History, politics and war

Ukraine and the Cossacks

Why the Ukraine Government is issuing arms to Kiev citizens

It’s February 2022 and the world watches in horror as Putin army crushes opposition on the roads to Kiev.

Putin may see the world as a chessboard but he’s making another bad move, a move that will surely come back to haunt him. He fails to understand the notion of proud peoples and their culture.

He has does not seem to have learned the lessons of the Chechen wars.

The Ukrainians are proud and independent, with Cossack blood in their veins and a rich heritage. Warlike and freedom loving. And that’s the key.

They will not be subjugated.

The word Cossack has its origins in the Ukrainian word “Kazak” which means “free man”.

Let’s look at their history in a bit more detail.

Who are the Cossacks and what were their origins?

The origin of the group is not entirely clear as there are many theories on where they came from. One theory asserts that they were descendants of the Turkic people, another claims that they were runaway serfs and peasants, and finally, some believe that they were descendants of the Vikings.

Others think that they are a meld of nomadic horsemen stretching from Romania in the west, the Black Sea region including Turkey, across the Caucasus and as far east as Kazakhstan.

Another theory, probably the most widely accepted, is that the Cossacks were originally Slavs who were captured by the Tatars and held as slaves for about 300 years until they were freed by the Russian Tsar Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) in 1555, after which they settled on the Don River delta).

The first mention of Cossacks can be found in a Turkish book called “Tarikh-i Al-i Osman”. It was written by Ottoman historian Kemalpaşazade who claimed that Cossacks descended from Tatars and Polovtsy (a Turkic tribe).

The 1600s to 1800s: Cossack warfare & life

They were renowned for their fierce martial prowess and military skills, as well as their horsemanship.

In 1648, they became subjects of the Tsar after refusing to swear allegiance to him. In 1775, Catherine II granted them land in exchange for military service on Russia’s borders.

In 1802, Alexander I abolished their autonomy and their lands became regular provinces.

The Cossacks lived in a society with little or no central government control, so they had to be self-reliant and independent. This meant that they often acted outside of the law, raiding towns and villages, stealing livestock and goods from locals, and killing people. However, they also defended their homeland from invaders such as Napoleon’s army during the Napoleonic wars in Europe.

The Russian Revolution

The Ukrainian War for Independence was a series of conflicts that took place in 1917–1921 during the Russian Revolution that led to the overthrow of the Tsarist regime, and the establishment of a socialist state in Russia.

Most Cossack leaders and governments supported the White movement during the Russian Civil War (1917–1923).

This resulted in a large number of Cossack soldiers fighting against the Bolsheviks. As Russia’s Civil War raged on, many Cossacks and veterans, fearing reprisals and the Bolshevik policy of ‘de-Cossackisation’ went abroad to countries in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. As exiles, they organized their own anti-communist groups or linked with other Russian émigré and royalist organizations.

The Cossacks and the Second World War

This is another problematic period in Cossack history.

The Cossacks were well known for their military skills, and for their horsemanship. When the German army invaded Ukraine during World War II, they took advantage of the Cossacks’ skills and hired them to help with occupation. The Ukrainian Cossacks were used as part of a mobile force to police occupied territory in order to keep order and protect supply lines.

However, there were also Cossack units in the Soviet Army which were disbanded after the war.

The so-called ‘Repatriation of Cossacks’ happened after the end of the war when Cossack POWs were handed over by British and American forces to the Soviet Union. The repatriation was agreed to in the tri-partite Yalta Conference of February 1945 which planned the carve-up of post-war Europe.

Stalin claimed that the repatriated people were Soviet citizens as of 1939, even included people who had been born abroad before or shortly after the end of Russian Civil War. Stalin’s stance was due to the ongoing suspicion of the Cossacks following their support of the White Russians in the Revolution.

On 1 June 1945 the British Army delivered more than 20,000 Cossacks (with their families) to the Red Army for repatriation to the USSR.

Senior Cossack officers were tried and executed in Moscow, and thousands of others executed without trial. The rest were consigned to gulags.

The present day

The Russian government’s suspicion and mistrust of the Cossacks continues even in 2022, with Putin using the argument of ‘de-Nazification’ as one of the reasons for invading the Ukraine.

And of course, the mistrust — hatred — even, is reciprocated by the Cossacks.

Just as the communists tried to stamp out religion and failed, so they are unlikely to succeed in stamping out the Cossack culture. Their attempts in Chechnya have failed and they should have learned from that.

And as I write, news is coming in that Kazakhstan has turned down a request from Putin to provide troops in support of his invasion of the Ukraine. The Kazakh government has also declined to recognise the annexed Ukraine oblasts (regions) of Donetsk and Lukhansk which Putin has claimed as part of the Russian Federation.

The Kazakhs, like the Cossacks, are a proud and independent nation, great horsemen and renowned warriors.

Kazak = Cossack.

QED

And that brief history of the Cossacks surely explains why the Ukrainian government is arming its citizens in Kiev.

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