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The Kuban’ Cossack Revival (1989–1993): The Beginnings of a Cossack National Movement in the North Caucasus Region*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Brian J. Boeck
Brian J. Boeck*
Affiliation:
Harvard University, U.S.A.
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Extract

The Cossacks are coming straight out of some nineteenth century nightmare. Those fearsome horsemen once again stalk the Russian steppes, whips stashed in their belts, defending God and country and longing for the restoration of the Romanov dynasty.

Kyle Crichton, New York Times

The emergence of a strong Cossack movement has great implications for the future of Russia and the post-Soviet space. It is at once the glorification of a mythical past and a powerful alternate vision of the future. Old questions of Cossack identity are once again being debated and a Cossack presence is strongly felt in the cities of southern Russia. In the volatile North Caucasus region the Cossack revival has increasingly assumed many of the features of national movements in other areas of the former Soviet Union.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , December 1998 , pp. 633 - 657
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

* This study is the product of research conducted in the region from 1991 to 1993 and is based largely upon interviews, Cossack publications, and the statements of Cossack leaders. The author would like to thank the Russian Research Center at Harvard University which provided a summer research-travel grant. He would also like to thank Professors Roman Szporluk and David Powell for their comments.Google Scholar

1. New York Times Magazine , 31 October 1993, p. 73.Google Scholar

2. Many foreign and Russian press accounts (the above article included) tend to stress the activities of the more lumpen forces within the Cossack movement. In many cases self-proclaimed Cossacks have conducted raids and public whippings and have expressed antisemitic and xenophobic sentiments. These activities should not be allowed to overshadow the fact that Cossack revival also has a significant intellectual and ideological component.Google Scholar

3. In Russian the ending “-stvo” usually implies a group of people united around a certain idea or institution (such as Masonstwo) or an institution itself (tsarstvo). It was also used to denote estates within society enjoying corporate privileges, such as dvorianstvo, the nobility or aristocracy, and kupechestvo, the merchant class, etc. I have preserved Russian orthography (in which the word kazachestvo is not capitalized) except in discussing the Cossack nationalist movement Vol'noe Kazachestvo, which always capitalized the term as a sign of Cossack distinctiveness.Google Scholar

4. Seton-Watson, Hugh, Nations and States (Boulder: Westview Press, 1977), p. 5.Google Scholar

5. See Seton-Watson, , op. cit.; Hobsbawm, E. J., Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth and Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Gellner, Ernest, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992); and Szporluk, Roman, Communism and Nationalism: Karl Marx vs. Friederich List (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); as well as works by Benedict Anderson and Miroslav Hroch.Google Scholar

6. Williams, Colin and Smith, Anthony D., “The National Construction of Social Space,” Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 7, December 1983, p. 504.Google Scholar

7. This article is not the forum in which to survey the interesting debate over whether or not illiterate Russian-speaking peasants were conscious bearers of a national identity prior to the revolution.Google Scholar

8. The original Cossacks were of mixed (often Turkic) origins. See especially Stoekl, G., Die Entstehung des Kosakentums (Munich, 1953).Google Scholar

9. Benedict Anderson has described nations as “imagined communities” which arose largely as the result of increasing literacy and the print revolution. See his Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991).Google Scholar

10. The fact that serfdom and all of its inherent evils were a characteristic feature of central Russia and not the Cossack borderlands was a major factor in reinforcing a Cossack identity separate from Russian identity.Google Scholar

11. Kristoff, Ladis, “The Russian Image of Russia: An Applied Study in Geopolitical Methodology,” in Fisher, Charles A., ed., Essays in Political Geography (London: Methuen & Co., 1968), p. 348.Google Scholar

12. This is largely because of commonality of language and presumed commonality of origins.Google Scholar

13. The definitive study of Kuban’ history from the earliest times to the early twentieth century is Shcherbina, F. A., Istoriia Kubanskogo kazach'ego voiska (History of the Kuban Cossack Host), (Ekaterinodar, 1913). Shcherbina presents an objective view of Kuban’ history, paying attention to its earlier non-Cossack inhabitants. A view from within is presented by P. P. Korolenko in his short Dvukhsotletie Kubanskago kazach'ego voiska: 1696–1896 (Two-Hundredth Anniversary of the Kuban’ Cossack Host), (Ekaterinodar, 1896). N. L. Bondar’ has published a short study of the ethnic and social aspects of the formation of Kuban’ kazachestvo in his article “Osnovnye tendentsii razvitiia Kubanskogo kazachestva v XIX veke (etno-sotsial'nyi aspekt),” in Voprosy obshchestvenno-politicheskikh otnoshenii na severo-zapadnom kavkaze (Maikop, 1987), pp. 15–34.Google Scholar

14. Makarenko, P. L., “Z zhittia Kubani pid radianskoiu kommunistychnoiu vladoiu,” in Kuban: zbirnyk stattiv pro Kuban i Kubantsiv (Prague, 1926), p. 89.Google Scholar

15. Ibid. By the First World War, Ukrainian speakers comprised more than 50% of the total population.Google Scholar

16. Bich, , “Kuban u kryvornu dzerkali,” in Kuban: Zbirnyk, op. cit ., p. 162.Google Scholar

17. Kenez, Peter, Civil War in South Russia, 1918: The First Year of the Volunteer Army (Berkley: University of California Press, 1971), p. 221.Google Scholar

18. Kenez, , op. cit ., p. 229.Google Scholar

19. Rudnytsky, Ivan L., “A Study of Cossack History,” review of The Cossacks by Longworth, Phillip, Slavic Review, Vol. 31, December 1972, pp. 870–871.Google Scholar

20. A concise summary of the Vol'noe Kazachestvo position, program, and historiography is available in English in Wasili Glaskow, History of the Cossacks (New York: Macmillan, 1972). In addition to their newspaper, Vol'noeKazachestvo, published in Paris in the interwar period, many articles from the earlier period were republished in the book Piat'let Vol'nogo Kazachestva (Prague, 1933).Google Scholar

21. Vol'noe Kazachestvo (Prague), 25 March 1935.Google Scholar

22. A full treatment of this event can be found in Vydacha kazakov v Lientse i drugikh mestakh v 1945 (Betrayal of the Cossacks in Lienz and Other Places in 1945) written by V. G. Naumenko and published in New York by New York University in 1960. This event, in which ten of thousands of Cossacks were handed over to Stalin (and certain death) by the British occupying forces in Austria and northern Italy, has engendered more anti-Western feelings among Cossacks than any other single event. A symbol of what Cossack activists view as Western ignorance of and betrayal of the Cossack question, impressions of this “Cossack Golgotha” have sharply reduced any expectations the current movement has for Western support, and have produced a hostile attitude to the West. Eye-witness accounts of the tragedy at Lienze have appeared regularly in Cossack newspapers since 1992. Naumenko's 500-page account was serialized in the Krasnodar Cossack paper Kazach'e Bratstvo in 1994.Google Scholar

23. See Panfilets, V. K., Kubanskaia stanitsa (Krasnodar, 1993), pp. 100–106. See also Kropachev, S., Bolshoi terror na Kubani (Krasnodar, 1993); and Berlizov, A., “Krasnyi terror. Arkhivnye dokumenty o tom, kak istreblialos'kazachestvo,” Komsomolets Kubani, January 1991.Google Scholar

24. Bondar', N. L., “Chto my znaem drug o druge?” in Kubanskii Kraeved (Krasnodar, 1990), p. 139.Google Scholar

25. To what extent the Ukrainian speakers in the region before the Revolution were conscious of a Ukrainian national identity is very uncertain. It seems certain that the Ukrainian-speaking Cossacks identified themselves primarily as Cossacks or in the case of ingorodnye as peasants.Google Scholar

26. This was commonly expressed during interviews conducted in 1991 and 1993. In addition, V. K. Panfilets also mentions the fact that photographs and other evidence of Cossack herititage were often destroyed out of fear. See Panfilets, op. cit ., p. 105.Google Scholar

27. “Ethnic group” is used here in the sense proposed by Daniel P. Moynihan and Nathan Glazer in Ethnicity: Theory and Experience (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975) to mark the transition from being considered “minority and marginal subgroups at the edges of society—groups expected to assimilate, to dissappear, to continue as survivals, exotic or troublesome—to major elements of a society” (p. 5).Google Scholar

28. Pearson, Raymond, “Fact, Fantasy, Fraud: Perceptions and Projections of National Revival,” Ethnic Studies, Vol. 10, 1993, p. 43.Google Scholar

29. This was confirmed by several interviews that the author carried out in the region in the summer of 1993.Google Scholar

30. These include V. G. Zakharchenko, still director of the State Kuban’ Cossack Choir, V. P. Gromov, a professor of history at KGU (Kazanskii gosudarstvennyi Universited) and presently Ataman of the Kuban’ Cossack Rada (the larger of the Cossack organizations), N. L. Bondar', historian and ethnographer, professor at KGU, and co-director of the Center of Kuban’ Folk Culture in Krasnodar, and countless others who were students and instructors at KGU.Google Scholar

31. Kazach'i Vesti (Krasnodar), No. 8, June 1993.Google Scholar

32. Berlizov, a journalist and prominent ideologue of the Cossack movement, was killed in 1992 while fighting as a member of the Kuban’ Cossack brigade in the Transdneister region of Moldova.Google Scholar

33. This estimate is based on the results of a survey commissioned by the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, and carried out by the public opinion survey bureau Monitoring. The results were published in Kubanskii Kur'er (Krasnodar), 18 September 1992. The survey was carried out in the summer of 1992 in 15 locations of Krasnodar Krai and included 800 respondents. The actual number of those with a Cossack identity could be much higher, since in 1915 there were over 1.5 million Cossacks in the Kuban’ region. As the organized movement proceeds, it is not inconcievable that others will become aware of their Cossack heritage and will be “reawakened” to some kind of a Cossack identity.Google Scholar

34. Kubanskii Kur'er , 18 September 1992. These results are a part of the same survey mentioned above.Google Scholar

35. The Host was formed by delegates from several organizations opposed to or neglected by the Rada. V. Kaiucla, Ataman of the Cossack Association “Rossiia,” one of the smaller independent Cossack organizations, explained the event as the result of mistakes made by the leadership of the Rada in excluding certain opposition groups from voting at the second Cossack Congress. In addition, several “White” organizations, objecting to prominent activists in the Rada with “Communist” backgrounds played a role in the founding of the Host.Google Scholar

36. Kazach'e Bratstvo (Krasnodar), 16 July 1993.Google Scholar

37. The All-Kuban’ Cossack Host, still known unofficially as the Rada, is considerably larger and more organized than the smaller Kuban Cossack Host.Google Scholar

38. The Kuban’ émigré community stems from the time of the Russian Civil War but also includes some Second World War era émigrés, who joined Nazi-formed Cossack battalions in occupied Kuban’ territory. The Kuban émigré community was first centered in Prague and Belgrade, but relocated to New Jersey after the Second World War. Of the Cossack émigré communities, the Kuban’ Host has preserved its structure most intact while many other Hosts dissolved themselves.Google Scholar

39. Ataman Gromov of the Rada, after returing from a visit to the United States, described several joint projects planned in cultural, educational, and business ventures, as well as technical support, and help in forming a Cossack Bank. V. P. Gromov, “Vozrozhdenie kazachestvanovyi impul's,” Kuban' , Fall 1991.Google Scholar

40. Kubanskii Kur'er , 25 June 1992. Pevnev, A. M., Ataman of the Kuban’ Cossack Host Abroad, designated the Vsekubanskoe Kazach'e Vdisko (Rada) as the only successor to the pre-Revolutionary movement during a visit to Krasnodar in late September 1993; see Kazach'i Vesti, 24–25 October 1993.Google Scholar

41. Carsten Goerke, in her essay “Die Russischen Kosaken im Wandel des Geschichtsbildes,” Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte, Vol. 30, No. 2 (1980), outlines four tendencies in historiography on the Cossacks: (a) Hofhistoriographie, envisioning Cossacks in terms of an unbreakable unity between the Cossacks and the Tsarist state; (b) Soviet-Marxist, in which the Cossack question is bound up with class contradiction and struggle; (c) émigré accounts, unscientific and not based firmly in sources that present the “Chimera of a Cossack Nation;” and (d) Western accounts. Her observations from 1980 have remained valid; however, (b) and (d) are totally absent from the current debate.Google Scholar

42. Bilyi, I., the editor of the periodical Vol'noe Kazachestvo in the interwar period, and in many respects the Samuel Adams and Thomas Paine of Cossack nationalism of the Vol'noe Kazachestvo type, was a Kuban’ Cossack. His writings have yet to be republished in Krasnodar. A. K. Lenivov, author of several substantial, but amateur, works on Cossack history and literature, wrote a history of Kuban’ Kazachestvo from the Vol'noe Kazachestvo perspective, which was published in New York in 1974. His work has yet to be published in Krasnodar. Lenivov argued for a definition of Kuban’ indentity independent of Russian and Ukrainian identity, stating, “To observe historical accuracy, it is necessary to point out that A.D. Bigdai [famous collector of Kuban’ folk songs] was born neither a Russian nor Ukrainian. He was born a Cossack in Ivanovskaia stanitsa, Taman’ department of the Kuban’ Cossack Host and he collected only Cossack Folk/National (narodnye) songs of the Kuban’ and Terek hosts. … In addition, several publications, published many years after his death, sometimes allege that he was some kind of Ukrainian figure or that he collected Ukrainian or Russian folk songs; this is a blatant falsehood.” In Kubanskaia kazach'ia starina (New York, 1972), p. 224.Google Scholar

43. Yakirnov, R. S., “O vozrozhdenii Kuban'skogo kazachestva,” in Kubanskoe kazachestvo problemy istorii i vozrozhdenfia: tezisy dokladov nauchnoi konferentsii , in Ratushniak, V. N., ed. (Krasnodar, 1992), p. 99.Google Scholar

44. Personal communication, 3 July 1993. Passive existence refers to the fact that people have a consciousness of Cossack identity, traditions, and folklore but are no longer active bearers of the old traditions. They are no longer passing on to their children traditions, rituals, and oral lore that they learned from their own parents and grandparents.Google Scholar

45. Similar results have been demonstrated in the Don and Terek regions. See Skorik, A. P., Vozniknovenie Donskogokazachestvakaketnosa (Novocherkassk, 1992), pp. 49–60, and Magomeclkhanov, M., “The Cossacks in the North Caucasus: Ethnopolitical Situation” (forthcoming). According to Magomeclkhanov, 36.3% of respondents in surveys conducted among residents of the Terek region consider Cossacks to be a distinct ethnic group.Google Scholar

46. See Talcott Parsons’ essay on the desocialization of ethnic groups in Ethnicity Theory and Experience , Glazer and Moynihan, op. cit.Google Scholar

47. In the case of Ukrainian-speaking Kuban’ Cossacks, the same tendencies are observed. They were forcibly Russified, assuming a Russian cultural identity, but maintaining a Cossack ethnic identity. The absence of a strong Ukrainian movement in Krasnodar Kray, and the total absence of a Ukrainian “wing” of the Cossack movement, indicates that the process of cultural assimilation was highly effective.Google Scholar

48. In surveys carried out in the Don region 28% of all repondents in Rostov Oblast’ considered themselves to be ethnic Cossacks. See Skorik, op. cit ., p. 52. These coeficients (if reliable) represent an amazing continuity in ethnic identifaction in view of the fact that tremendous in-migration has occured in both the Kuban’ and Don regions.Google Scholar

49. Bondar', , op. cit ., pp. 33–34.Google Scholar

50. The idea of a Cossack nationality ( Kazachia natsional'nost' ) has thus far not been evident. This is largely because in Soviet usage the concept of natsional'nost' was more rigid and legalistic than the term narod.Google Scholar

51. Kazach'i Vesti , No. 7, June 1993.Google Scholar

52. Pearson, , op. cit ., p. 48.Google Scholar

53. Several official decrees have been passed regarding Cossack status as a repressed people, but few concrete results have been seen. Presidential Order N. 632 of 15 June 1992 officially declared Cossacks a repressed people, as did the Supreme Soviet Decree N. 3321/1 of 16 July 1992. In addition, several local decrees have also been passed. See Kazache Bratstvo , 10 December 1993.Google Scholar

54. Gromov, V. P., op. cit .Google Scholar

55. See Gehrmann, Udo, “Das Kosakentum in Russland zu beginn der neunziger Jahre: Historische Tradition und Zukunftvision,” Berichte des Bundesinstituts für die ostwissenschaftliche und internationale Studien , November 1992, pp. 18–20.Google Scholar

56. Yakimov, R. S., op. cit ., pp. 99–100.Google Scholar

57. Ibid.Google Scholar

58. Kazach'e Bratstvo , 10 December 1993.Google Scholar

59. Szporluk, Roman, Communism and Nationalism: Karl Marx vs. Friedrich List (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 158.Google Scholar

60. Severnyi Kavkaz (Mineral'nye Vody), No. 130, 30 July 1992.Google Scholar

61. Williams, Colin and Smith, Anthony D., “The National Construction of Social Space,” Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 7, December 1983, pp. 502–518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62. Ibid., p. 504.Google Scholar

63. This frontier nationalist mentality is very similar to that in the United States. The swift and almost total obliteration of the Circassian population of Kuban’ in the mid-nineteenth century allows Kuban’ Cossacks to truly believe that they are the indigenous population of a territory that in some cases they have inhabited for a little more than a century and a half.Google Scholar

64. Smith, Williams and, op. cit ., pp. 508–509.Google Scholar

65. The traditionalist and non-cosmopolitan character of the movement is clearly evident in Cossack publications. In an article on the formation of a Cossack ideology, the directors of the organizational committee for the Kuban’ Cossack Academy stated, “All kinds of followers of mass culture, pornography, sex, drug-addiction, the enemies of the Orthodox church, and the supporters of full freedom of the individual, who see high communal morality as a threat to their ‘human rights', are inimical to kazachestvo.” L. U. Serebriakov and T. Molokanov, “O kazach'ei ideologii i programmy vozrozhdeniia kazachestva,” Kazachi Vesti, No. 22, September 1993.Google Scholar

66. See Gellner, Ernest, “Nationalism in the Vacuum,” in Motyl, Alekander J., ed., Thinking Theoretically about Soviet Nationalities: History and Comparison in the Study of the USSR (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

67. Gellner, , op. cit ., p. 251.Google Scholar

68. Kazach'i Vesti , No. 7, July 1993.Google Scholar

69. The republics Adygea and Karachaevo-Cherkessia, carved from Kuban’ Oblast by the Soviet regime, are viewed by some as Kuban’ irredenta. Correspondingly, both have active Cossack movements that maintain close contacts with the Kuban’ Cossack organizations. In Karachaevo-Cherkessia a Cossack republic was proclaimed in 1991. In other areas such as Chechnia and North Ossetia Cossack populations are pressuring to restore autonomous regions that existed in the 1920s.Google Scholar

70. The Ekaterinodar Department of the Vsekubanskoe Voisko passed a resolution at its congress on 5 June 1993 demanding that Kuban’ receive the same rights as the Republic of Adygea. Kazach'i Vesti, No. 8, June 1993.Google Scholar