"The Tartar raid in great multitude was committed": Khan Qirim Girai's incursion into the Russian Empire province of Yelisavetgrad in the winter of 1769

Abstract

The article is devoted to the depredatory and massive incursion of the Crimean Khanate forces commanded by Khan Qirim Girai into Yelisavetgrad province of the Russian Empire (former Novoserbia) in January 1769, at the very beginning of the Russo-Turkish war of 1768-1774. 2019 was marked by the 250th anniversary of this milestone event that became the last full-scale Tatar raid into Russian lands. There has been no special research devoted to this topic so far while in the existing historical works the assessments of the consequences of the Khan Qirim Girai's incursion and the actions of Russian military commanders, general en chef Pyotr Rumyantsev in particular, seem one-sided and biased. The article covers the prerequisites and preparations for the incursion, Russian military commanders' intelligence data, parties' plans and forces, their actions as well as recreation of detailed timeline and geographical scope; disputes among Russian military leaders and the reasons for their misfortunes are also analysed; records of losses and material damage are presented in this paper. Along with the well-known sources the author uses the documents from the Russian State Military Historical Archive and the Manuscripts Department of the Russian State Library that have not been introduced into scientifi c discourse.