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Beginings of Cossacks

Cossacks began as a non-exclusive ethnic group which grew out of various Hun and Turko-Mongol equestrian pastoralists. From them derives the Kazakh term Cossack meaning "wanderer/adventurer" Though the Kazakhs mostly adopted Islam, Orthodox Christianity soon became the representative religion of the the Cossack "ethnicity". Similarly Slavic replaced Turkic as the necessary communication base. Outlaws from all accross Europe made their way to the steppes of the Ukraine to enjoy the freedom of cossack life.

Cossacks in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

to be written

Chmielnicki's Uprising

to be written; see also Bohdan Chmielnicki

Cossacks in Imperial Russia

This section derives originally from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica

In the Russian Empire the Cossacks constituted ten separate voiskos, settled along the frontiers: the Don, Kuban, Terek, Astrakhan, Ural, Orenburg, Siberian, Semiryechensk, Amur, and Ussuri voiskos. The stanitsa, or village formed the primary unit of this organization. Each stanitsa held its land as a commune, and might allow non-Cossacks (excepting Jews) to settle on this land for payment of a certain rent. The assembly of all householders in villages of less than 30 households, and of 30 elected men in villages having from 30 to 300 households (one from each 10 households in the more populous ones), constituted the village assembly, similar to the mir, but having wider attributes, which assessed the taxes, divided the land, took measures for the opening and support of schools, village grain-stores, communal cultivation, and so on, and elected its ataman (leader) and its judges, who settled all disputes up to an amount that the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica gives as "£10" (or above that sum with the consent of both sides).

Military service was obligatory for all men, for 20 years, beginning at the age of 18. The first 3 years were passed in the preliminary division, the next 12 in active service, and the last five years in the reserve. Every Cossack was bound to procure his own uniform, equipment and horse (if mounted), the government supplying only the arms. Those on active service were divided into three equal parts according to age, and only the first third (approxiately age 18-26) were normally in active service, while the rest were effectively reserves based at home but bound to march out as soon as an order was given. The officers were supplied by the military schools, in which all Cossack voiskos had their own vacancies, or were non-commissioned Cossack officers, with officers' grades. In return for this service the Cossacks received from the state considerable grants of land for each voisko separately.

The total Cossack population in 1893 was 2,648,049 (including 1,331,470 women), and they owned nearly 146,500,000 acres of land, of which 105,000,000 acres were arable and 9,400,000 under forests. This land was divided between the stanitsas, at the rate of 81 acres per each soul, with special grants to officers (personal to some of them, in lieu of pensions), and leaving about one-third of the land as a reserve for the future. The income which the Cossack voiskos received from the lands which they rent to different persons, also from various sources (trade patents, rents of shops, fisheries, permits of gold-digging, etc.), as also from the subsidies they received from the government (about £712,500 in 1893), was used to cover all the expenses of state and local administration. They had, besides, a special reserve capital of about £2,600,000. The expenditure of the village administration was covered by village taxes. The general administration was kept separately for each voisko, and differed with the different voiskos. The central administration, at the Ministry of War, was composed of representatives of each voisko, who discussed the proposals of all new laws affecting the Cossacks.

In time of war the ten Cossack voiskos were bound to supply 890 mounted sotnias or squadrons (of 125 men each), 108 infantry sotnias or companies (also 125 men each), and 236 guns, representing 4267 officers and 177,100 men, with 170,695 horses. In time of peace they kept 314 squadrons, 54 infantry sotnias, and 20 batteries containing 108 guns (2574 officers, 60,532 men, 50,054 horses). Altogether, on the eve of World War I the Cossacks had 328,705 men ready to take arms.

As a rule, popular education amongst the Cossacks stood at a higher level than in the remainder of Imperial Russia. They had more schools and a greater proportion of their children went to school. In addition to agriculture, which (with the exception of the Tisuri Cossacks) was sufficient to supply their needs and usually to leave a certain surplus, they carried on extensive cattle and horse breeding, vine culture in the Caucasus, fishing on the Don, the Ural, and the Caspian Sea, hunting, bee-keeping, etc. The Cossacks mostly rented out rigts to extract coal, gold and other minerals found on their territories to strangers, who also owned most factories.

The Tsarist authorities also introduced a military organization similar to that of the Cossacks into certain non-Cossack districts, which supplied a number of mounted infantry sotnias ("hundreds"). Their peace-footing on the eve of World War I comprised:

• Daghestan, six regular squadrons and three of militia.
• Kuban Circassians, one sotnia.
• Terek, eight sotnias.
• Kars, three sotnias.
• Batum, two infantry and one mounted sotnia.
• Turkomans, three sotnias.

In total, 25 squadrons and 2 companies.

The Russian Revolution and Cossacks

to be written

Cossacks in the World War II

The attack launched by German units on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 caused a wave of an enthusiasm among the Cossaks. This stemmed from their generally-known hatred of the communists. As early as the middle of 1942, a Cossack cavalry formation existed in German controlled Mogilev, under the command of a former Soviet major, Kononov, who had crossed over to the Germans at the first opportunity with the greater part of his regiment, and began service on the side of the Germans by guarding the line of communications against Soviet partisans.

In the summer of 1942 the German armies entered territories inhabited by the Cossacks, who greeted the Germans as liberators. The entire populations of towns, villages and settlements went out to meet the German troops with flowers and gifts of all kinds, singing their national anthems. Cossack formations of the Red Army would come over to the Germans in a body; new formations would spring up, apparently from nowhere, in traditional uniform and armed with swords, pistols, daggers, and rifles that had remained buried for years. One of the most famous Cossack leaders, ataman Kulakov, believed dead since 1919, came out of hiding and, accompanied by hundreds of supporters, made a triumphant drive into Poltava.

The Cossack National Movement of Liberation, whose aim was the rebuilding of an independent Cossack state, fostered the recruiting of Cossacks for the fight against the Soviets. The summer of 1943 saw the formation of the 1st Cossack Division, under the command of the German general Helmut von Pannwitz. The division soon expanded into the 15th SS Cossack Cavalry Corps, which numbered some 50,000 men. Afterwards, two Cossack brigades and 12 Cossack reserve regiments formed, and a number of smaller units became attached to German formations. In all, Cossack troops on the German side numbered about 250,000 men.

Note that the granting of the "SS" status to the Cossack Corps came about through Himmler's policy, quite often applied, of barring the Wehrmacht's influence in the political concerns of non-German formations. The Germans used the Cossacks to fight Soviet partisans, to cover the rear of their armies, and sometimes for action on the front. Later on, some Cossack formations moved to France and to Yugoslavia. The Cossack command objected, on the ground that the Cossacks should fight only against the Soviets, but in vain.

The 2nd KONR Division split into two parts; the greater part, together with the Cossack Corps of General von Pannwitz, surrendered to the British on 12 May 1945, in Austria, and went into internment in the area of Klagenfurt - St. Veit. One regiment of the 2nd Division and the Army's Headquarters reached the American zone after a long and weary journey, and went into internment at Landau, in western Bavaria.

On 27 May 1945, in accordance with the agreement signed in Vienna by British and Soviet authorities, the British began to hand over to the Soviets the interned soldiers of the Eastern formations as well as the Cossacks. On that day, in Graz, they handed over the generals von Pannwitz, Krasnov, and Shkuro. All three hoped to the last that they would escape this fate, for von Pannwitz held German nationality, and the other two had emigrated from Tsarist Russia and had never held Soviet citizenship.

On 28 May 1945 the local British commander invited to a conference in the little town of Spittal in Austria the entire officer corps from the Cossack camp: 35 generals, 167 colonels, 283 lieutenant-colonels, 375 captains, 1,752 subalterns, 136 military functionaries and doctors, two chaplains, two band leaders, two photographers, and two interpreters, in all 2,756 persons. At the time of the departure from the camp, 2,201 Cossacks reported ready for the journey, the remainder having refused to board the trucks, or having disappeared. On the way to Linz, 55 of them committed suicide; the NKVD took 2,146 into custody. The prisoners included 1,856 Cossack officers, 176 Russians, 63 Ukrainians, 31 Caucasians, and a handful of other nationals. As to the fate of those delivered: 12 generals went to Moscow, Soviet soldiers of the convoy shot 120 officers on the way to Vienna, 1,030 officers died during interrogations by the NKVD, 983 officers were "passed along"; many of this group were sent to mines in the Urals and deprived of the right to come out to the surface of the earth.

On 1 June 1945 about 25,000 people were handed to the Soviets from the Cossack camp in Linz which held 32,000 persons, mainly old men, women, and children who were in fact refugees, though among them were also Cossack soldiers. Even after the specified period of the delivery of prisoners, Soviet military missions made unexpected raids on Displaced Persons camps in the American and British zones, and took from them many people by force. In all, the Western allies handed over more than 150,000 Cossacks to the USSR.

The statement of a Cossack emigrant quotes the impressions of a British sailor given here without alteration:

"I took part in the evacuation of Dunkirk. Our soldiers felt very badly. I helped to fish out Germans from the sunken Bismarck, which received the greatest number of torpedoes in history. I saw the population of Malta sitting in the cellars for many weeks. I saw Malta being bombed incessantly and deafened by explosions of bombs and shells. They were exhausted from constant explosions and alarms. I lived through the sinking of my own ship. I know about jumping into the water at night, dark and without bottom, and the terrifying shouts for help of the drowning, and then the boat, and looking for the rescue ship. It was a nightmare. I drove German prisoners captured during the invasion of Normandy. They were almost dying from fear. But all that is nothing. The real, terrible, unspeakable fear I saw during the convoying and repatriation of people to Soviet Russia. They were becoming white, green and grey with the fear that took hold of them. When we arrived at the port and were handing them over to the Russians, the repatriates were fainting and losing their senses. And only now I know what a man's fear is who lived through hell, and that it is nothing compared to the fear of a man who is returning to the Soviet hell."

Sources:

Russian Volunteers in the German Wehrmacht in WWII: by Lt. Gen. Wladyslaw Anders and Antonio Munoz

Cossacks in Russia today

to be written and rewritten

External article: Ukrainian Cossacks