forces of Devlet-Giray. The study established that the Russian victory in the first place was due to the suddenness of the attack. Devlet-Giray did not have time to organize resistance and was forced to flee. His fate is unknown, it is likely that he died shortly afterwards. The factors, which made the appearance of the Russian squad before the Siberian Prince sudden, were as follows. First, the Tatars from Tara entered the ulus of Devlet-Giray, they concealed the fact of the Russian squad approaching and were able to lull the Prince and his men. Second, among the ulus people of the Prince were those who wanted to leave him and return to the Russian citizenship. They also expressed readiness to fight with Prince Devlet-Giray and began to cooperate with the spies of Tara. Third, Tara governor M.N. Shakhovskoy took initiative, planned and ran the whole operation, found the perpetrators and gave them clear instructions. As a result, the detachment of B. Markov released more than 300 yasak people and captured 1000 to 2600 horses and other livestock, and many other spoils of war. However, these successes of the Russians did not lead them to the final victory over Kuchum Khan's descendants. Prince Kuchuk became the new head of the clan after Devlet-Giray. He subsequently took an active part in the Bashkir rebellion of 1662-1664 and thus caused a lot of problems for the Russian authorities in Siberia. Thus, Kuchum Khan's descendants continued their struggle for the restoration of the Siberian Khanate.

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