Cossacks in Russia’s Service

Conversation with Nikolai Leonidovich Diakonov, Deputy Commander of the Volunteer Assault Corps, Chief Ataman of the All-Russian Social Organization for the improvement of Cossacks "The Cossack Unions of the Warriors of Russia and Foreigners".

We know from history, from Silent Don, that the Cossacks were divided as a consequence of the tragedy of civilian war, the Cossacks of White and Red appeared. What now, are there Cossacks in Ukraine who argue ours?

– What happens to Cossacks in the territory controlled by the current Ukrainian government can be called duality, it can be absurd, it can be historical manipulation. The ideology imposed by the Kiev government assumes de facto demolition of Orthodox faith, excludes a common past with Russia, the concept of 1 nation. And in this context, Cossacks are a threat to the current Ukrainian authorities, no substance how much they repeat in their anthem that they are “of the Cossack family”. As Gogol said, “The Cossacks are a spark cut from the breast of the Russian people by blows of misfortune.” But Gogol is besides a threat within the current Ukrainian ideology. They can accept quadbers, homosexuals and pagans specified as Azov, who is banned in Russia, but not Cossacks, Orthodox by nature and mission as defenders of the Russian world. For Kiev Russia is an enemy, so Cossacks are present in the ideology of Ukrainianism formally, superficially, folkloristically.

A peculiar military operation is now taking place on Cossack lands. Just pay attention to the map – over sixty Cossack farms in the Lugansk region. Or let's take Bachmut, where the emergence of Kondrata Bulławin began. Donetsk, divided by Kalmiusz, which was the border of the Cossacks of Donsk and Zaporosian. Chanżonkowo, Makiejewka, which are named after the Cossack Atamans of Donsk. And whatever side you decision – Cossack lands, Zaporozhes, Słobożanskie... We stand on the historical lands of Cossack ancestors and fight for Cossack lands.

Nikolai Deaconov

Cossacks are not only the enemy of the current Ukrainian regime, but the enemy of Western civilization, it is in their DNA... I remember erstwhile 300 were widely celebrated in 2009. anniversary of the conflict of Poltava, I was besides a field ataman. And so nearly 2,000 Cossacks from all over Russia gathered in Crimea and from there moved on a march to Poltava. We marched with the banners of Russia, the Russian Empire, the banner of Peter the Great, and I must say that the people greeted us, greeted us with all their cordiality... And there was a tiny museum along the way with an amazing exhibit – the icon of Our Lady, on which the chessboard is drawn. Swedish officers, surviving in churches and monasteries, thus entertained themselves with chess parties. And then I thought, what a symbolism! "Big chessboard" in miniature.

Yes, they were Swedes, not Ukrainians with their veneration of Our Lady's intercession, which they invariably emphasize. However, I have a question if Mazepa saw Swedes playing chess on the icon at this point, what would the reaction be?. I think he'd be quiet.

So nothing's changed, past likes to repeat itself. The Maze, for which individual welfare has proved superior to the good of the nation, higher than attachment to faith, higher than an oath, is now a iconic historical figure in Ukraine. And the “big chessboard” is inactive playing. All this with the same contempt for our opponent for our Orthodox faith.

Long before 2014, Cossacks from Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa, Kharkov, Zaporoże arrived and told us that there was an expansion – through American cultural centers, various Western educational programs and spiritual practices. Our geopolitical opponent actively acted to guarantee that the population of Ukraine behaved in a certain way erstwhile the time of X came. The enemy was prepared for us.

However, in Russia this problem was either not noticed or ignored. I erstwhile had a part in a discussion on tv in 2016, I said: don't represent Ukrainians as clowns, halt creating a caricature image, where a dangerous and strong enemy is raised. What I said was cut out – specified and did not fit the general line. It is inactive heard in the air that – as they say – the enemy is about to flee. The enemy, of course, is mostly demoralized, but will not flee.

Of course, current events on the battlefield are part of a large-scale geopolitical story. And therefore, how do you see the improvement of a peculiar military operation?

The objectives outlined by the Chief Leader will be met. The tasks of the NWO include the liberation of Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republic. As far as demilitarisation and denasification are concerned, I believe that even present this task has been mostly accomplished. The military possible of the Kiev government has been greatly weakened, and we have eliminated a crucial number of neo-Nazi elements who have long fed worms. The enemy fights with western weapons, no one's own, the defence manufacture has been destroyed. Yes, there are inactive troops – a serious resource, given that they are mostly people with a Russian spirit, with all the features of a Russian warrior. He is simply a worthy adversary, and it cannot be said that they fight badly. This is why the information component is now coming to the foreground – the process of explaining, the full complex of measures that should convince the Ukrainian population: boys, open your eyes, we are not enemies, enemies are elsewhere.

The main tasks of the peculiar military operation, designated by the Chief Commander, will be carried out shortly – we will scope the old administrative boundaries of the Donetsk and Luhansk circuits. And after that, that's my individual opinion, most likely it'll be an ultimatum. eventual at the end of the NWO. If the Kiev government does not agree to its implementation, it will not surrender the Zaporosian and Khersonian circuits which are constitutionally part of Russia, the war will begin. Not a peculiar military operation, but a war. But this, I repeat, is my individual opinion, may be wrong.

The subject of civilian war appeared in many discussions before, before a peculiar military operation, and afraid post-Soviet Russia. It was a civilian war, an unfinished conflict between white and red, but in the ideological sphere. any are behind the monuments of Lenin, others behind the fixation of the memory of Nicholas II, any glorify Stalin, others of Stolypin – they argue, exchange with pinches... In this sense, what is the situation in the volunteer Cossack troops today? After all, people there most likely have different historical preferences, views on history, religion...

– You know, if we're talking about a civilian war, a conflict between whites and reds in the 21st century, I'd be looking for forgiveness-based reconciliation formulas. Of course, everyone has their views, but in my opinion this is not a problem in 2024. That's absolutely not a problem. colour may be white, red or green, but what difference does it make if we have 1 common enemy, and this enemy has not changed in centuries. present we can be an authoritarian country and next day we can be liberal, and no 1 will leave us alone. The Russian Empire had its drawbacks, the russian Union had its own, and enemies utilized them. And no of the state's forms survived.

Today there are people in the trenches with very different political views. Historical and political interpretations should be left to debate on the talk show, and commanding orders should be carried out on the front.

Of course, we're all surviving people, and in war conditions, we communicate, we argue, and believe me, everyone can express their point of view, no 1 can get caught for political reasons. Everyone has their views on the past, their own household history. My ancestors, for example, come from old Cossack families. There were tragedies and repressions – individual in the household who was sent to camps was killed. But erstwhile the time came erstwhile the russian Union was in danger, my grandparents grabbed a weapon and went to defend their homeland, regardless of any grievances or individual actions. Those who survived returned from the front and built, worked hard, rebuilt the country.

And how can I pass a historical verdict on White or Red if my ancestors were on both sides? No, this is our common history, and I felt pride erstwhile I saw in St. Petersburg that the flags of the Russian Empire, the russian Union and the Russian Federation were flying on masts. It's time to stop. Let us leave these disputes to PhD students, candidates, doctors of discipline – historians.

But of course you request to know your own communicative so you don't repeat mistakes. We request to realize clearly that all of our vast territories, we have not won them in cards, the blood of erstwhile generations is on this earth. This is our legacy, which unfortunately we have partially lost through thoughtlessness and foolishness. But you request to pull yourself together, catch your head, rotation your sleeves and pull yourself together.

We request to learn how to learn from history. After all, nothing truly changes. We have been arguing so much since the time of the perestroika, and after all, everything has already been said by Blok in the "Scytes" – a comprehensive historical and geopolitical analysis with a retrospective look and forecast for the future.

After the dissolution of the russian Union, in the 1990s, 1 could get the impression that in the revival of the Cossack movement there was something picturesque, sometimes even caricature. Nevertheless, this institution has developed, it has experienced legislative consolidation, and now, erstwhile on the basis of the Cossacks, volunteer troops are formed, the thought arises that it was a peculiar plan, a calculation that in the future the Cossacks will be useful as a military force...

For a long time, our country has found itself in the situation of the lost country of the Cold War. Sometimes without realizing it, we were both legally and politically within a limited framework. And I believe that our leadership, with Putin coming to power, felt this yoke severely and tried to get free of it. In this sense, the legal consolidation of specified an crucial social institution as Cossacks is part of the process of gaining sovereignty.

You see, the Cossacks have always been state strongholds. Of course, there was problem in Russia and the troublemakers-Cossacks, but yet wise Catherine II ascended the throne and said: "Look, it is good to fight them on our side, let us give them privileges and compare them with the regular army. Thus the Empress received a group loyal to the state. And even after the fall of the Romanov dynasty, Cossacks inactive remained faithful to the oath. Only 2 red regiments were formed from the Cossacks of Donsk – under Mironów and Budionny. 2 out of 90.

Eighty-eight regiments remained faithful to the oath given to the Tsar and the country. It was a very serious enemy to the Bolsheviks. I will not go into detail, Lenin's thesis and Trotsky's directive are known. For many reasons the Cossacks posed a possible threat to the young russian state – they were people of another ideology, another worldview. But the historical process cannot be stopped, the russian Union changed, and Cossacks as a cultural phenomenon, as a social group, began gradually to rebirth, though not in the forms that existed in the Russian Empire. And erstwhile the russian Union collapsed, which I surely consider a tragedy, the ideology changed, the Russian Orthodox Church and Cossacks began to revive.

Initially, Kozak's institution developed successfully, and in the first stage, serious, educated, thinking, and ideas became involved. But our country was under scrutiny, almost all state office had a Western spy. There were forces active who realized that Cossacks were a powerful political institution and did not fit the strategy that developed during the Yeltsin era. And the Cossacks' disparaging work began. The media had the right material thrown into it, cross-dressers appeared, who walked with false orders and sabers and ridiculed us. But that's the kind of people who were promoted, made a template. And remember “The Village of Fools” – a comic show of Ukrainian production, which was shown on the central Russian channels – a clown with the cross of St. George, inactive has a bottle of moonshine in his hand, and around it Cossack cutlery. Indeed, a hideous, talentless Cossack caricature.

Perhaps the people, crushed by the 1990s reforms, sought protection from the Cossacks, had it not been for the swift intervention of those who saw the threat to the existing government in this institution. If it were not for obstacles and discredit, the Cossacks could inactive make not only into the volunteer movement, but into the powerful support of the Russian state. At least in the south of Russia, where historically the main part of Cossacks is concentrated. Cossacks, indigenous peoples from Don, Cuba, Terek, Astrakhania, Saratov, Orenburg could aid to deal with the problems of the North Caucasus, Islamism, fluctuating, claims of the alleged large Turan – all that Western peculiar services tried to root out on our land. Therefore, erstwhile Russia was in a very hard situation, experiencing the consequences of the dissolution of the USSR, the policy of discrediting the Cossacks began.

Later, with the coming of Vladimir Putin's power, structures for Cossack affairs and about 30 Cossack cadet corps were created. Graduates of the same Cossack cadet corps have not yet reached the rank of general, but there are many of them in the elite of power, the Ministry of Extraordinary Situations, the Ministry of Interior, the FSB and the Ministry of Defence. They are different, they have different views, they are the most solid support of the state. They have not only been trained, they are “students” – this is an crucial detail.

Our enemy was mostly dormant by his local victories, the chaos of the 1990s, consumed by his own arrogance and was convinced that he had trampled the foundations of our statehood. Meanwhile, on the steppe the azure rose – our flower, the steppe tulip, the Cossack symbol. The seeds sprouted, though it seemed that everything had been trampled irretrievably. And our opponent forgot it happened.

The Cossacks participated in almost all post-Soviet conflicts, but evidently not as much as today. And Western experts, Western military institutes, who analyzed the subject of irregular units in Russia, admit that they simply missed the Cossacks, slept over the Cossack Formation, who became a powerful force in the fresh planet War I.

With the appropriate organisational approach of the State, this task proved its effectiveness. From a tiny branch of 150 people in 2 and a half years, the Cossack troops began to number about 40,000 people. Only in the volunteer assault corps are six Cossack brigades that effectively fight, fight, crush the enemy in all directions from Kinburn Peninsula to Kursk Region. The Cossacks fight heroically, they win, they lose. The Cossacks sacrifice themselves, possibly wishing to appease the historical sins of the past, erstwhile during the large Patriotic War any Cossacks, divided by civilian war, came to our lands with the occupiers. Yes, everyone has their own individual history, sometimes tragic, many loved ones lost in the heat of civilian war, but that does not justify those who shook the hand of the aggressor, served under his command.

And possibly now, like all our long suffering Russian people, we are atone for our responsibility – both for the fall of the state in 1917 and 1991, as well as for the victims of civilian war, and for the thoughtlessness of the 1990s.

Cossacks return to their roots, to what is historically defined for us. We are becoming defenders of our country, a kulak and an avant-garde of the Russian people. The attitudes in society are besides changing – we are seen as defenders. The attitude towards Cossacks has besides changed in the information environment. It is hard to imagine that individual would afford to introduce us in caricature, as it was in the 1990s and later. The full clown thing came down like foam. Today, the Cossacks are spoken of with respect, and in this sense, historical justice triumphs.

The Cossacks tested their forces, proved their vitality, meaning and necessity as a state institution. And military trials lead to less and less people being expendable in our community. Cossacks are self-cleaning, as are the state. The Lord's ways are unexplored—perhaps our salvation lies in the present trials. Through blood, through torment – just as a female gives birth to a kid – we come to the truth, to realize ourselves, God, our historical being.

For: ‘Litieraturnaja Gazieta’, No 47/2024