The Don steppes in Southern Russia are a special place. In ancient times, the paths of trading caravans, religious pilgrims and nomadic peoples all criss-crossed here. The ancient Greeks thought that the waters of the Don separated the continents of Europe and Asia. They established their northernmost settlement in the river’s lower reaches. The Slavs had their southernmost settlement here.
Ancient tribes migrated from west to east and east to west through this steppe corridor, bordered by seas and mountains: Sumerians, Scythians, Bulgars, Goths, Pechenegs, Polovtsians, Khazars. Every tribe sought to oust its predecessors from the banks of the Don, to drive them from the rich pastures, the lands teeming with fish and game. At the same time, the victors invariably interbred with the vanquished, inheriting elements of their culture.
The Golden Horde established their rule over the Don steppes in 1237. But this was only a small part of their vast empire: the Mongols ruled over lands stretching from China to Lithuania. They imposed an excessive tribute on Rus, devastating its southern principalities.
Over time, locals found that they could hire some of the Horde to protect themselves from the rest of the Horde. By the middle of the 1400s, such mercenary-protectors came to be called “Cossacks,” a word some believe was derived from an old Tatar word for “horsemen.”
Some time earlier, in 1380, at the Battle of Kulikovo Field, ancestors of the Cossacks (that is, a group that split off from the Mongols) apparently fought on the side of Rus, earning accolades from the Great Prince of Muscovy, who “generously rewarded and thanked the Host and ordered that the Cossacks’ be permanently compensated.” This first reference to the Cossacks indicates that theirs was a military organization, that they spoke the language of Muscovy and that they were Orthodox believers.
So who were these Cossacks, and when did they appear on the Don? As it turns out, these are not esoteric historical questions, but the basis for heated political discussions, even today.
When historians seek to underline the Cossacks’ innate independence, they place their roots back before the Slavs. Scythian or Polovtsian heritage is said to be responsible for their exceptional military skills, superior horsemanship, cunning, bravery and love of freedom. Their traditional clothing – pointed headwear, baggy trousers with lampas (strips of fabric covering the vertical seam) – are also said to be derived from the Scythians.
Yet, when historians want to assert Cossacks’ subservience to the Russian State, their appearance is linked to criminals, lackeys and impoverished peoples fleeing the Russian heartland. But would such persons really have decided to move to an entirely uninhabited place, surrounded by enemies?
Some propose that the Cossacks are descended from Slavs who lived in the Don region and who, prior to the arrival of the Mongol-Tatar Horde, were subservient to Kievan Rus. This hypothesis could explain why the Cossacks came to the aid of the principality of Muscovy, why they spoke Russian and accepted Orthodoxy. Yet it is also not improbable that the Cossacks were members of the Golden Horde who, at the decisive moment, defected to Muscovy.
There are still other versions of history. But no matter which hypothesis is closest to the truth, Lev Tolstoy’s words will always ring true: “the borderlands gave birth to the Cossacks.”
Borderlands
In the 14th to 16th centuries, Russia’s southern border was not a distinct line with firmly-set boundary posts. Instead, it was a wilderness – a huge expanse of disputed territory, big enough to swallow up modern day Utah, Colorado and Kansas. When it departed, the Golden Horde left behind islands of influence: the Khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan and Crimea. The impregnable Turkish fortress of Azov stood at the mouth of the Don, barring access to the sea. Nomadic Nogays and Kalmyks roamed the steppes. And it was here that the Cossacks lived, fought and made peace with their multinational neighbors.
The Cossacks eventually created an Orthodox republic – the Don Host (so named from the 18th century onward). Its roots were along the banks of the Don and its tributaries, where they built villages – stanitsy (plural of stanitsa). Gathering in their main towns, the Cossacks came together in public meetings (known as the “krug,” or “circle”) to elect their leader – the Ataman, with different Cossack groups lobbying for their candidate. Collecting on the square (the maydan), the Cossacks would cry out “lyubo!” if they approved of a candidate, “ne lyubo!” if they disapproved. New elections were held approximately every year. Women and children were not admitted into the krug, and Cossacks could lose their right to participate in the krug if they committed certain offenses (e.g. drunkenness). In any event, each stanitsa selected their ataman, who would then decide issues related to local administration. For military actions, a campaign ataman was elected, yet he gave up that authority as soon as he returned to the Host.
The esaul, the ataman’s right hand aide, was also elected at the krug. For deciding important military matters, the campaign ataman conferred with a council of experienced, brave and respected elders. The executive power structure of the Don Cossacks also included a clerk and a translator – back then, educated people were not easy to find in the Don basin.
The krug decided on matters concerning the entire Host: declaration of war, terms of peace, creation of new stanitsy, reception of foreign embassies, trials of serious criminals. The most severe sentence was reserved for thieves and traitors: “в куль, да в воду!” (“into a sack and then into the water!”)
The historian Mikhail Budanov concluded in 1886 that “the Don host had a government, which, albeit imperfect, was a government, for it issued decrees and orders which had authority throughout the entire Cossack territory; it imposed fines. In other words, it had jurisdiction. The Don host had ‘career troops,’ i.e. a military staff of sorts. It had sea troops, marine troops, cavalry, and foot soldiers.”
Priests were also elected by the krug. However, the majority of stanitsy did without priests and churches. Marriages and births were not blessed in church ceremonies. In the early period of Cossack history, relations between men and women were perhaps best characterized by the proverb: “отцов, как псов, а мать – одна” (“men are numerous, like dogs, but there is only one mother”). Bachelor Cossacks, who were the majority in the early period, lived together in large groups. They split up tasks of fighting and hunting equally amongst themselves and had an economy of sorts – however primitive, which was based on shared ownership. For this reason, they called one another odnosum – “of one mind.”
The Cossacks also had their own code of honor: “a mixture of virtues and defects peculiar to a people who lived like bandits,” wrote historian Vasily Sukhorukov. “They were greedy in their looting and furious in their attacks on enemy territory. Yet the Cossacks lived together as brothers, disdaining thievery amongst themselves. But robbery committed against other parties and especially the enemy was wholly expected.”
In conditions of constant military threat and uncertainty, it was difficult to create a stable society. It was dangerous to undertake major construction projects – a stanitsa often consisted merely of half-underground huts – zemlyanki. Responding to the Crimean Khan, who threatened destruction of all the towns on the Don, the Cossacks wrote: “Why should you travel so far to plunder? We are not a rich people; our villages are modest, woven of wattle fences and encircled by thorn bushes. And taking them and removing us would require a thick head, for we have strong arms, sharp sabers and accurate arquebuses. And we do not have large herds of horses or cattle, to cede to you on the path of your plunder.” So often subject to attacks, the Cossacks saw no point in tending the land or animal husbandry. Just going hunting or fishing, they risked running into troops from Azov or Astrakhan, of being pierced by nomads’ arrows.
Grants from Moscow’s grand princes and tsars – in the form of money, wine, gunpowder, swine, cloth and bread, along with the results of military plundering, formed the basis for the Cossacks’ subsistence. Each winter and summer, the Host sent an embassy to Moscow to receive their grant. At the same time, the Cossacks were very protective of their independence from the Moscow grand princes and tsars. If the summer or winter embassy was led by the campaign ataman, then, upon his return to the stanitsa, he was removed from power and the Cossacks selected a new leader. Thus would all of the promises the ataman made in Moscow be annulled.
At first, the Cossacks were not required to serve the tsar, and their willful activities turned out to be a quite valuable diplomatic tool for Russia. In response to the residents of Azov, whom the Cossacks “would not allow to drink from the waters of the Don,” Tsar Ivan IV (“the Terrible”) claimed he was powerless: “they live on the Don outside our control and flee from us.” To the Nogay Prince Yusuf, who was suffering under Cossack attacks, Ivan complained: “These lackeys of ours, they have done much evil in our lands and fled into the wilderness.”
But Ivan’s complaints were merely a feint. The tsar was in fact planning to employ the Cossacks in battles against his enemies. In 1552, Ivan IV turned his gaze toward one of the islands of Mongol influence in southern Russia. An army of 150,000 Russians and just over 1,000 Cossacks gathered near Kazan. The siege lasted for three months. In the end, the Cossacks stormed the walls and were the first to enter the city. Ivan’s troops battled for a short time and the city fell.
Legend has it that, after the storming of Kazan, Ivan the Terrible wanted to bestow something on the Cossacks, but they refused riches. Instead, they asked that the tsar grant them the Don and all of its tributaries. He apparently agreed and his decision was confirmed in an official deed. (If this in fact happened, it is likely that the deed was rescinded by Peter I.)
Soon after this, the Crimean Khan, Nogay Prince and Astrakhan Tsar, all of whom had become anxious about Russian military successes, joined together in a military alliance against Russia. Cossack historian Evgraf Savelyov wrote thus of the 1554 conquest of Astrakhan: “While the Muscovite troops were still plying the Volga and a portion of them had landed and were moving slowly along the right bank of the river, the Cossacks, who comprised the forward troops, inflicted such a defeat on Yamchurgeya, the Astrakhan Tsar, that he left the city, fled to the steppes and hid at Azov.” Later, the Cossacks turned back an attempt by Yamchurgeya to retake the city and suppressed an anti-Russian mutiny.
Siberian Conquest
The route to the Caspian was now open for Muscovy, and trade with Southeast Asia grew. Caravans traveled up and down the Volga, from which the Cossacks often extorted payments for passage. One of the leading Cossack-pirates of this time was Ataman Yermak. But this is not what made him famous.
In 1582, Yermak, who was headquartered in Perm, came to the attention of the Stroganov family – rich merchants and proprietor of the Urals region. First used by the family for defensive measures, Yermak was later outfitted with cannons, powder and provisions worth 20,000 rubles, to lead a detachment of 840 Cossacks to battle against Khan Kuchum, to conquer Siberia and bring back some of its riches.
Kind to supporters and vengeful to opponents, Yermak moved deep into the Asian heartland. On October 26, 1582, there was a decisive battle between this handful of Cossacks and tens of thousands of Tatar troops, resulting in the capture of Kuchum’s capital, Isker. Yermak’s success was not simply due to technically superior firepower. “Only a group of audacious and brave souls, unbroken by the weight of the Russian State, could do what they did, in such a spectacular way,” wrote author Valentin Rasputin.
Knowing that the Cossacks could not hold the newly-won lands alone, Yermak requested of Ivan IV that he take Siberia under his protection, which the tsar did after Yermak’s envoy presented him with an unprecedented bounty of furs. The tsar lavishly rewarded the Cossacks and bestowed on Yermak the title Tsar of Siberia. Significantly, he also gave Yermak a chain mail coat, and sent 300 musketeers (who arrived too late and under-provisioned). The heavy armor was to play a fateful role: in August 1585, Yermak drowned in it while trying to escape from a skirmish with the Tartars. True enough, the ataman was no longer young, and he was wounded and would likely not have survived his swim across the raging river. But in songs and tales – by nature symbolic – the hero’s death is bound up with the tsar’s gift.
Over the next 60 years, the Cossacks continued to lead Russia’s drive across a largely unpopulated Siberia. They even reached North America (indeed, the Native American Yupik people adopted the word kass’aq to mean “white man”). The fact that Russia today is the world’s largest country, that it stretches from the shores of the Baltic to the Pacific, is connected with the history of the Cossacks.
In 1584, the powerful despot Ivan the Terrible died and was succeeded by his feeble son Fyodor, who ruled for 14 years, overseen by a regency council increasingly dominated by his brother-in-law, Boris Godunov. Godunov rose to the throne after Fyodor’s death, which ended the Rurik bloodline. Implicated in the death seven years earlier of Ivan’s young son Dmitry, Godunov’s name was also connected with the enserfment and impoverishment of the people, which was exacerbated by extremely cold winters and drought in 1601-2. Whole villages of devastated peasants fled from famine and enslavement to the Don, expanding the Cossacks’ ranks. When landlords demanded the return of their “property,” the Cossacks simply replied: “there is no extradition from the Don.”
Time of Troubles
Due to migration into and within the region, the Cossack Host was no longer as unified as it once had been. Cossacks who had property of some sort and who lived in settlements, were called “domestics” [domovyty], in contrast to the homeless poor, who were called “the hungry” [golitba]. The former supported the Russian throne, the latter sought to destabilize it.
A new arrival to the southern steppes was the former galley slave, bandit and Cossack, Ivan Bolotnikov. In 1606-1607, he led an uprising that demanded that the “miraculously saved” Tsarevich Dmitry be returned to the throne (in fact, this False Dmitry had ruled for less than a year and been overthrown and murdered in a palace coup which put Vasily Shuysky on the throne – see Russian Life, July/Aug 2005). The uprising encompassed all of southern Russia, including the lower and middle Volga. Bolotnikov led his ranks of golitba Cossacks, peasants, and streltsy (sharpshooters, or Kremlin guards) to Moscow. The Don Cossacks, who had supported the First False Dmitry, took Bolotnikov’s side and supported the new pretender, Peter, as well. As the great Russian historian Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky wrote, “during the Time of Troubles, the Cossacks brought great harm to the State, attacking it alongside Polish troops.”
While the False Peter did not succeed in taking the throne, Bolotnikov’s uprising was crucial in destabilizing Russia (Bolotnikov himself was caught and killed in 1608). A Second False Dmitry arose and soon the situation in Russia was on the verge of collapse: Shuysky was deposed in 1610; a handful of boyars took over and offered the throne to Poland’s King Wladyslaw, as a way to head off False Dmitry II; Sweden invaded from the north, thinking they could dislodge the Poles and take the Russian throne. Then the Cossacks changed sides and united with a broad popular army that was marching on Moscow. But the alliance was short-lived. When the Cossacks murdered one of the uprising’s leaders, the army fell apart. But, fired by a missive from imprisoned Patriarch Hermogen, the movement was resurrected by the merchant Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, who laid siege to Moscow and captured the Kremlin in October 1612.
The newly-crowned Tsar Mikhail Romanov demonstrated his favor for the Cossacks, while at the same time trying to control them, restraining them from constant conflict with the Azov Turks. Azov, today a small town in Southern Russia, once occupied an important position in the Ottoman Empire. From this base, the sultans planned to seize territory along the Don and Volga and in the Caucasus, as a means to reestablishing control over the Khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan. The fortress of Azov was equipped with the latest in fortification technology, and the Azov Turks felt secure enough to conduct constant raids on Cossack settlements. In 1637, the Don Host had finally had enough and decided “to go out and cut down the infidels, to take the city and plant the Orthodox faith within its walls.” They succeeded.
“The hatred of all Christian peoples does not disturb my sleep,” said Sultan Murad II, “but the Cossacks have caused me sleepless nights.” The five-year occupation of Azov cost the Host – which withstood 24 sieges – some two-thirds of its population. Tsar Mikhail, whose foreign policy in the South was one of cautious defense, feared war with Turkey, and, upon the advice of an Assembly of the Land, would not assume protection of the fortress. The Cossacks were commanded to abandon the fortress, leaving the conquest of Azov to Mikhail’s grandson.
The Petrine Era
Within a few decades, a new revolt ripened on the Don. Its leader was Stepan (Stenka) Razin. His father was an escaped serf and his mother a captured Turk. He was well educated for his time, intelligent and, most importantly, extremely charming. “Wild courage was reflected in his well-proportioned and lightly-pockmarked faced,” wrote historian Nikolai Kostomarov. “There was something authoritative in his gaze; the crowds saw in him the presence of some irresistible, supernatural force.”
Having traveled widely around Russia, Razin knew first-hand that many people were drowning in poverty and lawlessness, dreaming of retribution. But that was not Razin’s primary imperative. Having spent years sacking towns along the Caspian and chased out of Persia, Razin was first and foremost a plunderer and thief; his political/military aspirations were surely secondary. Between 1667 and 1671, the Razinites murdered nobles, boyars and merchants, while promising the “dark masses” freedom and readily accepting them into their ranks.
By the summer of 1670, Razin had captured Tsaritsyno, Astrakhan, Saratov, and Samara and was moving steadily up the Volga with some 20,000 troops. But through tactical and strategic errors, despite wide popular support, Razin suffered a crushing defeat at Simbirsk and was captured by Cossack forces loyal to the tsar, who delivered him to the capital, where he was questioned by Tsar Alexei, tortured and killed. The old rule, “there are no extraditions from the Don,” apparently now had its limits.
After the Razin uprising, the Don Cossacks were required to swear their allegiance to the Tsar. Peter I, who came to power just over two decades after the Razin uprising, insisted on the Don Cossacks’ complete subservience. And most were ready to give it. While the “poor” Cossacks preferred a barbaric freedom on the Don, the “domesticated” Cossacks sought greater stability. In conditions of constant military threat, their economy, trade and professions had hardly developed; education and medicine were absent.
Tsar Peter I was, however, ready to help the Cossacks take on their enemies insofar as it meshed with his own goals. He understood that the Turkish fortress at Azov threatened not just the Cossacks, but Russia as well. Azov was taken in 1696. But the Don Host lost many men in the bloodletting, and needed an influx of new members. Yet they could not get them the old way: Peter decreed that all who had fled from serfdom to the Don must either return to their point of origin or risk being sent to hard labor. Peter also set limits on Cossack fishing of the Don, on cutting down forests, and confiscated all salt-boiling pots. Dissatisfaction with these restrictions led to a prohibition on the establishment of new stanitsy without “the highest level of approval.” “So, is this why we fought for the tsar?!” the Don Cossacks grumbled.
A new uprising was not long in coming. It was led by Kondraty Bulavin, an advocate of old Cossack rights. In 1707, the revolt encompassed the Don, Ukraine and the Volga basin. Yet the most influential parts of Cossackdom did not support Bulavin. Surrounded by his enemies, he shot himself (or was shot). Pockets of resistance and various sieges were eventually eliminated within a few years. Some 600 Cossack families that were unable to reconcile themselves to the loss of freedoms were led by Ignaty Nekrasov in an emigration first to the Kuban and then to Turkey, where they founded a religious-ethnic community. (In the 20th century, descendants of the Nekrasov Cossacks returned to Russia and continue to live there in isolated communities.)
Meanwhile, shortly after the Bulavin betrayal, Peter had to contend with a Cossack infamy on an even greater scale. The Ukrainian Cossack and Hetman Ivan Mazeppa, long a favorite in Peter’s court, in 1708 betrayed the tsar by throwing his lot in with Sweden’s King Charles, who was leading a – at that point – successful invasion of Russia. But the tide turned; after a brutal wintering over in Ukraine, Charles was defeated at Poltava, and the Ukrainian Cossacks loyal to him fled into the wilderness or were brutally executed as traitors.
Despite these events, Peter I granted the Cossacks self-government, but within strict limits: the head ataman was to be designated by the Russian emperor, and Cossacks were required to serve in the Russian army. The affairs of the Don Host came under the management of the State Military Collegium (analogous to the modern Ministry of Defense). In the main Cossack city of Cherkassk, a military affairs office was established, presided over by the ataman and his clerk, along with six elders. The main task of the elders was the search for and return of fugitives. Aside from this, they oversaw all military, judicial, administrative and financial affairs within the confines of their region (okrug). And the military krug lost its power. The history of a free people ended; the history of a “military-agricultural estate” began.
Settling Down
Peter I’s reforms affected the personal, daily lives of the Don Cossacks. Implanting official Orthodoxy, the Emperor forbade civil marriages and divorces, as well as cohabitation with prisoners – all Cossack customs. Ending the practice of paying grants, Peter required the Cossacks to take up farming. As it turned out, the lands of the Don proved quite fertile (a cubic meter of Don soil was sent to Paris as a soil standard). By the end of the 18th century, the Don Host was sending bread to Russia as well as exporting it abroad. Vineyards and winemaking also took hold, as did animal husbandry; the Don Cossacks proved themselves particularly adept at horse breeding.
Trade began to develop. Russian, Ukrainian and even Turkish, Italian, French and Persian merchants began traveling to Cherkassk. The Cossacks sold grain, wine, fish, meat and livestock. Up until the end of the 18th century, one could buy slaves at the Cherkassk market. Yet Cossack commerce likely presented a rather motley picture, as described by Nikolai Gogol (writing about the Zaporozhets Cossacks): Wide satin trousers stuffed into holey boots, a velvet caftan covers a dirty shirt that is all in tatters, a gold belt shone on an old sormyge [outerwear] and, instead of a raincoat on powerful shoulders, there flutters a Persian carpet or a Turkish shawl.” (Peter sought to impose European lifestyles and clothing, and thus allowed the Cossacks to wear any clothing they obtained as booty from military campaigns.)
The tsars and tsarinas that followed Peter on the throne in the 18th and 19th centuries sent the Cossacks into wars with Turkey, Persia and the nations of the Caucasus. The famous quote of Napoleon, “Give me 20,000 Cossacks, and I will conquer the whole of Europe, and even the whole world,” was a hard-won lesson from his defeat in Russia. “One must give the Cossacks their due,” Napoleon said. “It is largely to them that Russia owes its success in this campaign. They are, without a doubt, the best light cavalry in the world.”
Serving in the ranks of the Russian army, the Cossacks crossed all of Europe, traversed deserts, scaled mountain ranges. These “falcons of the Russian steppes,” as the Germans called them, were the first to enter Berlin, Milan and Paris. But the old ways remained: “Plunder had always been a prime motive for the Cossacks at war,” wrote Mikhail Sholokhov in his novel, Quiet Flows the Don. “...Back in the days of the German war, when the regiment had been ranging over the rear areas in Prussia, the brigade commander – a general of some merit – had addressed the twelve squadrons drawn up before him and, pointing with his whip at a small town lying amid the hills, had said ‘Take it and the town is yours for two hours. But when those two hours are up, the first man caught looting goes to the wall!’”
There are of course opposing accounts. An eyewitness wrote of the Cossacks’ entry into Berlin in 1760: “Several thousand Cossacks and Kalmyks came down the street. They had long beards, fierce glares and mysterious weapons: bows, arrows and pikes. The sight of them was frightful and at the same time majestic. They went through the city in a quietly and orderly fashion and billeted in villages, where apartments had been apportioned for them.”
The borders of the Russian state expanded. The region of the Don Host was no longer on the front lines, but in the rear. No longer fearing attack, the Cossacks began to build permanent housing instead of earthen hovels. These homes – kureny – were built with the annual flooding of the Don in mind. They were set on high, stone foundations, which raised the upper rooms above any floodwaters. The main floor was surrounded on its perimeter by a balcony, to which boats could be tied up during flooding. The better off and more influential Cossacks built palaces in Cherkassk no less grand than those which shimmered in the capital.
The rich, thriving capital did not please Russia’s central powers. It is not without reason that Pushkin called Cherkassk a “degraded city.” Too much there reminded one of its independent past. What is more, the Cossacks themselves continually did things to remind the Powers that Be of their rebellious nature.
In 1773-1775, Russia was shaken by the peasant revolt led by the Don Cossack Yemelyan Pugachev, a charismatic fugitive and the most successful in a prolific line of Peter III pretenders (Peter III was the tsar and husband of Catherine II, who was deposed and murdered in 1762). While the main body of the Pugachev revolt was led by Yaik (Ural) and Volga Cossacks, the Don Cossacks joined the revolt as a reaction to an effort to move them to the Caucasus for defense of the new, more southerly border. The Don Host threatened to secede; they did not want to part with their historic center of Cherkassk. At the same time, however, the fortress-like capital of Cossackdom was becoming crowded and was repeatedly inundated by the flooding Don.
Early in the 19th century, it was decided to move administrative functions of the Cossack Host elsewhere, to a new capital: Novocherkassk. But the decision went unimplemented until Ataman Matvey Ivanovich Platov personally got behind it. After affirming the plan for Novocherkassk with Tsar Alexander I, the ataman ordered all of the Cossacks of Cherkassk to move and start construction of the new Cossack capital. But the majority resolved to stay put. According to the Don historian Yevgeny Savelyov, the ataman then ordered that Cossacks who refused to move to Novocherkassk would be flogged on the main square until they agreed.
The Whirlwind-Ataman, as Platov was called, became famous in the Russo-Turkish War. In 1774, Khan Devlet-Girey, a vassal of the Turkish sultan, sent out 20,000 Tatars against the Cossack troops of Platov and Stepan Larionov. The 1,000 Cossacks withstood 10 attacks before reinforcements from the regular army arrived. In the report on the Russian forces’ victory, it was stated that, “among the enemy dead were two sultans, one prince of Kokand, several notable men, and over 500 common troops, all buried on the battlefield. Our losses were not great, specifically: 8 killed, 15 missing in action, and 54 injured.” The famous poet and warrior Denis Davidov wrote, “If someone should find himself in a similar situation, then let him remember the heroic feat of the young Platov, and his weapons will be showered with success. Fortune is not always blind; it may elevate a difficult battle to the level of glory attained by the venerable hero of the Don.”
Platov was a hero and a tyrant, one whose strong, contradictory nature was reminiscent of Peter I. And the capital he built echoes a young Saint Petersburg, with its wide avenues, strictly planned streets and buildings designed by the best European architects.
Novocherkassk was in fact the personification of the Cossacks’ new fate. Warriors, farmers and businessmen alike all built homes and civic institutions intended to show themselves off as cultured, educated people. At the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries, they opened up schools, a university and gymnasium. They founded theaters and museums. Don writers, composers and painters began to be widely known.
At the start of the 20th century, the region of the Don Host was divided into nine districts (okrugs), with district administrations subordinated to the war ministry. Each village (stanitsa) elected a village administration, which convened public assemblies. At such assemblies, every Cossack (excepting women and children) had the right to speak on matters before the assembly, or to introduce proposals. Decisions were taken by simple majority. Business affairs comprised a large part of the assemblies, including the allotment of land and improvements to the village, sorting out family disputes and prosecuting petty thefts. The village administration was also responsible for equipping those Cossacks who were sent into military service. Cossacks served with their own horses, arms and uniform equipage. But if a Cossack was poor, then the administration saw to his outfitting.
Cossacks began their military service at the age of 18, with three years of training and drilling in the stanitsa. Between the ages of 21 to 33, they served within the ranks of the regular Cossack forces, which were divided up into military units that existed both in peacetime and in times of war. Between the ages of 33 to 38, Cossacks served in the reserves and could be called up in times of war. At the age of 38, a Cossack went into retirement. If a family had just one wage-earner, he was not subject to service, and there were deferments for completion of school or university education. (Typically, however, the parents of Cossacks preferred their sons to serve rather than to study.)
Just before the start of the First World War, there were some three million people living in the region of the Don Host, about half of them Cossacks. The remainder were industrial workers, miners, peasants who moved there from Central Russia, Ukrainians and Jews – all people whom the Cossacks called outsiders (inogorodniye), and whom they treated with great suspicion. Outsiders had fewer rights and could not take part in the land allotments. This contradiction was subsequently to play a fatal role.
Wars and Revolution
In the First World War, several call-ups emptied the Don stanitsy: old Cossacks and untrained youth were both drafted to the front. After the February 1917 revolution, Cossacks returning from the front began to reformulate their local administrative bodies. In Novocherkassk, an all-host krug was called and they elected a new ataman, the first since the time of Peter: General Alexei Kaledin. It was hoped and assumed that he would be able to control the brewing unrest on the Don.
After the October coup, a Bolshevik military-revolutionary committee was formed in Rostov, which included several “outsiders.” The Kamenskaya stanitsa Cossacks (Bolsheviks) were led by Fyodor Podtelkov, who was supported by 11 cavalry regiments, five batteries, one mounted “hundred,” and one battalion. The entire Don Cossack contingent at that time consisted of 60 cavalry regiments, 37 batteries, 126 mounted “hundreds,” and six battalions. A delegation sent by Podtelkov met with the Kaledin government and demanded the swift transfer of power to the revolutionary committee. Kaledin refused, and the Cossack resistance became a critical spark inciting Civil War. Within a few days, Bolshevik troops from Moscow, Petrograd and other cities, combining their forces with Podtelkov’s, broke through into Novocherkassk. The Cossacks, tired from war, did not offer significant resistance. Kaledin resigned from the position of ataman and shot himself.
On the Don, as elsewhere across Russia, the Bolsheviks set about enforcing their rule with violent and confiscatory actions, which in turn pushed the Cossacks to revolt.
“Summary execution of 62 old Cossacks in Migulinskaya stanitsa, executions in the Kazanskaya and Shumilinskaya stanitsas (former Khutor atamans, Cavaliers of St. George, sergeant-majors, respected village judges, school administrators and other bourgeoisie and Khutor counter-revolutionaries) – over six days over 400 people were shot.”
– Mikhail Sholokhov in a letter to Maxim Gorky.
The Cossacks elected a new ataman, Pyotr Krasnov, who declared the sovereign state of The All-Powerful Don Host and created a unified Don Army from the various isolated, insurgent detachments. And, in order to repulse the Bolsheviks, he concluded a treaty with Germany. At first, the Cossack-German alliance routed the Bolsheviks. But victory was to be short-lived; a split soon opened up in the Host along the long-familiar lines of the golitba and domovyty. Sholokhov, in Quiet Flows the Don, wrote about it this way:
“In April 1918, a great division took place on the Don: northern Cossacks returning from the front left with the retreating Red Army soldiers; southern Cossacks chased them down and pushed them back within the borders of their region....
“The decisive division of the Cossacks into northerners and southerners happened in 1918, but its roots can be traced back hundreds of years, when the less prosperous Cossacks from the northern regions – who lacked the fertile soil as was found near the Azov sea, who were neither wine growers, nor rich in hunting or fishing skills – broke away from Cherkassk, and took up raiding in Russian lands and became the most reliable recruits for every sort of rebel, from Razin to Sekach.”
[Book 3, Part 6, Chapter 1]
By the end of 1918, Germany’s failure in war and the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm left the Cossacks on their own and vulnerable to Red Army attacks; support from Britain, France and the U.S. was inconsistent and insufficient. “Now,” Krasnov said, in a speech before the delegates of the Military Krug, “armed with rifles and machine guns, the Don Cossacks are fleeing without a fight, surrendering their native villages and farms to the enemy for desecration; the Reds are capturing officers and leading them off to be shot or to suffer in the Red Army. All sense of a command structure has been lost, and officers no longer have the trust of their soldiers. Today, entire hundreds are going over to the Reds and returning with them to murder their fathers and brothers. We no longer have a unified and strong Don army.” Shortly thereafter, Krasnov resigned.
In January 1919, a decree signed by Yakov Sverdlov, head of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, called for de-Cossackification: “Carry out mass terror against rich Cossacks, exterminating every last one. Confiscate bread and collect all surpluses at the indicated locations; and not just bread, but all agricultural products.” In order to save themselves from complete extermination, the Cossacks fought on, and were widely-portrayed as a chief enemy of Red Forces. “The blood which is now flowing on the Southern Front,” wrote the Cossack Filipp Mironov, commander of the pro-Red Cossacks, “is shed in vain and in excess and is being spilled out to the satanic guffaws of Vandals, resurrected from the Middle Ages and the Inquisition to carry out their evil designs.”
In the end, the Cossacks were vastly outnumbered and outgunned. At the end of 1919, military ataman Afrikan Bogayevsky issued an evacuation order. The 1920 All-Russian Congress of Working Cossacks notwithstanding, the Don Host for all practical purposes ceased to exist in that year, with many Cossacks leaving Russia for good to Turkey, France and elsewhere. Those that remained in the Soviet Union fell under the sentence of de-Cossackification: Cossacks were forbidden from following their customs, going to church, wearing traditional clothing, from even calling themselves Cossacks. They were tossed from their homes, which were given to people from other regions.
Beginning in 1927, under Collectivization, the property of all peasant farmers was confiscated by kolkhozes. Sholokhov wrote Stalin about the process of Collectivization on the Don: “Kolkhozniks and individual farmers alike are dying from hunger. Adults and children are eating everything imaginable, but none of it intended for human consumption: beginning with carrion and ending with oak bark.” Stalin wrote a thank you telegram to the writer and some measures were taken. But the general strategy – to enslave the farmers – was unchanged.
During the Great Patriotic War (WWII), the majority of the remaining Soviet Cossacks fought in the ranks of the Soviet Army. Cossack formations comprised more than 70 military units. “The Germans can be stopped in the South!” wrote the paper Krasnaya Zvezda in 1942. “They can be hit and smashed! This was proven by the Cossacks who, in trying conditions showed themselves to be brave, fearless fighters for the Motherland and became a threat for the German invaders.” But it was an unequal fight and the enemy drove on to the Volga.
After their defeat at Stalingrad, the Germans swiftly retreated from the Volga. But, comparatively speaking, they began to resist more strongly in the regions bordering the more westerly Don River. In point of fact, since the outbreak of the war, the Cossacks were first in the ranks of anti-Bolshevik forces within the Soviet Union. Several stanitsy greeted invading German troops with bread and salt – traditional signs of hospitality. Some Cossacks even created detachments on their own initiative and went over to join the enemy.
At the beginning of the war, some of the Cossacks who emigrated in the 1920s (including the afore-mentioned General Krasnov) expressed their willingness to join the Wehrmacht in its fight against the USSR. In Germany and other occupied countries, the Cossacks were deployed as a national-liberation movement, whose leader, Vasily Glazkov, proclaimed to the Cossacks: “The valiant German Army is crossing the Cossack borders and entering the territory of our Cossack lands. We now know that our Cossack population will be truly glad to greet the German soldiers as liberators from the long years of the Moscow Yid-Bolshevik yoke.” Hitler declared the Cossack and Caucasian units to be “equal partners” with the Germans and authorized their use both in the battle with the partizans and on the front lines, in the USSR, in Italy and the Balkans.
But, inevitably, Nazi Germany approached its denouement. Cossack troops were in the vanguard of Soviet troops that drove the Germans back to the West. In open battles, the Cossacks fighting on the side of the USSR prevailed over the Cossack-Fascists.
Post-War Adjustments
After the war and after Stalin’s death, relations with the Cossacks changed somewhat – they were no longer considered to be “enemies of the people,” and they, as many political prisoners, began to return from exile. But a good number of Don Cossacks, fearing new repressions, considered it wise to forget their roots. Others could not forget that the Don lands had once belonged to them, and they decided they could not let their children forget this.
The Cossacks’ modern revival began during perestroika. In 1990, a Union of Cossacks of the Region of the Don Host was founded. A krug was called for Rostov-on-Don, in order to declare “the Civil War at an end.” In 1992, the State officially recognized the Cossacks’ right to exist and to reinvigorate their way of life, their cultural traditions and their way of military service. Yet, once again, a split soon became evident among the Cossacks: some were loyal to the new Yeltsin administration, others aligned themselves with the opposition. (In 1993, some members of the new Cossacks took part in the storming of the White House, were arrested for this, then amnestied.)
In 1997, Cossacks who agreed to cooperate with central and local organs of power were officially accepted into service, to perform a range of official functions, from battling criminal elements in cities and towns, to freeing prisoners in war zones. They are called “enrolled” Cossacks, and are distinguished from “public” Cossacks, who oppose the Powers That Be. In 2006, a new Federal Law will come into force, whereby only official, “enrolled” Cossacks will be allowed to fulfill government functions, as assigned to them. “Public” Cossacks will be forbidden from wearing uniforms and symbols that distinguish them as such.
Meanwhile, many observers see the “revival” of Cossack traditions to be nothing more than opportunist nationalism by modern pretenders – seeking to claim an anachronistic and heroic past with which they have no direct link. Indeed, some Cossack leaders have been aggressively xenophobic in their remarks, if not their actions (see interview, opposite page).
These are but the latest wrinkles in the complex, six centuries of Don Cossack history within – but never quite a part of – Russia. Ever at the borders of society – literally and figuratively – the Cossacks have been at once prized and reviled for their independent streak, which has borne both great successes and great infamy. As the Cossacks seek to resurrect their identity in a society that has long since lost the need for a cavalry, they will surely struggle against countless stereotypes and historical ghosts, drawing deeply upon the battle-hardened experience in their 600-year history. RL
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