The seeming paradox of Cossack involvement has been little noticed by Western analysts,1 perhaps because Cossack history is mired in misunderstanding and myth — see the 1962 movie Taras Bulba, a Hollywood interpretation of the Gogol novel that was filmed in Argentina.
The Cossacks were a semi-nomadic warrior people in Ukraine and Southern Russia who exchanged military service for great powers in return for elements of self-rule. That fierceness and self-reliance has made the Cossack an archetype of both Russian and Ukrainian nationalism.
It’s hardly surprising that this appeals to governments at war. In Ukraine, forces identifying as Cossacks have trained young people to participate in the military, as well as provided morale and even combat forces.
In Russia, the Cossack image is even more institutionalized in the armed forces, with “15,635 brother Cossacks” fighting on the line of contact and a total of 50,000 Cossacks having been rotated through the combat zone. Numerous units within the Russian military have been given names with supposed Cossack units, like Tavrida, Kuban, Scythian, and Baltika.
How did we end up in this situation where Cossacks are on both sides?
Cossacks are an important symbol for Ukrainian nationalism and are often presented as an ethnic progenitor of the Ukrainian nation. Before the rise of modern states, the lands around the Dnieper River were inhabited by Cossacks, who, by the early 17th century, had founded the first state-like structure in Ukraine, known as the Hetmanate.
It was the Hetmanate and its associated organization, the Zaporizhzhian Sich (Palisade) that formed the backdrop for Gogol’s Taras Bulba. Even before the end of Communism, the Cossack heritage of the region was a mainstay for independence — and the 500th anniversary of the founding of the Zaporizhzhian host in 1990 drew between 300,000 and 500,000 people to the grave of Cossack chieftain Ivan Sirko in Nikopol Oblast with the “days of Cossack glory” festival. In re-enacting Cossack heritage, Ukrainians are honoring their nation. The military has exploited this emotional connection.
First, October 14, already venerated as the holy day of Pokrova (the veiling of the icon of the Virgin Mary) in the Orthodox calendar, was declared the “day of the Ukrainian Cossacks” in 1999. Since 2006, it has also been marked as the day of the founding of the UPA, the controversial Ukrainian resistance army in World War Two, and became the Day of the Defenders of Ukraine in 2014.
Second, various units and training academies in the Ukrainian military are named for Cossack figures, such as the Ivan Bohun military academy. Bohun was a Colonel in the Zaporizhzhia Cossacks who opposed the Periaslav treaty of 1654 that ostensibly first united Russia and Ukraine, who fought against the Polish king, and whose death is commemorated annually in the Western city of Lviv.
Third, individual Ukrainian soldiers dress in Cossack style — which means an osoledits, a single plaited lock of hair stretching from crown over a shaved scalp, and, at least when Ukraine was fighting separatists in the 2014-2022 “Anti-Terrorist Operation,” many soldiers had tattoos which referenced Cossack mythology. For Ukrainians, then, re-enacting Cossack mannerisms is a testament to national history.
So, too, with Russian Cossacks. As demonstrated in the chart, some 50,000 Cossacks have been rotated through the combat zone, and “today on the line of hostilities are some 16,000 of our brother Cossacks.”
Of course, there are some legitimate questions over who may be considered a Cossack — and what one has to do or to be in order to be considered one — but the importance of the Cossacks to Russian military reconstitution seems guaranteed, with Putin signing a bill in March 2023 creating a 60,000-strong Cossack reserve army. With Cossack forces heavily engaged in the battle for the Donbas town of Chasiv Yar, it’s fair to say they now form an essential part of Russia’s military strategy.
But in another sense, too, the Cossacks are becoming emblematic of Putin’s ideological push to use militarized patriotism to stiffen the backbone of his regime.
The Cossack image is being commemorated and celebrated throughout Russia and is acquiring truly national overtones. This includes Cossack cultural centers in Kamchatka, Altai, and Amur as well as Cossack druzhini patrols in Archangel and plans to expand Cossack influence in Yakutia. In numerous Russian towns, the local authorities are erecting statues and memorials to Cossack leaders and in Moscow a new museum of the Russian Cossacks is set to open in December.
Perhaps no place better identifies the contest for control of the Cossack legacy than the occupied territories themselves.
For just as Ukrainians quench their spiritual thirst from this ideological wellspring, so too it appears integral to Russian plans for governing the region in the future. In an interview with the Russian portal Cossackdom.ru, state Duma deputy Victor Vodolatsky stated that the Ukrainian claim to Cossack heritage was false (and, in fact, the “ideological crutch” of an ostensibly neo-Nazi regime) and that creating pro-Russian Cossack societies in Zaporizhzhia Kherson, and Luhansk was “very important.”
Yet this also reveals a perhaps deeper observation between Ukrainian and Russian social life, as in Ukraine, Cossack organizations are voluntary, whereas reportedly, all men in Russian-controlled Kherson will be required to enlist as Cossacks.
Richard Arnold is Associate Professor of Political Science, Muskingum University, member of the PONARS network, and a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in summer 2024.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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- Although see Arnold, Richard “Between Ukraine and Russia: The Cossack as Boundary” Europe-Asia Studies, forthcoming. [↩]
