lO 
LAND & WATER 
Uctobcr 11, 1917 
old fanuhes of rich Cossacks : and holytba. poor people. 
\iid they were in constant stjife one with another at the time 
'\vhcn the clash between the Cossacks and their neighbouring 
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 the Polish lands, thus assimilating them to the 
Polish State, came to nothing, and led to the Cossack risings 
under Nalivaiko, Kosinski and Chmielnicki. 
United with the Tartars and with Moscow, the Cossacks 
Droved 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 mitional 
i-xistcnce. The Don. and the closely connected Yaik Cossack 
communities gave at all tinrcs a refuge to the rebellious refugees 
hum Moscow, just as the Ukraine was the abode of rebellious 
l^oles. The revolts known in the history of Russia as the 
rising of Razin in 1667, the emigration of Raskolniki in 1667. 
and iinallv the Pugachog rising in 1773, had all the support 
of the Cossacks. The end of the seventeenth century and the 
hrst years of tl*e eighteenth century saw the close of the 
Cossack national existence. 
Ideal of Independence 
Through partitions, deportations, renaming, and change 
of internal government, the Russian Governrnent, while 
leaving some of the old administrative fonns, tried to sub- 
stitute Russian imperialistic aims for the Cossack ideal of 
national independence. The people were di\'ided 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 from other citizens by their special internal 
organisation, and their dependence on the authority of the 
Ministry of War alone. The principle of compulsory military 
service, introduced into Russia in 1874, was most strictly 
observed by these Cossacks, whose whole training made them 
a formidable mechanism, not only in wars abroad, but also 
assuf)portersof Tsardom. Communities (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 tlie 
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 twentieth, 
to be exact until the present Revolution. The opening of the 
yearigio finds a Cossack population of some eleven millions of 
both sexes, 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 
stanitsa, which is composed of khiilory, or villages, there may 
be some non-Cossack inhabitants, but only with a special 
permit from the authorities of the stanitsa The distinction 
l^etween gentlemen (ofificers) and ordinary men (privates), 
is observed in all Cossack stanitsy. Meanwhile, although the 
amount of land in possession of the Cossacks is something like 
30 dessiatine (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 9 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 of Intelligentzia. The Trans-Baikal Cossacks are 
largely composed of Tungus and Buriat, the Don Cossacks 
of Kilmucks, the Orenburg and Ural Cossacks of Turks, 
Mordvines, etc. The most ])urelv 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 their war-like attitude, about their women joining 
the army alongside of the men, and as the war progressed the 
Cos.sack 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 history uf the Cossacks, and that the 
members of the Don Cossack community, bnjken up in 1733 
and transported far away, one part to the basin of the Volga, 
the other to form the Astrakhan Cossack voiska, have earned 
to these new lands .some of their old national feelings, while 
those remnants in their own territoi-y of the River Don, 
cultivated these feelings with still greater fervour. 
Again the Ukrainian Cossacks were still more broken up ; 
in lySj 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, Jiave managed to cultivate and 
spread their feeling of national separation among the Little 
Russians. The recent manifestation of this separation took 
the Russian and Polish politicians by surprise, though it was 
apparent long before to the Prussian and Austrian diplomats. 
vSince the Provisional Government, bowing to military neces- 
sity, granted autonomy to the Ukrainians, is it astonishing to 
hnd 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-Korniloft 
conflict.)^ We need not attribute to General Korniloif any 
special role 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 
of them, just as Kerenski is a symbol of the Intelligentzia. 
Wc see then that with regard to the Cossack part of Russia, 
the artificial intermingling 01 people " with history " and 
people " without history," did not result in obtaining the 
present Cossack voiska. 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 coT)sider, however, that the other classes of Russia, 
for example, the peasants and the Intelligentzia, have a 
different social and cultural composition and an entirely 
different history, we do not need to be very profound 
psychologists to see that the methods and principles which 
the modern Cossacks inherited from the old regime could never 
have been applied successfully to bring about the unification 
of the majority of the Russian people, in spite of the present 
great historical crisis. 
A remarkable letter appeared on October 1st in the 
Rheimsch-Westfdlichc Zeitung, the organ of Krupps, signed 
A Hamburg Merchant." Heir Ballin might well have 
been tl^e writer. The following are extracts : 
The outcome of the Scheidemann-Erzberger reciiie iov peace 
may be summed up in the words " Renunciation of victoi-y." 
What this would mean for our economic life is hardly understood. 
It means 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 to 
England's remaining in possession of the immense advantages 
which she has gained throughout the world. We cannot close oiu- 
eyes to the fact that England has, on the whole, realised her war 
aims, and our brilliant military position should not blind us to 
the fact that our economic world-position is getting worse. Before 
the war our position, as a world-power was based on our economic * 
activity in all parts of the world, our world-commerce, our 
colonies, and our shipping. England's war aim was the destruc- 
tion of 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. 
During the last three years ■ England has been able to maintain 
the success of her early attacks on our shipping and colonies, to 
saddle us continually with fresh enemies, to set herself up everj-- 
where in our place and to rob us of the foundation for rebuilding 
our foreign trade by the liquidation of thousands of German 
firms abroad. The cruellest blow was the adhesion of China and 
a large part of South America to the Entente. There is no possi- 
bihty of our overseas trade taking up its former activity after 
the conclusion of peace nor of entering into the old relations. 
Practically no foundations for the latter exist any longer, while 
the enemy has taken our place in some cases in such a way that 
he cannot be removed from it. The German merchant who goes 
out into the world after peace wUl find everywhere ruins and a 
spirit of hostility 
Only England's complete defeat can force her to give up her 
plans and give our foreign trade free access to all i.arts of the 
world, including her colonies and spheres of influence. Only then 
will the other Allies and neutrals allow German traders of all 
sorts equal rights in their countries. . . . We must hold out 
till our uicomparable C'-boats Iiave beaten England to her knees. 
