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Don Cossacks

Don Cossacks (Донские казаки) were Cossacks who settled along the middle and lower Don.

Etymology and origins

The Don Cossack Host, was a frontier military organization from the end of the sixteenth until the early twentieth century.

The name Cossack (казак, козак) was widely used to describe “free people” as opposed to others with different standing in a feudal society (i.e., peasants, nobles, clergy, etc..)
The word 'cossack' was also applied to migrants, free-booters and bandits.

Kazakh (казах) is another example of a derivative of this word used to describe nomads of the Central Asian steppes.

As a result, there were several groups of different origin who came to be known as Cossacks and there are different theories of Don Cossack origin:

Don Cossacks are run-away peasants. According to this theory Cossacks originated as bands of run-away peasants of different ethnic origins (Ruthenians, Turks, Germans etc).
The necessity of defending their lifestyle (pirating, unregulated fishing and hunting) and protect their settlements from attacks of Tatars, Mongols and other nomadic tribes that lived in the steppes of Southern Russia, forced these bands of escapees to organize into a military society. In exchange for protection of the Southern borders of medieval Russia, the Don Cossacks were given the privilege of not paying taxes and the tsar’s authority in Cossack lands was not as absolute as in other parts of Russia.
The theory of Don Cossacks as run-away peasants implies that they colonized areas previously occupied by nomadic tribes and were first to establish permanent settlements in Don area such as villages (станицы) and cities.
Cossacks are descendants of Kurgan people. Kurgan hypothesis suggests that migration of people to Europe originated from the Southern steppes of what is now Russia and Ukraine. There are multiple remains of proto-Indo-European’s settlements on the territory of Don Cossack’s land such as Miklajlovka, Skelja-Kamenolomnja, Liventsovka. The borders of the Don Cossack land are in the very center of territory once populated by the Kurgan people. The hypothesis suggests that Don Cossacks did not move to the steppes of Southern Russia from other parts of Europe, but rather that they are descendants of the Kurgan people that moved to this area from the Near East before further migration to Europe and India.
The theories, however, do not exclude one another. It is possible that Don Cossacks originated as descendants of Kurgan people and over time gave shelter to people of various ethnic origin that for different reasons escaped from their homeland to the Don Cossacks' territory. The reasons would be:
: a) religious, as Don Cossacks were Old Believers (старообрядцы) for a lot longer than the rest of Russia;
: b) the search for relative freedom as Don Cossacks had a primitive democratic society and autonomy within the medieval Russian Kingdom (Tsarstvo).

Traditions and culture

The Don Cossacks had a democratic society where the most important decisions were made during a Common Assembly (Казачий Круг). The assembly elected temporary authorities - atamans.

Don Cossacks were masters of horse riding and had superb military training, due to their long conflict with the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire. They were selling their military services to different powers in Eastern Europe. Together with the Polish King, they raided Moscow during The Time of Troubles (Смутное Время) and under Russian authority carried out raids and expeditions against Turkey and Persia.

The Cossacks faith is a Pravoslavny one and they see themselves as its protectors.

Though there are some differences in traditions and customs, the Don Cossacks speak the Russian language and have always considered themselves part of greater Russia, though rather autonomous.

The Don Cossacks have a tradition of choral singing and many of their songs, such as Chyorny Voron (Black Raven) and Lyubo, Bratsi, Lyubo (It's good, brothers, good) became popular throughout the rest of Russia. Many of the songs, unsurprisingly are about death in war.

History

Don Cossack history is intertwined with that of the rest of Russia.

During the reign of Ivan the Terrible (Ivan IV), the legendary ataman Yermak Timofeyevich went on an expedition to conquer Siberia. After defeating Khan Kuchum in the fall of 1582 and occupying Isker, the capital of the Siberian Khanate, Yermak sent a Cossack detachment down the Irtysh in the winter of 1583. The detachment led by Bogdan Bryazga (according to other sources, the Cossack chieftain Nikita Pan) passed through the lands of the Konda-Pelym Voguls and reached the walls of the town of Samarovo. Taken by surprise by the Cossack attack, the Ostyaks surrendered. In fall 1585, shortly after Yermak's death, Cossacks led by voevoda (army commander) Ivan Mansurov founded the first Russian fortified town in Siberia, Obskoy, at the mouth of the Irtysh river on the right bank of the Ob river. The Mansi and Khanty lands thus became part of the Russian state, finally secured by the founding of the cities of Pelym and Berezov in 1592 and Surgut in 1594. As a result of Yermak's expedition, Russia was able to annex Siberia.

Under Peter the Great and subsequent rulers, the Don Cossacks participated in numerous military campaigns, which resulted in the expansion of the Russian Empire from the Black to the Baltic Sea. For years, the Cossacks waged war against the Ottomans and Crimean Khanate. The Siege of Azov in 1641 was one of the key actions in Don Cossack history.

Three of Russia's most notorious rebels, Stenka Razin, Kondraty Bulavin and Emelian Pugachev, were Don Cossacks. Don Cossacks are credited with playing a significant part in repelling Napoleon's Invasion of Russia. Under the command of Count Matvey Ivanovich Platov, the Don Cossacks successfully fought in the number of battles with Grande Armee. In the Battle of Borodino Don Cossacks were making raids to the rear of the French Army. Ataman Platov commanded all Cossack troops and had successfully covered the retreat of the Russian Army to Moscow. The Don Cossacks distinguished themselves in all the campaigns to come and took part in the capture of Paris. Napoleon is credited with declaring, "Cossacks are the best light troops among all that exist. If I had them in my army, I would go through all the world with them."

Admiral Aleksandr Vasiliyevich Kolchak, one of the leaders of the White Movement during the Russian Civil War, was of Don Cossack descent.

Since 1786, their territory was officially called Don Voisko Lands, and was renamed Don Voisko Province in 1870 (presently shared by the Rostov, Volgograd, and Voronezh regions of the Russian Federation as well as part of the Luhansk region of Ukraine). In 1916, the Don Host enlisted over 1.5 million cossacks. It was disbanded on Russian soil in 1918, after the Russian Revolution, but the Don Cossacks in the White Army and those who emigrated abroad, continued to preserve the traditions, musical and otherwise, of their host. Many found employment as trick riders in various circuses throughout Europe and the United States.

Following the defeat of the White Army in Russian Civil War, a policy of decossackization (Raskazachivaniye) took place on the surviving Cossacks and their homelands since they were viewed as a potential threat to the new Soviet regime. The Cossack homelands were often very fertile, and during the collectivisation campaign many Cossacks shared the fate of the kulaks. The Soviet famine of 1932-1934 hit the Don and Kuban territory the hardest. According to historian Michael Kort, "During 1919 and 1920, out of a population of approximately 1.5 million Don Cossacks, the Bolshevik regime killed or deported an estimated 300,000 to 500,000".

During World War II, the Don Cossacks mustered the largest single concentration of Cossacks within the German Army, the XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps. A great part of the Cossacks were former Russian citizens who elected to fight not so much for Germany as against the Soviet Union. The XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps included the 1st Cossack Division and the 2nd Cossack Division.

The Host was revived in the early 1990s and was officially recognised by the government in 1997.

Don Cossack Choir

The Don Cossack Choir Serge Jaroff was a group of former officers of the Russian Imperial Army, discovered singing in Constantinople, where they had fled after the defeat of their army in the Crimea. They made their formal concert debut in Vienna in 1923, led by their founder, conductor and composer, Serge Jaroff.

They were immensely popular in American and elsewhere, touring the world in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. The men, dressed as Cossacks, sang a cappella in a repertory of Russian sacred and secular music, army, folk and art songs. Cossack dancing was eventually added to their programmes.

In popular culture

Mikhail Sholokhov's monumental work, And Quiet Flows the Don, deals sympathetically with the Don Cossacks and depicts the destruction of their way of life as a result of World War I and the Russian Civil War.