There have been debates about the origins of the Cossacks for many years. Even versions of the etymology of the word “Cossack” vary from the Mongolian “defender of the border” to the Turkic “free tramp, without a stake or a yard (robber).” According to a common version, from the 14th-15th centuries Cossacks began to be called service people who settled on the outskirts of the state for guard and border service. Representatives of all classes became Cossacks and, receiving land and wages, were exempt from taxes, but were required to have their own horse and ammunition. At the same time, from the 16th century, the so-called free Cossacks appeared in Little Russia. With the expansion of Russian territories in the 17th-18th centuries, the Cossack troops were subordinate to the capital; the Zaporozhye Sich was the last to be liquidated in 1775 by Catherine II. In addition to performing military service, the Cossacks participated in the settlement of new territories in Siberia, the Far East and the North Caucasus.

The Cossacks received final registration as a separate class in 1835 after Nicholas I approved the Regulations of the Cossack Troops. The distinctive features of the class were: a special procedure for serving military service, exemption from the poll tax, and the right to duty-free trade within military territories. By 1914, there were 11 Cossack troops in the Russian Empire: Amur, Astrakhan, Don, Kuban, Orenburg, Semirechenskoe, Siberian, Terek, Ural, Ussuri and Transbaikal.

Most of the Cossacks did not accept the October Revolution and during the Civil War they became the support of the white movement. In 1919, the organizing bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) proposed “to recognize as the only correct thing to do is to mercilessly fight against all the top of the Cossacks through their total extermination.” In 1925, the resolution of the plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) “On the question of the Cossacks” announced the end of direct persecution. From this moment on, the idea of the “Soviet Cossacks” developed, embodied primarily in the spheres of culture, art and folklore. Nevertheless, during the Great Patriotic War, Cossack units and units operated as part of the Red Army. At the same time, similar units were formed in the Wehrmacht, where they earned a reputation as irreconcilable fighters against Bolshevism.

At the end of the 1980s, the process of “revival of the Cossacks” began, actively supported by the authorities. In 1992, the Supreme Council adopted a decree “On the Rehabilitation of the Cossacks”; in 1993, President Boris Yeltsin, by his decree, granted Cossacks the right to perform military service in Cossack formations and units and form voluntary non-military structures; in 1994, a Council for Cossack Affairs under the President was formed. In 2005, Vladimir Putin signed the law “On the State Service of the Russian Cossacks.” A state register of Cossack societies was formed, but there are also more than 600 “unregistered” organizations. Currently, the register includes 426 organizations with a total number of 937 thousand people. In the 2010 census, 67,573 residents of Russia indicated their nationality as Cossack.

Olga Dorokhina

A short course on the history of the Cossacks