The Macedonian Hussar Regiment was a military unit involved in the Russian Imperial Army. The establishment of the Macedonian Hussar Regiment occurred on 10 May 1759. The Hussars were active in defense of Russia's southern borders, which had become volatile due to new migration and the aftereffects of the War of the Austrian Succession. Over the following decades, the regiment was disbanded and reformed frequently, before disbanding permanently in 1783.
In the middle of the 18th century started a migration from the Military Frontier of the Habsburg monarchy to the Russian Empire. Russian authorities gave these new settlers a land, which acquired names as New Serbia and Slavo-Serbia, soon after the War of the Austrian Succession. [1] The purpose of these polities was protection of southern borders of the Russian empire as well as participation in Russian military operations near that region.
In 1750, the Russian ambassador in Vienna, Mikhail Petrovich Bestuzhev-Ryumin, informed the Empress Elizaveta that Orthodox peoples such as Serbs, Macedonians, Bulgarians and Vlachs expressed willingness to serve Empress Elizabeth "with blood and arms", and he recommended forming military units composed of Serbs, Macedonians and Bulgarians, who were "renowned for their bravery". The first point of contact between the South Slavic population and Bestuzhev-Ryumin was Colonel of the Military Frontier militia Jovan Horvat. In 1751, commander Horvat, requested and received permission from Empress Elizabeth to leave the Austrian army and resettle in Russia. In his project submitted to the Empress and the Russian Senate, Horvat described the nations involved as Serbs, Macedonians, Bulgarians, and Vlachs. The Senate adopted this definition, and subsequent decrees specified that only settlers “of the Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, and Wallachian nations” could establish colonies in the Don region. Horvat himself distinguished himself as a major and later lieutenant colonel before organizing the first mass migration of Orthodox Slavs into Russia. In 1753, Austrian officers of Serbian origin Jovan Šević and Rajko Preradović were granted the rank of major general and authorized to settle “all Serbian, Macedonian, and other Orthodox peoples” east of Horvat’s regiment and the Dnieper River, between Bakhmut and Luhansk, and to form two hussar regiments of 1,000 men each. This marked the beginning of the largest migration of Orthodox populations from the Balkans to Russia, supported by subsidies from the Russian Senate. [2] On 9 March 1759, Horvat, with the permission of Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, formed the Macedonian Hussar Regiment. New Serbia and Slavo-Serbia in fact were populated by a different nationalities and the names of the regiments formed there did not reflect exactly their national composition. [3] Many of the refugees who formed the Macedonian Regiment were described by the imperial authorities as Bulgarians, [4] Vlachs, Serbs and Greeks among the participants. [5] [6] [7] In Jovan Horvat’s report to the Russian Senate (1 December 1754) on the national composition of the regiments, 289 individuals were listed as of "Macedonian nation". The same document also records individuals from Serbia, Bulgaria, Poland, and other peoples. [2] The commander of the Macedonian Hussar Regiment was Aleksey Kostyurin. [8]
The coat of arms of the Macedonian Hussar Regiment was approved in 1776 and represented: "A silver shield in a red field, with different decorations, and under it two crossed wooden arrows covered with gold dots." On 26 July 1761, the Macedonian Hussars were merged with the existing Bulgarian Hussar Regiment into a general Macedonian Hussars Regiment because of the small number of personnel in both the regiments. [9] On 10 May 1763, by decree of Empress Catherine II, the Macedonian Hussar Regiment was disbanded and its personnel were assigned to the Polish, Moldovan and Serbian Hussar Regiments. On 24 December 1776, a new Macedonian Hussar Regiment consisting of 6 squadrons was created from the 9 foreign regiments established on the territory of Azov and Novorossiysk regions to protect the southern borders of the empire. On 28 June 1783, it was disbanded and his staff assigned to the Alexandrian Hussar Regiment. [2]
The designation Macedonian then was popular in Europe only in early modern cultural contexts, [10] but was nearly forgotten in the modern-day region. [11] Austrian and Russian Empires used it during the 17th and 18th centuries about populations coming from the Balkans and this is the case of the name of that regiment. [12] Some modern Macedonian historians consider its existence as a confirmation of an ethnic Macedonian continuity, [13] [2] but such claims contradict the historical logic. [14] However along with pointing the example of some participants' belonging to the Macedonian nation, the Macedonian historian Aleksandar Matkovski has confirmed, that it was too early for existence of such separate national entity in the modern sense. [15] On the other hand Blaže Ristovski has agreed, that the theories of a distinct Slavic Macedonian identity evolved outside the modern region and existed without the participation of Macedonian Slavs at least until the second half of the 19th century. [16] Bulgarian sources also maintain that the Macedonian Hussar Regiment was not composed of ethnic Macedonians. [17] According to some reports, the regiment was dominated by Aromanians (Vlachs), who were then often treated as Macedonians, which is the reason for the regiment's name. [18] However per two guides issued by the Russian Academy of Sciences, the first in 1861, and another one from 1910, during the 18th century as Macedonians were designated part of the Bulgarian refugees. [19] [20] Per Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary the regiment consisted from Bulgarians and Greeks. [21] Modern Russian sources confirms this information, adding to them also Vlachs. [22] According to some researchers, the idea of creating these regiments was not a project to build national units, while it preceded the birth of nationalism in Europe. [23]