|
The cossacks, were the highly independent, some would say predatory horsemen of
the Russian steppe and Causcasus Mountains. Their range extended east to Siberia. Today the former range of the cossacks is more in the Ukraine and newly independent Cucasian republics, but continue to be strongly associated with Russia in the popular mind. Some historiand trace the origins of the cossacks to the Russian serfs from the principality of Moscow who fled the increasingly repressive regime of serfdom in the 14th and 15th centuries and settled in the valleys of the Dnipper, Don, and Ural Rivers and in Siberia. They were the marvelously skilled horsemen of the Western Steppe. The lengends of the cossacks claim that boys were taught to ride before they could walk. They are perhaps best known for effectively harassed Napoleon's Grande Arm�e as it retreated from Moscow after the 1812 invasion. Napoleon called them "a disgrace to the human race". They are also remembered for their plundring of Jewish villages inthe vicious Tsarist pogroms.
The cossacks, were the highly independent, some would say predatory horsemen of
the Russian steppe and Causcasus Mountains.
Their range extended east to Siberia. Today the former range of the cossacks is more in the Ukraine and newly independent Cucasian republics, but continue to be strongly associated with Russia in the popular mind.
T hey were the marvelously skilled horsemen of the Western Steppe. The lengends of the cossacks claim that boys, learned "to shoot from the saddle as soon as he could ride, and to ride as soon as he could walk". One author was told as a boy that other countries could have armies, but that the Cossacks were an army. They lived as nomadic clans ruled by elected hetman or ataman. They lived in the Caususes along the Don River of southern Russia between the Black and Caspian Seas.
Some historians trace the origins of the cossacks to the Russian serfs from the principality of Moscow who fled the increasingly repressive regime of serfdom in the 14th and 15th centuries and settled in the valleys of the Dnipper, Don, and Ural Rivers and in Siberia. Another source describes their origins as Mongol or Tartar nomads. [Ure] Their erhnic origins, however, seem more that of Serb peasants than Mongols.
There are many legendary figures in Cossack history. One of the most fanous is Yermack who in the 16th century led the Cossocks into Siberia, fighting indigenous tribes. Bogdan in the 17th century was the scourge of the Poles, avening the murder of his son and mistress. Stenka Razin terrorized the Turks. Other Cossacks like Mazeppa and Pugachev, threatened the Tsarist throne. The Cossacks are perhaps best known for effectively harassed Napoleon's Grande Armée as it retreated from Moscow after the 1812 invasion. The retreat began as an orderly withdrawl back to Warsaw and supplies prepositioned in Poland. The Cossacks who by the 19th century were the main element in the Tsarist calvary, began to prey on stranglers and the long drawn out French line of retreat. Gradually the Cossacks and Russian Army turned the Grande Armée into fleeing rabel. Napoleon himself escaped. His Army was virtually destroyed. Napoleon called them "a disgrace to the human race". The Cossacks took no prisionors and robbed the dead and dying. French soldiers referred to them as the "vultures of the battlefield". The Cossacks played a role in the Great Game, the contest between Russia and Britain over Central Russia. In the Russian Revolution, many Cossacks supported the Tsar but were suppressed by the Red Army. They were percecuted by Stalin in the 1930s. Some fought with the Germans and were either killed in the War or by Stlain after thewar.
The Cossacks were said to require few provisions. They obtained supplied from plundering civilians and opposing military forces. The French after their experience in Russia were terrified of them, believing that they barbequed and ate children. The cry "the Cossacks are coming" terrified the people of Easter Europe long before the French invaded Russia.
It is not all together clear when pograms began in Russia. Russia from medieval times banned Jews from living in the country. Thus the Jewish population of Russia was minimal. Tsarist expansion into Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine, however, brought large number of Jews under Tsarist rule (17th-18th centuries). This was the origin of the Pale of Settlement (1791-1917). The first known incident to be called a pogrom was attcks on Jews in Odessa, a port in Ukraine (1821). We suspect that there were attcvks earlier, but this is the earlist use of the term that we can find. 'Pogrom' is a Russian-language word meaning something like 'to wreak havoc' or 'to demolish violently'. Since the ttcks began, the term has come gto men violent attacks on Jews by people in the Russian Empire and in other Eastern European countries. The inittial pogroms appear to hve been spotaneous events based on the hte-filled rhetoric od Orhodox priests. While Tsarist officials may not have been involved in the early pogroms, there appear to have neen limited if any efforts to protect Jews or to procecute the perpetrators. Pogrom entered th Englisdh and other languges to describe bloody anti-Jewish riots that swept the southern and western provinces of the Tsarist Empire. Tsar Alexander III was a rabid anti-Semite. Following the assasination of his fther, the 'Tsar liberator' Alexander II, progroms occurred on an unprecedented scale (1881-84). It is difficult to say whther the pogroms were more a reflection of his ant-Semitism or a mater of political expediency. Alexander soughht to use 'folk anti-Semitism', to his political advantage. Public opinion was turing against Romonovs in Russia. Alexander and his advisers saw this as a useful opportunity to deflect rising public criticism. The clergy delivered hateful sermons nd teachings to young people in which Jews were portrayed as 'Christ-killers' and the oppressors of the Slavic, Christian people. Mobs attacked Jewish communities, ransaking homes and shops and killing people. These progroms were especially common in the Ukraine. Here Cossocks played a major role. There were countless progroms of varying size and distructiveness. It is widely believed that Tsarist agents were in part responible. The worst was the Kishinov Pogrom (1881). There were many ways in which progroms were inspired. The clergy often gave hate-filled sermons. The Tsarist Government did little to prevent them and officials even instigated them. The police whicvh msay helped indtigte tyhe attacks rarely intervened. We believe these were mostly local officials such as the police, but have few details. Obviously Tsarist officials did not want to investigate. Mobs ramaged through Jewish communiyies. They beat, raped, and murdered Jews and looted their property. One historian writes, "Expulsions, deportations, arrests, and beatings became the daily lot of the Jews, not only of their lower class, but even of the middle class and the Jewish intelligentsia. The government of Alexander III waged a campaign of war against its Jewish inhabitants ... The Jews were driven and hounded, and emigration appeared to be the only escape from the terrible tyranny of the Romanovs." [Wein, p. 173.] Few Jews ledt Russia earlier. This suddenly change and by the late-19th centurty they had places to go. The result was an explossion of emmigration to Western Europe, especially Germany, and the United States. Americans called these new immigrants 'Russian Jews'. This was a misnomer. They came from the Tsarist Empire, but not Russia proper. Few Jews lived in Russia. Most came from Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine. The pogroms continued under Alexander sons, Nicholas II. It is at this time that the Okrana forged The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, first published in Russia (1903). Terrible pogroms occurred during the Russian Civil War with various groups involved. Ukranian nationalists, Polish officials, and Red Army commnders. All were engaged in pogroms carried out in western Belorussia (Belarus) and Poland's Galicia province (now West Ukraine), killing tens of thousands of Jews (1918-20). So strong was the anti-Semetic feeling that Red Army pogroms occurred despite the fact that the Red Army Commander Leon Trotsky and many leading Bolsheveks were Jewish.
The image of the Cossacks depended on who you were. The French, Poles, Jews, and Turks considered them to be ruthless mersenariues. Russian schoolboys before the Revolution were taught that the Cossacks were the frontiersmen that extended Russis's boundariest east to Siberia. As a result, boys might be dressed up in cossack costumes to have their photographs taken. The Tsars used the Cossacks to ruthlessly supress political opposition. During the Revolution, the Cossacks sided with the Whites. As a result, the Soviets presented the Cossacks as not only backward and stubborn, but enemies of the people. Boys were no longer dressed up in Cossock outfits.
The Cossacks tall shaggy hats, and lengthy sheepskin coats. Perhaps the most characteristic garment wre tunic-like coats with slots for rifle cartridges sewn on to the front.
Ure, John. The Cossacks: An Illustrated History (Overlook), 288p.
Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Return to the Main Russian page]
[Introduction]
[Activities]
[Biographies]
[Chronology]
[Countries]
[Styles]
[Bibliographies]
[Contributions]
[FAQs]
[Glossaries]
[Images]
[Links]
[Registration]
[Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]
Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing ethnic pages:
[Main Russian ethnic page]
[Main ethnic page]
[German]
[Greek]
[Irish]
[Native American]
[Scottish]
