Cossack Nationalism and Separatism Remain Very Much Alive in Russia Today, ‘Russkaya Semerka’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 15 – In advance of the January 24 centenary of the Bolshevik decree calling for the destruction of all Cossacks, the Russian historical portal, Russkaya Semerka, concedes something most Russian outlets are unwilling to: Cossack national identity and even separatism, quite strong after 1917, remain very much alive in Russia today.

            Ever more often, the portal says, some say “the Cossacks are an independent ethnos. Some even consider the Cossacks a non-Slavic people, [but] others say these are inventions and call the Cossacks nothing more than Russian resettlers.”  What is important is that the debate, unresolved by scholars, has become a legal one (russian7.ru/post/byli-li-kazaki-otdelnoy-naciey/).

                A major reason that Cossacks view themselves as separate from Russians is that the Cossacks always position themselves as free men while Russians often display a slave-like character.  As a result, “the ideas of Cossack separatism gained popularity after the fall of the monarchy; in certain circles, they remain in demand even now.”

            The arguments about whether the Cossacks are a separate nation on the basis of origin or culture remain unresolved among scholars, Russkaya Semerka says; and that lack of resolution has had the effect of shifting the debate from the universities to the courts and parliaments where it is increasingly sharp.

            Cossack groups are pressing both to recognize them as a distinct nationality, something the government is loathe to do but that some courts, as in Volgograd, have found for the Cossacks, especially as historians and DNA tests have shown them more distinct from Russians than many Russians have wanted to admit. 

            Many Cossacks now are focusing on seeking a revision of the April 1991 RSFSR law on the rehabilitation of repressed peoples. The Cossacks were repressed every bit as much and in many cases far more than any other nation; but that law species that they are “a community” not “an ethnos.” 

                In many sense, the Cossacks were the first victims of a Soviet-orchestrated genocide; and that sense has grown among many of them, even as the Putin regime has sought to whitewash the Soviet period.  As the centenary of Lenin’s degree calling for their extermination approaches, there will certainly be more articles, legal cases, and even protests demanding justice.