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The Cossacks
This book covers 500 years of the history of the Cossacks -- the recklessly brave, wild horsemen, or the romantic hero of the steppe, or the brutal mounted policemen, as they have been remembered throughout history. A lucid and engaging book that conveys the passion, exuberance and tragedy of these extraordinary people, it will be enjoyed by students, scholars and general readers interested in Russian history.
- GenresHistoryNonfictionRussia
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
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May 12, 2019
Ask any west or central European citizen to give a stereotypical image of a Russian and they will most likely come up with some guy with a fur hat doing a hopak dance, better known as the cossacks dance. Why should they not? The cossacks after all were among the first group of Russians to reach western Europe as they did during the Napoleonic age and whose romanticized imagery were used both by famous Russian writers, Tsarist and soviet propaganda as well as cartoons used by mocking American counter propaganda.
Shane O’rourke main question in his entire book, was what it meant to be a Cossack. In his first part on late medieval origins, he makes some historical comparisons such as to the Vikings as Cossack like viking was for a long time a thing you did instead of a thing of birth. An identity to be earned again and again, rejecting privilege or societal limits. To be a cossack was to live near the frontier of either the Russian or Polish state controlled region and to venture out into the “savage fields” the steppe home to turkish tribes who raided the settled peoples near the steppe, to in fact become steppe raiders themselves. The name Cossack and as well as their title for leader (Ataman) were Turkic in origin and that is the second answer of what it meant to be a cossack according to O’Rourke; to be and embrace a fluid identity between slavic and Turkic, to live a more egalitarian yet violent life increasingly similar to steppe people who came before and create a mental and physical distance with the settled lives they left behind.
The second part of the book was all about the big (in)famous cossack instigated rebellions of the 16/17/18 th century that rocked the Polish and Muscovite states. Shane O’rourke does venture a bit to deep into the big man history approach by really delving in the personalities and motivations of the leaders of the three big uprisings; Bohan Khmelnytsky, Stepan Razin and Emel’ian Pugachev but more then adequately gets into the political and social context in which they and the uprising centered. Interestingly two different answers were given on what it meant to be Cossack, on the one hand a whole bunch of people declared themselves to be Cossack without having set foot in the steppe region, Cossack became a political identity of popular rebellion against the state and hierarchy. At the same time a growing tendency within Cossack society wanted to limit access to Cossack identity and allow inequality in power and wealth within it by reducing in importance the founding principles of equality and the political institutions guarding them. This dimension of internal conflict and tension within Cossack communities is something O’Rourke comes back to constantly in his narrative.
The third part starts at a juncture, on the one hand there was a legacy of violent popular uprisings led by cossacks and on the other the potential of a powerful militarized society in an age of increasingly bigger scale warfare. In the end due to several factors, the Cossack became a tool of the Russian state for warfare, imperialist expansion and internal control of the population. This chapter is all about the changes the Cossacks went trough in the long 19th century as a community and Cossack women get a lot of attention in this part. Here though I have to emphasize a disappointment, O’rourke gives a detailed study of the Cossack women but this is an account of the European hosts, while the Asian Cossacks female counterparts have to do with an anecdote of a Russian state policy to offer clemency of Russian wives guilty of murdering their husbands if they agreed to marry a Siberian cossack. To O’rourke this could not differ any more from the somewhat but self admitted idealized strong Cossack women in the Don and Kuban as vectors of Cossack identity. What bothered me here is that O’Rourke clearly differentiates between what he sees as the true Cossacks of the don and Kuban and their offshoots in the Ural, whit these Cossacks host founded by the Russian state are considered not quite as Cossack as the other. But more troublesome is that he does not find them worthy to truly analyze. I agree that the Asian Cossacks differed from their European counterparts but this difference should have been elaborated upon and not limited to a few remarks and anecdotes.
The final part is about the end of the Tsarist empire and the turbulent violent founding of the USSR and the impact it had on the Cossacks as a group and identity. In this chapter I could not help but wonder what Stepan Razin, a folk hero Cossack who wanted to spit in the face of the tsar who inspired and led thousands of peasants in revolt against exploitation of the nobles, would have thought of his people. Tools of the state, depended on state charity and legitimacy to remain warriors while used by nobles to terrorize impoverished peasants and protesting workers. It is no small wonder that the lasting image of the Cossack for decades leading upto and during soviet rule was one of the most visible instruments of the Tsarist regime. According O’Rourke however, the Cossacks had become a divided and war weary people as much as the rest of Russia. With on the one hand the rank and file Cossacks; sick of the brutalities they had to inflict on people who were not much worse off then their own families in the don and Kuban (once again overemphasis on the European hosts) while the Cossack elites still wanted to be seen as loyal and useful as to ensure their and their societies continued existence. A clash of ideals in a turbulent political period that did not allow for any solid foundation of a new interpretation of it meant to be a Cossack.
However I have the emphasize something here. the Ukraine Cossacks have been omitted in this story since the 1750ties and in particular in this time period does O’Rourke omit an important aspect. Nestor Makhno, a Ukraine serfborn man became a leader in the Russian revolution of an anarchist inspired army that included a huge chunk of the Ukrainian Cossacks. Not to mention Nestor Makhno dressed as a Cossack ataman and fell back upon Cossack democratic/ representative local self rule institutions to manage the territory. This man was trying to recreate in modern frame work the popular rebellion inclusive identity of the Cossack that would have been familiar to Stepan Razin, yet this completely left out??? The reason why has to be because it does not fit in the narrative O’rourke is trying to tell; a linear one that might have but did not end in nation states with an exclusive Cossack identity. This nationalist overtone and concluding remarks how during and after the soviet period the Cossacks became folklore and tools used by Russian far right nationalists came across as a message of sadness.
I Think that the question whether the Cossacks in the Don and Kuban, could have become a separate nation is valid and it was a question O’Rourke said in his introduction that he wanted to show that yes they could have been a nation. But O’Rourke chose to omit or oversimplify parts of the Cossack story to make if fit in this modernized version of a national epic and that I can’t allow to go un-critiqued. So despite a lot of praise, I have to to limit my review to three stars. But I can’t end this review by once again asking the question what I meant to be a cossack; well as with any question of identity it differs who one asks at what time and place. So yes they were brutal oppressors and were guilty of progroms (a part O’Rourke unsubtly underscores) and terror campaigns against indigenous peoples. Yet I can’t help but sympathize with the earlier idea of a Cossack as one who defied the established order based on servitude and exploitation and by his or her mere existence was a threat to said order as personified by Stepan Razin. I believe it was a shame Nestor Makhno and his army was defeated before the rebirth of the politicized Cossack identity had formed, if they had not been; this would have been a totally different story.
Shane O’rourke main question in his entire book, was what it meant to be a Cossack. In his first part on late medieval origins, he makes some historical comparisons such as to the Vikings as Cossack like viking was for a long time a thing you did instead of a thing of birth. An identity to be earned again and again, rejecting privilege or societal limits. To be a cossack was to live near the frontier of either the Russian or Polish state controlled region and to venture out into the “savage fields” the steppe home to turkish tribes who raided the settled peoples near the steppe, to in fact become steppe raiders themselves. The name Cossack and as well as their title for leader (Ataman) were Turkic in origin and that is the second answer of what it meant to be a cossack according to O’Rourke; to be and embrace a fluid identity between slavic and Turkic, to live a more egalitarian yet violent life increasingly similar to steppe people who came before and create a mental and physical distance with the settled lives they left behind.
The second part of the book was all about the big (in)famous cossack instigated rebellions of the 16/17/18 th century that rocked the Polish and Muscovite states. Shane O’rourke does venture a bit to deep into the big man history approach by really delving in the personalities and motivations of the leaders of the three big uprisings; Bohan Khmelnytsky, Stepan Razin and Emel’ian Pugachev but more then adequately gets into the political and social context in which they and the uprising centered. Interestingly two different answers were given on what it meant to be Cossack, on the one hand a whole bunch of people declared themselves to be Cossack without having set foot in the steppe region, Cossack became a political identity of popular rebellion against the state and hierarchy. At the same time a growing tendency within Cossack society wanted to limit access to Cossack identity and allow inequality in power and wealth within it by reducing in importance the founding principles of equality and the political institutions guarding them. This dimension of internal conflict and tension within Cossack communities is something O’Rourke comes back to constantly in his narrative.
The third part starts at a juncture, on the one hand there was a legacy of violent popular uprisings led by cossacks and on the other the potential of a powerful militarized society in an age of increasingly bigger scale warfare. In the end due to several factors, the Cossack became a tool of the Russian state for warfare, imperialist expansion and internal control of the population. This chapter is all about the changes the Cossacks went trough in the long 19th century as a community and Cossack women get a lot of attention in this part. Here though I have to emphasize a disappointment, O’rourke gives a detailed study of the Cossack women but this is an account of the European hosts, while the Asian Cossacks female counterparts have to do with an anecdote of a Russian state policy to offer clemency of Russian wives guilty of murdering their husbands if they agreed to marry a Siberian cossack. To O’rourke this could not differ any more from the somewhat but self admitted idealized strong Cossack women in the Don and Kuban as vectors of Cossack identity. What bothered me here is that O’Rourke clearly differentiates between what he sees as the true Cossacks of the don and Kuban and their offshoots in the Ural, whit these Cossacks host founded by the Russian state are considered not quite as Cossack as the other. But more troublesome is that he does not find them worthy to truly analyze. I agree that the Asian Cossacks differed from their European counterparts but this difference should have been elaborated upon and not limited to a few remarks and anecdotes.
The final part is about the end of the Tsarist empire and the turbulent violent founding of the USSR and the impact it had on the Cossacks as a group and identity. In this chapter I could not help but wonder what Stepan Razin, a folk hero Cossack who wanted to spit in the face of the tsar who inspired and led thousands of peasants in revolt against exploitation of the nobles, would have thought of his people. Tools of the state, depended on state charity and legitimacy to remain warriors while used by nobles to terrorize impoverished peasants and protesting workers. It is no small wonder that the lasting image of the Cossack for decades leading upto and during soviet rule was one of the most visible instruments of the Tsarist regime. According O’Rourke however, the Cossacks had become a divided and war weary people as much as the rest of Russia. With on the one hand the rank and file Cossacks; sick of the brutalities they had to inflict on people who were not much worse off then their own families in the don and Kuban (once again overemphasis on the European hosts) while the Cossack elites still wanted to be seen as loyal and useful as to ensure their and their societies continued existence. A clash of ideals in a turbulent political period that did not allow for any solid foundation of a new interpretation of it meant to be a Cossack.
However I have the emphasize something here. the Ukraine Cossacks have been omitted in this story since the 1750ties and in particular in this time period does O’Rourke omit an important aspect. Nestor Makhno, a Ukraine serfborn man became a leader in the Russian revolution of an anarchist inspired army that included a huge chunk of the Ukrainian Cossacks. Not to mention Nestor Makhno dressed as a Cossack ataman and fell back upon Cossack democratic/ representative local self rule institutions to manage the territory. This man was trying to recreate in modern frame work the popular rebellion inclusive identity of the Cossack that would have been familiar to Stepan Razin, yet this completely left out??? The reason why has to be because it does not fit in the narrative O’rourke is trying to tell; a linear one that might have but did not end in nation states with an exclusive Cossack identity. This nationalist overtone and concluding remarks how during and after the soviet period the Cossacks became folklore and tools used by Russian far right nationalists came across as a message of sadness.
I Think that the question whether the Cossacks in the Don and Kuban, could have become a separate nation is valid and it was a question O’Rourke said in his introduction that he wanted to show that yes they could have been a nation. But O’Rourke chose to omit or oversimplify parts of the Cossack story to make if fit in this modernized version of a national epic and that I can’t allow to go un-critiqued. So despite a lot of praise, I have to to limit my review to three stars. But I can’t end this review by once again asking the question what I meant to be a cossack; well as with any question of identity it differs who one asks at what time and place. So yes they were brutal oppressors and were guilty of progroms (a part O’Rourke unsubtly underscores) and terror campaigns against indigenous peoples. Yet I can’t help but sympathize with the earlier idea of a Cossack as one who defied the established order based on servitude and exploitation and by his or her mere existence was a threat to said order as personified by Stepan Razin. I believe it was a shame Nestor Makhno and his army was defeated before the rebirth of the politicized Cossack identity had formed, if they had not been; this would have been a totally different story.
February 21, 2016
Video Book Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkVsh...
This book jumped off the shelf at me in Prairie Lights.
My knowledge of Cossacks was rife with contradictions and I felt eager to get to the bottom of it.
Were they Ukrainian, Russian or something else? Were they heroes, murderous villains or victims? Were they members of a trade or a distinct ethnic group?
This book covers five centuries of life in the steppe, and the answer to above questions seems to be yes.
Favorite quote:
The symbolic importance of Cossack culture cannot be overestimated for the oppressed masses of Poland Lithuania and Muscovy. To see or even hear about a boyar or great lord treated with contempt by a cossack demonstrated to those masses that an alternative and viable social order did indeed exist.
This was to prove far more threatening to Poland-Lithuania or Muscovy and the Russian Empire than the cossack swords and muskets on their own could ever be.
For those who believed and became cossacks the effect was so liberating, so all consuming that they in effect they became different people. Even for the million who remained behind in bondage the power of the cossack idea to stir the belief than an earthly liberation was possible was as potent as those appeals that promised a heavenly liberation. . . .
Cossack ideals of freedom and equality were the stuff of popular dreams. For humiliated and oppressed peasants the cossack represented a living and viable alternative to the existing social order.
Cossack insurgency alway had the potential to explode out of its regional and local character into a matter of kingdom wide significance, drawing into its ranks hundreds of thousands of desperate people by design and spontaneously.
Rumor alone of cossack rebellion was often enough for the enserfed masses to shake off their sullen obedience to a hated system, proclaim themselves cossack and wreak a blood vengeance on their oppressors.
The memory of the abrupt transition from a glower docility to a mob fury terrorized the imperial nobility down to the end of the old regime,
and this was no atavistic nightmare dimly held in the collective consciousness of the nobility but a living menace.
This book jumped off the shelf at me in Prairie Lights.
My knowledge of Cossacks was rife with contradictions and I felt eager to get to the bottom of it.
Were they Ukrainian, Russian or something else? Were they heroes, murderous villains or victims? Were they members of a trade or a distinct ethnic group?
This book covers five centuries of life in the steppe, and the answer to above questions seems to be yes.
Favorite quote:
The symbolic importance of Cossack culture cannot be overestimated for the oppressed masses of Poland Lithuania and Muscovy. To see or even hear about a boyar or great lord treated with contempt by a cossack demonstrated to those masses that an alternative and viable social order did indeed exist.
This was to prove far more threatening to Poland-Lithuania or Muscovy and the Russian Empire than the cossack swords and muskets on their own could ever be.
For those who believed and became cossacks the effect was so liberating, so all consuming that they in effect they became different people. Even for the million who remained behind in bondage the power of the cossack idea to stir the belief than an earthly liberation was possible was as potent as those appeals that promised a heavenly liberation. . . .
Cossack ideals of freedom and equality were the stuff of popular dreams. For humiliated and oppressed peasants the cossack represented a living and viable alternative to the existing social order.
Cossack insurgency alway had the potential to explode out of its regional and local character into a matter of kingdom wide significance, drawing into its ranks hundreds of thousands of desperate people by design and spontaneously.
Rumor alone of cossack rebellion was often enough for the enserfed masses to shake off their sullen obedience to a hated system, proclaim themselves cossack and wreak a blood vengeance on their oppressors.
The memory of the abrupt transition from a glower docility to a mob fury terrorized the imperial nobility down to the end of the old regime,
and this was no atavistic nightmare dimly held in the collective consciousness of the nobility but a living menace.
April 29, 2022
Shane O'Rourke doesn't nail down what exactly a Cossack is. This lack of a concrete definition leads to lumping people together across centuries and tremendously separated by distance on the Asian Steppe into the term "Cossack".
Admittedly it is difficult. Unlike other stateless peoples who have a consistent ethnicity, "Cossack" is more like a job title/ social movement like "viking" or "cowboy". As O'Rourke repeats, Cossacks do share similarities to other Steppe people like the Mongols. But these similarities don't seem to raise to the level of any ethnic/national consciousness. For example, anyone in the former Russian empire could call themselves a Cossack...and that was it, they were then a cossack.
Admittedly it is difficult. Unlike other stateless peoples who have a consistent ethnicity, "Cossack" is more like a job title/ social movement like "viking" or "cowboy". As O'Rourke repeats, Cossacks do share similarities to other Steppe people like the Mongols. But these similarities don't seem to raise to the level of any ethnic/national consciousness. For example, anyone in the former Russian empire could call themselves a Cossack...and that was it, they were then a cossack.
July 6, 2019
Excellent general study of the origin, chaotic life and times, and demise of the Cossack hosts (including the Zaporizhians, those on the Don, Kuban, Terek, Ural, Ussuri, and in Orenburg). Contains the best description I remember reading on their hybrid Slavic-Turkic beginnings, and the role of the broader Eurasian steppe culture in their development. In addition to mini studies on the major rebels and luminaries of Cossack history (Khmelnytsky, Razin, Pugachev), O'Rouke analyzes the origins of the hosts' special relationship with the Romanov dynasty which sewed the seeds of their brutal suppression and ultimate dissolution at the hands of the Soviets. The author also provides a succinct but insightful glimpse into gender relations and socio-economic cleavages among this warrior class. His brief attempt at viewing Cossacks through the lens of other "estates" in modern European history, as well as criminal brotherhoods like Carribean pirates, add theoretical context and color to the study, but feel too cursory and in need of further development.
September 8, 2010
This book describes an utterly foreign way of life -- that of the nomadic Cossacks. The historical episodes read like a good novel, and your mind will expand to see humanity as you never had before. At least, that's what I think it did for me.
April 16, 2021
Learned a lot about Cossack's sad history. Hope they come back to continue their culture and traditions.
November 24, 2024
Very unbiased and thorough historical account of the cossacks.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews