Spiritual and moral qualities of the Ural Cossacks in family and marriage relations (the 18th – early 20th centuries)

Dubovikov Aleksandr Maratovich ORCID: 0000-0002-9995-8328 Doctor of History Professor, Department of Social Technologies and Humanities, Volga Region State University of Service 4 Gagarina str., office E-310, Tolyatti, Samara region, 445017, Russia alexdubovikov@yandex.ru

Lepeshkina Larisa Yurievna ORCID: 0000-0001-8989-5987 PhD in History Associate professor, Department of Social Technologies and Humanities, Volga Region State University of Service 4 Gagarina str., office E-310, Tolyatti, Samara region, 445017, Russia lara_yura@list.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction

The relevance of the study of the spiritual and moral qualities of the Ural Cossacks, their values and traditions in the XVIII – early XX centuries is due to the processes of global cultural unification. Recently, many States have been alarmed by the rapid growth of globalization and the transformation of national cultures under its influence. The situation of small nations and individual subcultures, whose voice is difficult to recognize in the global melting pot of cultures, becomes especially acute and contradictory in this situation.

Traditional, established, and sometimes outdated cultural values are being replaced by alternative forms of culture. The search for these forms is continuous and quite natural. However, it is also obvious that it can lead to the destruction of traditions, the continuity of generations, and the lack of need for the spiritual improvement of man and society. Therefore, it is no coincidence that in modern Russia, the problem of preserving traditional spiritual, moral and family values is actively discussed at the state level, which is reflected in Decrees of the President of the Russian Federation dated 2021, 2022 and 2023 (See: Decrees of the President of the Russian Federation on the National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation No. 400 dated 07/02/2021; on approval of the Foundations of State Policy for the Preservation and Strengthening of Traditional Russian Spiritual and Moral Values dated 11/19/2022 No. 809; "On Holding the Year of the Family in the Russian Federation" from 11/22/2023 No. 875). Resources for solving such a problem can be found only in the historical past, in those cultural traditions from which knowledge and spiritual powers are drawn.

The Ural Cossack Army, whose history has attracted the attention of scientists since the XVIII century, can be considered a vivid example of reverence for their spiritual, moral and family values, as well as respect for traditional culture.

Nevertheless, despite the interest in the history of the Cossacks, it remains problematic in domestic and foreign historiography to single out fundamental research devoted to the study of the spiritual and moral qualities of the Ural Cossacks, which are so necessary in constructing the value world of the Urals. The main difficulty here is the recognition that the Ural Cossacks have created their own synthetic and at the same time unique culture capable of self-organization during the crisis periods of Russia's historical development. This cultural point of view has not yet been widely adopted in science. The examination of the daily culture of the Ural Cossacks was mainly carried out in an ethnographic manner and was often aimed at finding unusual facts in its history. Issues related to the system of values and moral qualities of Cossacks were studied indirectly, in the context of the analysis of Cossack life and military service.

In general, S. S. Sudakov, N. F. Savichev, I. I. Zheleznov, N. G. Myakushin, B. A. and A. B. Karpov, A. D. Ryabinin, N. A. Borodin, V. N. Vitevsky and others made an undeniable contribution to the study of the daily culture of the Ural Cossacks. It should be emphasized that A. D. Ryabinin's work "The Ural Cossack Army" was the first scientific work where all the information accumulated by 1866 about the Ural Cossacks was systematized. A book by N. A. Borodin with a similar title, published about 30 years later, according to the author himself, was devoted primarily to the economy of the region. In fact, the book became a logical continuation of the works of A. D. Ryabinin. At the same time, N. A. Borodin did not limit his interests to studying socio-economic issues. He was concerned about all the pressing problems concerning the lives of his countrymen. In addition, it was N. A. Borodin who did much to publish the works of the Ural writer and ethnographer I. I. Zheleznov in 1888 and 1910.

Among modern researchers of the history of the Ural Cossack army, it is necessary to single out such specialists as N. M. Shcherbanov, A. A. Chibilev, N. G. Chesnokov, E. I. Korotin, N. V. Gurskaya, S. V. Kolychev, S. V. Kartaguzov and O. G. Merzlikina, who turned in their writings to various aspects of the life of the Cossacks.

At the same time, the proposed article can be considered the result of painstaking and long-term work on collecting, systematizing and analyzing various sources (archival materials, memoirs, publications of the pre-revolutionary period) that help to know the spiritual and moral qualities of the Ural Cossacks, rather than focusing mainly on historical facts in the evolution of Cossack culture. Moreover, the Cossacks' perception of military service depended on the development of such qualities. Therefore, the novelty of our research lies in the fact that for the first time the spiritual and moral qualities of the Ural Cossacks, most clearly manifested in the family and household sphere, are considered as an indicator of the attitude of the Urals to military service.

The research methods used by the authors of the article are based on the principle of historicism, which allowed us to consider the genesis and development of the culture of the Ural Cossack army in close relationship with the history of the Russian state. Methodologically, the article is based on a culturological approach, which gives it a novelty, excluding from the number of works of a purely descriptive nature. Thanks to this approach, the family and marriage traditions of the Ural Cossacks are studied from the point of view of their axiological meaning, as guardians of Cossack cultural values that determined the spiritual and moral world of their bearers.

The choice of the chronological framework of the study – XVIII – early XX centuries – is due to the saturation of events of this historical period. The Ural Cossack army has never been indifferent to state problems and, one way or another, experienced the consequences of those socio-cultural changes that the Russian Empire was experiencing. In such critical situations, the spiritual and moral qualities of people, formed initially by their family environment, are manifested.

The results of the study

Since the period of Antiquity, the concept of spiritual and moral qualities of a person has received a variety of interpretations. Their positive manifestation in society correlated with virtues (Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics), the conformity of the personality to God's providence in the Middle Ages, purely human in Modern times, due (I. Kant), etc. Axiological theories of the XIX-XX centuries created an even more motley picture of ideas about the spiritual and moral qualities of man, formed on the basis of the dominant values of society. In this article, we will not go into their essence, since this is not the purpose of our research. But summarizing the accumulated experience of studying such qualities by various researchers, we will proceed from the definition that the spiritual and moral qualities of a person are traits of his character that determine his behavior in society. Moreover, this generalized definition provides for the possibility of both positive and negative manifestations of these qualities. On the other hand, when scientific publications compare spiritual and moral qualities with virtues, it is customary to speak of them as "stable personality traits that are associated with a highly moral attitude towards people and the world as a whole, reflecting an orientation towards higher values" ^{[12, p. 855]}.

Of course, each national culture or a separate subculture may have its own requirements for the spiritual and moral qualities of a person, samples of her proper behavior, but some of them are based on universal universal values ("do not kill", "do not steal", "do not wish for someone else", etc.). According to K. Jaspers, these values embody the main categories of "axial time", "which we think about to this day", which laid the foundation for world religions and still affect human life ^{[21, p. 33]}. Russian specialist in the field of pedagogy S. I. Maslov refers to them as "kindness, duty, honesty, justice, peace, mercy, loyalty, freedom, gratitude" ^[9]. The understanding of these values among the Ural Cossacks had its own specifics, which was manifested through their moral behavior in the family and household sphere and in the perception of various traditions.

The very concept of "tradition" presupposes the inheritance of experience, knowledge, and values. Folk traditions, being woven into everyday life, turn into stable carriers of the spiritual principle, stronger than religious ideas and dogmas. The essence of traditions is expressed in their universal ability to satisfy human needs for a predictable existence, to form a sense of confidence in the future.

This unique property of traditions to ensure a bright tomorrow was inherent in the Old Believer principles of existence of the Ural Cossacks. From the moment of the formation of the Ural region until the revolution of 1917 and the Civil war, the majority of the Cossack population were Old Believers. If we also include co-religionists (and formally this is so), then we can assume that the Ural army was almost completely Old Believers. Accordingly, Old Believer values and traditions, as before, remained moral guidelines for the bulk of the Cossacks.

In the search for the causes of the survivability of the Old Believers in the Ural army, one can find a certain duality. On the one hand, for many, the old faith was a confirmation of the right to the privileged position of the Ural Cossacks, which separated them from the rest of the population, not only of the region, but also of Russia as a whole. In this form, the old faith, according to the Cossacks, is the basis of their claims to special treatment from the authorities, to a special way of military service, to preserve a special way of life, etc. Consequently, the vitality of the old faith is due to quite pragmatic motives. As the historian V. N. Vitevsky emphasized, "the split is not a matter of fanaticism", but "a bulwark protecting the Cossacks from Moscow, from innovations" ^{[2, p. 386]}.

Some pre-revolutionary authors clearly idealized the Ural community. "This whole land knows neither private property, nor even Russian communal boundaries. All its inhabitants are like one family," the writer V. G. Korolenko pointed out ^{[8, p. 10]}. It seems, but with some degree of criticism, wrote the famous travel scientist G. N. Potanin. "There is no place in the whole Great Russian world where separatism between the region and the rest of the world was deeper," he noted, meaning by separatism not the desire for political independence, but the desire to emphasize its peculiarity. "You will not find such solidarity of the population in any Russian community," he continued. About "all members of the community," he writes that they "have fused with every fiber of their body with the organization in which they were born," and therefore all of them "if they temporarily leave for active service, then, in the end, they still return to their homeland and certainly die on their native land." Having given a lot of flattering words, he still could not do without criticism: "The Uralians are the most faithful servants of the old order," and therefore, "if it were not for these conservative masses of the Ural community, the system would seem to an outsider observer an ideal to which the life of the rest of the Russian communities should be directed" ^[16].

It is obvious that it was the commitment of the Ural Cossacks to Old Believers that played a key role in their desire to preserve and show their identity in all spheres – in everyday life, in military service, in relation to home and small homeland. Therefore, family and marriage relations among the Ural Cossacks are thoroughly imbued with the Old Believer spirit.

Characterizing the Cossack family and marriage traditions, I. I. Zheleznov noted: "When the Cossacks were just emerging, it was too long ago, then they were known to lead a life, mostly single and homeless" ^{[6, p. 198]}. It was quite natural. Until the XVIII century. Cossack families were not monogamous, and marriages were not yet stable, although the power in the family belonged entirely to the husband. The data from the Peter the Great censuses showed that the Cossacks usually remembered several male ancestors, but did not remember the female one. Semi-settled life, fraught with constant risk and regular movements, did not allow the Cossacks to create patriarchal large families, traditional for Russia at that time.

But even after the Cossacks finally settled down, remnants of the previous era were still in circulation. By the beginning of 1903, among 67,178 Ural Cossacks who were Old Believers (not co-religionists), there were 6,803 "who did not accept marriage", that is, about a tenth ^[11].

It is possible to note an interesting fact that before the XIX century. marriages among Cossacks were concluded quite late, as a rule, already at an advanced age. The results of the census conducted on the eve of Pugachev region confirm this. In most cases, the difference between fathers and children was quite impressive; often older fathers had young children. The 65-year-old foreman Vasily Sumkin had an 8-year-old son, Andrei. Mavlekey Itsmagulov, 67, had sons Beremalik and Ashrya, aged 5 and 9. The sons of 67-year-old Vasily Khrushchev, Timofey and Fedor were 10 and 8 years old, respectively. Timofey Kononov, 13, was the son of 63-year-old blacksmith Stepan Kononov. Two sons, Andrei and Semyon, aged 12 and 15, were with the 64-year-old gunner Mikhail Ruzheynikov. His contemporary, Pyotr Chernobrovin, also a gunner, had a son, Maxim, who was slightly older than Ruzheynikov's sons (16 years old). The father of 6-year-old Andrey, Grigory Gutarev, was 65. Although these examples are not the most typical, they were not uncommon. If we take the bulk of the Cossacks, then we can easily calculate that the absolute majority of them had children closer to forty years old or after forty years old. There were, of course, other examples. The sons of brothers Alexei and Ivan Kotelnikov (35 and 32 years old), Ivan and Peter, were 10 and 9 years old. The same age (10 years) was the son of 35-year-old gunner Sidor Chertorogov, Mikhail. The son of 29-year-old foreman Nefed Mostovshchikov, Ivan, was 11 years old, and the other Ivan, the son of 23-year-old clerk Mikhail Mikhailov– was 4 years old. But 20-year-old clerk Mikhailo Nazarov and 28-year-old foreman Fyodor Borodin left everyone behind. The first had two sons (Yefim and Peter, two and three years old), the second had four (Pavel, Fedor, Mikhailo and Ivan). The youngest of Fedor's sons was one year old, the eldest was 12 years old. But these were exceptions ^{[14, l. 6-15]}.

It should be pointed out that the situation with marriage and the birth of children is radically different from that which took place in the next century, when marriages were concluded quite early, usually before the Cossack left for foreign service. The reason for such a significant difference, apparently, should be sought both in the peculiarities of service in different periods, and in the preservation of remnants of early Cossack history, echoes of which in the XVIII century. They were still audible. Childbirth itself was then perceived as the most important stage of procreation, in which the offspring of a Cossack should be given the best spiritual and moral qualities of his parent: valor, patriotism, worldly wisdom, love of freedom and responsibility to the Motherland.

In the 19th century, the situation changed: Cossacks usually got married at the age of 18-20, and often the choice of spouses was determined not by them, but by their parents. At the same time, the patriarchal way of life in the Ural Cossack army was formed under the influence of Old Believer traditions. If a Cossack did not marry at a young age, then the reason lay either in his physical or mental disabilities, or in his tendency to "philandering", which was sharply condemned by fellow countrymen. "Not only in the old days, but also now, according to the concept of the Urals, especially Uralok, that Cossack who did not marry until he was 25, and especially until he was 30, is an inveterate Cossack, a Cossack surrendered from God to the devil, such a Cossack did not have and has no nickname, except as a drunkard, sharamatok, okoloten, old bazlo" – claimed I. I. Zheleznov ^{[6, pp. 198-199]}. The writer's statement clearly outlines the qualities that a young Cossack should possess: physical and mental health, chastity, respect for the opinion of elders, especially parents. The value of these qualities turned out to be important not only for the family and household sphere, but also for military service. The moral purity of the young Cossack testified to his potential to become a disciplined and responsible warrior who would not lose the honor of the regiment and would not go all out.

Thanks to the Old Believers, the ideas of the Ural Cossacks about a strong family were formed. Since the 19th century, the Cossack family has become the main translator of cultural traditions. In particular, wedding ceremonies are very indicative from the point of view of the respectful attitude of the Uralians to their traditions.

Thus, the wedding customs of the Ural Cossacks required mutual gifts from the bride and groom to each other. The gifts were not only a symbol of mutual respect between the representatives of the two clans, but also a guarantee of marriage. Before the wedding, the groom had to give the bride and the bride to the groom wedding clothes: hats, shoes, shirt, pants and dress ^{[4, p. 177]}.

Mostly, many elements of wedding clothes were made by the girls themselves in order to demonstrate to future spouses their skills and seriousness about the wedding. So, a young Cossack Dasha, the heroine of one of I. I. Zheleznov's books, in advance of preparing for the wedding, decorated some elements of festive clothes for herself: "She began to make luxurious underwear out of pearls, which she prepared for herself for a bachelorette party" ^{[6, p. 60]}.

Before the wedding, a day of "binge drinking" was also appointed, when the groom and his relatives came to visit the bride's house ^{[6, p. 178]}. From that very moment, the groom's rights to the betrothed girl received public recognition. Despite its originality, the "binge" symbolized the first stage of legalizing the relationship between a guy and a girl, demanded more chaste behavior from them and did not allow the rejection of the wedding. Violation of the wedding agreement could turn into a disgrace for the families of the bride and groom. Therefore, the period from "binge drinking" to the wedding can be considered a preliminary test of the engaged guy and girl for loyalty to their word and responsibility.

An obligatory element of the pre-wedding ceremony was a "bachelorette party", in which the bridesmaids took part ^{[6, p. 178]}. As you know, in many cultures it symbolized the bride's farewell to girlhood, freedom and carelessness. At the same time, there was a moment of psychological tension associated with the girl's acquisition of the status of a young wife. Another status implied an increasing list of responsibilities, a different social environment that could perceive a new family member differently. In this context, a "bachelorette party" is the epitome of female solidarity over the mourning of a former lifestyle.

In addition to hen parties, "evenings" or "sit-ins" were held on the eve of the wedding ^{[1, p. 38]}. The "party" lasted all night, both the groom and the bride took part in it, while the latter had a wreath on her head. Married Cossacks and "women" – married women - were not allowed to attend the parties. Popular at such parties were well–known games - "rope", "neighbor" and especially "koshar" ^[10].

Most of the youth games were aimed at establishing closer contacts with representatives of the opposite sex ^{[1, p. 38]}. At the same time, such entertainments of young people were characterized by a pronounced supra-individual character, which implied the rallying of the participants of the games, the formation of a sense of collectivism, so necessary when meeting everyday joys and adversities. For example, during the game of "neighbors", everyone was divided into pairs so that one of the players was left without a pair. The one left without a pair was given the right to interview the players. Positive or negative answers to the question "pleasant or unpleasant?" led to a new splitting of the young people playing into pairs. "Pleasant" to each other eventually found themselves covered with large handkerchiefs and could freely kiss each other ^{[1, p. 38]}.

A similar game was "koshar". The essence of it is as follows: boys and girls sat on a bench opposite each other, then each guy covered himself and the girl opposite with a bathrobe. "A visitor who does not take part in the game will stand for an hour and ... will hear only laughter in one kosher, quiet intimate conversation in another, and occasionally a sharp scream will let you know that the hand of a naughty guy got under someone else's kosher. But in a few days ... you will hear about the consequences of this game: Vasily married Natalia, Peter – Anna, Gregory – Mary," – this is how a Ural contemporary described the game of "koshar" ^[10]. N. A. Alexandrov came to the same conclusion, describing the game of "neighbors": "In most cases, the bride and groom come out from under the shawl over time" ^{[1, p. 39]}. Other youth games that required "treats to treat", "bridge to bridge", "nails to forge", "to be a mirror", "flowers to carry" – were also reduced to kisses ^{[1, p. 39]}.

In the described games, the opposite ideas about the relationship between a man and a woman are obvious: what is unacceptable to do in public is allowed to be done "secretly" in the game. The game reconciles everyone, mocks public morality, so it is no coincidence that the game techniques used in folk festivals, carnivals and theater become a favorite means of expressing true feelings and relieving psychological stress created by society.

Despite the Old Believers' dislike of everything related to card games, such prohibitions were violated all the time. The game of "queen" was also popular among young people ^{[1, p. 38]}. The essence of it was that the girl who pulled out the lady of cards became the "queen" and began to rule the ball, playing a decisive role in splitting those present into pairs. In the end, the game of "queen" was reduced to kissing between couples. A "couple" was also required to play "burners" ^{[6, p. 4]}. Information about such games allowed some authors to conclude that the Ural Cossack youth was extremely depraved, and therefore, since adolescence, there were practically no virgins among the Ural Cossacks ^{[7; 20]}. Whether this is a misconception or a slander is not important. Cases of extramarital pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases or walking girls were the rarest exceptions among the Ural Cossacks. Youth games, as a rule, did not go beyond what was allowed. By the way, games requiring a young man to show dexterity and ingenuity, who will then be rewarded with pleasant moments with a representative of the opposite sex, were also common among Kazakhs ^{[6, p. 25]}.

On this basis, it can be concluded that the games of the Ural Cossack youth, although distinguished by their love of freedom, did not violate patriarchal foundations. They were held exclusively among young people and did not allow outsiders. In addition, there was a fairly clear attitude of young people to respect the boundaries of reason, they were seriously aware of the consequences that the birth of illegitimate children or the acquisition of sexually transmitted diseases could turn into a disgrace for them.

At the wedding, when seating guests at the table, the principle of gender and age differentiation was observed, according to which the older generation was given the best seats. It was a sure sign of respect for him. However, in wedding ceremonies, unlike memorial ones, the principle of confessional differentiation was almost not observed when determining places at the table, and therefore the gradual transformation of wedding ceremonies took place faster than funeral or memorial rites.

The wedding celebrations lasted from three days to a week, with the hosts periodically going out for a ride on a cart, and the guests accompanying them on horseback. At this time, a striped skirt was climbing up the pole. Often the festivities "turned into an ugly orgy" ^{[6, p. 25]}, which testified, on the one hand, to the freedom of the Cossacks, and on the other hand, to their desire for collectivism when meeting family joys.

When the groom took the bride home to himself, the bride's brother (or, in his absence, a close relative replacing him) beat the table with a rolling pin and demanded a ransom ^{[6, p. 25]}. When he received the change, he demanded: more, more and more, until a few rubles were accumulated. The real ransom, much larger, ("masonry") it was already paid in advance to the bride's parents ^{[3, p. 146]}.

During the "party" at the groom's house, the latter had to express gratitude to the bride's parents for the good upbringing of their daughter. After that, the bride's mother jumped on the bench, broke the dishes and screamed: "I gave birth to twins!", referring to the bride and groom. After that, the bride, who had not entered the room before, appeared on the threshold, after which the dance began with a deliberately loud stomp ^{[1, p. 40]}. The last wedding dish was chicken salma (noodles). This festive event clearly shows the need of the Cossacks to be part of a large team, to share their feelings and thoughts with them, bold, expressive, but real. However, in any traditional culture, being known as a biryuk meant turning into an outcast, losing hope for the support and help of the community. Therefore, paradoxically, collectivism was the key to survival for the freedom-loving Cossack in his village.

After the bride moved into the groom's house, his friends (or "amiable") brought a festive fruit pie decorated with a scythe made of dough ("beauty", "beauty" or "braid"), which was bathed and eaten by the bridesmaids in order to unravel the braid and get married sooner. Sometimes there were cases of the bride moving to the groom's house before the wedding. So, to the hero of I. I. Zheleznov, Vasily Strunyashev, his fiancee Dasha, who had previously lost her parents and lived with relatives, moved into his new house, where he lived with his aunt and brother Ivan ^{[6, p. 41]}.

In the XVIII and early XIX centuries, cases were common when brides hid their faces under a veil during weddings in co-religionist churches ^{[6, p. 124]}.

The examples given from the wedding ceremony of the Ural Cossacks indicate the restrained, even modest behavior of the bride, unlike the rest of the wedding participants. She was supposed to embody moral purity with her whole appearance, as if contrasting herself with the "depraved" and "vicious" world. The bride took part only in those rituals that were associated with her transition from the status of a maiden to the status of a wife. At the same time, the image of a married Cossack woman was fundamentally different from the image of the bride. Being married, the woman demonstrated economy, freedom, pride and at the same time turned into a keeper of traditions. It was often she who was entrusted with the welfare of the family in the absence of her husband. Since childhood, the Cossack woman was instilled with the understanding that she would become the head of the house, would be responsible not only for the order in the household, but also for the village morality ^{[5, p. 93]}.

As a rule, Cossack families had many children, and the birth rate of Cossacks was higher than that of Kazakhs and nonresidents. For example, in 1913, the birth rate among residents of the military territory was 3.4%, and among residents of the Kazakh steppe only 1.5% ^{[13, p. 5]}. Not only the Uralians, but also the Cossacks of other regions of Russia, often had a higher natural population growth than the peasants ^{[18, p. 110]}. It is obvious that the ability to procreate has become a value in the Cossack environment since the 19th century. If in the XVIII century, as already noted earlier, the Cossack preferred freedom to marriage and got children quite late, then in the next century children were the key to the strength of family ties. And the more children were born in a Cossack family, the more the Cossack realized his responsibility to his household and Homeland.

The Cossacks treated marriage with all seriousness: this can explain the fact that out of 2,142 syphilis patients registered in the Ural region in 1903, there were practically no Cossacks ^{[11, p. 27]}. Another example is indicative: during the First World War, the Cossack of the fifth Ural regiment, Ivan Kolesnikov, was preparing to appear before the tribunal for beating Lieutenant Nozhkin as a result of a conflict over a woman. There were no witnesses, and the prosecution was based solely on the testimony of the lieutenant, however, the investigator defended the Cossack, since, in his opinion, the Ural Cossack Old Believer is not capable of adultery in principle ^[19]. Perhaps the investigator went a little too far – adultery in the Cossack environment sometimes happened, and there is preserved evidence of this. For example: "Serebryakov, the ataman of the Iletsk town, who refused to pray according to the newly corrected books, was dismissed, and since it turned out that he had a mistress, he was put on trial" ^[17]. At the same time, one should not overestimate such phenomena – they did not occur more often among the Urals than among other categories of the population.

Strangely enough, but, according to I. I. Zheleznov, in terms of adultery, women were not inferior to men, but when faced with the danger of exposure, they were much more adept at deceiving spouses. They often referred to the tricks of evil spirits ("buffoons", etc.) ^{[6, p. 20]}. Despite the fact that in everyday life the Cossack sometimes allowed himself disciplinary offenses, they did not happen often in the service. General K. P. Kaufman explained this by "domesticity, which often deters him from anything that could harm" his early return to his family ^{[15, p. 182]}. Consequently, responsible service to the Fatherland and observance of the military regulations were directly dependent on the attitude of the Ural Cossacks to their families and their native home.

Conclusions

As you know, historical memory lives in folk traditions, connecting different generations. They help their bearers overcome the hardships of life and find resources to maintain their cultural identity. In family and marital relations among the Ural Cossacks, such spiritual and moral qualities of a person as responsibility, respect for elders, love of freedom, collectivism, domesticity, and avoidance of discrediting sexual contacts were most appreciated. This system of qualities was shared by both men and women, and also had a close connection with the Cossacks' ideas about military service. The more moral a Cossack was at home, the more faithfully, as it was believed, he served his Fatherland. Of course, this judgment is very subjective, but historical examples of public control over the behavior of Cossacks indicate the intolerance of the military command and the civilian population to immoral acts. In the collective consciousness during the XVIII – early XX centuries, the image of a Cossack warrior was formed - heroic, responsible, honest, believing in God, devoted to military service and family. Moreover, his main advantage was the ability to remain himself, to live "according to the call of his heart", which ensured the originality of the culture of the Ural Cossacks. Any prerequisites for the destruction of this image caused indignation among the Cossacks, because, firstly, it was formed gradually, from generation to generation, and, secondly, it embodied the national dreams of a real hero, ready to desperately defend his Homeland. The need for such a hero becomes especially acute when national threats increase, when searching for a spiritual connection with his people, with his past and future.