From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Yesaul

Rank in cossack armies

Yesaul, osaul or osavul (, ) (from Turkic yasaul - chief), is a post and a rank in the Russian and Ukrainian Cossack units.

The first records of the rank imply that it was introduced by Stefan Batory, King of Poland in 1576.

Cossacks in Russia

There were different yesaul posts and ranks in Cossack Hosts in Imperial Russia:

Генеральный есаул (generalny yesaul) - General Yesaul
Походный есаул (pokhodny yesaul) - Campaign Yesaul
Войсковой есаул (voiskovoy yesaul) - Army Yesaul
Полковой есаул (polkovoy yesaul) - Regimental Yesaul
Артиллерийский есаул (artilleriysky yesaul) - Artillery Yesaul
Сотенный есаул (sotenny yesaul) - Company Yesaul (commander of a sotnia)
Станичный есаул (stanichny yesaul) - Yesaul of a stanitsa

Cossack Hetmanate and Sloboda Ukraine

In Ukraine of the 17th and 18th centuries, an osaul was a military and administrative official performing the duties of aide-de-camp. The head of state, hetman, would appoint up to two osauls known as a General Osaul. There also was a Regimental Osaul as well as Company Osaul, with each regular cossack regiment and company except artillery having two of each. Beside them there were osauls under special assignments, one of them serving for General Obozny (quartermaster) who performed duties of a chief executive and was the second in importance after the Hetman.

General Osaul

A senior officer of a Hetmanate cossack army who was a member of the general officer staff. ;Duties

supervising army's condition
leading large detachments (wartime)
managing muster rolls
directing the army engineers
commanding mercenary troops
sometimes serving as an acting hetman

Other duties consisted of being a hetman's envoy, supervised matters of internal security, conducted annual regimental musters and inspections. Among the notorious osauls were Petro Doroshenko, Demian Mnohohrishny, Ivan Mazepa, and Ivan Skoropadsky.

From 1798 to 1800 after the liquidation of the Zaporizhian Host, the rank of osaul was equated with the ranks of rittmeister in cavalry and captain in infantry.

Regimental Osavul

Regimental Osavul () is an assistant Colonel in Military Affairs.

Sotenny Osavul

Sotenny Osavul () is an assistant sotnik in Military Affairs.

In popular culture

In the ukrainian folk song "Zadumaly Bazylevtsi" (Задумали Базилевці) about the anti-serfdom uprising in Turbaii (1789—1793), the wife of the Bazylevskyj family sends Yesauls to take care of the serfs, but they are met with unexpected resistance. The serfs end up invading the Bazylevskyj residence and murdering the land owners.

References

[http://slovari.yandex.ru/~%D0%BA%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B3%D0%B8/%D0%93%D1%83%D0%BC%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9%20%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%8C/%D0%95%D1%81%D0%B0%D1%83%D0%BB/ Russian humanitarian encyclopedic dictionary]{{Dead link. (July 2025). ru
en
"ЗАДУМАЛИ БАЗИЛЕВЦІ Українські народні пісні".

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

military-organization-of-cossacks military-ranks-of-russia military-ranks-of-ukraine

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Yesaul — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report