lO 
LAND & WATER 
Uctobcr II, 1917 
(lid families of rich Cossacks ; and holytba. poor people. 
And they were in constant strife one with another at the time 
when the clasli between the Cossacks and their neighbourmg 
States brought about the long wars and the loss of Cossack 
independence. The attempt of the Polish King Batory, 
and others, to make of the Ukrainian Cossacks a kind of border 
militia for tlie I'olish lands, thus assimilating them to the 
I'olish State, carrie to nothing, and led to the Cossack risings 
under Nalivaiko, Kosinski and Chmielnicki. 
United with tfie Tartars and with Moscow, the Cossacks 
proved unconquerable, as far as the Poles were concerned, yet 
;he wars left the Ukrainian Cossacks so weak that it was pos- 
sible for Russia later on to put an end to their free national 
existence. Thr Don, and the closely connected Yaik Cossack 
communities gave at all times a refuge to the rebellious refugees 
irom Moscow, just as the Ukraine was the abode of rebellious 
J'oles. The revolts known in the history of Russia as the 
rising of Razin in 1667, the emigration of Raskolniki in 1667. 
and finally the Pugachoff rising in 1773, had all the support 
of the Cossacks. The end of the seventeenth century and the 
lirst years of the eighteenth century saw the close of the 
Cossack national existence. 
Ideal of Independence 
Through partitions, deportations, renaming, and change 
of internal government, the Russian Government, while 
leaving some of the old administrative forms, tried to sub- 
stitute Russian imperialistic aims for the Cossack ideal of 
national independence. The people were divided into units 
now called voiska (brigades, regiments). Meanwhile, while 
the old Cossack communities were reorganised, new Cossack 
voiska were started on the reformed method, the latter not 
having any of the traditions of the old Cossacks. The 
new and the old Cossacks were then mixed, so that together 
they might form merely a military caste, distinct from the 
regular army, richly endowed with lands and privileges, and 
distinguished frctm other citizens by their special internal 
organisation, and their dependence on the authority of the 
^Ministry of War alone. Tiie principle of cornpulsory military 
service, introduced into Russia in 1874, was most strictly 
observed by these Cossacks, whose whole training made them 
a formidable mecJianism, not only in wars abroad, but also 
as supporters of Tsardom. Conununities (or, strictly speaking, 
regiments), belong to all the' Cossacks of Asiatic Russia, 
namely, the Siberian, Transbaikal, Semirechian, Amurian, and 
Ussuriisk Cossacks. It was specially in the gradual conquest 
and subjection of Asiatic Russia that the qualities of the 
Cossack regiments proved most valuable. So much for the 
eighteenth century in the life of the Cossacks. 
The third epoch of Cossack history is covered by the 
nineteenth century and the beginning of the tweiitieth, 
to be exact until the present Revolution. The opening of the 
yearigio finds a Cossack population of some' eleven millions of 
both se.xes, in the eleven Cossack territories, where all adult 
males are obliged to perform military service for eighteen years. 
The largest groups are the Don and the Kuban voiska. 
As the Cossacks form a community within a community, they 
have less contact with other parts of the population than 
a regular army would have. It is true that within a Cossack 
^tanitsa, which is composed of khutofy, or villages, there may 
be some non-Cossack inhabitants, but only with a special 
permit from the authorities of the stanitsa The distinctiop 
between gentlemen (officers) and ordinary men (privates), 
is observetl in all Cossack stanitsy. Meanwhile, although the 
amount of land in possession of the Cossacks is something like 
30 dessialine (about 81 acres) per head in European Russia, 
and between 30 and 50 dessiatine (81 to 135 acres) in Asiatic 
Russia, only a small part of it is under cultivation. The 
military duties, and the preference shown for trade and 
similar occupations, are no doubt sufficient to explain why 
only per cent, of Cossack land in Asiatic Russia was under 
cultivation in 19I0. 
The racial composition of the present Cossacks can be only 
roughly defined : there is probably as much Asiatic blood in 
them as there is Caucasian, Jewish, and West European blood 
in the class oi Intelligentzia. The Trans-Baikal Cossacks are 
largely composed of Tungus andBuriat, the Don Cossacks 
of Kilmucks, the Orenburg and Ural Cossacks of Turks, 
Mordvines, etc. The most purelv Slavonic, however, are 
still the Don Cossacks. The Upper Don Cossacks, who are 
fair and heavily built, speak Great Russian, while the Lower 
Don Cossacks, who are dark and slight, speak Little Russian. 
As for religion, the greater part of them profess Russian 
Orthodoxy, but. the Raskolniki, Yedinoviertsy, and other 
Russian sects find many adherents among them, as also do 
Mohammedanism (over half a million) and Shamanism. 
Thus apparently uniform and consolidated were the terri- 
tories whose male population formed an army within the 
Russian Army at the beginning of the present war. We heard 
much about tiieir war-Hke attitude, about their women joining 
the army alongside of the men, and as the war progressed the 
Cossack rose to the position of chief hero of the Russian Army. 
It was perhaps not realised that the Government's masterful 
reorganisation in the eighteenth century did not really sweep 
away all the previous Jiistory of the Cossacks, and that the 
members of the IDon Cossack community, broken up in 1733 
and transported far away, one part to the basin of the Volga, 
the other to form the Astrakhan Cossack voiska, have carried 
to these new lands some of their old national feelings, while 
those remnants in their own territory of the River Don, 
cultivated these feelings with still greater fervour. 
Again the Ukrainian Cossacks were still more broken up ; 
in 1787 one part was given the name of " Black Sea Cossacks," 
and was transported along the river Kuban, while another 
part was taken to Bielgorod and called Slobodskie 
Cossacks. Yet they, too, have managed to cultivate and 
si^read their feeling of national separation among the Little 
Russians. The recent manifestation of this separation took 
the Russian and PolisJi politicians by surfffise, though it was 
apparent long bo^fore to the Prussian a^d Austrian diplomats. 
Since the Provisional Government, bowing to military neces- 
sity, granted autonomy to the I'krainians, is it astonishing to 
find an echo of these events among the Don CossacKs ■" 
(Here we must assume for a moment the truth of the report 
of the rising of the Don Cossacks and their Hetman Kaledin, 
received here early in the history of the Kerenski-Korniloit 
conflict.)^ We need not attribute to General Korniloff any 
special rofe in the movement among these Cossacks, whom we 
may call Cossacks ■' with a history " [to distinguish them from 
the modem Cossack regiments], but nevertheless he is a symbol 
" u ' ^"^* ^^ Kerenski is a symbol of the Intelligcntiiia. 
We see then that with regard to the Cossack part of Russia, 
the artificial intermingling oi' people "with historv " and 
people " without history," did not result in obtaining the 
present Cossack voixka. Much of the effort of the old regime 
was indeed directed towards obtaining such a result ; 
despotic rule, military organisation and special privileges 
and endowment being the method applied. And even in this 
case the Ukrainian and Don Cossack have not ceased to 
remember their ancient past. 
If we consider, however, that the other classes of Russia, 
lor example, the peasants and the Intelligentzia, have a 
diHerent social and cultural composition and an entirely 
diflerent history,' we do not need to be very profound 
psychologists to see that the methods and principles which 
the modem Cossacks inherited from the old regime could never 
nave been applied successfully to bring about the unification 
ot the maiority of the Russian people, in spite of the present 
great historical crisis. 
A remarkable, letter appeared on October 1st in the 
Rheimsch-Westjalkhe Zeitung, the organ of Krupps. signed 
h«l M^n^burg ]Vferchant." Herr Ballin might well have 
been the writer. The following are extracts : 
The outcome of the Scheidemann-Erzberger recipe for peace 
may be^ summed up m the words •' Renunciation of victor>-." 
VVhat this would mean for our economic life is hardly understood 
Jt mean.s neither more nor less than that we are prepared prac- 
tically to abandon the economic fight with our enemies, or more 
properly speaking, with England, and to resign ourselves iu 
i^nglands reraaimijg in pos.session of the immense advantages 
which she has gamed throughout the world. We cannot close our 
eyes to the iact that England has, on the whole, realised her war 
fi,?*' T'i °."'' '"■'^''^nt mihtary position should not blind us t<:. 
tne tact that our pnonomic world-position is getting worse. Before 
ttie ■war our position as a world-power was based on our economic 
activity m all parts of the world, our world-commercp, our 
colonies, and our shipping. England's war aim was the des i ruc- 
tion ot our world-position, and in this she has succeeded as none 
would have thought possible. Our shipping and world' com- 
merce are ruined, and it will need years of industrious toil to 
build, up our old position again. 
Durmg the last three years England has'been able to maintain 
tne success ot her early attacks on our shipping and colonies, to 
saddle us continually with fresh enemies, to set herself up every- 
where in our place and to rob us of the foundation for rebuilding 
our foreign trade by the liquidation of thousands of German 
hrms abroad. The cruelle.st blow was the adhesion of China and 
a arge part of South America to the Entente. There is no possi- 
bility of our overseas trade taking up its former activity after 
tne conclusion of peace nor of entering into the old relations, 
i^actically no foundations for the latter exist any longer, while 
the enemy has taken our place in some cases iii such a way that 
he cannot be removed from it. The German merchant who goes 
out into the world after peace will find everywhere rums and a 
spirit of hostihty 
Only England's complet© defeat can force her to give up her 
plans and give our foreign trade free access to all 1 arts of the 
world mcludmg her colonies and spheres of influence. Only then 
wi.l the other Allies and neutrals allow German traders of all 
f.^^!!!,^''"'' nghts 1,1 their countries. . . .We must hold out 
till our incomparable {.'-boats have beaten England to her knees. 
