Cossackia (Russian : Казакия) (Ukrainian: Козакія) is a term sometimes used to refer to the traditional areas where the Cossack communities live in Russia and Ukraine, and to the lands of the Zaporizhian Host. Depending on its context, "Cossackia" may mean the ethnographic area of Cossack habitat or a proposed Cossack state independent from the Soviet Union. [1]
The name "Cossackia" became popular among the Cossack émigrés in Europe after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing civil war. It was used to designate a union of seven Cossack territorial Hosts ("units")— the Don, Kuban, Terek, Astrakhan, Ural, Orenburg, and the Kalmuk district. The idea of Cossackia was first mooted in December 1920 by a group of Cossack emigres in Constantinople who founded the Union for the Resurrection of Cossackdom. [2] The majority of the Cossacks in exile saw themselves as Russians, and the idea of Cossackia was disallowed by the atamans of the Don, Kuban, and Terek Hosts. [2] The majority of the Cossack emigres were living in poverty and had little interest in the project. [3] Calls for an independent Cossackia emerged within the vibrant émigré Cossack community in Prague, Czechoslovakia, later in the 1920s. The principle champion of Cossackia was Vasily Glazkov, a Don Cossack who founded the Cossack National Center in Prague. [4] Glazkov's Cossack National Center had about only 12 members, but gained an influential patron in the form of Nazi Germany. [5] After the German occupation of the Czech half of Czecho-Slovakia in March 1939, the Cossack National Center was the only Cossack group permitted to operate in Prague with the others all being closed. [5] A project of a constitution for Cossackia was also devised and envisaged the creation of the state of Cossackia and its secession from the Soviet Union.
During World War II, some proponents of "Cossackia" rallied behind Germany and attempted to establish a notionally independent Cossack state. Alfred Rosenberg, the Minister of the East (Ostministerium), favored an approach called "political warfare" in order to "free the German Reich from Pan-Slavic pressure for centuries to come". [6] Under Rosenberg's "political warfare" approach, the Soviet Union was to be broken up into four nominally independent states consisting of the Ukraine; a federation in the Caucasus; an entity to be called Ostland which would comprise the Baltic states and Belorussia (modern Belarus); and a rump Russian state. [6] Rosenberg was a fanatical anti-Semite and racist but he favored a more diplomatic policy towards the non-Russian and non-Jewish population of the Soviet Union, arguing that this was a vast reservoir of manpower that could be used by the Reich. [6]
Initially, Rosenberg considered the Cossacks to be Russians, and he ascribed to the popular German stereotype of Cossacks as thuggish rapists and looters. [7] However, as the numbers of Cossacks rallying to the Reich continued to grow into 1942, Rosenberg changed his opinion, deciding that the Cossacks were not Russians after all, instead being a separate "race" descended from the Goths. [7] The Ostministerium was supported by the SS, whose "racial experts" had concluded by 1942 the Cossacks were not Slavs, but rather the descendants of the Ostrogoths and thus were Aryans. [8] Rosenberg decided that after the "final victory" Germany would establish a new puppet state to be called Cossackia in the traditional territories of the Don, Kuban, Terek, Askrakhan, Ural and Orenburg Hosts in southeastern Russia. [7] Most of the Cossack leaders tended to reject the concept of "Cossackia", but since it was German policy to promote "Cossackia", they had little choice in the matter. [9] Glazkov's separatist ideology was formally embraced as the basis of German policy towards the Cossacks. [7] In 1942, ataman Sergei Pavlov was approached by the Ostministerium with an offer that if he put his Host at the disposal of the Wehrmacht, then Germany would establish Cossackia. [10] Through Pavlov was prepared to fight for Germany, he was less interested in Cossackia. [10] From 1942 onward, Nazi propaganda proclaimed support for establishing Cossackia as a German war aim. [7] Cossacks living in the stanitsas occupied by the Wehrmacht, in German POW camps, and to those serving in the Ostlegionen were bombarded with Nazi propaganda announcing that once the Third Reich won its "final victory" Cossackia would become a reality. [7]
In January 1943, Rosenberg appointed General Pyotr Krasnov, the former ataman of the Don Cossack Host, to the Cossack Central Office of the Ostministrium, making him the point man for the Ostministrium in its dealings with the Cossacks. [7] Krasnov was not a supporter of Cossackia, being appointed principally because Rosenberg believed that a man with his prestige would inspire more Cossacks to enlist in the Wehrmacht. [11] At a meeting with Glazkov in Berlin in July 1944, Krasnov stated that he did not agree with Glazkov's separatism, but was forced to appoint three supporters of Cossackia to important positions in the Cossack Central Office. [12]
After the war, the idea of independent Cossackia retained some support among the Cossack émigrés in Europe and the United States. The 1959 U.S. public law on Captive Nations listed Cossackia among the nations living under oppression of the Soviet regime. [1] [13] [14] The American historian Christopher Simpson wrote that two of the "captive nations" mentioned in the resolution, Idel-Ural and Cossackia, were "fictitious entities created as a propaganda ploy by Hitler's racial theoretician Alfred Rosenberg during World War Two". [15]
The principle supporter of Cossackia in the United States in the Cold War was Nikolai Nazarenko, the self-proclaimed president of the World Federation of the Cossack National Liberation Movement of Cossackia [16] Nazarenko enjoyed some prominence in New York city area as the organizer of the annual Captive Nations day parade held every July starting in 1960. In 1978, Nazarenko dressed in his colorful Cossack uniform led the Captive Days day parade in New York, and told a journalist: "Cossackia is a nation of 10 million people. In 1923 the Russians officially abolished Cossackia. as a nation. Officially, it no longer exists...America should not spend billions supporting the Soviets with trade. We don't have to be afraid of the Russian army because half of it is made up of Captive Nations. They can never trust the rank and file". [17] After 1991, the idea of a Cossackia was rejected by most Cossacks with a meeting in late 1992 of the 11 atamans representing the 11 Hosts declaring their support for a united Russia. [18]
The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic Orthodox Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Historically, they were a semi-nomadic and semi-militarized people, who, while under the nominal suzerainty of various Eastern European states at the time, were allowed a great degree of self-governance in exchange for military service. Although numerous linguistic and religious groups came together to form the Cossacks, most of them coalesced and became East Slavic-speaking Orthodox Christians.
The history of the Cossacks spans several centuries.
Don Cossacks or Donians, are Cossacks who settled along the middle and lower Don. Historically, they lived within the former Don Cossack Host, which was either an independent or an autonomous democratic republic in present-day Southern Russia and parts of the Donbas region of Ukraine, from the end of the 16th century until 1918. As of 1992, by presidential decree of the Russian Federation, Cossacks can be enrolled on a special register. A number of Cossack communities have been reconstituted to further Cossack cultural traditions, including those of the Don Cossack Host. Don Cossacks have had a rich military tradition - they played an important part in the historical development of the Russian Empire and participated in most of its major wars.
Pyotr Nikolayevich Krasnov, also known as Peter Krasnov, was a Russian military leader, writer and later Nazi collaborator.
Kuban Cossacks, or Kubanians, are Cossacks who live in the Kuban region of Russia. Most of the Kuban Cossacks are descendants of different major groups of Cossacks who were re-settled to the western Northern Caucasus in the late 18th century. The western part of the region was settled by the Black Sea Cossack Host who were originally the Zaporozhian Cossacks of Ukraine, from 1792. The eastern and southeastern part of the host was previously administered by the Khopyour and Kuban regiments of the Caucasus Line Cossack Host and Don Cossacks, who were re-settled from the Don from 1777.
A Cossack host, sometimes translated as Cossack army, was an administrative subdivision of Cossacks in the Russian Empire. Earlier the term viisko referred to Cossack organizations in their historical territories, most notable being the Zaporozhian Host of Ukrainian Cossacks.
The Terek Cossack Host was a Cossack host created in 1577 from free Cossacks who resettled from the Volga to the Terek River. The local aboriginal Terek Cossacks joined this Cossack host later. In 1792 it was included in the Caucasus Line Cossack Host and separated from it again in 1860, with the capital of Vladikavkaz. In 1916 the population of the Host was 255,000 within an area of 1.9 million desyatinas.
The repatriation of the Cossacks or betrayal of the Cossacks occurred when Cossacks, ethnic Russians and Ukrainians who were opposed to the Soviet Union and fought for Nazi Germany, were handed over by British and American forces to the Soviet Union after the conclusion of World War II. Towards the end of the European theatre of World War II, many Cossacks forces with civilians in tow retreated to Western Europe. Their goal was to avoid capture and imprisonment by the Red Army for treason, and hoped for a better outcome by surrendering to the Western Allies, such as to the British and Americans. However, after being taken prisoner by the Allies, they were packed into small trains. Unbeknownst to them, they were sent east to Soviet territories. Many men, women and children were subsequently sent to the Gulag prison camps, where some were brutally worked to death. The repatriations were agreed upon at the Yalta Conference; Soviet leader Joseph Stalin claimed that the prisoners were Soviet citizens as of 1939, although there were many of them that had left the country before or soon after the end of the Russian Civil War or had been born abroad, hence never holding Soviet citizenship.
De-Cossackization was the Bolshevik policy of systematic repression against the Cossacks in the former Russian Empire between 1919 and 1933, especially the Don and Kuban Cossacks in Russia, aimed at the elimination of the Cossacks as a distinct collectivity by exterminating the Cossack elite, coercing all other Cossacks into compliance, and eliminating Cossack distinctness. Several scholars have categorised this as a form of genocide, whilst other historians have highly disputed this classification due to the contentious figures which range from "a few thousand to incredible claims of hundreds of thousands".
Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN) was an international anti-communist organization founded as a coordinating center for anti-communist and nationalist émigré political organizations from Soviet and other socialist countries. The ABN formation dates back to a conference of representatives of non-Russian peoples that took place in November 1943, near Zhytomyr as the Committee of Subjugated Nations/the Anti-Bolshevik Front on the initiative of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. It dissolved in 1996.
The Southern Front was a military theatre of the Russian Civil War.
The XV SS Cossack Cavalry Corps was a World War II cavalry corps of the Waffen-SS, the armed wing of the German Nazi Party, primarily recruited from Cossacks.
The 1st Cossack Cavalry Division was a Russian Cossack division of the German Army that served during World War II. It was created on the Eastern Front mostly with Don Cossacks already serving in the Wehrmacht, those who escaped from the advancing Red Army and Soviet POWs. In 1944, the division was transferred to the Waffen SS, becoming part of the XV SS Cossack Cavalry Corps, established in February 1945. At the end of the war, the unit ceased to exist.
The Kuban People's Republic or Kuban National Republic was an anti-Bolshevik state during the Russian Civil War, comprising the territory of the Kuban region in Russia.
The Don Republic, later known as the Almighty Don Host, was an independent self-proclaimed anti-Bolshevik republic formed by the Armed Forces of South Russia on the territory of Don Cossacks against another self-proclaimed Don Soviet Republic. The Don Republic existed during the Russian Civil War after the collapse of the Russian Empire from 1918 to 1920.
Afrikan Petrovich Bogaewsky or Bogayevsky was a Russian military leader from the Don Cossack noble family of Bogaewsky. He served as a lieutenant general in the Imperial Russian Army and also served as the ataman of the Don Republic.
Among the approximately one million foreign volunteers and conscripts who served in the Wehrmacht during World War II were ethnic Belgians, Czechs, Dutch, Finns, Danes, French, Hungarians, Norwegians, Poles, Portuguese, Swedes, Swiss along with people from Great Britain, Ireland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Balkans. At least 47,000 Spaniards served in the Blue Division.
The Battle of Tsaritsyn was a military confrontation between the Red Army and the White Army during the Russian Civil War for control of Tsaritsyn, a significant city and port on the Volga River in southwestern Russia.
Nikolai Grigorievich Nazarenko was a Don Cossack emigre leader who served as president of the World Federation of the Cossack National Liberation Movement of Cossackia and the Cossack American Republican National Federation.
Vyacheslav Grigoryevich Naumenko was a Kuban Cossack leader and historian.