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Cossacks came to existance in the territories of today's Ukraine around 13th century, as a result of early medieval migrations of peoples in Europe.
Byzantine writers of the 10th century first mentioned the Cossacks and described them as a separate people who lived on the river Don. In 1261 their s living in the area between the rivers Dniester and the Volga were described for the first time in Russian chronicles.
In all historical records of that period the Cossacks society was described as lose federation of independent communities, often merging into larger units of a military character, entirely separate and mostly independent from any other local countries (like Poland, Russia or Tatars).
In the 16th century these Cossack societies merged into two territorial organisations:
- Zaporizhia (Zaporozhie), on the lower bends of the river Dnieper, between Russia, Poland and the Tartars of the Crimea, with the center, Zaporizhian Sich;
- Don Cossack State, on the river Don, separating the then weak Russian State from the Mongol and Tartar tribes, vassals of Ottoman Empire.
Cossacks in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Numerous historical documents of that period contain refer to the cossacks as sovereign nations with a unique warrior culture, of which important source of income were raids and pillages of their neigbours. They were renown for their raids against Ottoman Empire and its vassals (like the Tatars), although they didn't shy from pillaging other neigbours. Their actions increased the tension at the southern border of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Kresy), which resulted in an almost-constant low-level warfare taking place in those territories for almost entire existance of the Commonwealth.
In 1539 Czar Vasili The Third asked the Ottoman Sultan to curb the Cossacks and the Sultan replied. "The Cossacks do not swear allegiance to me, and they live as they themselves please. In 1549 the famous Czar of Russia, Ivan the Terrible, replied to a request of the Turkish Sultan to stop the aggressive actions of the Don Cossacks, stating, "The Cossacks of the Don are not my subjects, and they go to war or live in peace without my knowledge." Similar exchanges passed between Russia, Ottomans and the Commonwealth, each of which often tried to use Cossacks warmongering for its own puprposes. Cossacks on their part were mostly happy to plunder everybody more or less equaly, although in the 16th century with Commonwealth dominance extending south the Zaporoijan Cossacks were mostly, if tentatively, regarded as subjects of the Commonwealth.
Cossacks numbers expanded with peasantry immigration from Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Szlachta attempts to turn Zaporoijam Cossacks into serfs eroded Cossacks their once fairly strong loyality towards the Commonwealth. Cossacks attempts to get recognized as equal to szlachta were constantly rebuffed and plans for transforming the Two-Nations Commonwealth (Polish-Lithuanian) into Three Nations (with Cossacks/Ruthenian people) were limited to a small minority of forward thinking man. Dissipating loyalty and arrogance of many from szlachta in treating proud Cossacks as peasants resulted in several uprisings against the Commonwealth in the early 17th century. Largest of them was the Chmielnicki Uprising, which together with The Deluge is considered to be one of events which brought an end to the Golden Age of the Commonwealth. This uprising freed Cossacks from the Commonwealth sphere of influence, only to make them servants of the Russian Empire, which took control of Left-bank Ukraine in 1667 with Treaty of Andrusovo and later Eternal Peace Treaty of 1686.
Cossacks in Imperial Russia
This section derives originally from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica
In the Russian Empire the Cossacks constituted 11 separate voiskos, settled along the frontiers: the Don Cossaks, Kuban Cossacks, Terek Cossacks, Astrakhan Cossacks, Ural Cossacks, Orenburg Cossacks, Siberian Cossacks, Semiryechensk Cossacks, Baikal Cossacks, Amur Cossaks, and Ussuri Cossasks. Also, there was a small number of the Cossacks in Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk, who would form the Yenisey Cossack voisko and Irkutsk Cossack regiment of the Ministry of the Interior in 1917. 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. This assembly resembled the mir, but had wider attributes: it 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).
All Cossack males had to perform military service for 20 years, beginning at the age of 18. They spent their first three years in the preliminary division, the next 12 in active service, and the last five years in the reserve. Every Cossack had to procure his own uniform, equipment and horse (if mounted), the government supplying only the arms.
Cossacks on active service were divided into three equal parts according to age, and only the first third (approximately age 18-26) normally performed active service, while the rest effectively functioned as reserves, based at home but bound to march out at short notice. The officers came from 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.
In 1893 the Cossacks had a total population of 2,648,049 (including 1,331,470 women), and they owned nearly 146,500,000 acres (593,000 km²) of land, including 105,000,000 acres (425,000 km²) of arable land and 9,400,000 acres (38,000 km²) under forests. Each stanitsa controlled a share of the land, divided up at the rate of 81 acres (328,000 m²) 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 rented to different persons), also from various sources (trade patents, rents of shops, fisheries, permits for gold-digging, etc.), as also from the subsidies they received from the government (about £712,500 in 1893), went to cover all the expenses of state and local administration. They had, besides, a special reserve capital of about £2,600,000. Village taxes covered the expenditure of the village administration. Each voisko had a separate general administration, and administrative structures differed within the different voiskos. The central administration, at the Ministry of War, comprising representatives of each voisko, discussed the proposals of all new laws affecting the Cossacks.
In time of war the ten Cossack voiskos had 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 up 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 Ussuri Cossacks) sufficed 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, beekeeping, etc. The Cossacks mostly rented out rights 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 World War II
The attack launched by German units on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 produced a wave of 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, Ivan Kononov, who had crossed over to the Germans on 22 August 1941 with the greater part of his 436th regiment, and began service on the side of the Germans by guarding lines 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, which had the aim of rebuilding 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 - Sankt 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, Pyotr Krasnov, and Andrei 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 ended up in mines in the Urals, deprived of the right to come out to the surface of the earth.
On 1 June 1945 the Cossack camp in Linz held 32,000 persons, mainly old men, women, and children -- genuine refugees -- but also including Cossack soldiers. On that day the camp handed over about 25,000 people to the Soviets. 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 Gen. Władysław Anders and Antonio Munoz
- Article about Cossacks in WW2
Cossacks in Russia today
to be written and rewritten