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What is a cossack?

Cossack--- the word meaning guerilla or adventurer- first came from the Ukrainian Stepps that begin north of the Black sea and the Caucasus Mountians. The orgin of the cossacks can be traced to serfs who fled from the principality of Moscow in the 14th and 15th centuries and established wheat-growing and stock-raising communities in the valleys of the Dnepr, Don and Ural rivers. The individual cossack communities owned land in common. The cossack communities were governed by village assemblies, presided over elected village elders called atamans or hetmans. The chieftain of a region enjoyed great prestige and exercised the authority of a military chieftain in war and of a civil adminstrator in peacetime. Anybody could join the Cossacks, if the Cossacks considered him a worthy warrior (there are parallels in other warrior cultures for example, the Iroquois and some other Indians would accept strangers, even whites, as members of the tribe, if they could prove in quite challenging tests that they were "real men"). There is evidence that Cossacks accepted in their communities Tartars, Germans, Greeks, Turks. There was only one condition believing in Christ. Looking at the last names of Cossacks one can tell the origin of their ancestors. For example: Grekov from Greeks, Gruzinov from Georgians, Millerov from Germans (for example, among Cossacks during the siege of the fortress Azov was a German called Johann. He engineered a tunnel up to the fortress to plant explosives, thereby blowing up the wall allowing the Cossack fighters to engage the enemy in hand-to-hand combat and take the city), Serbinov from Serbs, Turchaninov from Turks,Tatarinov from Tartars, Polyakov from Poles... All these became Cossacks and only the names tell where their ancestors came from to the Don or Dnieper. Although of course the majority of Cossacks were of Slavic origin.

From the 16th century, as the czars extended their realm, the cossacks were subjected to the authority of the Russian government, which tried to incorporate them into the state on the same basis as the other inhabitants of the country, except for slavery, which never occured in Cossack lands. Therefore, as subjects of the czar, all cossack males 18 to 50 years of age became liable to military service.

A.S. Pushkin wrote about Cossacks: "Always on horseback, always ready to fight, always on the alert". The Cossacks of the frontier had to live in constant fighting trim, 24 hours a day. It was reflected even in their clothes. For example, among Line Cossacks (living along the border line in the Caucasus) daggers were provided even for women and children. Men were supposed to carry a lot of fire arms all the time, and even babies were carried in a special hood behind the back to have hands free to fight back in case of sudden attack. They were most used as cavalrymen and became famous in the wars of the czars against the Tatars in the Crimea and the Caucasus. The Don cossacks were the largest group and led colonizing expeditions to Siberia. For example, ataman Ermak, the conqueror of Siberia, was a Cossack. In 1648 the Cossack Simeon Dezhnev rounded the northeastern tip of Asia, way before Vitus Bering, who only in 1728 announced that Asia and America are separate (really, it would be more appropriate to call it the Dezhnev Strait). Many cities in Siberia were founded as Cossack settlements (stanitsa). In fact, Cossacks were the founders of almost all Siberian towns.

Though recognizing the authority of the Russian Tsar, they would not let government officials arrest runaway serfs accepted into Cossack communities. Their freedom was formulated in two brief formulas: "There is no extradition from the Don"(S Donu vydachi net) and "We do not bow to anybody, except Tsar"(My ne klanyaemsya nikomu, okromya Gosudarya). The cossacks cherished their traditions of freedom, however, and conflicts with the czars occurred. In the 17th and 18th centuries the cossacks, supported by peasants, engaged in two widspread revolts, in 1670-71 and in 1773-74. In later years, the czars of Russia utilized the cossacks as border troops and as special military force during wars up to the World War 1, when they were used for the most dangerous missions. In the latter part of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries, the czarist government used cossack troops to suppress the Russian Revolution of 1905; they refused to be used for the same purpose in the Revolution of 1917.

During the civil war in Russia, following the Revolution of 1917, the majority of the cossacks fought against the Red armies. Most cossacks left the Ukraine and Russia for the United States, Canada,and other foreign countries. During WWII Cossacks were again, as they did during the Civil War, fighting on both sides. Some of the Cossacks formed cavalry units and supported the Germans, sincerely believing that the German mission in the war against the Soviet Union was to free the people of Russia from Stalin's tyranny. Others courageously fought against the nazis with the Red/Soviet Army, considering that the war was first of all a war against Russia and the people living there. It was a tough choice - to pick sides in a fight between Hitler and Stalin. The Cossacks who fought on the Soviet side never got their liberties and special status back. And those who supported the Germans, in 1945 tried to surrender to allies instead of the Soviet Army, knowing that otherwise they would be sent to Siberian Gulags by Stalin. Unfortunately, Cossacks were sordidly betrayed by the allies who didn't hold their promises not to give POW Cossacks to Stalin. Most of the Cossacks who were against their will returned to the Soviet Union died in Siberian camps.