We’ve seen rioting over WWII burials and protests against resurrecting a statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky. But a protest against a statue to Catherine the Great!? Yes. It seems in some quarters Russia’s history as a whole, and not just its communist past, is cause for nationalist outrage. Reuters reports that a plan to build a statue of the Tsarina in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa has sparked the ire of local Cossacks.
The modern-day heirs of the Cossacks, aligned with Ukrainian nationalists, vilify Catherine as a foreign despot who crushed Ukraine’s limited autonomy at the time, and disbanded units of their celebrated predecessors.
“We used to have communism. Now we are told how wonderful things were before the Bolsheviks. And people believe it,” said Serhiy Gutsalyuk, an “otaman”, or leader, of an Odessa Cossack group as preparations went ahead to restore the monument.
“City authorities will hear nothing of reconciliation. And we will never accept any monument to Catherine the Great.”
Instead the Cossacks have offered a compromise. Ditch the Catherine statue and relaunch the rebuilding of a church dedicated to Saint Catherine. It seems, however, that few are willing to play ball. The monument appears to have wide support among Odessa’s multi-ethnic populace. The Cossacks, however, are viewed as simply hypocrites since they swore an oath to Catherine and had no problem metering “out punishment to Jews or rebellious peasants” in the name of Tsarism. Claims that they were victims of Tsarist despotism have fallen on deaf ears, not to mention a sign of nationalist gullibility. As Oleg Gubar, a historian who served as an adviser for the Catherine monument, “Cossacks swore allegiance to Catherine the Great, Polish kings and Turkish sultans. This was simply the nature of their work. Today, these people are being manipulated. It is, quite frankly, no more than a tragic, uncivilized joke.”
Actually I am not very interested in Civil War-era Cossack politics. I am interested in contemporary ethnology and folklore.
Budenny was Budenny. Kind of an important person. As far as I know the only Cossack to ever appear on the cover of Time.
Didn’t know that about him being on Time’s cover.
He’s among the more well known of not so distant Cossacks.
Back later as a necron, I mean neocon has just sent me a pissed reply of hers. I’ve a few others like that to catch up on.
Back for a quickie. Here’s a not so bad Wiki overview:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skoropadsky
The referenced Petlura was a Polish puppet, who sold out western Ukraine to Pilsudski. Somewhat bizarre how many modern day Glaicians admire his past.
Petlura was killed in Paris by a Jewish person, whose motive was the anti-Jewish attacks Petlura’s forces committed during the Russian Civil War. On that issue, Skoropadsky and his people had a considerably cleaner record.
Wiki did a good job here noting how many Ukrainian Cossacks backed Ivan Skoropadsky over Ivan Mazepa:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaporozhian_Host
This thread seems to be pretty much just of interest to me and Mike, for different reasons, but anyway…
It strikes me how people who love to talk about how Russia supposedly doesn’t have any grassroots movements or civil society seem to be completely oblivious of the Cossack Revival Movement, which is huge and certainly qualifies as both. Not as big as it used to be, but still not something to sneeze at. Unless you have a really, really big nose.
Come to think of it, the Movement Against Illegal Immigration is another grassroots movement and manifestation of civil society.
So, I am inclined to think that when people lament the lack of grassroots movements and civil society, what they really mean is a lack of grassroots movements and civil society that they agree with. It’s quite funny.
For the sake of clarity: Budenny was definitely not a Cossack. He was an inogorodny.
“For the sake of clarity: Budenny was definitely not a Cossack. He was an inogorodny.”
Hmm? Clarify? I thought he was a Don Cossack? There’s a statue of him in Rostov-on-Don on Budennovskaya Ulitsa, near the hotel.* The one person I got into a conversation with about this down there told me he was one (albeit a traitor).
*Which doesn’t mean he was a Cossack of course. Was he a non-Cossack who migrated to the Don? Rostov IIRC was never a Cossack town.
By the way Kolya, could you answer a question about Terek history that I am fuzzy about? As I understand things the Tereks were heavily de-Cossackized by the Bolsheviks, their land given to vainakh and many people collectivized and/or deported. But then, I also read about a post-1917 Terek cultural and demographic footprint in the region up to the present day, so there must have been some survival. What happened?
An explanation would make me very happy, as I have much wondered about this!
Aha, I found an answer to the Budenny issue in an interview with his daughter. Though he is widely believed to be a Cossack, he was as Kolya says an inogorodets:
Cемен Михайлович и вправду из казаков?
- Все так и думали, но на самом деле его семья из Воронежской губернии: они переехали на Дон, когда дедушке моему, папиному отцу Михал Иванычу, было два года. Им казалось, что на Дону земли много, а земля-то вся казачья. (Казачьим семьям при рождении каждого мальчика по пятнадцать десятин прирезалось.) Но казаки отдавали землю в аренду, вот они на Дону и обосновались. Папа казаков любил и всю жизнь старался быть не хуже их. И шашкой владеть, и на лошади ездить…
http://www.peoples.ru/military/hero/budenny/
Sorry, Chrisius Maximus, but I don’t know much about the subject of your question. And although I have some Terek Cossack in me, I’ve been in the Terek region only once. Actually, the stanitsa my Terek ancestors are from is now officially part of Chechnya–not because of the Chechens, but because of the capricious way many of he borders were delimited during the Soviet period.
Thank you Kolya. I understand that part of the background of the Chechen Wars has to do with that very attachment of Terek territory onto Chechnya.
From what I read I understand that a lot of the Slavic population that fled Chechnya in the early 1990s was Terek Cossack (Naursky District). I have also read that during the Maskhadov era Chechen teips opposed to Islamisation found refuge with Terek stanitsas they were connected to by intermarriage and other reasons. But that contradicts other things I’ve read about thorough de-Cossackization in that area in the Soviet period. Which was why I asked the question. Once again, thanks.
“This thread seems to be pretty much just of interest to me and Mike, for different reasons, but anyway…”
***
You’d be surprised who reads these kind of threads without participatng in them.
A similar thread was how the BBC came across me.
An editor of a Moscow based Eng lang. venue rejected a submission of mine on account of my commentary at threads like these. Said editor didn’t like what I said about her venue of employment.
The kind of Eng. lang. mass media freedom preaching to Russia.
An editor of a Moscow based Eng lang. venue rejected a submission of mine on account of my commentary at threads like these. Said editor didn’t like what I said about her venue of employment.
I can sympathise. I once had a job application rejected by an engineering manager on the grounds that I’d once shouted around a bar that his company was a pile of shite. Damned unfair, I thought.
So much for free speech. A point of issue in the most free of socities.
The standard Eng. lang. mass media counter-reply to muting some views is that they’re free to pick and choose what they like in an open society.
On the other hand, many of the Eng. lang. mass media/academia/body politic elites expect others like Russian mass media to post/publish material not to the latter’s liking. For many Anglo-American elitny, the key difference (in their view) is that Russian society isn’t free or as free. Never mind that Russians do have access to other views and are intelligent enough to make their own coherent decisions.
For David Remnick, Russian mass media’s deemphasizing of Anna Politkovskaya is seen as censorship and not that many Russians found her work partisan in a way that wasn’t to their liking. Remnick doesn’t impress as someone particularly open minded to views different from his own.
So mab and others can choose to not sympathize with the kind of disgust which is often downplayed in the free (for those who can afford to influence it) press.
Just came across this overview of Cossackia:
http://members.tripod.com/~marcin_w/index-3.html
Upon a very quick perusal, it seems agreeable.
“I can sympathise. I once had a job application rejected by an engineering manager on the grounds that I’d once shouted around a bar that his company was a pile of shite. Damned unfair, I thought.”
Are you sure it wasn’t because of a plot by David Johnson’s Engineering List?
Glossing over Mark Ames’ article on that Soviet acting chap. He made your friend issue a pathetic apology to Gessen, Albats and Lipman. He probably influenced him to drop his short lived Media Watch feature. He did some other things as well, which reflect on the often times lousy to stale Eng. lang. coverage of the former USSR. Like Robert Bridge’s Soviet like softball interview of him.
Do you think he can hold his own in a panel where he’s actually challenged? Ditto Aslund and some others.
Some anti-Cossack bigotry at Sonoma State University (read down into linked article):
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060323/NEWS/603230302/1033/NEWS01
An SSU official emailed me his displeasure with the name change and added that he was Jewish on his mother’s side (thereby making him Jewish according to Jewish law). He mailed me an SSU Cossacks T-shirt.
Northern Califorina had a Rusisan presence. Hence, names like Russian Hill in San Francisco.
Cossacks Find Their Roots In Southern Russia
http://www.russiatoday.ru/features/news/13819
Paging Timothy Post.
These kind of partisan views on the Mazepa-Peter confrontation go typically unchallenged:
http://us.f348.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?MsgId=319_3787434_314479_1640_128084_0_18389_308925_865841890&Idx=0&YY=99603&y5beta=yes&y5beta=yes&inc=25&order=down&sort=date&pos=0&view=a&head=b&box=Inbox#a22
They’re still at it against Catherine in Odessa:
http://www.russiatoday.ru/news/news/14547
**** ‘em.
Talk about rewriting history:
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/10/04/006.html
Cossack Beauty Queen
http://www.russiatoday.ru/features/news/15243