Prapor
Active member
Something I am thinking about. Had a argument recently with someone over this. We Cossacks still are not sure what we are, a nation, an ethnos in our own right; or more of a sub-culture, a warrior caste, that worthy outsiders can join.
I think we are a bit of both.
One the one hand, yes, we are distinct from other Slavic or Christian or Muslim or Caucasian or Siberian or any other Russian people
These are Kubanian Cossacks. They live in Krasnodar Krai (near and around Sochi, by the way ), and are mostly of mixed Ukrainian and Circassian ancestry (notable particularly in the man in the second and far left in the first photo, the guy doesn't look Slav, that's for sure).
Ataman Sergei Senik of Azov Corps of Don Cossack Army
(Those are all his own children, by the way. He's a big proponent of large families, even issued an order for his Cossacks to each family to have at least 5 children. That is what I call a real Cossack family lol)
Anyway, he says that we are a people and a culture. There is, according to him, a core group who trace their ancestry back to original Cossacks, descendants of Skythians and Kasog Circassians (Ataman Senik is one of those, actually). And then, there are those others, good people, loyal Russian patriots, regardless of ethnicity or even faith, whom we admit to our ranks.
Like this Siberian Cossack of Buryat background in Chita, receiving a blessing from a Buddhist Lama as he is initiated into the Amur Cossack Army
I think that is true. Though... On the Census, I and most other Cossacks wrote 'Cossack' as our "nationality" (in this country that means ethnic group).
I think we are a bit of both.
One the one hand, yes, we are distinct from other Slavic or Christian or Muslim or Caucasian or Siberian or any other Russian people
These are Kubanian Cossacks. They live in Krasnodar Krai (near and around Sochi, by the way ), and are mostly of mixed Ukrainian and Circassian ancestry (notable particularly in the man in the second and far left in the first photo, the guy doesn't look Slav, that's for sure).
Ataman Sergei Senik of Azov Corps of Don Cossack Army
(Those are all his own children, by the way. He's a big proponent of large families, even issued an order for his Cossacks to each family to have at least 5 children. That is what I call a real Cossack family lol)
Anyway, he says that we are a people and a culture. There is, according to him, a core group who trace their ancestry back to original Cossacks, descendants of Skythians and Kasog Circassians (Ataman Senik is one of those, actually). And then, there are those others, good people, loyal Russian patriots, regardless of ethnicity or even faith, whom we admit to our ranks.
Like this Siberian Cossack of Buryat background in Chita, receiving a blessing from a Buddhist Lama as he is initiated into the Amur Cossack Army
I think that is true. Though... On the Census, I and most other Cossacks wrote 'Cossack' as our "nationality" (in this country that means ethnic group).
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