Greben Cossacks

File:Scènes, paysages, moeurs et costumes du Caucase dessinés d'aprés nature par le prince G. Gagarine.25.jpg

Scenes, landscapes, customs and costumes of the Caucasus drawn from nature by Prince G. Gagarin.

The Grebensky Cossacks or Grebentsy was a group of Cossacks formed in the 16th century from Don Cossacks who left the Don area and settled in the northern foothills of the Caucasus. The Greben Cossacks are part of the Terek Cossacks. They were influenced by Chechen and Nogai culture and most were bilingual in the Russian language and the Nogai language.

Name

According to the article on Grebentsy in ЭСБЕ (1893), whose author — a writer Template:Ill — is referring to some historians, who, in turn, allegedly relied on materials from «Template:Ill» and the legend of the Grebensky iconTemplate:Efn, claimed that Grebensky Cossacks descended from the Don Cossacks who settled in the Caucasus, whose community originally lived in the interfluve Seversky Donets and Template:Ill near a hill called the Grebensky mountains, hence the name of these Cossacks — Grebensky.Template:Sfn

General information

Settlement territory

Modern scholars have no information about the settlement area of Grebentsy on the right side of the Terek River (old Russian Terka / Terki). Basic facts about these Cossacks appear after their relocation to the left bank of the river. In 1712Template:Efn the Grebensky Cossacks moved to the left bank of the Terek River in the area of the fortification of the Terka / TerkiTemplate:Efn (Sunzhensky fortification).

Bibliography

• . Подъ редакціей В. К. Шенкъ, составилъ В. Х. Казинъ
• . Председатель Гл. ред. комиссии Н. В. Огарков
• Wixman. The Peoples of the USSR p. 51.