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the HISTORY of COSSACKS

colonel W.V.CHERESHNEFF, 1952
THE COSSACKDOM
Who are the Cossacks? Are they a people, a party, a military group? Are they part and parcel of the Russian people, or are they an independent nation, entitled to recognition as
such?
Not long ago a traffic officer in Brooklyn gave a ticket to an offending motorist. As usual, the latter w as full of indignation and, to express his disdain, called the officer a Cossack. The
patrolman hauled the motorist into traffic court, w here the judge immediately passed the follow ing, sentence: "Present your apology to the officer for calling him a Cossack and pay a
fine of five dollars for the traffic violation; otherw ise ? ten days in jail. To this judge and to the many others w ho have had no opportunity of learning about the Cossacks, the author
dedicates this article.
It is doubtful if anyone could be found w ho doesn't think he know s something about the Cossacks. But it is just as doubtful if one could find tw o persons, not themselves Cossacks,
w hose conception about them is the same. The reason for such divergent view s is that they are based on different sources of information, on different historical periods and events,
on biased approaches and the prejudiced opinions of those w ho by chance have learned about one narrow phase or a short period of Cossack life.
Some people, such as the French, remember the Cossacks as the superb cavalry of the Russian Emperor, the conquerors of Napoleon, the unique troops w ho proved to be so
unexpectedly kind and chivalrous during their occupation of Paris in 1814.
The Chinese still think of the Cossacks as the vanguard of the Russians, the horsemen w ho "carried the borders of the Russian Empire on the pommels of their saddles.
Military men throughout the w orld admire the Cossacks for their high "esprit de corps, for their valor, tenacity and habit of alw ays performing acts beyond the call of duty, of alw ays
reaching for the impossible.
Students of the Imperial Period of Russia admire the Cossacks for their part in establishing the House of Romanoff as the rulers of Russia. On the other hand, Cossack leaders
such as Razin and Pugachov w ere the patron saints of the liberals and revolutionists w ho fought against the Romanoffs,
To geographers the Cossacks are the intrepid explorers and discoverers w ho opened to civilization the vastness of Northern Asia, w ho discovered Kamchatka and the Bering Strait,
w ho w ere the first to cross, that strait in modern times, w ho made the first permanent settlements in Alaska and along the West Coast of the North American continent, penetrating and
establishing forts and settlements as far south as the present city of San Francisco.
Russian schoolboys of pre-revolutionary Russia learned about the Cossacks as the frontiersmen of the Russia State, w ho conquered and presented Siberia to the Czar of Russia
and opened this vast land for subsequent colonization; to that schoolboy the Cossacks w ere for centuries protectors of the remote and long land frontier of Russia. To his counterpart
of today, the schoolboy in the Soviet Union, the Cossacks are presented as class enemies of the true Bolsheviks, as the people w ho refused to accept the doctrines of Communism
and the so-called benefits of the Soviet State and w ho, because of their "backw ardness and stubbornness," had to be liquidated one and all.
Descendants of political refugees from the Czarist regime picture Cossacks as the trusted guardians of the Czars, brutal "gendarmes" too often employed by the Imperial
Government in the suppression of popular protests, revolts and manifestations of a liberal character. For them the Cossacks w ere a military caste, part of the Russian people, and not
the very best part either.
Immediate neighbors of the Cossacks, w ho w ere in a position to learn about the Cossacks at first hand by personal observation, knew them for their loyalty and patriotism, their
eternal struggle for freedom, their heroic stand against Bolshevist aggression and tyranny, their free and easy w ay of living, and, finally, for their passionate love for their
Cossack land. To them the Cossacks w ere a separate people, and their land the refuge for the oppressed.
To the Cossacks themselves there has never been any question as to their identity. They have their ow n national history, their ow n w ay of life, their traditions and usages, their
particular linguistic originality, the proud know ledge of their part in shaping the destiny of humanity, and the inner consciousness that they are a separate ethnic and social group. Yet,
at the same time, w ith a few fringe exceptions, the solid core of the Cossacks do not conceive of existing outside the Commonw ealth of Peoples w ho in pre-revolutionary times

composed the Russian Em pire. The fringes are, on one hand, a very small group of Cossacks, for the most part former generals and high officials under the Czars, w ho deny a
separate existence to the Cossacks and consider them just an odd and picturesque part of the Russian Arm y; at the other extreme is also a small, but highly vocal group of
Cossacks, primarily of the younger generation, w ho claim that the Russians have alw ays been the oppressors of the Cossacks, and that in the future all Cossacks shall and w ill
live under the banner of the free and independent nation "Kazakia."
Although the author realizes the utter impossibility of giving in a few w ords a comprehensive history of the Cossacks., a description of their present social, political and economic
situation, and the reasons and motives for their aspirations and claims to recognition, the author, himself a Cossack, presents the Cossacks to the general public as they see
themselves, hoping in this brief sktech to correct some of the more common misconceptions about them.

I. A Brief History of the Cossacks

Centuries ago the forefathers of the present day Cossacks settled in the steppes of the southeastern corner of
Europe, bordering on the Black Sea and the Caucasian Mountains on the south, the Caspian Sea and the river Volga
on the east, the forests of the Great Russian Plain on the north and the river Dniester on the w est. Since the daw n
of civilization these steppes had been crossed again and again by the peoples of the Great Migration. The original
Cossacks w ere the product of an intermixture of all these peoples w ith the previous settlers of the Slavic race.
Byzantine w riters of the Tenth Century described the Cossacks as a separate people w ho lived on the river
Don, and called them "the brave and strong people." In old Russian chronicles they w ere similarly described for the
first time in 1261. The Don Cossacks fought on the side of the Russian Grand Duke Dim itry against the Tartars
in 1380. In all the records of that period the Cossacks w ere described as a series of independent communities,
loosely bound into larger units of a military character, entirely separate from the Russian State. The Russian
historian Karamzin w rote: "Where the Cossacks came from cannot be said w ith certainty, but, in any event, it [their
State] existed prior to the Tartar invasion of 1223. These knights lived separately, w ithout pledging allegiance to
the Russians, the Poles or the Tartars." Their tribal units, organizations similar to Scottish clans, occupied the w hole
area betw een the rivers Dniester on the West and the Volga on the East. At the head of each tribe w as an Atam an, or Hetm an, elected by the people; the people also elected, for a
specifically limited term, the other administrative officers of the tribe: the judge, the scribe, the lesser officials, and even the clergy. Supreme legislative authority rested in the Tribal
Assembly (the King, or the Rada). Executive pow ers w ere vested in the Atam an; at time of w ar he w as the supreme commander in the field. In the absence of w ritten law s, the
Cossacks w ere governed by the "Cossack Traditions," the Common, unw ritten law .
In the Sixteenth Century these numerous Cossack clans consolidated into tw o large republics: one, know n as the Zaporojie, on the low er bends of the river Dnieper, sandw iched
betw een Russia, Poland and the Tartars of the Crimea; the other, the Don Cossack State, on the river Don, separating the then w eak Russian State from the Mongol and Tartar
tribes, w hich w ere at that time vassals of the pow erful Sultan of Turkey. Numerous Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Turkish and other historical documents of that period contain mentions
of these tw o states, alw ays referring to them as sovereign republics. For instance, in 1549 the famous Czar of Russia, Ivan the Terrible, replying to a request of the Turkish
Sultan to stop the aggressive actions of the Don Cossacks, stated, "The Cossacks of the Don are not m y subjects, and they go to w ar or live in peace w ithout m y
know ledge." Ten years before that, in a reverse situation, w hen Czar Vassily the Third asked the Sultan to curb the Cossacks, the Sultan replied. "The Cossacks do not sw ear
allegiance to m e, and they live as they them selves please."
This w as the period during w hich the expansion of Russia intensified and the consolidation of Poland took place. Both states w ere enforcing the feudal system w hich attached
peasants to the land and made them the property of the nobles. This policy, coupled w ith the territorial expansion of these tw o states and their conquest of their w eaker neighbors,
created a condition in w hich all men w ho did not relish the idea of becoming somebody's slave, and all w ho valued personal freedom, fled to the southeast and found refuge in the land
of the Cossacks w here they could be free. All protests and ultimatums of the Czars and the Kings to return their subjects w ere of no avail; the Cossacks then coined their famous
motto: "There is no extradition from the Don."
Incidentally, this exodus of freedom-loving people from medieval Russia to the land of the Cossacks is the foundation for the official Russian historians' assertion that Cossackdom
originated in that period, and that the Cossacks w ere nothing more than the hordes of Russian peasants w ho had run aw ay from their masters, the Russian boyars. On this ground
some Russian politicians of the later Imperial period refused to recognize the Cossacks as separate and distinct from the Russians proper as an ethnical group. At the present
moment, how ever, this theory is supported only by the most reactionary circles of the Russian em igration, w ho in this respect are in perfect accord w ith the Kremlin. All other
historians and political leaders recognize that the Cossacks, as an independent ethnic and political entity, existed long before this exodus of the freedom loving element from
Muskovite Russia and the Poland of the Nobles. It should be noted, in passing, that the very w ord "Kazak" (Cossack) means, in Tartar "The Freem an."

The tw o great Cossack States of that period, the Don and the Zaporojie, constituted unique military orders w hose main raison d'etre w as to protect the Eastern Catholic Church from
Roman Catholicism and Mohammedanism. It can be truly said that but for the fanatical resistance of the Cossacks of Zaporojie, militant Roman Catholicism w ould have taken over and
conquered the w hole of Eastern Europe, w hile at the same time, unless the Don Cossacks had been in its w ay, Mohammedanism might have become the dominant religion
everyw here east of Poland.
In the course of time the Cossacks grew in numbers and became a nation of professional soldiers; they established an endless chain of posts and settlements, protecting Russian
tow ns and villages from the raids and invasions of the militant Mongol and Tartar tribes from the south and the east. The Cossacks knew that passive defense alone could not stop
and prevent these raids, and they often carried the w ar to the enemy. Afoot and on their sw ift horses, and quite often in their crude boats, they raided the settlements and camps of
the neighboring Tartars of Crimea and Astrakhan; they sacked border tow ns and fortresses of Polcfid; at times they joined w ith the Poles and Crimean Tartars and w aged w ar against
various Russian Principalities; they pillaged and burned the Black Sea ports of Turkey and those of Persia on the Caspian Sea. As an example of their daring and prow ess, historians
recite the exploits of a band of Zaporojie Cossacks w ho in the Sixteenth Century penetrated the Straits of the Bosphorus, crossed the Sea of Marmora, squeezed through the
Dardanelles, sailed the long Mediterranean Sea, captured the Spanish city of Saragossa, and held it against all comers for a full tw o years. Again, in 1696, the Don Cossacks, sailing
the Sea of Azov in their flimsy row boats, in the presence of the Russian Czar Peter the Great, met and destroyed the pow erful Turkish fleet. Similarly, though much later, in 1828
the Cossacks of Zaporojie, in the w ar of Russia against Turkey, sailed the Black Sea in their light boats (they called them "chaikes," the seagulls) and took by assault the pow erful
Turkish fortress Brailov.
As mentioned before, during the Fourteenth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries the principal role of the Cossacks consisted of the protection of Russia and, occasionally, of Poland from
the aggressive Moham m edan peoples. The next, the Seventeenth Century, w as for them an era of colonization w hen the frontiers of Russia w ere moved southw ard and
eastw ard. Originally their penetration w as at the expense of the Tartars, w ho lived along the northern shores of the Black Sea; then they crossed the Volga and built their tow ns and
forts in the foothills of the Urals; then the famous Ataman of the Don Cossacks, Ermak, crossed the Urals, conquered the Tartars of Siberia and "presented" that vast land to Ivan the
Terrible. At the same time other Cossacks moved southw ard and established the Terek clan on the northern slopes of the Caucasian mountains. Follow ing Ermak, w ho w as killed in
a skirmish w ith the nomads, roving Cossack bands continued their penetration eastw ard, until finally they discovered and colonized for Russia the remote provinces of the Far East.
This process of penetration and discovery, of scouting and acquisition, is similar to the "Westw ard Ho" expansion in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries in America: the same
w ilderness, hostile natives, hardships, and the urge to get a little further and to see w hat lies beyond each successive hill. Just as the discovery of the American West w as made
possible through the toil and sw eat and blood of the intrepid bands of frontiersmen, w hose names w ere often unknow n to the settlers w ho follow ed them, so the discovery and
conquest of Siberia and the Far East called for superhuman efforts ? to cross mile-w ide rivers, to penetrate virgin taiga forests, alw ays short of food and amunition. It should be noted
that for the most part this drive tow ard the broad Pacific w as on the Cossacks ow n initiative; all they got (and that infrequently) from the Russian pow er w as some lead and pow der.
Yet every new ly discovered land w as taken by the Cossacks in the name of the Russian Czar and "presented" to him by the conquerors. Without w ritten commissions these men
served the Czar as his diplomats, settlers and border guards.
In this process of moving the borders of the Russia State outw ard, the to camp on frozen tundra, alw ays facing resistance from the aborigines, Cossacks customarily set military
posts and forts, garrisoned by a few w ounded and crippled men and some friendly natives; soon they w ould get themselves w ives from among the local belles; then a tow n w ould be
built around the fort, roads be laid out to the nearest forts (stanitzas) ; and finally, a new clan (voisko) w ould be established, guarding the new subjects of the Russian Czar and
protecting the new border. Eleven such clans existed in Russia before the revolution of 1917, strung from the Black Sea to the shores of the Pacific, "eleven pearls in the crow n of
the Russian Em peror."
It w as in 1646 that the Cossacks came to the shores of the Pacific Ocean; tw o years later Dejnev, a Cossack atam an, discovered the Bering Strait; w ithin a few years the
Cossacks had crossed this ribbon of w ater and established settlements in Alaska, Kamchatka and all through the Pacific Northw est. Still later the Cossacks, moving southw ard
tow ard China, took for Russia the rich Amur, Ussuri and Maritime Provinces., establishing contact w ith China, Korea and Japan. In the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries the
Cossack regim ents w ere incorporated in the Russian Arm y, and as part of it fought against Napoleon and in the Crimea and four Turkish Wars. They bore the brunt of the
struggle for conquest and possession of the Caucasus and Turkestan. When the major w ars w ith the neighboring states w ere over and the borders of the Empire had become
stabilized, the Cossacks w ere given another, not less arduous, task: to keep the new frontiers inviolate and to protect peaceful settlers from hostile actions by Turks, Persians,
Afghans, Mongols and Manchus. Other Cossack regim ents w ere strung along the borders separating Russia from her w estern neighbors, the Austrians and Germans. The exploits
of the Cossacks in World War I are too w ell know n to be dw elt upon here. It w ill suffice to state that the Cossacks w ere in the vanguard of the Russian Arm y w hen it w as
advancing and the same Cossacks w ere covering the army at the time of retreats. Notw ithstanding such exposure, Cossack prisoners of w ar w ere so rare an event, that in 1914
and 1915 the few captured Cossacks w ere carried in special cages through distant Hungarian tow ns to show people that even Cossacks could be taken prisoners.

II. The Fight for Freedom and Liberty

Important w as the part the Cossacks played in building the Russian Em pire. Just as important for them w as their resistance and fight for freedom w henever that mighty empire
attempted to curb the Cossack liberties.
To begin w ith, the original settlers, the aborigines of the "Wild Steppes," the region betw een the rivers Dnieper and Volga, w ere free men, ow ing allegiance to no one. With the
exception of a short period in the Fourteenth Century w hen the Cossacks w ere compelled to recognize the sovereignty of Genghiz Khan and Tamerlane, the Cossacks w ere left to
shift for themselves. They w ere too troublesome for any potentate to claim them for his ow n. This situation ended in the Sixteenth Century w hen the rivalry of the neighboring great
states of Russia, Poland and Turkey sucked the Cossacks into the repeated w ars betw een those nations. Each of these giants w anted to get the w arlike Cossacks on its side, and
each claimed them as subjects. There w as another reason for the rulers of Russia and Poland to show interest in the internal affairs of the Cossacks. The end of the Seventeenth
Century is know n as a period of social upheaval in these states, particularly in Russia. It w as a period w hen the serfs repeatedly revolted against their masters, the boyars and the
nobles, the Church and the State. The Cossacks, w ho themselves never knew slavery, alw ays supported and aided those w ho fought to remain free, or to throw off the yoke of
slavery. By this time the State had become pow erful and w as strong enough to suppress every such revolt of the masses. Each time this happened the Cossacks had to pay w ith
their lives for taking the side of the oppressed. The Czars on many occasions sent their troops to "bring order into the Cossack lands."
Still, up to the Seventeenth Century the Cossack states remained free, only at times and for short periods acknow ledging the sovereignty sometimes of Poland and sometimes of
Russia. But at that time the Cossacks of Zaporojie, forced by economic dependency to ally themselves w ith a strong pow er, and finding themselves in a squeeze in the higher
politics of Russia, Turkey and Poland, had to seek a firmer alliance w ith one of these pow ers, and their choice w as the people of the same religious faith, Russia. Of their free w ill, w ith
solemn pomp and circumstance, the Zaporojie Cossacks, together w ith the people of the Eastern Ukraine, led by their Hetm an Bogdan Chm ielnitsky, recognized the sovereignty
of the Russian Czar Alexis. Ironically, starting w ith this ruler of Russia, all his successors promulgated and pursued a definite policy of reducing the Cossacks to the status of a
m ilitary caste. The Cossacks revolted, and Czar Alexis w as the first to send a m ilitary expedition of major size to crush the rebellion. Stenka Razin, the leader of that
rebellion, w as captured and executed on the famous Red Square in Moscow , and his men, w ho w anted to set all Russian serfs free, w ere dispersed. Czar Alexis' son, Peter
the Great of Russia, had to deal w ith a similar uprising on the Don, w hen the Cossacks, under their Ataman Boulavin, protested against Peter's sending regiments of the regular army
"to keep the Cossacks in check." The rebellion w as crushed and Boulavin committed suicide; thousands of Cossacks w ere hanged; and scores of their tow ns w iped out. To put an
end to the unreliable and freedom loving society of the Don Cossacks, Peter the Great officially annexed the Don to his Em pire, and put an end to its existence as a free state.
Later, during the very same years that the American colonists w ere revolting against their British rulers and establishing a new , free nation, the United States, the Russian
Em press Catherine the Great took every vestige of freedom from the Cossacks of the Ukraine, destroyed Siech, the principal camp of the Zaporojie Cossacks and disbanded
that Order of the Cossack Knights.
This condition continued dow n to our day: the central Russian government w as bent on curbing the Cossack privileges and liberties, and adopted one after another measures
forcing the Cossacks to the unenviable level of the Russian peasant (yet expecting at the same time the Cossacks to retain their unique military qualities!) ; w hile the Cossacks held
to the shreds of their former independence and jealously guarded w hat w as left of it.
The fast grow ing Russian state did not w ant the Cossacks as a separate people, nor as a series of independent clans. The Cossacks, w ith their w ar like characteristics, w hose
w hole historical existence w as a chain of w ars and raids and penetrations into hostile areas, w ere needed as fighters only. Incorporated into the Russian arm y, the Cossacks
w ere put on horses; and thus w as created the best light cavalry in the w orld. These horsemen in many a battle bested the cream of the crop of the heavy cavalry of Frederick the
Great; they outfought the famous troops of Marshal Murat and chased the remnants of Napoleon's Grand Army from Russia; they carried the battle flags of the Russian Arm y from
the Seine to the Pacific, and from Finland to the gates of Constantinople.
From times of old the Cossacks w ere know n for their loyalty and their military quality of obeying orders w ithout questioning their merits. Taking advantage of these qualities, Russian
rulers quite often employed the Cossacks for the suppression of revolutions and riots engineered by the liberal and revolutionary groups in Russia, and for crushing separatist
movements in the recently annexed provinces.
The unenviable reputation of the Cossacks as brutal executioners in the Czar's service originated from this phase of their service in the Russian Arm y. Three Russian w ords ? the
pogrom , the knut (or nagaika) and the Cossack ? entered hand in hand into the pages of Western dictionaries and school books. The impression w as created and universally
accepted that the Cossacks conducted the pogrom s and terrified the Jew ish population of the w estern provinces of Russia.
Actually the pogrom s w ere expressions of mob rule directed against the Jew s and carried out by the low est, the most ignorant portion of the Russian peasantry and the scum of
the big cities. They w ere usually engineered by the anti-sem itic, ultra-conservative patriotic societies, and encouraged, at least in some instances, by the government.
The pogroms often resulted in some loss of life and great destruction of property in the Jew ish sections of such big cities as Kishenev, Bielostok, and others. When the mob got out

of hand and the instigators lost control over the rioters, the government officials w ould call the nearest army units to suppress the disorders and the pillage. Usually, the Cossacks
w ould be the first to saddle, and gallop to the scene of the riot. In a short time, using their horse w hips on the mob, they w ould disperse the drunken tramps and farm hands, and the
pogrom w ould be over.
But the radicals and the revolutionary press in Russia and in the countries unfriendly to its government, constantly looking for something to undermine and dam age the prestige and
good nam e of the m onarchy, w ould publish the next day a shocking account of the pogrom and the part the government had had in it. They w ould describe how the Cossacks
w ere called on to protect the mob from the resisting Jew s and how they horse-w hipped every Jew w ho happened to be on the street.
The best proof of the actual role played by Cossacks in the pogrom s is preserved to the present day in the archives of several Cossack regim ents, in the form of beautifully
inscribed and even more beautifully w orded scrolls, presented to these regim ents by organized Jew ish com m unities, societies and synagogues, as tokens of their gratitude
for the protection afforded by the Cossacks to the Jew s in the suppression of pogrom s.
A strange paradox should be noted in the make-up and employment of the Cossacks: on the one hand, they w ere constantly fighting for the
retention of their liberties and privileges, w hile, on the other, they w ere blindly carrying out orders directed tow ard the suppression of the
liberties of other peoples. Due to this situation, some Russian statesmen regarded the Cossacks as the most loyal subjects of the Czars (in fact,
to the last days of the Monarchy, the personal bodyguard of the Russian Em perors w ere composed only of Cossacks), w hile others
considered them the most unreliable, revolutionary element, dissatisfied w ith the loss of their absolute independence and forever ready to take
up arms against the central authorities. For example, a single shot of a Don Cossack on the streets of St. Petersburg decided the outcome of the
first phase of the 1917 revolution; it w as made against the established authorities.

How to Become a Cossack

To a certain extent Cossackdom w as an ideal form of human relations, tested and tried in the course of many turbulent centuries, based on a
truly democratic form of voluntary co-existence of different racial groups in one union. Often these groups w ere of different blood, language,
religion and degree of civilization; yet they indestructibly bound themselves together by their w ay of living, their social structure, economic
standards, deep love for their land and homes, and their established order and traditions.
To begin w ith, the Cossacks never claimed any exclusiveness; the best minds among them repeatedly proclaimed that there had never been
any special Cossacks' God, and that our Lord God w ould not have entertained the idea of creating separately such an unruly tribe as the
Cossack.s From the time of the establishment of small Cossack cam ps in the southeast of Europe to the period of the liquidation of the
Cossacks under the Com m unist governm ent of Soviet Russia, it w as not difficult to become a Cossack. In the first period of their
existence, prior to the formation of the large clans, the Cossack com m unities w ere of a strictly military character. The Cossacks, w hen not
in an actual w ar, lived in their forts and camps in w hich w omen w ere not allow ed. It w as a w arrior's w orld; the Cossack clans w ere similar to the various knightly orders of w estern
Europe. Every Cossack, from the eager youngster to the graying veteran of many w ars, w as a fighter, first and last. Any other occupation w as strictly forbidden to the Cossack,
under severe penalty; and all trades, shops and stores in Cossack settlements w ere in the hands of non-Cossacks.
Going from one w ar to another as they did, there w ere very few "gray-haired veterans"; at times the Cossack kourens and regiments returned from the w ars w ith just a few ablebodied men in the ranks; new blood w ould be needed. New comers w ere gladly accepted; all w ho w anted to join w ere w elcomed. Formalities for admission w ere few : a candidate had
to be a physically sound specimen and had "to believe in God"; he w as called on to make the sign of the cross, and, if w illing and able to do so, w as pronounced a Cosack and w as
assigned to the kouren (regimental unit) of his ow n choice, or to that unit w hich had suffered the greatest losses in the last w ar or raid.
When the unsettled and dangerous conditions in the lands of the Cossacks gradually stabilized and the troublesome Tartars and Asiatics w ere pushed back, in the Eighteenth and
Nineteenth Centuries it became relatively safe for a man w ith a plow to make a hut and to start farming close to a Cossack fort. With these adventurous first settlers came their w omen.
These new settlers gradually colonized and peopled the then "No Man's Land"; in this w ay the present day Eastern Ukraine w as formed and its population became know n as the
Ukrainian Cossacks. Such farmers w ere required to list themselves w ith the nearest kouren, and they w ere subject to being called to arms at a moment's notice.
The Cossacks themselves gradually began to know and to appreciate the comfort and benefits of a settled, civilized life. Their custom w as to bring their captives, men, w omen and
children, from their raids. The men w ould w ork for their captors for a w hile, and then w ould either be set free and able to join the Cossacks, or returned, upon payment of ransom or
in exchange for captured Cossacks, to their people. Children w ould be converted to Christianity and raised as Cossacks. Young w omen and girls w ould eventually become some
Cossack's w ife. Because of this manner of "adopting" former enemies, there are many foreign-sounding sur names among the Cossacks. It is not difficult to trace the origin of some
old Cossack clans, like the Poliakovs, the Pospolitakis, the Kalmikovs and the Nogayetzs.
Married Cossacks acquired a taste for the comforts of a home betw een w ars. Soon they learned other occupations; restrictions against farming w ere lifted. Thus w as created a

new Cossack, a farmer in peacetime, but every ready to mount his sw ift horse and go to w ar, leaving his w ife to tend to the farm until his return, often after many, many years. Their
w omen, living in the borderlands, quite frequently had to defend themselves from marauding Tartar bands, and there is many a story of Cossack w om en w ho successfully defended
their tow ns against such raiders.
With the passage of years there w ere many changes in the method of building up the Cossack ranks to the numbers needed for the protection of the less w arlike population of the
Russian Em pire. Relations w ith formerly hostile neighbors became friendly; trophies of w ar had no girls among them any more. Although the birth rate w as high, still the rate of
death, from w ounds and epidemics in remote localities, w as higher. The government of Russia solved this problem radically and simply ? an Imperial Ukaze w ould be issued,
commanding several long existing and prosperous Cossack tow ns to assign a certain number of families for transfer to barren and dangerous parts of the borderland "to establish
new Cossack tow ns." With much suffering and the tragic breaking up of family ties, often after an armed resistance, the designated families w ere moved to the new place. Whenever
the number of such emigrants w as not sufficient to populate the barren spot, the government w ould, by another Ukaze, settle in the same place soldiers from the regiments of the
Regular Army w ho happened to be nearby at the time. In such a manner not only w ere new settlements built, not only w ere new clans (the Voiskos) created, but Cossacks
themselves w ere made from men w ho prior to the Ukaze had no connection w ith the Cossacks. Such "making Cossacks" by decree w as taking place as late as the last tw o decades
of the Nineteenth Century. Some Cossacks w ere, therefore, quite new and young in this w orld. Yet, invariably, w hen a crisis came, like heavy losses in w ars, or a revolution broke
out, these new Cossacks proved to be just as brave, tenacious and just as strong in their conviction that they w ere a shade better than the next best man as their older Cossack
brethren.
There w as another, much simpler, though not alw ays easier, w ay of becoming a Cossack ? any girl w ho chanced to marry a Cossack w ould automatically become herself a
Cossack. Such a non-Cossack-born female, after the death of her husband, received all the benefits and rights of his w idow in the same manner as if her ancestors had been
Cossacks for generations.
Finally in the latest pre-Revolutionary period, a person w ho desired to become a Cossack could do so, by, first proving in some tangible w ay that he w ould be an asset to a Cossack
com m unity; second, by obtaining a consent resolution from the general assembly (the sobor) of that community; and, third, by securing an approval from the District Ataman? upon
overcoming all these obstacles, the applicant's name w as entered on the rolls, he became a full-fledged Cossack, and the w hole stanitza w ould "go on a binge" for a couple of days to
celebrate the new member of their community.

Military Duties of Cossacks

As w as indicated above, a Cossack originally w as a w arrior and nothing else ? a professional fighter. He w as "employed" only w hen he w as in a w ar., declared or undeclared.
Periods in betw een w ere few ., and the "unemployed" Cossack spent his time in drinking, preparing equipment for future actions, electing and replacing his administration, in hunting
and fishing, and in drinking and w asting the trophies and loot w hich he had brought home from the last w ar or said. Going to w ar, a Cossack had to bring w ith him all his arm s, and a
horse, if he w as w ith a mounted outfit. A Cossack w ho, as a result of too much carousing and drinking, lost his w eapons w as unmercifully flogged by his friends and elders w hen
he show ed up in the ranks unarmed. This principle of the Cossack's bringing all the articles of his uniform and other necessities, as w ell as his ow n arms and horse, continued to be in
force dow n to our day. This obligation distinguished a Cossack from the conscripts of the regular Army. Cossacks w ere proud of their arms, often passed from grandfather to father,
and from father to son, and of their horses. On the other hand, quite often it w as a hardship or even a calamity for a not too w ell-to-do Cossack fam ily to equip three or four sons for
the service in the regiment in a short space of time.
Originally there w as no time limit on the Cossack's military service; he w as alw ays in the ranks. In time of w ar he w as in saddle and in
formation at the sound of the big drum or the church bell. No one knew w hen he w ould be back. Later, w hen Catherine the Great of
Russia destroyed, in 1775, the last order of knights in the w orld, the Siech of the Zaporojie Cossacks, the Cossacks w ho remained in
Russia (quite many emigrated into Turkey and became respected subjects of the Sultan, preserving their identity dow n to our day) w ere
moved to new locations ? eventually to the Kuban region in the northern Caucasus ? again to guard the borders of the ever grow ing empire
from its w arlike neighbors to the south. They still had to go to w ar at a moment's notice, but their service in the regiment w as not a life-long
job any more. The term w as reduced; at first to tw enty-five years of active service (and to death in the" reserve), and gradually to w hat it
w as in the years before the First World War ? four years in a first line regiment, four years in a second line regiment, and four years in a unit of the third line, then in the armed reserve
until the age of fifty-six. When listed in the second and third line outfits, the Cossacks lived at home, but w ere in constant readiness and subject to summer camps and periodical drills.
Wars became few and, w ith the exception of the time served in a first line regiment, the Cossack stayed home in his stanitza (tow n) w ith his family, tilling the soil and free to engage in
any other occupation.

Cossacks Before the Revolution of 1917

Forced to relinquish their sovereignty to the Czars of Russia, the Cossacks managed to retain semi-autonomy; w ithin the borders of their eleven provinces they w ere independent. It

is true that the Atam an, or chief of each clan (Voisko), w as appointed by the Emperor; it is equally true that a recently established practice w as to appoint only non-Cossacks to be
Atamans; it is true that the tendency of the central government w as to abridge the ancient rights and privileges of the Cossacks w hich had been recognized in a special Charter by
every Emperor upon his accession to the throne. But in the main, the Cossacks w ere the masters of their ow n lives.
Proud as the Cossacks w ere of their military prow ess and glory, they cherished much more their w ay of living. The main principles of Cossack-dom w ere full and complete equality in
rights and duties ? equality social, political and economic. Each Cossack Voiska w as a democracy, pure and simple.
All their administration w as elective. All communal matters w ere discussed and decided by the general assembly (the sbor), composed of all male Cossacks of each stanitza; all local
officers, beginning w ith the stanitza's ataman, w ere elected, mostly for a term of three years, at these sbors. Every officer could be impeached for inefficiency or malfeasance. The
duties of all elected officers w ere strictly defined, as w ell as their rights and pow ers. In general, their rights w ere broad, but alw ays short of infringement on the personal freedom and
dignity of their constituents. The Cossacks w ere a proud people. Thev had no classes, social or economic, and the few attempts on the part of the central government to create a
class of nobles, from among the distinguished Cossack officers and generals, alw ays met w ith determined opposition from the rank and file, as w ell as from the intended
beneficiaries of the scheme.
Cossackdom is the long established combination of complete individual freedom w ith the iron discipline of organized society; it is an absolute equality in rights and privileges, and just as
absolute an equality in carrying common burdens and duties; it is a sensible and practical unity of individual initiative and private ow nership of things personal w ith communal
ow nership of the gifts of nature and the means of production.
The last half century, immediately preceding the beginning of the First World War, 1864 to 1914, w as a period of economic and cultural achievement in Cossack history. It w as a
comparatively quiet period in the history of the Russian nation, w hen the Cossacks had an opportunity of staying home and attending to their peaceful pursuits. It w as a period w hen
the Cossacks proved that their w ay of living, their system of democratic institutions w ith no dictation from above, paid large dividends.
By this tim tehe tw o original Cossack clans, the Don and the Zaporojie, branched out and formed eleven Cossack states, extending along the borders of the Empire from the lack Sea to
the shores of the Pacific Ocean. The names of these eleven states, starting from the w est and going eastw ard w ere: Don, Kuban, Terek, Astrakhan, Ural, Orenburg, Semirechjie, Sibir,
Zabaikal, Amur, and Ussury. The first six states w ere in European Russia and the last five in Asia. Some states w ere large,w ith populations in the millions (tw o millions of Don
Cossacks), w hile others w ere small (just a few thousand in the Ussury Voisko). These Cossacks w ere different in their appearance, facial characteristics, and even in the uniforms
they w ore; but in the main they w ere the same; they cherishrd theier free and easy w ay of life; they knew that they w ere born for w ar; they w ere proud to be Cossacks. Their
institutions w ere also alike, as w ell as their military service. Each Cossack w ent to his ow n regiment, w here his father and forefathers had served; each served along side his
schoolmates and next door neighbors; their officers w ere boys from the same stanitzas, often close relatives, w ho chose to go to military school w hen others preferred to stay at
home to help their fathers in farming. Their m ilitary uniform s w ere practically the same as their every-day dress, mostly adopted from or influenced by the neighboring mountaineers
or nomads. The total population of all the Cossack states amounted to slightly over five million. It should be noted, in passing, that w hile originally every Cossack state w as on the
fringe of the Russian state, beganning w ith the rapid expansion of Russia tow ard its present southeastern borders, some of these Cossack states found themselves w ell w ithin these
new borders. At the brink of the First World War seven Cossack states, among them the largest and the oldest, like the Don and Ural, w ere far inside the new borders of the emipre.
This situation w as fraught w ith danger for the very existance of these states ? they ceased to be buffer states, intended to absorb the first shock of the advancing enemy or to repel
the marauding bands of Bakh-tiari or the Afghans, and w hen they lost this quality, w hat w as the justification for treating the Cossacks different from the rest of the Russian
population?
Another potential danger to the existence of the Cossack states lurked in the ''minorities" problem; the bountiful and free life in the Cossack lands continued to attract adventurers and
the dissatisfied long after the Cossacks had lost interest in filling their ranks w ith new comers from every side. These new emigrees settled in Cossack tow ns, mostly as traders and
mechanics of all sorts; gradually they acquired land and plots in tow ns. Their number w as alw ays increasing, to the point that in 1914-1917 in some of the richest Cossack states,
the non-Cossack population exceeded the Cossacks. The builders of the Empire in St. Petersburg w ere pondering on this situation and w ere coming to the conclusion that, for the
benefit of the w hole nation, the anomaly of having a separate people, w ith separate customs, law s and privileges should be removed forever.

THE COSSACKS IN PEACE TIME

Living for centuries at the crossroads of Eastern Europe, in close contact w ith various nations and peoples, the energetic and curious Cossacks easily observed the w ays of living of
these peoples and w illingly adopted from them all that looked w orth w hile copying. Ever ready in w ar to discard some attractive trophy for something more glittering and valuable, the
Cossack retained the same trait in peaceful pursuits; and, as a result, before the Revolution of 1917, the Cossacks had the largest agricultural machines and theory ? the best for
their situation of w orking and dairy cattle, and they had several famous breeds of saddle horses. The Cossacks undoubtedly w ere the best farmers in Russia; the w heat and corn
from the Kuban and Don w ere the chief items of export through the ports of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov; in Cossack pastures roamed sw ift horses, future mounts for the
regular cavalry regiments of the Russian Arm y; the best table w ines in Russia w ere produced from the grapes grow n on the Don and the Terek; the best tobacco w as cultivated on

the Kuban foothills of the Caucasian ridge; the Ural Cossacks w ere famous as fishermen, and w ho does not know of Russian caviar and sturgeon steaks. Orenburg w oolen shaw ls
w ere alw ays the most cherished possession of the Moscow belles, w hile the w ord "Astrakhan" rings familiarly to all of us. The Cossacks of Siberia and Am ur and Ussury w ere
intrepid trappers and hunters, going alone after the ferocious Siberian tigers.
These principal occupations, like farming, cattle, sheep and horse breeding, fishing and hunting, made the Cossacks rich. Their w ealth created an envy in the masses of the Russian
peasantry, land hungry and often destitute. Goaded by the Bolsheviks, they later so w illingly responded to the cry, "On to the Don, on to the Kuban!" sounded by Lenin and Trotzky.
But in addition to the rich black earth, so good for farming and ranching, the land of the Cossacks contained tremendous riches below the ground. Within the territories occupied by the
Don, Kuban and Terek Cossacks are the renow ned anthracite mines of the Donetz region, the oil fields of Grozny and Maikop, the salt of Ural and the as yet uncounted w ealth of
minerals, including gold, silver, nickel and marble in the mountain ridges of the Caucasus, Ural, Altai and Trans-Baikal. The best fisheries in Russia w ere found in the deltas of the Volga,
Kuban, Ural, Irtish and Amur; some of the best game preserves w ere also in the Cossack lands.
How ever, this bounty of Mother Nature cannot by itself explain the fact that the Cossacks w ere among the most advanced peoples of the Russian Empire. They w ere in the front
ranks in the fields of education and culture because they practiced the old Russian proverb, "Education is light and ignorance is darkness." The Cossack lands w ere covered w ith
hundreds of schools and institutions of learning. In the absence of any compulsory law , in the years preceding the Revolution of 1917, every Cossack boy and girl received an
elementary school education; a great many of them w ent to the high schools or attended the special trade or vocational schools w hich w ere established in every good-sized Cossack
tow n; and even from the smallest and most remote tow ns there w ere, as a rule, several young men and girls attending colleges and taking special courses in the great universities in
central Russia. It should be noted here that this urge of the Cossacks to give to their youth a broad general education w as frow ned upon by the Czar's government; the Cossacks
w ere repeatedly told that the only education they needed w as special military training; that ambitious young men ought to be sent to the military schools and colleges, to become trained
officers for the Cossack regim ents; as to the girls ? w hy, they ought to stay home, "particularly because higher education invariably carries w ithin itself the seeds of discontent and
revolutionary ideas."
This paternal advice and admonition had its results, and the supreme ambition of a Cossack of the ranks w as to see his son w ith silver eqaulettes on his broad shoulders. But more
and more Cossacks w ere sending their boys and girls to the civil seats of learning; they resented the implication that they w ere a military cate only; they w ere conscious of their
separate ethnic entity, and they w anted to have their ow n sons and daughters as the teachers, judges, bankers, traders, mechanics and priests in their schools, courts, offices,
factories, shops and in their churches.
How w ell the Cossacks succeeded in their drive to conquer the fields of the arts and sciences, other than the military trade, show s in the fact that in the last tw o centuries one could
hardly find in Russia cultural, accomplishment, or an advance in science, or a new movement in the arts, w here the Cossacks hadn't their men and w omen in the front ranks. They had
their scientists and explorers, educators and w riters, artists and composers, executives and industrialists; but w hether one of them w as a senator, or a w orld know n agriculturist, or a
bishop of great fame, he w as still a Cossack, first and last.

Land Ownership
"In payment for faithful m ilitary service, w hich had been full of hardships," each Cossack clan (Voisko), by special imperial grant, received acknow ledgment of full ow nership over
the lands originally conquered and settled by the Cossacks. Each clan w as the ow ner of its land, not the individual members of it. Each clan divided its land into three parts. One part,
including forests, rivers, mines and part of the arable land, remained in the clan as a w hole; the other tw o parts the clan subdivided among the stanitzas (the tow ns); each stanitza, in
turn, kept part as tow nship property, for communal use, and the other part w as distributed among! the individual families, according to the number of male Cossacks w ho had reached
the age of seventeen. As a rule, families w ere large and the sons remained in the family until long after the end of their active military service; from the stanitza's communal land each
young man, upon reaching the age of seventeen, received his parcel of land; and the larger the family, the richer it w as in the land it used and in the number of w orking hands.
Periodically, each stanitza redistributed its land among the grow ing families, and each time the parcel given to an individual w as smaller; w hen there w as no more communal land in a
stanitza to distribute among itsfamilies, then the clan w ould give for the stanitza an additional piece of land from the clan's part. So., there w ere instances w hen a stanitza, originally
established on the banks of the Kuban, w ould have a parcel or tw o of land situated on the Pshish river, quite a distance from the original place. Individual lots became so small that
tow ard the end of the first decade of our century the w ealth of families had diminished to such an extent that equipping tw o or three youngsters for service in a first line regiment, w ith
horses, w eapons, uniforms, saddle, etc., w as breaking the back of many Cossack fathers. In such cases the w hole tow nship came to the aid of the family, and the young man
appeared in the ranks just as w ell equipped as any other.
Rich w as the soil in the Cossack lands; highly important and cherished w ere the grants and privileges enjoyed by the Cossacks. They w ere excused from payment of many taxes;
to a great extent they w ere their ow n masters. But it w as not "for free"; the Cossacks paid w ith full value for these rights and privileges. Every Cossack, man and w oman, lived
under the constant threat of being called for active service. In peace time the object w as either to increase the strength of border garrisons on an uneasy stretch of the border; or
maybe to augment the police forces in times of unrest in the interior. In time of w ar, the Cossacks immediately trebled their regiments, and often had to put in the field additional units,

many of them composed of men in their forties and fifties. In a prolonged conflict like the First World War, practically the entire able-bodied population of the Cossacks w as called to
arms. Tow ard the end of that w ar, fully ten percent of the w hole Cossack population w as at the front, and it w as a real treat to see a male Cossack on a stanitza street; unusually it
w as a convalescent w arrior, on a short leave before returning to his regiment. All w ork w hich had been done by the stronger, such as w orking in the fields, making new roads and
erecting: new community buildings w as done by Cossack w omen and children. The losses on the battlefield w ere great, and rare w as the home that had its men and boys all alive
and untouched. The Cossacks paid dearly for their privileges.

The Revolution of 1917

Many a crime and a cruel injustice w ere committed by the Czar's governm ent in its dealings w ith the Cossacks. Yet it must be admitted that, on the w hole, the cardinal policies of
that government, as w ell as its methods, in making the new ly conquered tribes and recently annexed peoples subject to dictates from the center w ere w ise, humane and far-sighted.
Instances of revolts and uprisings on the part of the tribes w hich lived in far aw ay fringe provinces w ere extremely rare. All annexed lands at first w ere given a generous degree of
autonomy; they w ere allow ed to retain their courts and administrative institutions; they continued to be governed by their beys and princes, according to their tribal common law and
customs; they w ere permitted to use their native language in dealing w ith the officials of the Crow n; there w as an absolute religious tolerance, and an absolute equality w ith the
conquerors as to the education of their sons and daughters in government schools. Like no other great nation there w as in the Russia of that period a great ratio of non-natives
occupying the most important positions and offices in the military and civil life of the Empire. The hand of the Czar w as heavy, but it w as put dow n gently and the pressure w as
gradually applied.
Another picture w as created w hen the government w as taken over first by the "professional revolutionists" and later by the Bolsheviks. Com m unism and Cossackdom do
not mix, and from the first days of the triumph of the party of Lenin and Stalin, these tw o social ideals clashed and entered into m ortal com bat.
As w as indicated above, the Cossacks accepted the Russian Revolution of 1917 as something in w hich they had very little interest, aside from re-establishing their cherished and
centuries-old institutions w hich had been curbed in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries by the Czar's government. They declared their neutrality in the internal affairs of the
Russian people and asked its new rulers to leave them alone. Follow ing a stirring public declaration to that effect, made by the Atam an of the Don Cossacks, General Kaledin, on
the Moscow Conference in the summer of 1917, the Provisional Governm ent of Kerensky declared the Cossacks to be traitors and dissidents and made an ineffective attempt to
crush their "rebellion" by sending an armed force to the borders of the land of the Don Cossacks, but on the w hole the Cossacks w ere permitted to re-establish their autonomous tribal
structure.

Civil War ? 1917-1920

This atmosphere of cool tolerance and non-interference continued until the overthrow of the Kerensky governm ent by the Bolsheviks of Lenin and Trotsky. The Cossacks
w ere immediately placed high on the list of enemies of the proletariat, and fighting broke out along the borders of each of the eleven Cossack territories. The Cossacks, w ith their
ancient cry "All for one, and one for all" rose to the defense of their land, institutions and their freedom.

The m assacre of Cossacks and Russian Arm y officers by Red Arm y "shooting team ". Painter Shm arin
The Civil War in Russia w as joined. There w ere many others besides the Cossacks w ho did not accept Com m unism . As distinguished from the "red" radicals, they all w ere
loosely called the "White Russians." A great number of the active opponents of the Bolsheviks fled to the Cossacks and fought against the Reds, using Cossack territories as their
base, and the Cossacks as their allies. In addition to filling the ranks of the fighting units of the armies of Admiral Kolchak, Generals Ivanov, Udenich, Denikin, Wrangel and others, the
Cossacks put into the field their ow n armies, commanded by their Atamans.

Cossacks vs. Bolchevicks

This w ar lasted for more than three years, from 1917 to 1920, and it w as conducted w ith great ruthlessness on both sides. The Cossacks fought w ith desperate courage against an
enemy tw enty-tw o times superior in number. The position of the Cossacks w as made all the more difficult because they possessed practically no w ar industry and no arsenals.
Particularly in the first phase of this w ar, the Cossacks knew of only one method of arming themselves ? it w as to capture arms from the enemy. Literally the entire population of the
Cossack states, including the w omen, took part in defending their land and freedom from the Bolsheviks. The Cossacks suffered tremendous losses in that w ar; every Cossack
home had its share of dead and maimed. As a rule the Reds burned every Cossack farm and house that offered them resistance. After three years of a desperate and hopeless
struggle, the Cossacks and their allies, the "White," their resources exhausted, w ere defeated. Their land w as occupied by their mortal enemies, the Com m unists.

Cossacks in Exile
Nearly all of the fifty thousand Cossacks w ho w ere fortunate enough to escape w ith their lives into the Balkans, Turkey, Persia, Poland and China, left their homeland as organized
arm y units. Together w ith them w ent their atamans, parliaments and a few private persons and families. The Cossacks carried w ith them their State regalia, battle flags and archives.
By far the greatest part of this group eventually settled in the Balkan countries and there, by hard w ork and perseverance, prospered and became substantial citizens again. Another
part w ent farther, to Czechoslovakia and France; of this group many young men acquired a higher education and became professional men, also achieving considerable prosperity and
renow n. They retained their "Governm ents in Exile.," supported their sick and aged, published periodicals and books relating to the Cossack glories of the past, and encouraged their
sons to w ait for the coming hour of liberation of their country. They even held elections, sending delegates to such great centers of Cossack concentration as Paris or Belgrade, to
elect the Atamans. Unfortunately, some of the elected atamans decided to follow the footsteps of Hitler, Mussolini and other dictators, and refused to step dow n at the termination of
their terms of office. Even now one of the Cossack clans, the Kuban, has for its ataman a person w ho w as elected to that four year term of office thirty-one years ago. How ever, w ith
the passage of the years and through changed circumstances, the pow er and authority of the atamans became negligible and the directing hand belongs now to elected and
recognized councils and committees.
This peaceful life in their second homelands continued until the start of the Second World War, w hen these Cossacks found themselves betw een the anvil and the hammer. All their
sympathy w as w ith their former allies of the First World War, w ith the forces of Democracy, but, in their determination to ally themselves w ith anyone w ho w as starting a w ar
against their oppressors, the Com m unists, they found themselves fighting, some against the Red Army and others against the partisans of Tito, side by side w ith the totalitarian
legions. When Hitler's forces w ere beaten, these Cossacks, for the second time in the course of a man's life, had to drop everything, lose all they had created in the over tw enty years
of exile, and flee again before the advancing Reds. That flight w as costly to their enemy; all w ho could carry a gun joined the retreating armed formations, and fought day and night as
the rear guard of the fleeing Germans. They literally "fought unto death"; the Reds took no prisoners from among these units. The main direction of this retreat w as from Yugoslavia to
Austria, then to Northern Italy, and finally to Germany.

Under the Sickle and Hammer

Those Cossacks w ho had remained in Russia after their defeat in 1920, the families, the kin of those few w ho had managed to escape, and all those w ho had been in the ranks and
w hose regiments w ere cut off from the ports of embarkation, had to live under the stiff yoke of their conquerors. Their leaders and the heads of families w ere the first to be liquidated
in the dreaded chambers of the Gheka and the OGPU; their families w ere split and dispersed; new comers, faithful follow ers of Lenin and veterans of the Red Guard, w ere settled in
Cossack hom es. All w ho w ere allow ed to stay in their stanitzas w ere forced to become virtual slaves in the collective farms and factories; they w ere forbidden to w ear their
traditional dress; their regiments w ere disbanded and their young men had to serve in Red Arm y units. The pressure on them w as terrific, but even then the Cossacks refused to
give I'n and continued their usually passive, but at time violently active resistance to the masters of the Russian people. They became experts in sabotage and hiding their identities.
From time to time such passive resistance w ould erupt into a violent revolt, w ith public executions of the most hated members of the secret police and the special punitive units.
As a result of repeated uprisings from 1922 to 1937, the Cossacks w ere officially decreed by the Krem lin to be enem ies of the Soviet State, and as such, subject to an
absolute and com plete liquidation. Every means w ere used by the Bolsheviks to exterminate the Cossacks, including a famine, artificially created by trusted lieutenants of Stalin
in 1922 and again in 1933. In consequence, close to four m illion Cossacks perished or disappeared in the years betw een 1920 and 1940, from famine and privation, in resisting
forced collectivization, in rebellions and riots, and in the slave labor camps of Siberia and the Far East.
And yet their spirit could not be crushed, and those Cossacks w ho managed to survive the terror and escape the clutches of the Soviet secret police, held high the torch of their
determination to w in back their freedom and their independent w ay of life. They beliw ed that their hour had come w hen Hitler's arm ies in 1940 advanced tow ard the lands of the
Cossacks as liberators of Russia from the tyranny of Com m unism . Tow n after tow n and village after village greeted the Germ ans w ith flow ers and the traditional Russian
"bread and salt." The Red Arm y soldiers surrendered by w hole divisions, w ithout offering any resistance to the advancing Germ an patrols. By the thousands the
younger Cossacks joined the ranks of Hitler's auxiliaries "to get even w ith the Com m unists." Alas, very soon they saw the true face of Hitler's "supermen/ but it w as
already too late for them to turn back. When the Germans began their frozen exodus from the Cossack steppes, the w hole Cossack population left their homes and., w ith w omen and
children, on foot and in horse carts, w ent into exile. Nearly 150,000 Cossacks retreated w ith the Germ ans from Russia. The price they paid for the paradox of having their
sympathy w ith the Western Allies and actually fighting alongside Hitler's regiments w as truly appalling; thousands upon thousands of these unfortunates fell into the hands of the
rapidly advancing units of the Red Arm y; their fate invariably w as exile to the concentration cam ps in the Far North, and systematic, planned extermination by cold and starvation.
Others died from huger and from the bullets of red partisans in the forests of White Russia and Poland. The survivors, w ho fled to sections of Austria and Germany, w hich fell to the
advancing allied divisions, finally found themselves interned in the former camps for Hitler's forced labor. There a great many of these Germans found their fathers and older friends
w ho had escaped from the Reds tw enty-tw o years before, at the end of the civil w ar against the Bolsheviks.

The Effect of Yalta

For many of these Cossacks the joy of reunion w ith their kin and the happiness of finding security and refuge w as short lived; in accordance w ith an agreement signed in Tehran and
Yalta by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill, they w ere forcibly surrendered by the Allies to the Reds and "repatriated" to the Soviet Union.
The most tragic event of this kind occurred near the city of Lienz, in Austria. Tow ard the end of the w ar General Krasnoff and some other Cossack leaders persuaded Hitler
and his authorities to allow all civilians and non-fighting Cossacks to settle on a permanent basis in the sparsely settled foothills of the Italian Alps. The Cossacks moved there in
numbers and established a refugee settlement, w ith several stanitzas and posts, w ith their administration, churches, schools and defense units. When the victorious Allies moved from
central Italy into the Italian Alps, the German command ordered the Cossacks to leave their new homes and to retreat northw ard, into Austria. There, on the banks of the river Drave,
near Lienz, the British army units caught up w ith the Cossacks and interned them in a hastily arranged cam p. For a few days the British fed these refugees and created the
impression that they understood the unique problem of this group, and could see the reason for their fear and uneasiness. The advance units of the Red Arm y w ere only a few miles
to the east, rapidly surging to establish contact w ith the Allies. And then, suddenly, just w hen the Cossacks decided that under the protection of the British flag they had
nothing to worry about, the sons of "perfidious Albion" turned over the free men of Cossackdom to their Communist enemies. On May 28, 1945, twenty-one

hundred and forty-six Cossack officers and generals, including the world famous cavalry leaders, Generals Krasnoff, Shkuro and Kiletch-Girey (all NOT
SOVIET CITIZENS) , were, through a ruse, disarmed and carried in British cars and trucks to a neighboring town held by the Reds. There they w ere surrendered to
the Red Arm y general, w ho immediately ordered them to stand trial for treason. Many of these Cossack leaders had never been nominally citizens and subjects of the
Soviet Union, being the men who had left Russia in 1920, at the end of the civil war, and therefore could not be guilty of any treason. Some of these men were
executed on the spot; the higher officers were subjected to mock trials at Moscow and were also executed. For example, General Krasnoff was hanged by a
hook through the lower jaw, on a public square; this in the Twentieth Century in the capitol of the "most advanced nation of the world!" The bulk of this group
was sent to slave labor camps in the Far North and Siberia, to suffer a slow and painful death in the hands of their tormentors.

BETRAYAL OF COSSACKS AT LIENTZ, Austria, June 1945. Painting by S.G.Korolkoff

Three days later, on June 1, 1945, the rank and file of this group of Cossacks, 32,000 men, women and children(!), were similarly bayonetted by the British into
cattle cars and camions, and delivered to the Bolsheviks, by them to be taken back to the Soviet Union, there to work and die as slaves of the "Great Father of the
Peoples," Joseph Stalin. Similar scenes were enacted in the same year, 1945, in the American Zone of Occupation, in Austria and Germany. Many more
thousands of Cossacks were beaten by rifle butts into waiting Soviet trucks and trains. Close to 45,000 Cossacks were in this manner "repatriated" into the land
of their executioners. However, a great many Cossacks succeeded in fleeing these extraditions and hid themselves in the forests and mountains; many were
saved by the local German population; but the greatest number of the escapees found safety and salvation in changing their identity, disguising themselves as
Ukrainians, Latvians, Poles, Yugoslavians, Turks, Armenians and even Ethiopians. Eventually, as such, they were admitted into the camps for Displaced Persons.
Under such assumed nationalities and names a considerable number of them came to the United States under the Displaced Persons Act; others left the D.P.
camps for any land which would open its doors to them. But still a great number of such "turn coats" are in Germany and Austria, in France and Italy, afraid to
disclose their real identity and feeling the uncomfortable proximity of the land beyond the Iron Curtain. They still distrust everybody and live in constant fear of
extradition to the Soviets; they still play safe, and prefer to go about under the guise of their assumed nationalities. Their real names and origin they disclose only to
their brother' Cossacks, particularly to the Cossack councils and unions.
The Cossacks in the United States
Several thousands of Cossacks w ho came to the United States are rapidly becoming (some for the fourth time in their lives!) solid, substantial citizens; some w ork on the farms in
every state of the union; others have settled in the large centers of population in the Atlantic States and on the West Coast, and w ork in shops, factories and plants.
For the present, due to language difficulties, even the men w ith special training and members of the professions are engaged in manual tasks; but, w ithout exception, they w ork and
study and learn and are anxious to become a part of this great nation. They w ill become good citizens of the United States; those w ho remain here w ill be among the first to answ er the
call to arms to go again to fight the oppressors of all the peoples beyond the Iron Curtain, and first of all to liberate the great and peace-loving Russian people.
The Cossacks w ho have come recently to the United States, w hile w aiting for that call to arms, true to their first love have grasped every opportunity of settling on the land and

becoming independent, individual farmers, servants to no one. As to their habit, they stick together and settle in groups, acquiring adjoining parcels of land. Already several Cossack
settlem ents have been established, each giving promise that in a few years it w ill become a show place of the community, and, after a longer period of time, w ho know s? This
nation may be just as proud of the Cossacks in New Jersey, as it is proud now to have the Dutch in Pennsylvania, or the Finns and Norw egians in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
A typical example of such a budding colony is the brand new settlement of Cossacks in the Buena Vista tow nship, near Vineland, New Jersey. There a group of fifty Cossacks is
already transforming 1,000 acres of abandoned brushland into a highly diversified agricultural and poultry raising community. Their number constantly increases, and in a few years
they expect to have there a new tow n, w ith its ow n ataman and the sbor (tow n council of elders), w ith its ow n church, school and public buildings, including a museum for the
preservation of the Cossack regalia, dress and arms. They hope to establish there the foundation of another ethnic group in this nation of ours ? the Am erican Cossacks. It promises
to be a sturdy group of people, one used to hardships and hard w ork, and one absolutely incapable of being sw ayed by the Communists' sw eet songs and rosy pictures.
The clearing house and the guiding hand for this group, a.s w ell as for others, the most substantial and far-sighted groups of Cossacks in the United States, is the World Cossack
Association, a center created by the first Cossack immigrants many years ago. The Executive Council of this organizations is composed of the elected atamans of the component
members, stanitzas, and other representatives of the larger groups. Through their medium the Cossacks keep in touch w ith political developments, w herever they carry a promise of a
Crusade of the Democracies against Communism. Particularly they follow and w atch the activities of all anti-Communist organizations composed of refugees from Russia, and also
such American groups as the one headed by a former Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Admiral Kirk. Quite recently their attention w as attracted by an attempt of several Russian
groups, mostly of a liberal hue, to unite into one great unit all political and national subdivisions of the organized part of the refugees from behind the Iron Curtain. The Cossacks w ere
not invited to that conference, presumably because they are not a political party on the one hand, and, on the other, because in the eyes of some Russian diehards, the Cossacks are
part and parcel of the Russian people, its military class and nothing more.
Commenting on this ridiculous anomaly, w hen the traditional Russian liberals touchingly united w ith the extreme reactionaries, the World Cossack Association made public a special
declaration, w hich, in part, is quoted below :
"All Cossacks outside of Russia, subscribing in to to under the cardinal principles of these (Gen. Kaledin's Declaration in August, 1917, at Moscow , and the Declaration of the
Southeastern Union of the Don, Kuban, Terek, in 1920) previous pronunciamentos, and remaining true to their historical w ays and traditions, do hereby declare:
"1. All Cossacks, considering themselves firmly bound to the Free Russian State, stand on their former positions, to w it:
"a. All Cossacks believe and trust that the new Russian State w ill take the form of a Federated Republic of the Free Provinces and Peoples of Russia;
"b. All Cossacks believe and stand for granting the w idest federative rights to the 'fringe states' and peoples of the Russian State, but they object to the dismemberment of Russia into
separate, independent republics;
"c. All Cossacks trust that the final decision, w hether the Russian State w ill be a federated republic, or a monarchy, or w hether it w ill assume some other form of national structure,
must depend and hinge on the decision of the All-Russia Council of Peoples Deputies or the Constitutional Assembly, law fully proclaimed and organized later, upon establishing a firm
order and peace in the land;
"d. All Cossacks, considering themselves a part of the family of the Peoples of Russia, cannot visualize establishment of the future Russia w ithout their active participation in the
creation of that state;
"e. All Cossacks, possessing a program for their ow n governmental structure, their ow n ideal of the human community, an ideal tested and found true in the course of many centuries,
and sealed w ith the blood of their great forefathers?
"declare, openly and freely, that they, the Cossacks, w ith any form of Russian regime, shall, w ith a firm hand, defend for themselves their ow n natural, free, ageless democratic order
? in the same manner as they did in the course of past centuries."
These are the cardinal human principles for w hich the Cossacks died in their glorious past. For these principles the remnants of a proud people are ready to fight to the death now .