FIRE IN THE STEPPES

Cossacks back to fight again (Sarah Rainsford, 8/29/03, BBC)

[S]ince the early 1990s the Cossacks have been busy reviving their culture. Their influence growing, they are now demanding federal status and land rights and believe it is a battle they can win. [...]

As they parade proudly past their ataman in full festival dress, the Cossacks certainly look like a formidable force. At the gateway to the Caucasus in the troubled Russian south, these nationalist-minded men cast themselves as modern-day defenders of Russia's borders and her Orthodox faith.

The Cossacks' own past is chequered but Ataman Nikolai Gankin from Kamchatka in the Far East believes their revival and the revival of Russia, will go hand in hand.

"The Cossacks today are at the vanguard of our people," he says. "Our souls ache for Russia and her fate. We must be united as Cossacks to stop our country being torn apart."

Most Cossacks these days are careful to keep within the law. In their historic heartland around Rostov-on-Don, pogroms are a thing of the past. However, in neighbouring Krasnodar region, relations with a Turkic minority remain tense.

The Cossacks believe the rugged steppe of the south is theirs, steeped in the blood of their ancestors. Anyone is welcome to live there, they say, as long as it is by Cossack laws. Some, like the burly Viktor Demyanenko, remain ready to fight those they see as intruders.

"The Russian nation is being diluted," Mr Demyanenko declares as large beads of sweat roll from his brow. "There are no Russians left at all in some villages! The foreigners are like weed, like locusts destroying everything in their path. So sometimes we have to jump in and scare them a bit."

The Cossacks are obviously a mixed blessing, but--like the Serbs--it would seem a bad idea to stifle the great warrior peoples who border the Islamic world, just in case it becomes a front line. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 29, 2003 11:51 AM