Today’s Cossacks are far from their ancestors from the tsarist era, who were violent warriors-cavalry hats from sheep’s wool, with swords and whips. They were also called buffer troops on the borders of the Russian Empire. But a resurgent community of Russians claiming affiliation with the Cossacks and his legacy, are increasingly being felt like shock troops, who are fighting alongside the forces of the separatists in the South-East of Ukraine, perform police functions, and under President Vladimir Putin return to conservative values.
On Tuesday, the Cossacks, clad in their traditional form, threw milk supporters of opposition politician Alexei Navalny in the southern Russian city of Anapa, after which the confrontation resulted in a fight.
Since becoming the modern Cossacks in Russia today, in some public-spirited group, to understand their recent history you should know four facts.
1. Modern Cossacks have their origin in self-governing communities of horsemen, who appeared in the 14th century in the South of today’s Russia and Ukraine. The two largest groups in the 16th eyelids have formed the Zaporozhye and don Cossacks. They were formally independent, but sometimes reflect the raids of the Mongol-Tatars, playing the role of buffer between Russia and her enemies. The famous Russian painter Ilya Repin painted the famous picture, which depicts the Zaporozhye Cossacks writing an insulting message to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV, who ruled in the late 17th century.
In defending its independence, the Cossacks participated in a series of uprisings in the 17th and 18th centuries, including the Pugachev rebellion in 1773-1775 years, of which Alexander Pushkin wrote in “the Captain’s daughter”. They have also played an important role in expanding the territories of the Russian tsars. Zaporozhian Cossacks in the mid 17th century signed the Treaty with Russia, which in fact gave her the right of possession for large parts of the territory of modern Ukraine, and in return received protection from the Commonwealth. The Cossacks also helped to conquer Siberia and mountainous areas of the Caucasus.
In the Russian Empire Cossack self-government was abolished, and military service became official. Cossacks were sent to suppress the riots, and they often pogroms in Jewish communities in the late 19th and early 20th century. After the revolution in Russia, hundreds of thousands of Cossacks were killed by the Bolsheviks during the process, called decossackization.
2. Before the restructuring, the identity of the Cossacks had been suppressed, but with the advent of the Cossack chieftains in the South of Russia began the process of revival of the Cossacks with a clear political hue, and in the spirit of nationalism that is consistent at that time Moscow’s policy. In Cossack villages and communities were opened special schools, and the Cossacks were allowed to patrol the streets of some Russian cities as a kind of auxiliary police. A former Governor of the Krasnodar territory, who is himself of Cossack family, in 2012 transferred 1 000 Cossacks on the state allowance to help to deal with illegal immigrants, hooligans and drunkards.
The Kremlin under Putin as a whole promotes conservative values, and the Cossacks became the personification of everything Russian. They are often compared to the American cowboy and the Japanese samurai. But in their history there are also numerous examples of violence in the spirit of “committees of vigilance”, the fight against the Muslim invaders and the Jewish pogroms.
3. They increasingly take on the role of fighters for the culture. During the Sochi Olympics in 2014, the Cossacks attacked the punk group Pussy Riot, when she was shooting a scene for a music video in the centre of Sochi. They were protesting against male dance group from Ukraine called Kazaky for his performances in high heels, calling it “propaganda of homosexuality”.
4. But more importantly, during the Ukrainian crisis the Cossacks are in the paramilitaries. When in the Crimea began to appear, Russian troops without insignia seizing the state of the building before holding a hastily organized referendum on joining Russia, Cossacks in their traditional hats took up positions at checkpoints and began to fight with mass demonstrations of the crowd. When the East Ukraine war broke out, the Cossacks of Russia were there as part of separate divisions and even held entire cities, and then subjected to repression by competing with them for the separatists.
In an interview, one fought in the East of Ukraine Cossack said if he met Putin, he would have asked his weapon.
“To create a Cossack army and declare a day of peace on earth to all live in peace. And to those who want war, the Cossacks would come and say, “Okay, let’s fight,” said last week in an interview with Alexander Mozhaev, more known by his Callsign “Babai”. — First of all, I would have asked Putin to help the Cossacks, so we can live how we want. Cossacks rally either Putin or the war. The state should be grateful to us, but we see no gratitude nor for Crimea, nor Donbass. Although Crimea and the Donbas have shown that the Cossacks — is the real power”.
