ARE THERE ANY COSSACKS LEFT IN MODERN RUSSIA?

As a result of the civil war and the prosecutions that followed it, most of the Cossacks in Russia were physically eliminated. Quite a few of them managed to emigrate leaving behind their land, their lifestyle and traditions.

However today we often run across the word “Cossack” in mass media in articles and shows devoted to modern Russia. Who are those people who call themselves “the Cossacks” in modern Russia?

Photo © National Geographic

Do not be deceived by the appearance of the above men clowning around in traditional Cossack uniforms and costumes. Most of them have little or nothing to so with the Cossacks. Some of them are even the descendents of those who were massacring the Cossacks in their own land during the first half of the 20^th century.

In modern Russia “being a Cossack” became a fashion among extreme nationalists. This fashion is encouraged by central and local authorities, while the myth of “the Cossack revival” is widely popularized by government-controlled Russian media.

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