Yedisan
Encyclopedia
Yedisan is a historical region in modern southwestern Ukraine
and southeastern Moldova
(southern Transnistria
). The region lies to the north of the Black Sea
between the Dniester
and Dnieper rivers. It is east of Budjak
and Bessarabia
, south of Podolia
and Zaporizhia
, and west of Taurida.
, the region was named for the Yedisan sept
of the Nogai Horde
, the region was sometimes referred to as Nogai Tartary or West Nogai, as the Yedisans were Nogai
Tatars
living in the west of Little Tartary
. "Yedisan" is Turkic for "Seven Titles", doubtless the sept was made up of seven subgroups. Yedisan was also sometimes referred to as Ochakov Tartary after Ochakov
(Ochakiv), the main fortress of the region. Names for the region in different language include: Ukrainian
: Єдисан [Yedysan]; Russian
: Едисан [Yedisan]; ; Crimean Tatar
and Turkish
: Yedisan; ; .
, Pechenegs, and later Cumans
(Polovtsians). Following the Mongol
invasions of the thirteenth century it was under control of the Khanate of the Golden Horde
. In the fifteenth century it fell to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
(when it was known as Dykra
) then later to the Ottoman Empire
’s vassal state
, the Crimean Khanate
. The nomadic Nogais
began to inhabit the region after being forced first from Central Asia
to the Kuban
region. From there, one of the hordes moved westward after 1724 and gave its name to Yedisan, although Yedisan is anachronistically
marked as such before the arrival of the Nogais on many contemporary historical maps. The area at times was incorporated into the Ottoman administrative structure
as part of Silistra (Özi) Eyalet with the fortresses of Khadjibey
(Odessa) and Özi
(Ochakiv) as major centers. It was also part of a larger nomadic conflict between the Nogais who were clients of the Ottoman Porte and the Russian-sponsored Zaporizhian
Cossacks.
Imperial Russia under Catherine the Great
began to expand into the area by the late 18th century and, in 1774, Yedisan east of the Southern Bug
was annexed following the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774
.
Through the 1792 Treaty of Jassy
(Iaşi) which concluded the Russo-Turkish War of 1787-1792, the Russian frontier was extended to the Dniester River and the takeover of Yedisan was complete. Most of the Nogai inhabitants were then deported by the Russians to the east leaving the land essentially depopulated. Following the Russian takeover, the city of Odessa
was founded in 1794 and the area was settled as part of New Russia by Moldavian
, Russian
and Ukrainian
colonists along with a significant German
element. The area came to form parts of the Kherson Governorate
and is now part of the Ukrainian Odessa
and Mykolaiv
oblast
s.
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
and southeastern Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
(southern Transnistria
Transnistria
Transnistria is a breakaway territory located mostly on a strip of land between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine...
). The region lies to the north of the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
between the Dniester
Dniester
The Dniester is a river in Eastern Europe. It runs through Ukraine and Moldova and separates most of Moldova's territory from the breakaway de facto state of Transnistria.-Names:...
and Dnieper rivers. It is east of Budjak
Budjak
Budjak or Budzhak is a historical region in the Odessa Oblast of Ukraine. Lying along the Black Sea between the Danube and Dniester rivers this multiethnic region was the southern part of Bessarabia...
and Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
, south of Podolia
Podolia
The region of Podolia is an historical region in the west-central and south-west portions of present-day Ukraine, corresponding to Khmelnytskyi Oblast and Vinnytsia Oblast. Northern Transnistria, in Moldova, is also a part of Podolia...
and Zaporizhia
Zaporizhia
Zaporizhia or Zaporozhye [formerly Alexandrovsk ] is a city in southeastern Ukraine, situated on the banks of the Dnieper River. It is the administrative center of the Zaporizhia Oblast...
, and west of Taurida.
Names
Previously called DykraDykra
Dykra was the southern territory of the medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuania near the Black Sea, presently shared between Ukraine and Moldova....
, the region was named for the Yedisan sept
Sept (social)
A sept is an English word for a division of a family, especially a division of a clan. The word might have its origin from Latin saeptum "enclosure, fold", or it can be an alteration of sect.The term is found in both Ireland and Scotland...
of the Nogai Horde
Nogai Horde
The Nogai Horde was a confederation of about eighteen Turkic and Mongol tribes that occupied the Pontic-Caspian steppe from about 1500 until they were pushed west by the Kalmyks and south by the Russians in the 17th century. The Mongol tribe called the Manghits constituted a core of the Horde...
, the region was sometimes referred to as Nogai Tartary or West Nogai, as the Yedisans were Nogai
Nogais
The Nogai people are a Turkic ethnic group in Southern Russia: northern Dagestan and Stavropol Krai, as well as in Karachay-Cherkessia and the Astrakhan Oblast; undefined number live in Chechnya...
Tatars
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...
living in the west of Little Tartary
Little Tartary
Little Tartary is a historical designation for areas north of the Black Sea under the suzerainty of the Crimean Khanate and inhabited by nomadic Tatars of the Lesser Nogai Horde from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Little Tartary was designated such vis-à-vis Tartary, areas of central and...
. "Yedisan" is Turkic for "Seven Titles", doubtless the sept was made up of seven subgroups. Yedisan was also sometimes referred to as Ochakov Tartary after Ochakov
Ochakiv
Ochakiv is a city in the Mykolaiv Oblast of southern Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Ochakivsky Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast, and is located on a peninsula in the Black Sea, at the entrance to the Dnieper Rivers's estuary,...
(Ochakiv), the main fortress of the region. Names for the region in different language include: Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
: Єдисан [Yedysan]; Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
: Едисан [Yedisan]; ; Crimean Tatar
Crimean Tatar language
The Crimean Tatar language is the language of the Crimean Tatars. It is a Turkic language spoken in Crimea, Central Asia , and the Crimean Tatar diasporas in Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria...
and Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
: Yedisan; ; .
History
In medieval times, Yedisan was home to UlichsUlichs
The Ulichs were a tribe of Early East Slavs who between the eighth and the tenth century inhabited the territories along the Lower Dnieper, Bug River and the Black Sea littoral....
, Pechenegs, and later Cumans
Cumans
The Cumans were Turkic nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman-Kipchak confederation. After Mongol invasion , they decided to seek asylum in Hungary, and subsequently to Bulgaria...
(Polovtsians). Following the Mongol
Mongol Empire
The Mongol Empire , initially named as Greater Mongol State was a great empire during the 13th and 14th centuries...
invasions of the thirteenth century it was under control of the Khanate of the Golden Horde
Golden Horde
The Golden Horde was a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate that formed the north-western sector of the Mongol Empire...
. In the fifteenth century it fell to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state from the 12th /13th century until 1569 and then as a constituent part of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1791 when Constitution of May 3, 1791 abolished it in favor of unitary state. It was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the polytheistic...
(when it was known as Dykra
Dykra
Dykra was the southern territory of the medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuania near the Black Sea, presently shared between Ukraine and Moldova....
) then later to the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
’s vassal state
Vassal state
A vassal state is any state that is subordinate to another. The vassal in these cases is the ruler, rather than the state itself. Being a vassal most commonly implies providing military assistance to the dominant state when requested to do so; it sometimes implies paying tribute, but a state which...
, the Crimean Khanate
Crimean Khanate
Crimean Khanate, or Khanate of Crimea , was a state ruled by Crimean Tatars from 1441 to 1783. Its native name was . Its khans were the patrilineal descendants of Toqa Temür, the thirteenth son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan...
. The nomadic Nogais
Nogais
The Nogai people are a Turkic ethnic group in Southern Russia: northern Dagestan and Stavropol Krai, as well as in Karachay-Cherkessia and the Astrakhan Oblast; undefined number live in Chechnya...
began to inhabit the region after being forced first from Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
to the Kuban
Kuban
Kuban is a geographic region of Southern Russia surrounding the Kuban River, on the Black Sea between the Don Steppe, Volga Delta and the Caucasus...
region. From there, one of the hordes moved westward after 1724 and gave its name to Yedisan, although Yedisan is anachronistically
Anachronism
An anachronism—from the Greek ανά and χρόνος — is an inconsistency in some chronological arrangement, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other...
marked as such before the arrival of the Nogais on many contemporary historical maps. The area at times was incorporated into the Ottoman administrative structure
Subdivisions of the Ottoman Empire
The subdivisions of the Ottoman Empire were administrative divisions of the state organisation of the Ottoman Empire. Outside this system were various types of vassal and tributary states....
as part of Silistra (Özi) Eyalet with the fortresses of Khadjibey
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
(Odessa) and Özi
Ochakiv
Ochakiv is a city in the Mykolaiv Oblast of southern Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Ochakivsky Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast, and is located on a peninsula in the Black Sea, at the entrance to the Dnieper Rivers's estuary,...
(Ochakiv) as major centers. It was also part of a larger nomadic conflict between the Nogais who were clients of the Ottoman Porte and the Russian-sponsored Zaporizhian
Zaporozhian Host
The Zaporozhian Cossacks or simply Zaporozhians were Ukrainian Cossacks who lived beyond the rapids of the Dnieper river, the land also known as the Great Meadow in Central Ukraine...
Cossacks.
Imperial Russia under Catherine the Great
Catherine II of Russia
Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great , Empress of Russia, was born in Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia on as Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg...
began to expand into the area by the late 18th century and, in 1774, Yedisan east of the Southern Bug
Southern Bug
The Southern Bug, also called Southern Buh), is a river located in Ukraine. The source of the river is in the west of Ukraine, in the Volyn-Podillia Upland, about 145 km from the Polish border, and flows southeasterly into the Bug Estuary through the southern steppes...
was annexed following the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774
Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774
The Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774 was a decisive conflict that brought Southern Ukraine, Northern Caucasus, and Crimea within the orbit of the Russian Empire.-Background:...
.
Through the 1792 Treaty of Jassy
Treaty of Jassy
The Treaty of Jassy, signed at Jassy in Moldavia , was a pact between the Russian and Ottoman Empires ending the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–92 and confirming Russia's increasing dominance in the Black Sea....
(Iaşi) which concluded the Russo-Turkish War of 1787-1792, the Russian frontier was extended to the Dniester River and the takeover of Yedisan was complete. Most of the Nogai inhabitants were then deported by the Russians to the east leaving the land essentially depopulated. Following the Russian takeover, the city of Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
was founded in 1794 and the area was settled as part of New Russia by Moldavian
Moldovans
Moldovans or Moldavians are the largest population group of Moldova...
, Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
and Ukrainian
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
colonists along with a significant German
Ethnic German
Ethnic Germans historically also ), also collectively referred to as the German diaspora, refers to people who are of German ethnicity. Many are not born in Europe or in the modern-day state of Germany or hold German citizenship...
element. The area came to form parts of the Kherson Governorate
Kherson Governorate
The Kherson Governorate or Government of Kherson was a guberniya, or administrative territorial unit, in the Southern Ukrainian region, between the Dnieper and Dniester Rivers, of the Russian Empire. It was one of three governorates created in 1802 when the Novorossiya guberniya was abolished...
and is now part of the Ukrainian Odessa
Odessa Oblast
Odesa Oblast, also written as Odessa Oblast , is the southernmost and largest oblast of south-western Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Odessa.-History:...
and Mykolaiv
Mykolaiv Oblast
Mykolaiv Oblast is an oblast of Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Mykolayiv.-Geography:The Mykolaiv Oblast is located in the southern half of Ukraine...
oblast
Oblast
Oblast is a type of administrative division in Slavic countries, including some countries of the former Soviet Union. The word "oblast" is a loanword in English, but it is nevertheless often translated as "area", "zone", "province", or "region"...
s.