PARTICIPATION OF BASHKIRS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF FORTRESSES AND MILITARY OPERATIONS ON THE TERRITORY OF WESTERN SIBERIA AT THE END OF THE XVI-XVII CENTURIES.* The article examines military actions and other events during the annexation of Western Siberia to the Russian state, in which Bashkirs, as well as military detachments formed from Siberian service Tatars, took part on the initiative of the Russian authorities. Special attention is paid to the participation of Bashkirs in the construction of fortresses and military service to protect the borders of Russian possessions, as well as in military events in the southern Urals and Siberia. Separate groups of Bashkirs fought in the ranks of supporters of the restoration of the Siberian Tatar Khanate, supported by the rulers of the western Mongols-Oirats. Keywords: Western Siberia, Bashkirs, military Tatars, Russian Cossacks, Dzungars, military actions. An important factor in preserving the Siberian lands within the Moscow Tsardom in the first decades after their annexation was the involvement of the local Turkic-speaking Tatar population and some other Turkic-speaking peoples in state and military service. Separate attempts to attract Siberian Tatars to Russian service as guides and interpreters were made during the first campaign of the Cossack detachment under the command of Ataman Ermak to Siberia (Miller, 1999, p. 218). In the following decades, military Tatars were actively used to protect Russian possessions in Western Siberia and to conduct military operations against Khan Kuchum, his heirs and supporters [Tychinskikh, 2010, pp. 46-51]. Sometimes representatives of other Turkic peoples who were already Russian citizens, including Bashkirs and Kazan Tatars, were involved in the construction of fortresses and military service in Siberia. In some cases, conflicts arose in the relations between the Siberian administration and the service Tatars and Bashkirs, as a result of which some groups of the Tatar and Bashkir ... Read more