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THE COSSACKS 
 THEIR HISTORY AND COUNTRY 
 

THE COSSACKS 
 
 THEIR HISTORY AND COUNTRY 
 
 BY 
 
 W. P. CRESSON 
 
 LATE CAPTAIN A. E. P./ FORMERLY SECRETARY OP 
 
 THE AMERICAN EMBASSY AT PETROGRAD 
 
 AUTHOR OP "PERSIA" 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 BRENTANO'S 
 
 1919 
 
UK3S 
 
 ,C7 
 
 COPYRIGHTED, 1919, BY 
 
 BRENTANO'S 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 THK'PLIMPTON -PRESS 
 M OK WOOD 'MASS'U'S'A 
 
 JAN -2 1920 
 ©CU559260 
 
TO MY BROTHER 
 
 EMLEN VAUX CRESSON 
 
 A REMINDER OP OUR JOURNEY ALONG THE TEHERAN-BAGDAD 
 CARAVAN TRAIL, 1900. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Origin of the "Free People" 1 
 
 II. The Zaporogian Cossacks 21 
 
 III. Yermak and the Cossack Conquest of 
 
 Siberia 44 
 
 IV. Bogdan Hmelnicky: A Cossack National 
 
 Hero 65 
 
 V. The Struggle for the Ukraine 93 
 
 VI. Mazeppa 104 
 
 VII. The End of the Free Ukraine: Little 
 
 Russia 129 
 
 viii. pougatchev 145 
 
 IX. The Hetman Platov 170 
 
 X. The Cossacks of To-day: Organization 
 
 and Government 196 
 
 XI. The Cossacks of To-day : The Don 209 
 
 XII. The Frontiers of Europe. 222 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Zaporogian Cossacks Frontispiece 
 
 The old defenders of the Polish and Russian fron- 
 tiers against the Tartars writing a letter of defiance 
 to the Sultan. 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 A Zaporogian Cossack 22 
 
 Yermak's March in Siberia 44 
 
 Statue of Bogdan 66 
 
 The Hetman Platov 170 
 
 Sketch Map of the 'principal Cossack Territories 
 of the Present Day : 196 
 
 Kouban Cossacks 220 
 
 And "Cossacks" of the "Wild Division." 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 TO weave a connected narrative from the known 
 episodes of Cossack history would be a diffi- 
 cult and, in many ways, an impossible task. Such 
 a work would, moreover, involve years of patient 
 preparation and research — for authentic records 
 concerning the subject are only to be found scat- 
 tered as isolated chapters or paragraphs among the 
 pages of Russian, Polish and Turkish history. 
 
 Poets and native bards were, generally speaking, 
 the chief historians of the Cossacks or "Free 
 People." The guiding traditions of their race, like 
 those of all pastoral peoples, are to be found in 
 songs, ballads and f olkstories, rather than in written 
 records. Yet the national ideals thus orally main- 
 tained have lost nothing thereby in strength or 
 influence. The Cossack ballads and khorovod of 
 the present day, like those of earlier times, teach 
 love of freedom, loyalty to comrades and hetman, 
 and a sturdy devotion to the privileges which the 
 courage of their forefathers obtained for them in 
 the past. Cossack folktales differ in many respects 
 from the heroic legends and peasant by-lines of the 
 North. They possess, moreover, a characteristic 
 
vi FOREWORD 
 
 strain — praise of joyous adventure and "glad 
 living" — all their own. Filled with the spirit of 
 the "Free Steppes," they tell of hard knocks given 
 and taken for the sheer love of fight; of struggles 
 desperate and bloody, followed by Gargantuan 
 feasting and debauch. Doughty feats with the 
 wine-cup are honoured almost equally with deeds of 
 war. In all these romances the dominant note is 
 the praise of personal liberty and of a freedom often 
 degenerating into license. 
 
 While the Cossack did, or ballad-mongers, 
 frankly celebrate the deeds of their heroes in a 
 measure of exaggeration permitted by patriotism 
 and poetic license, the more ambitious and labored 
 "historical" works of certain Polish and Russian 
 writers only furnish an account so manifestly par- 
 tial and prejudiced that they have little more schol- 
 arly authority than the Cossack folklore tales. A 
 great historical romance has added to this con- 
 fusion. All that is generally known abroad con- 
 cerning the most glorious epoch of Cossack history 
 is contained in the heroic pages of the late Henryk 
 Sienkiewicz. In these masterpieces of fiction the 
 part played by the tyrannical oppressors of the 
 Cossack patriot Bogdan is lauded to the skies, and 
 every act of his "base-born" followers too often 
 treated with a fine if unconvincingly nobiliary con- 
 tempt. 
 
 To French historical authorities, Salvandy, Ram- 
 baud and notably Lesur (to whose Histoire des 
 
FOREWORD yii 
 
 Kosaques y published in 1814, the author acknowl- 
 edges himself especially indebted) we owe a more 
 objective treatment of the Cossack's story. Fol- 
 lowing their lead the writer will attempt in his 
 work to dispel something of the ignorance so 
 strangely persistent outside of Russia with respect 
 to the origin and significance of this military caste 
 or people. The term "Cossack," while generally 
 applied to a characteristic branch of the old Russian 
 cavalry service — more properly designates a com- 
 munity of warlike clans loosely bound together by 
 the common tradition of a long and stirring history. 
 If during the closing decades of the imperial system 
 the Cossack "nations" became more or less identi- 
 fied with the other peoples of the Russian empire, 
 they were nevertheless permitted through the 
 strength of their free traditions and the importance 
 of their services to the state, to retain the marks of 
 an outstanding individuality — a policy wholly in 
 opposition to the great unifying aim of Russian 
 imperialism. 
 
 It is the proudest boast of the Cossacks of to- 
 day — as of their forbears of the Ukraine — that 
 they have never been classed as serfs nor for a mo- 
 ment lost their freeman's instinct for the principles 
 of liberty. While the peasants of North Russia 
 were bowed in shameful submission to the Great 
 Princes of Moscow and later to the "dark forces" 
 of the Tsar's court and the Baltic-German official- 
 dom of the capital on the Neva, the history of the 
 
viii FOREWORD 
 
 Cossack inhabitants of the southern steppes was (as 
 we shall later see) a long epic of heroic resistance to 
 the encroachments of autocracy. If their distrust 
 of the infinite docility of the moujik class has often 
 made them in the past the blind instruments of 
 reaction, their loyalty to Tsardom has never im- 
 plied any abdication of the privileges guaranteed 
 their own caste. 
 
 While the organization of the present Cossack 
 armies is the outcome of a system which may gen- 
 erally be termed "Democratic-Feudalism" — i. e., a 
 popular system of land tenure in return for military 
 service to the old regime — their basic traditions 
 were essentially free and republican. In spite of 
 their old-time loyalty to the Tsar, the Cossack 
 troops of the army — and notably those about the 
 imperial court — were among the first to raise the 
 standard of revolt during the constructive changes 
 of March, 1917. The return of the Cossacks to the 
 side of popular government was but the logical out- 
 come of the whole trend of their history. 
 
 In order to understand the significance of the 
 present Cossack movement in Southern Russia and 
 the difference separating the former "Free People" 
 of the Russian Empire from the moujiki or peas- 
 antry of the north, some knowledge of their history 
 and origin is essential. 
 
 The following pages only attempt to sketch 
 the outlines of their subject, yet so far as the author 
 is aware no more comprehensive study of Cossack 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 IX 
 
 life and history has appeared in English. The 
 chapter which traces the early history and develop- 
 ment of the Cossack race is little more than a syn- 
 opsis of facts forming part of a much broader 
 subject: the history of the growth and expansion 
 of Modern Russia. Elsewhere in this narrative, 
 an effort has been made to follow, whenever pos- 
 sible, the colourful style of the original Cossack 
 legends and sources. These latter are almost always 
 biographical and fragmentary yet they give a vivid 
 picture of their time and subject. The story of 
 Yermak's heroic march through the twilight of the 
 northern forests and his discovery and conquest of 
 Siberia ; of Bogdan's fight for the Cossack liberties 
 against the proud nobles of Poland ; of Mazeppa's 
 almost forgotten part in the epic struggle between 
 Charles XII of Sweden and Peter the Great for the 
 Empire of the North; of the strange outbreak of 
 savagery led by the "False Tsar" Pougatchev — 
 the eighteenth century forerunner of the mob- 
 leaders of our own day — are matters of interest to 
 the general reader. 
 
 Recent events show the importance of a better 
 understanding of the facts of Cossack history. 
 
 One qualification at least the author may claim 
 for the task he has undertaken. Many miles of 
 travel in Cossack country during tw r o fateful years 
 — just before and after the Russian Revolution — 
 brought him into familiar and friendly contact with 
 the Cossacks of the present day. Out of a desire to 
 
x FOREWORD 
 
 acquaint himself more thoroughly with their story 
 and the part they have played in Russia's develop- 
 ment grew the notes and studies from which the 
 present volume has been written. 
 
 W. P. C. 
 
 Princeton University, 
 
 September, 1919. 
 
THE COSSACKS 
 
 THEIR HISTORY AND COUNTRY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE "FREE PEOPLE" 
 
 THE level plains and steppes of South Russia 
 were known to the ancients as the broad 
 channel followed by the ebb and flow of every 
 fresh wave of conquest or migration passing be- 
 tween Europe and Asia. The legions of Rome and 
 Byzance found this territory as impossible to oc- 
 cupy by military force as the high seas. The little 
 known history of "Scythia" — from the earliest 
 times until the thirteenth century of the Christian 
 era — presents a confused picture of barbarous 
 tribes pressing one upon another, the stronger 
 driving the weaker before them from the more fa- 
 voured hunting grounds. Often, voluntarily or by 
 force, the victors included the vanquished in their 
 own "superior" civilization. There are many 
 reasons why it is difficult or impossible to follow 
 with any degree of certainty the national history 
 of these races. "Their long-forgotten quarrels, 
 their interminglings and separations, above all the 
 constant changes in their names and habitat make 
 
2 THE COSSACKS 
 
 the study of their history as difficult as it is un- 
 profitable." (Lesur, Histoire de$ Kosaques.) 
 
 This ignorance of the changes — political and 
 economical — which are constantly taking place 
 along the amorphous racial frontiers of Eastern 
 Europe, has continued to our own times. But at 
 recurrent intervals these Slav borderlands sepa- 
 rating the Occident from the Orient become the 
 scene of political upheavals so vast in their con- 
 sequences that the very foundations of European 
 civilization are shaken in their turn. 
 
 The great Tartar invasion which, during the thir- 
 teenth century, swept out of Asia and spread across 
 the steppes of Southern Russia, was an occurrence 
 of such magnitude that its echoes travelled to the 
 most distant states of Europe. The arrival of fugi- 
 tive bands of Khomans, Black Bulgars, and other 
 wild steppe tribesmen at the court of Bela IV, 
 King of Hungary, first spread the fame and terror 
 of these new invaders. From these refugees and 
 their descriptions of the enemy the sovereigns of 
 Christendom learned with horror of the fate which 
 in the short space of a few months had overtaken 
 the most powerful strongholds of the princes of 
 Bus and Muscovy. Even the Poles — whose more 
 civilized and warlike state was generally considered 
 the bulwark separating the "barbarians" of ancient 
 Scythia from the communities of Europe — had 
 been forced to make the best terms possible: by 
 paying a degrading tribute to the invaders. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE "FREE PEOPLE" 3 
 
 The powers of Europe now beheld upon the 
 frontiers of their own empires an enemy far more 
 redoubtable than the Saracen "infidels" against 
 whom they had waged their mystical crusades. 
 Turning from his dream of rescuing the Holy 
 Sepulchre the Emperor Frederick II exercised all 
 his eloquence to unite the Christian princes in a 
 league against the Mongols. The Roman Pontiff, 
 fearing for the Christian religion, preached a Holy 
 War. Saint Louis prepared to march in person 
 against the barbarians. 
 
 "All of civilized Europe was given over to anx- 
 iety and apprehension. The Tartars were repre- 
 sented as monsters living upon human flesh."* 
 "Even the most reasonable believed that the end 
 of the world was at hand. The people of Gog and 
 Magog advancing under the command of the Anti- 
 christ were about to bring about the destruction 
 of the universe." Suddenly, as though by common 
 agreement or following some general command, the 
 widely scattered hordes of horsemen turned once 
 more towards the East, finally settling in great 
 armed camps upon the fertile steppes near the 
 shores of the Volga. In this inexplicable action, 
 as mysterious as their first appearance from the 
 heart of Asia, the writers of the time perceived the 
 hand of an unseen Providence. The avenging 
 wrath of the Deity had been turned aside by the 
 intercession of the priests and holy men of 
 Christendom. 
 
 * Memoires de Joinville. 
 
4 THE COSSACKS 
 
 Yet complete as the conquest of the Tartars ap- 
 peared to be it was not destined to outlast the cen- 
 tury which saw its rise. As usual in Oriental des- 
 potisms the seeds of its dissolution came from 
 within. 
 
 The first result of these disaffections — notably 
 a revolt of the Nogai tribesmen against the princes 
 of the Golden Horde — was the disappearance of 
 the crude administrative system exercised by the 
 Tartar rulers over the old tribes of the steppes. 
 These began once more to reassert their inde- 
 pendence. Bands of Scythian refugees, Khosars, 
 Khomans and "Khosaks," began to leave the 
 marshy deltas of the great rivers such as the Don 
 and Dnieper — where they had found in common 
 a precarious refuge — and mounted on horses 
 stolen from the Tartars returned to their familiar 
 haunts. Here a terrible desolation spoke every- 
 where of "Tartar Peace." How complete had been 
 the destruction of whole tribes and settlements of 
 the previous inhabitants — caught by the over-^ 
 whelming avalanche of Tartar horsemen — is pic- 
 tured by the monkish chroniclers of a previous gen- 
 eration. In Hakluyt's Voyages these travellers 
 describe how "for over three hundred leagues" they 
 passed through great fields of whitening bones, 
 "the only signs that might recall the presence of 
 previous inhabitants of the steppes." 
 
 The wars of the princes of Tartary with the re- 
 volted Nogai and the struggles of the latter with 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE "FREE PEOPLE" 5 
 
 the Russians now gave to the miserable remnants 
 of the ancient lords of Scythia an opportunity to 
 recover something of their ascendency, over 
 the wildest and most deserted parts of the steppes. 
 As these scattered tribesmen became more skilled 
 in desert warfare, both Russians and Tartars oc- 
 casionally sought their alliance and the aid of their 
 ill-armed cavalry in settling their quarrels. But 
 whether gathered in armed camps or Slovods, or 
 else leading an errant nomad life, these "war 
 bands," composed of refugees and renegades of 
 every origin, were a constant menace to the 
 frontiers of their more civilized neighbours; pirat- 
 ing on the great rivers and attacking the caravans of 
 Russian or Tartar merchants with indifferent zeal. 
 In the precarious existence of these rovers, we find 
 the first traces of the frontier "civilization" of the 
 Cossacks. 
 
 No problem of Russian history has given rise to 
 more controversy than that of the origin of the 
 Cossack race. It now appears established that the 
 influence of the geographic and climatic conditions 
 which exist on the steppes, modifying to a common 
 type the characteristics of the peoples and 
 tribes (often of wholly different origin) who 
 in turn have inhabited the ancient lands of the 
 Scyths — is the paramount factor in solving this 
 problem. The tracing of blood ties and relation- 
 ships would therefore seem of less importance than 
 an understanding of the conditions under which the 
 
6 THE COSSACKS 
 
 characteristic Cossack civilization has been devel- 
 oped. 
 
 The Russian word Kasak — of which "Cossack" 
 is the English equivalent — still signifies in several 
 Tartar dialects a "Horseman" or "Rover." By a 
 not unnatural association of ideas this term has 
 been adopted at different times and in widely sep- 
 arated localities as a tribal name by nomad peoples 
 of the steppes. But the attempt not infrequently 
 made to trace a direct connection between these 
 tribes and the famous Kasaki of modern Russia is 
 generally based upon far-fetched historical anal- 
 ogies.* 
 
 In Clarke's famous "Travels in the Ukraine" the 
 ingenious theory is advanced that the country of 
 "Kasachia" mentioned by Constantine Porphyro- 
 genetes was the original homeland of the modern 
 "tribes" of Russia which have taken the general 
 name of Kasak or Cossack. But the relative un- 
 importance of this people lost among powerful 
 L 
 
 * A modern example exists of the facility with which 
 errors may be made in tracing tribal relationships through 
 nomenclature alone. Not far from Tiflis, near the fron- 
 tiers of old Armenia, the author recently visited the ter- 
 ritory occupied by a tribe of Tartar origin still called 
 "Kasaks." The skill of these nomads as rug-weavers has 
 filled the bazaars with a coarse but well-woven carpet bear- 
 ing their tribal name. It is certain, however, that neither 
 ethnographically nor historically does any connection ex- 
 ist between these nomad tribesmen and the Cossacks of 
 modern Russia. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE "FREE PEOPLE" 7 
 
 neighbours whose history has survived to the 
 present day is the strongest argument against such 
 a supposition. Moreover, as we have already 
 pointed out, other tribes of this name have more 
 than once risen to temporary importance in the 
 annals of the steppes. 
 
 It was not until the latter half of the fifteenth 
 century that the ebbing tide of Tartar invasion, 
 which for nearly two centuries had submerged the 
 richest lands of the great Russian plain, once more 
 opened to settlement from the North the rich 
 steppes of the "Black Earth" district, and the 
 scarcely less fertile lands to the South and East. 
 During this long period of subjection the Russian 
 nation had been held back from its richest heritage. 
 
 Scattered among the Finnish aborigines of the 
 great northern forests — in that fabulous land of 
 "Cimmerian darkness" where, as Herodotus states, 
 the inhabitants "spend half their time in slumber" — 
 the men of "Rus" had kept alive the faith of their 
 ancestors while learning their long lesson of pa- 
 tience and endurance. Thus it came about that so 
 many of the old centres and cities of Holy Russia 
 are found today in the most barren and unattrac- 
 tive parts of the great Russian plain. 
 
 When the prairies of the Ukraine — the "border 
 land" — had ceased to be the hunting grounds of 
 roving nomads, and the Asiatic hordes had with- 
 drawn with their flocks and herds to the oases of 
 their native deserts, the peasant population of 
 
8 THE COSSACKS 
 
 Northern Russia became filled with a restless fever 
 for emigration. Out of the dark fir wilderness 
 came bands of pioneers, — dazzled by the bright 
 sunlight of the steppes, — pressing ever south- 
 ward. Thus settlers of true Russian blood began 
 once more to populate the war-worn plains of 
 Scythia where free land and, dearer still, personal 
 freedom rewarded the daring of the adventurer. 
 
 While fear and hunger had kept them submis- 
 sively huddled about the wooden fortresses of the 
 hoyars, no laws had been necessary to chain the 
 peasants to the glebe. Serfdom now began in Rus- 
 sia at the time when the feudal system of Europe 
 was sinking into decay. For when the princes and 
 nobles of these northern principalities found their 
 apanages and broad grants of forest land fast re- 
 verting to wilderness through the flight of the agri- 
 cultural laborers, legal steps were taken to pre- 
 serve their "rights." In edicts of Ivan the Terrible 
 and Boris Godounov, we find the legislative traces 
 of this great southern movement. Yet, in spite of 
 terrible punishments and laws enacted to keep the 
 peasants from roving, the moujiki continued to 
 join themselves to the remnants of the wild Asiatic 
 tribes and the no less barbarous "Cossacks" of their 
 own race, who had established themselves in vaga- 
 bond communities following close upon the receding 
 frontier of Tartar invasion. 
 
 It would appear that about this time the term 
 Cossack or Kasak was first used to describe a 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE "FREE PEOPLE" 9 
 
 "masterless man," one who refused to identify him- 
 self with the Krestianin or ordinary agricultural 
 laborer (a class about to fall wholly into the con- 
 dition of serfdom) . The same word may previously 
 have been used by the Tartars after their conquest 
 of Russia to denote tribesmen who, refusing to 
 settle in towns or colonies, preferred to continue the 
 nomad and adventurous life of their ancestors. The 
 name also began to be applied to soldier-merce- 
 naries from the steppe "war bands," who, while 
 maintaining the warlike traditions of this wander- 
 ing life, refused to become incorporated among the 
 men-at-arms attached to the great boyars or to take 
 permanent service in the paid militia formed by the 
 Tsars after the reign of Ivan IV, 
 
 To the brutal methods of Tartar dominion 
 may be ascribed traits which have left a deep 
 mark on the government and policy of the empire 
 of the Tsars. Russian historians are now the first 
 to recognize the depth and force of this influence. 
 Naturally democratic in their ideals and personal 
 relations, long subjection to the Tartars taught the 
 Slav people subservience, and (together with later 
 principles borrowed by Peter the Great from the 
 Prussian system) furnished their rulers a model of 
 greedy despotism and autocratic power. Even the 
 excesses of revolution in our own day show the per- 
 sistence in the Russian state of these pernicious 
 alien influences. 
 
 Under the ruthless sword-strokes of Czar Vasili, 
 
10 THE COSSACKS 
 
 and his successor Ivan the Terrible, began the up- 
 building of the great modern state of Russia — 
 engulfing in an ever-widening circle of dominion 
 the liberties of lesser princelings and the bour- 
 geoisie of the forest "City Republics." Such was 
 the fate of Pskov, of the Free Republic of Vologda 
 and the city of "Lord Novgorod the Great." 
 
 Meanwhile, on the vast southern plains, under 
 the leadership of dispossessed boyars, renegade 
 Polish nobles, Turkish janissaries, or even some 
 far-wandering French or German adventurer, the 
 characteristic civilization of the Ukraine Cossack 
 communities steadily grew and strengthened. Re- 
 cruited from sturdy vagabonds of every race and 
 clan, "stolen youths, thieves and patriots" armed 
 with the weapons they had brought with them from 
 Russia or with the bows and arrows of their Tartar 
 neighbours, they fought for and gradually obtained 
 the right to exist and to remain free. 
 
 In view of the importance of geographical con- 
 ditions upon the inhabitants of these plains, it now 
 becomes necessary to consider at greater length 
 some of the phenomena peculiar to the South Rus- 
 sian Steppes. For thousands of years — until the 
 coming of the railways in recent times — the prob- 
 lems of life on the Russian prairies must have pre- 
 sented themselves again and again under the same 
 inevitable forms. The nations who established their 
 permanent home in this fertile "smiling wilder- 
 ness" were all endowed with similar characteristics. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE "FREE PEOPLE" 11 
 
 Their lives were passed on horseback and their ex- 
 istence depended on their skill as breeders of half- 
 wild cattle and hunters of wary game. The Greek 
 legend of the Centaurs was, in their case, scarcely 
 an exaggeration. In plains so vast as to be almost 
 without natural limits or defensible frontiers a 
 necessary factor of effective occupation became the 
 ability to defend a chosen area at any moment in 
 hand to hand encounters with a mobile foe. High- 
 ways of trade and communication could be 
 shifted — in the absence of all natural obstacles — 
 with the same ease that a new course can be steered 
 at sea. For this reason, the objects of steppe war- 
 fare were different from those of ordinary strategy. 
 In reading of the military campaigns of the 
 Ukraine we must often be prepared to draw our 
 comparisons from naval rather than from land op- 
 erations. 
 
 The country known as the Ukraine, where the 
 characteristic Cossack civilization arose and de- 
 veloped, is, as the name indicates, a continental 
 "border land," neither European nor Asiatic. On 
 the wide steppes of the Black Sea basin even the 
 climatic influences of north and south meet with- 
 out blending. Thus, while during the short summer 
 months a true southern climate prevails, yet the 
 return of winter is marked by a cold nearly sub- 
 arctic in its intensity. 
 
 In the famous Black Earth region about Kiev 
 and Poltava, the brief harvest season forms the 
 
12 THE COSSACKS 
 
 climax of a miracle of growth. Under the rays of 
 an almost tropical sun the wide fields of grain 
 change from silvery green to tawny gold in the 
 space of days rather than weeks. But with the ad- 
 vent of another season the arctic winds sweep 
 straight from the Polar seas, unchecked by hill or 
 mountain range, all conquering, across the whole 
 level expanse of New Russia. Upon the sunny 
 steppes tightens once more the icy grip of the 
 Empire of the North. There can be no softening 
 of the fibre, no slackening of the powers of sturdy 
 resistance which above all else characterize the 
 Russian race in the population of such a land. 
 Both in physique and temperament the lithe dark 
 inhabitant of the Ukraine presents the type of a 
 southerner. While sprung from the same stock he 
 is as distinct from the blond dweller of the north 
 as the Provencal of France is different from the 
 blue-eyed Norman. To his Slav nature the brief 
 vision of southern summer has added a touch of 
 imagination, a capacity for boisterous enjoyment, 
 lacking, at any rate less apparent, in the Russian 
 of "Muscovy." 
 
 Before the coming of the farmer and his plough 
 the plains of the Ukraine were everywhere covered 
 by high waving grasses, similar to the vanished 
 prairies of far western America, or the vegas of 
 southern Andalusia. Often this growth is so thick 
 that a horseman can only with difficulty force his 
 way, and the half -wild cattle almost disappear in 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE "FREE PEOPLE" 13 
 
 the richness of their pasture. Not even a tree or 
 bush breaks the straight sky line of the horizon. 
 Meandering in wide curves, often with a scarcely- 
 perceptible fall from north to south, four great 
 rivers form the most striking geographical features 
 of these plains : the Dnieper, the Don, and farther 
 eastward the mighty "Mother Volga" and her lesser 
 companion, the Ural. "Her rivers," says Rambaud, 
 "are the only allies of man against Russia's great 
 enemy — distance." In winter their frozen surface, 
 and in summer their broad tide, are the principal 
 pathways from one part of this great land to an- 
 other. 
 
 It was upon the shores of the great river 
 Dnieper, known to the Ancients as the Borys- 
 thenes, that the first permanent Cossack commu- 
 nities established had their settlements. 
 
 *& &• & ' 3fe 3& •&• «&• 
 
 vi* *I» ft* *i* *J* v|r yj* 
 
 By slow degrees, under the increasing influence 
 of peasant immigration from the North (bringing 
 with it the religion of Russia and such rude civili- 
 zation as the northern woods had developed) the 
 Asiatic and "tribal" features of Cossack life began 
 to disappear. During the early days of the XVI th 
 century they had so strengthened their hold upon 
 the broad lands lying between the Dnieper and the 
 Don, that we find the terms "Free Cossacks of the 
 Ukraine" and even "The Republic of the Don" 
 used to describe their settlements, 
 
14 THE COSSACKS 
 
 But the early condition of these wandering Cos- 
 sack communities must have been a matter of scorn 
 even to the primitive tribes of the Boujiak Tartars 
 who were their neighbours. Family life or social or- 
 ganization were all but impossible under the con- 
 ditions of their harried existence. Some of these 
 steppe bands (as we shall later observe in the case 
 of the "Brotherhood" of the Zaporogian Cossacks, 
 inhabiting the shores and islands of the Dnieper) 
 even appear to have forbidden the presence of 
 women in their camps. 
 
 In the growing Cossack settlements or slovods 
 only the sturdiest of the children were allowed to 
 survive. As a preparation for a lifelong struggle 
 with the forces of the steppes "their mothers were 
 wont to plunge them at birth either into a snow- 
 drift or in a mixture of salt and water."* None of 
 the scanty provisions of the tribe could be wasted 
 upon weaklings or those of unpromising physique. 
 When scarcely able to walk, the young Cossacks 
 were placed on horseback and "soon learned to 
 swim wide rivers thus mounted" (ibid). At an 
 early age they were only allowed food when by 
 their unaided skill with bow and arrow they had 
 brought down the wild game which supplied the 
 family cook-pot. The clothing of the first Cossack 
 tribesmen was contrived from sheepskins or the 
 hides of wild beasts. Only the chieftains of the 
 
 * Histoire de la Guerre des Kosaques. P. Chevalier. 
 Paris, 1668. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE "FREE PEOPLE" 15 
 
 highest rank were able to afford garments of 
 coarsely woven cloth dyed in brilliant colours 
 (ibid). In case of sickness the Cossack remedy 
 was to mount on horseback and, after galloping 
 across the plain until both steed and rider were ex- 
 hausted, to open a small vein in the shoulder of 
 their mount and drink the warm blood.* 
 
 As their flocks and herds multiplied upon the 
 generous pasturage there grew up in the former 
 "Tartar desert" a characteristic light-hearted civil- 
 ization peculiar to the steppes. In the Little Rus- 
 sians of the present day we may still trace the 
 manners and customs of this Free Cossack ancestry. 
 Moreover as their ability to resist the encroaching 
 tyranny of the Russian boyars increased, the Free 
 Cossacks sought an early opportunity to renew re- 
 lations with their European kinsmen. A common 
 danger and their mutual hatred of the Turks and 
 Tartars were forces tending to unite them with their 
 Christian kindred the Russians and Poles. But in 
 Poland the feudal land holders could find no place 
 in their aristocratic state for freemen not of the 
 noble classes, while in Russia the condition of the 
 moujiki warned the Cossacks against the dangers 
 of a too binding alliance with the Tsar. 
 
 In order to secure the military aid of the Cos- 
 sacks, the Polish kings were forced to allow them 
 
 * A similar custom is noted by the Englishman Clarke 
 in his Travels in the Ukraine in the latter part of the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
16 THE COSSACKS 
 
 to establish lists or "Registers" of "Free Soldiers" 
 to whom claim of serfage was relinquished by the 
 feudal lords. These latter, however, always claimed 
 possession of the lands occupied by the Cossacks 
 and their right to liberty as a caste was never recog- 
 nized. This, as we shall later see, was the cause of 
 the great uprising ending in the separation of the 
 Cossack Ukraine from the Polish crown. 
 
 In spite of these differences, however, the eastern 
 Cossack steppes began, soon after the downfall of 
 the Tartars, to be considered the defensive frontiers 
 of both Poland and the Muscovite empire. The 
 Cossack warriors of the Polish Ukraine, though 
 clinging tenaciously to their liberties and denying 
 any right on the part of an alien government to 
 claim their services, often entered the feudal mili- 
 tary companies of the Polish nobles as volunteers or 
 paid men-at-arms, while farther to the eastward, 
 their kindred entered the service of the Tsar. 
 
 The last stronghold of the Tartars in Russia — 
 Kazan — was captured by Ivan the Terrible after 
 a long siege ending October 2, 1551. We find in 
 the list of troops taking part in these operations 
 the presence noted of a large contingent of Cos- 
 sacks: "Cossacks of the town and Cossacks of the 
 country." These together with the newly-formed 
 Russian streltzi or regular troops took a prominent 
 part in the assault. From 1553 to 1555 Ivan com- 
 pleted his conquests along the whole course of the 
 Volga, finally capturing Astrakhan near the shores 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE "FREE PEOPLE" 17 
 
 of the Caspian. Their admiration for the Tsar's 
 exploits against the common enemy, and perhaps a 
 wholesome realization of the fact that his armies 
 now controlled an easy base of approach to the 
 strongholds of their "republic," led the Cossacks 
 inhabiting the shores of the Don to place them- 
 selves under his protection. The Cossacks of the 
 Dnieper remained, however, in the pay of Poland. 
 Thus occurred the first great separation in the 
 loose confederation of the "Free Companions of 
 the Steppes."* 
 
 After the more or less voluntary submission of 
 the "Free Cossacks of the Don" the Russian Tsars 
 soon began to make use of their matchless 
 skill in frontier warfare. An arrangement mu- 
 tually favorable was now perfected and the 
 Cossacks became the basis of a system of de- 
 fensive militia policing the steppes against the 
 Crimean Tartars. Although the Muscovite 
 peasants were brave and (above all) docile foot 
 soldiers, their usefulness as cavalry was limited. 
 Previous to the time when Cossacks were enrolled 
 for this purpose, it had been found necessary — in 
 order to defend the open frontiers of Muscovy — to 
 mobilize every year a force of about 65,000 men. 
 Owing to the fact that the rendezvous chosen lay 
 on the banks of the river Oka, this was called the 
 annual "banks service." In the early days this 
 duty had been performed by the feudal levies of the 
 
 * Rambaud, op. cit., page 223. 
 
18 THE COSSACKS 
 
 great boyars, whose serf and peasant troops at- 
 tended the annual musters unwillingly and often at 
 great inconvenience to themselves during the har- 
 vest season (a time therefore usually chosen by 
 the Tartars for their raids). As early as 1571 a 
 Russian boyar, Prince Borotinsky, began to em- 
 ploy a system of mixed Cossack and militia patrols 
 which appears to have differed but little from the 
 military colonies or stanitzi of the later Cossack 
 "armies." During the seasons less favorable to the 
 Tartar raids a protective service alone was main- 
 tained. This was called the "Watch and Post Ser- 
 vice" and consisted of Cossacks living in rude block- 
 houses linked together by small fortified camps. 
 This first line of defense was intended, however, 
 rather to impede the march of the Tartar raiders — 
 and to give warning of their sudden coming — than 
 to attempt any serious resistance. 
 
 Mobile outposts composed of squads of two, four 
 or six horsemen, to each of which was assigned a 
 regular "ride" of about a day's journey, joined 
 together the Cossack encampments or settlements 
 which were generally set upon high places from 
 whence an outlook could be kept across the plains. 
 In each of these encampments horses stood ready 
 saddled, so that upon the appearance of suspicious 
 signs — the distant black dots in the yellow waste, 
 denoting the scouts of the enemy, or the inevitable 
 clouds of dust raised by the hoofs of their horses — 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE "FREE PEOPLE" 19 
 
 the news could be immediately communicated to 
 the nearest fortified town, 
 
 The importance of the services thus rendered will 
 be realized when we consider that according to a 
 contemporary English writer — Fletcher — the 
 Tartars of the Crimea were accustomed to attack 
 the confines of the Muscovite empire in considerable 
 force once or twice every year. 
 
 These raids were sometimes carried out at Trin- 
 ity time, but more often during the harvest season. 
 Now and again a winter raid was undertaken, when 
 the frozen surface of the swamps and rivers facili- 
 tated long marches, which only the endurance of the 
 sturdy little Tartar ponies rendered possible. 
 Through constant familiarity with the Russian bor- 
 derland and the intervening steppes the Tartars 
 learned to know the best trails and bridle tracks, 
 and, most important of all, where the richest booty 
 could most easily be obtained. "Avoiding all river 
 crossings and picking their way along the trackless 
 plateaus — at the same time carefully hiding their 
 movements from the Muscovite steppe riders — 
 they would suddenly penetrate in a solid mass into 
 some populous district for a distance of about a 
 hundred versts. Then turning in their track and, 
 throwing out long wings to either side of the main 
 body like a flock of wild geese — they would sweep 
 away everything that lay in the path." 
 
 Kaffa, in the Crimea, was the principal slave 
 market where the prisoners captured in these raids, 
 
20 THE COSSACKS 
 
 men, girls and children, (the latter carefully trans- 
 ported in panniers carried for the purpose) were 
 sold to the Turkish markets.* 
 
 In protecting the Tsar's dominions against the 
 intolerable suffering caused by these raids, the 
 Cossack became an invaluable adjunct to the 
 armies of the empire. When the Tartars ceased to 
 be a menace a new era of discovery opened to Cos- 
 sack enterprise; when, after absorbing all neigh- 
 boring Russian states, the power of the Great 
 Princes of Moscow was turned towards the East 
 in an irresistible movement of expansion which was 
 to extend across Asia to the continent of the New 
 World. Cossack troops played the principal part 
 in these expeditions. Leaders — of whom the Don- 
 skoi hetman Yermak was the chief and prototype 
 — crossed Siberia looking for a land passage. An 
 obscure Cossack adventurer engaged in this quest 
 was the first European to set eyes upon the 
 Western coast of the great Alaskan peninsula. 
 Had not the grey waters of the Straits of Behring 
 rolled between — the matchless energy of these 
 frontiersmen might have claimed the western coast 
 of America for the Tsar. 
 
 * (See Fletcher's "Travels: 9 ) 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE ZAPOROGIAN COSSACKS 
 
 WHETHER the political condition of the 
 early Cossack settlements of the Ukraine — 
 the wide debatable frontier region lying between 
 Poland, Russia and the Mussulman states to the 
 south and west — ever entitled the "Free People" 
 to be considered a separate state or nationality has 
 been a subject of long and fruitless controversy. 
 Matchless frontiersmen, the Cossacks could neither 
 defend nor define the vague boundaries of 
 their own "Free Steppes." At every crisis their 
 undisciplined ways and hatred of a central author- 
 ity led to internal divisions — and these in turn to 
 inevitable subjection by one of the stronger nations 
 surrounding them. 
 
 During the reign of Ivan the Terrible the ma- 
 jority of the Don Cossacks of their own will be- 
 came subjects of the Russian Tsar while claiming 
 privileges and immunities which have differenti- 
 ated them from the Russian moujik to the present 
 day. The Eastern branch of the Cossack race thus 
 became part of the great Muscovite empire (al- 
 though they appear to have continued to use the 
 title of "republic" among themselves until a recent 
 date. ) 
 
 21 
 
22 THE COSSACKS 
 
 During the first half of the sixteenth century 
 the Cossacks inhabiting the shores of the Dnieper, 
 found themselves inevitably drawn into more or 
 less close "alliance" with the Poles against the raids 
 of the Turks and Tartars. While resisting to the 
 utmost the claims of the Polish magnates, whose 
 vague feudal rights extended over a great part of 
 the lands tilled and defended by the Cossacks, 
 the border stanitzi or settlements remained gen- 
 erally subject to the Polish crown. 
 
 The kings of Poland soon sought to direct to 
 their own advantage the courage and warlike ca- 
 pacity which their Cossack neighbors had devel- 
 oped through generations of warfare against the 
 common enemy. Under King Sigismond a Cos- 
 sack hetman (called by the Polish chroniclers Os- 
 taphaeus) proposed to the Polish Senate that his 
 countrymen be formed into a border guard or mili- 
 tia to defend the frontiers of the kingdom against 
 the Tartars. 
 
 His plan contemplated the building of a flotilla 
 on the Dnieper below the cataracts, capable of 
 transporting two thousand men and four hundred 
 horses to any threatened point on the long line of 
 river frontier "which it was necessary to hold 
 against these invaders." He assured the Polish 
 king that even this small force disciplined in Cos- 
 sack fashion could effectually stop the hordes of 
 the Ghirai Khans of the Crimea, who "were every- 
 where forced to cross the broad stream by swim- 
 
THE ZAPOROGIAN COSSACKS 23 
 
 ming their horses and could thus be taken at a 
 disadvantage." 
 
 Under a successor of Ostaphseus, the Hetman 
 Ruchinskov, the Cossacks of the Dneiper in return 
 for a promised subsidy of lands and money from 
 the Polish crown, adopted a method of frontier 
 defense, which later formed the basis of the cele- 
 brated military organization of the "Zaporo- 
 gians." The general plan of this military system 
 in many ways recalls the conditions of modern Cos- 
 sack military service. To the older men, the weak- 
 lings and to the veterans of several campaigns was 
 reserved the privilege of family life in the Cossack 
 settlements or stanitzi, scattered along the shores of 
 the upper Dnieper, near Kiev. Here they culti- 
 vated the soil and tended the flocks which formed 
 the principal riches of the community. 
 
 Meanwhile, the younger men gathered in armed 
 camps and outposts on the islands below the cata- 
 racts, ready for any martial adventure that might 
 present itself. These military gatherings, or mus- 
 ters, were especially frequented during the summer 
 months or at any time when hostile raids might be 
 expected. If no foray of the Turks or Tartars 
 threatened the Cossacks' settlements — or the lands 
 of the Polish republic they were paid to defend — 
 expeditions were organized against the Turkish 
 colonies on the shores of the Black Sea. Long 
 Cossack boats, manned by chosen warriors, would 
 then shoot the rapids of the Dnieper, falling with 
 
24 THE COSSACKS 
 
 the suddenness of a thunderbolt upon some distant 
 point of the Turkish littoral, even before rumours 
 of their approach could reach the outposts of the 
 enemy. 
 
 In winter only the more strategic or threatened 
 points among the islands were fortified and left in 
 charge of a tried garrison consisting of a few thou- 
 sand men. These chosen troops (called by the 
 Poles Proesidenti) were the bands which became 
 famous at a later day under the local name of 
 Za Porogi — or men from "beyond the rapids." 
 The principal camp of the Zaporogians protected 
 by outposts and a rude fortress was known as the 
 sitch. 
 
 The early military organization and strategy of 
 these Dnieper Cossacks was probably but little 
 different from that of the Tartar levies. By the 
 end of the sixteenth century, however, not only the 
 garrisons of the sitch but also the troops and mil- 
 itia stationed in the agricultural settlements along 
 the upper Dnieper, had developed a characteristic 
 system of military service. 
 
 In the Hetman Bogdan Kostchinskoi, whose 
 power was recognized by a majority of the free 
 Cossacks settled along the Polish frontiers, King 
 Stephen Bathory found a leader capable of bring- 
 ing order and discipline out of the anarchy which 
 had previously existed. Upon Bogdan he formally 
 \ conferred the dignity of "Hetman of the Ukraine" 
 ^and at the same time presented him with splendid 
 
THE ZAPOROGIAN COSSACKS 25 
 
 regalia composed of the Asiatic symbols recognized 
 by the Cossacks as those of supreme authority, 
 namely: the boulava or baton of the commander- 
 in-chief; the buntchuk or horse-tail standard sim- 
 ilar to that carried before the conquering generals 
 of Genghis Khan. To these were added the tokens 
 conferred on Polish frontier officials — a great seal 
 of office and the standards that distinguished the 
 mercenaries employed by the kings of Poland. 
 
 In the agricultural settlements or stanitzi of the 
 Ukraine the Cossack levies were divided into regi- 
 ments or polku These, in turn, were subdivided 
 into companies of one hundred men called sotnia, 
 an organization which has persisted in the Cossack 
 forces of the present day. Although a general of 
 artillery, or obozni and a secretary, or pisari were 
 nominated by the Polish king to assist the hetman 
 (and at the same time to oversee the more technical 
 details of military organisation) the warlike cus- 
 toms of the Cossacks were not interfered with and 
 their peculiar methods of fighting and discipline 
 were generally maintained.* 
 
 * In a "memorandum" written by the Palatine Jan So- 
 bieski, for the instruction of his son Jan, the hero-king who 
 was to raise Poland to the highest pinnacle of her glory, 
 the contemporary Cossack civilization of the Polish fron- 
 tier is thus described: "On their return from their nu- 
 merous forays and campaigns against the enemy a part of 
 these veteran warriors return to their headquarters in 
 the islands of the Dnieper, but the great majority en- 
 
26 THE COSSACKS 
 
 Desirous at first of building up the strength of 
 the Cossack class, the Polish nobles allowed these 
 tribesmen to extend their homesteads and settle- 
 ments into southern Podolia and Volhynia, per- 
 mitting them to enroll as "Free Cossacks" all of 
 the fugitive Russian serfs and other strangers who 
 succeeded in joining their forces. By this wise 
 policy Bathory intended to interpose between the 
 frontiers of Poland and the rising power of Russia 
 a military state or province devoted to the inter- 
 ests of the elective kingdom. At the same time, by 
 bringing into cultivation the rich steppes of the 
 Ukraine which had lain desolate for so many cen- 
 turies through fear of the Tartar raiders, he opened 
 new channels for the commerce of the Polish cities. 
 
 riched by their booty think only of resuming the joys of 
 family life. Thus they camp down with their wives and 
 children about the cities belonging to the crown or the 
 nobility, varying the monotony by holding among them- 
 selves frequent assemblies where discussion often ends in 
 bloody combat. ... In the town of Tritchimorov, 
 near Kiev, which was granted to them by Stephen 
 Bathory, in recognition of their services, they have their 
 arsenal, their treasury and their common market or meet- 
 ing place. Here they gather the spoils collected through 
 their piracies from the Turkish cities of Roumelia and 
 Asia Minor. Here, too, they carefully preserve the 
 charters granted to them by the republic of Poland and 
 the standards presented to their leaders by Polish kings 
 on the occasions when they have been asked to take up 
 their arms in defense of the state." (Salvandy, Jean 
 Sobieski. Vol. I, page 182.) 
 
THE ZAPOROGIAN COSSACKS 27 
 
 That these wise plans were not destined to be fully- 
 realized was due to several causes difficult to fore- 
 see, 
 
 i In considering the history of the Ukraine, a dis- 
 tinction must be made between the agricultural 
 ] Cossack settlements of the Upper Dnieper and the 
 ( outposts or garrisons of the "Za-Porogi" to which 
 the former were tributary. The cataracts of the 
 Lower Dnieper are divided just below the modern 
 city of Ekaterinoslav by an archipelago of hun- 
 dreds of rocky islands covered with a shaggy 
 growth of stunted timber and underbrush. To 
 navigate the secret channels of this watery laby- 
 rinth requires rare skill with the paddle, a knowl- 
 edge to be obtained only through constant fa- 
 miliarity. By throwing up a few entrenchments of 
 logs and earthworks any of these islands, isolated 
 by the rapids, was capable of offering an almost 
 impregnable defense against the attacks of an 
 army not supplied with artillery. 
 
 The principal camp or sitch of the Cossack gar- 
 rison was established on one of the larger islands, 
 or at some inaccessible point on the river. This 
 main camp was, moreover, frequently transferred 
 from one place to another so that the mystery 
 which surrounded its location hid the varying num- 
 bers of its garrison and added to the difficulties of 
 attack. 
 
 The military capabilities and peculiar organiza- 
 tion of the Zaporogian Cossacks was a source of 
 
28 THE COSSACKS 
 
 considerable interest and inquiry among contem- 
 porary military authorities. Many writers of the 
 eighteenth century — wholly ignorant of their real 
 condition — compared these famous frontier troops 
 to military orders of chivalry such as the Knights 
 of the Sword in Lithuania, or even the Knights of 
 Malta, Others compared them to the "Free 
 Archers'* of Charles the Seventh, or the "military 
 colonies" of Sparta and of the early Grecian states. 
 As Lesur points out, a more reasonable and mod- 
 ern parallel is to be found in that strange republic 
 of filibusters who almost contemporaneously es- 
 tablished their piratical state among the islands of 
 the West Indies. If this comparison does some in- 
 justice to the Zaporogians (to whom must be al- 
 lowed the merit of holding in check, at a critical 
 time, the ravages of the Mussulman invaders) it 
 will appear more reasonable if viewed in the light 
 of the intolerable nuisance to which their preten- 
 sions gave rise at a later date. For, while the Cos- 
 sack settlements, as we shall presently see, became 
 in the course of time absorbed by the civilization of 
 their Russian neighbours, the "Free Companions" 
 of the sitch refused to adapt themselves in any way 
 to the new modes of life made necessary by the 
 passing of frontier conditions. 
 
 Long after their territory had become sur- 
 rounded by peaceful agricultural colonists, the 
 Zaporogians continued to live their own boisterous 
 life as in the days when the Tartar raids almost 
 hourly threatened the community. 
 
THE ZAPOROGIAN COSSACKS 29 
 
 As far as the author is aware, no historian has 
 ever attempted to trace the development of the 
 crude system of island outposts until these became 
 merged in the famous military brotherhood of the 
 semi-independent Zaporogians, or, as they gen- 
 erally styled themselves, "The Free and Independ- 
 ent Community Beyond the Rapids." * Neverthe- 
 less, the history of the long struggle between Po- 
 land and Russia for the fertile provinces of the 
 Ukraine is very largely concerned with the doings 
 of this turbulent faction among the Cossack "na- 
 tion." To form a true idea of the appearance of the 
 famous sitch or stronghold one must imagine rather 
 an encampment or gathering of rude huts set down 
 amidst a clearing in the forest. These were de- 
 fended by the rapids of the Dnieper, or by rude 
 earthworks in no way recalling a mediaeval for- 
 tress. Great sheds or barracks built of saplings, 
 covered with horse or cow-hides, sheltered the gar- 
 rison and divided it into definite units or kourens. 
 The members of each houren sleeping under one 
 roof, eating their kasha or buckwheat meal from a 
 single great kettle, enjoyed in common a kind of 
 boisterous family life. In spite of the iron disci- 
 pline which their exposed and dangerous position 
 rendered necessary, the government of the sitch 
 was jealously maintained on the most democratic 
 
 * For a general sketch of Zaporogian "history" see a 
 recently published pamphlet by Professor D. N. Evar- 
 itzky of Kharkov. 
 
30 THE COSSACKS 
 
 lines. The chief of this warlike republic was known 
 as the koshovoy ataman. Although possessed of 
 almost unlimited powers, this officer was liable at 
 any moment to be deposed from his high position 
 by a public meeting of the brotherhood. These 
 assemblies were called together by the most in- 
 formal means — the clashing of cymbals or the 
 tumultuous cries of any party strong enough to 
 rouse the general interests. Together with his aide- 
 de-camp or jessoul and his clerk, or pissar, the 
 koshovoy ataman might thus be summoned on the 
 most frivolous pretext to stand before the as- 
 sembled garrison. Taking his station beneath the 
 horsetail standard that denoted his rank, he was 
 expected to wait, cap in hand, the outcome of the 
 noisy debate which decided whether or not his ad- 
 ministration was satisfactory to the Free Com- 
 panions. The ceremony just described was gen- 
 erally preceded by a drinking bout wherein quanti- 
 ties of gorilka, brandy (with which the hardy war- 
 riors braced themselves when called upon to make 
 any momentous decision) , were consumed as a nec- 
 essary preliminary to the mental effort required. 
 It is, therefore, not surprising to learn that such 
 elections, more often than not, ended in bloodshed. 
 Whenever the tumult seemed to indicate that 
 their services were no longer required, it was the 
 custom of the officials composing an unpopular "ad- 
 ministration" formally to salute their comrades, and 
 clapping on their shaggy sheepskin headgear, to 
 
THE ZAPOROGIAN COSSACKS 31 
 
 return to the ranks of their own kouren thus re- 
 suming their rights as Free Cossacks. 
 
 "The election of a new koshovoy ataman then 
 proceeded under conditions which made the ac- 
 ceptance of this high honour as humiliating as pos- 
 sible for the successful candidate. The kouren 
 from which the ataman was to be chosen haviner 
 first been decided upon, an individual member was 
 next singled out by the noisy shouts of his ad- 
 herents. Ten of the most insolent and intoxi- 
 cated elders of the general assembly were usually 
 deputed to announce to the new chieftain the hon- 
 our conferred upon him. It was no false modesty 
 that often caused the responsibilities of this high po- 
 sition to be declined. Like Caesar, etiquette de- 
 manded that the newly elected koshovoy should at 
 least twice refuse the dangerous distinction offered 
 him. It was only after being knocked half sense- 
 less by the back slapping and rough congratula- 
 tions of his electors that he might properly consent 
 to be dragged beneath the red horsetail standard 
 where the final indignity connected with his in- 
 stallation awaited him. The oldest Cossacks 
 present, gathering up handfuls of mud from the 
 river bank, proceeded in turn to smear with this 
 filth the beard and face of their newly-chosen 
 leader. In this condition he was obliged — though 
 now enjoying the dignity of remaining covered be- 
 fore the uncapped assembly — to make a long 
 speech thanking his comrades for the honours liter- 
 ally thrust upon him. 
 
32 THE COSSACKS 
 
 As additional safeguard to the democratic in- 
 stitutions of the Zaporogians, it was further de- 
 creed (by laws none the less binding because only 
 part of the unwritten traditions of the community) 
 that except during an active campaign the kosh- 
 ovoy ataman should exercise no real authority in the 
 sitch. When, however, war had once been declared, 
 even his most despotic commands were implicitly 
 obeyed. 
 
 In ordinary times the administration of the 
 affairs of the Zaporogian sitch lay in the hands of 
 a council of subordinate atamans elected by the 
 different kourens. These were generally selected 
 from among the most popular members of the 
 community and only kept themselves in office by ex- 
 ercising arts of the basest flattery and slavish gen- 
 erosity. No ataman might receive any pay, ex- 
 cept the privilege of renting stalls to the Jews and 
 other traders venturesome enough to establish 
 themselves among the Zaporogians. Commerce 
 was held in so little esteem that nearly all human 
 rights were denied these despised shopkeepers. 
 Any moment might see their stock in trade looted 
 before their eyes, yet the high prices which after 
 some successful raid the Cossacks were liable to 
 toss to the "peddlers" rather than demean them- 
 selves by bargaining, always attracted a motley 
 crowd of vendors willing to submit to all the hu- 
 miliations which might be heaped upon them in 
 return for the rich profits to be gained. 
 
THE ZAPOROGIAN COSSACKS 33 
 
 Although these periods of iron discipline and the 
 relaxations of ensuing debauch were characteristic 
 of the life of the sitch, contemporary writers give 
 the Zaporogians credit for certain homely virtues. 
 They were always honest with each other. Con- 
 victed thieves were treated with cruel severity: 
 lashed to a post in the centre of the camp, if they 
 or their friends were unable to make restitution at 
 the end of a period of three days, they might be 
 beaten to death by their victims. The murderer 
 of a comrade was chained to his victim's corpse and 
 buried alive in the same grave. But besides these 
 cruel laws born of the necessities of early times, 
 there grew up a more civilized code based upon the 
 celebrated medieval "Institutes of Magdeburg," 
 
 — regulations which were applied in the merchants' 
 quarters of the Polish towns. 
 
 - A custom of the sitch doubtless growing out of 
 the dangers constantly threatening the first garri- 
 sons and the state of constant watchfulness and 
 alarm in which they were forced to live, has gained 
 no little attention from contemporary writers. This 
 was the law rigorously excluding women, under 
 pain of death, from the community of the Zaporo- 
 gians. If a Zaporogian desired to take up the 
 burdens and pleasures of family life he returned to 
 the Cossack settlements, while his name was inex- 
 orably erased from the rolls of the Free Company. 
 From the accounts of this custom many ludicrous 
 errors have arisen. Some writers have described the 
 
34 THE COSSACKS 
 
 Zaporogians as a kind of monkish militia, con- 
 stantly at war with the infidels in the defense of 
 Christianity. Others have described them as a re- 
 ligious order of chivalry with vows of chastity re- 
 sembling those taken by the Knights of the Sword, 
 who ruled in Lithuania. 
 
 Although any parade of piety seems strangely 
 out of place in such a rough community, it was 
 considered necessary for each new recruit to be- 
 long to the Orthodox Greek religion. Matters of 
 doctrine, we read, were the cause of many bloody 
 quarrels among them. Every year two priests and 
 their attendant deacons were sent from a monastery 
 near Kiev to the encampment charged with cele- 
 brating a daily mass. "A deep bass voice and 
 ability to drink a fair share of Cossack brandy" 
 were, according to Lesur, considered part of the 
 necessary equipment for ministering to the spir- 
 itual needs of this strange parish. In the face of the 
 fanatical religious zeal of the Turks and Tartars 
 the Zaporogians could hardly allow themselves to 
 be outdone in this respect. To the battle cry of 
 "Allah! Allah!" the Zaporogians answered with the 
 rallying cry of "Jesus!" On the banners of these 
 strange crusaders were emblazoned the symbols of 
 favourite saints and martyrs of the Ukraine. Their 
 feuds with the Turkish colonies established on the 
 Black Sea, were embittered by religious hatred as 
 well as love of plunder.* 
 
 * One of the requirements occasionally demanded of 
 candidates desiring to enter the Zaporogian brotherhood 
 
THE ZAPOROGIAN COSSACKS 35 
 
 In their fragile river craft they set out fearlessly 
 across the Black Sea in reckless forays against the 
 Turk: protecting the low sides of their canoes in 
 stormy weather by mats made of reeds, or else by 
 lashing their boats together to form catamarans. 
 These typical Cossack boats, or cholni, were often 
 sixty feet in length. They were built in shipyards 
 hidden among the reedy islands of the lower 
 Dnieper by skilful artisans held in high respect 
 among Zaporogians. Often as many as fifteen 
 oars on a side were manned by Cossack rowers, 
 while a small cannon was set on a platform at the 
 prow. On account of their size and "handiness" 
 the Cossack "navy" was capable of disconcerting 
 manoeuvres unknown to Turkish strategy, so that 
 even the great war galleys of the "All-conquering" 
 Sultan Murad fell victims to their attack. 
 
 These exploits, for which enthusiastic volunteers 
 were never lacking, kept up the military spirit and 
 discipline of the Zaporogians. Whenever a short 
 peace with the Tartars of the Crimea (the foe with 
 which they were most concerned) permitted such 
 relaxations, some chieftain was always ready to 
 lead an expedition against the Sultan. Even when 
 their allies were at peace with the Porte, it was 
 impossible to prevent these raids on the "Land 
 
 was the almost unbelievable feat of paddling a canoe up 
 stream against the current of certain formidable rapids of 
 the Lower Dnieper, still pointed out by the local peas- 
 antry. 
 
36 THE COSSACKS 
 
 of the Infidel." In order to avoid unnecessary 
 quarrels, it was only after returning to the sitch 
 that the division of the booty took place. On such 
 occasions the whole community would indulge in 
 a huge masquerade. Their usual rough and tat- 
 tered garments were then replaced with silken 
 Turkish cloaks and the costly velvet cloths of Da- 
 mascus. Rich damasks were ruthlessly cut up to 
 make zippoun, the characteristic trousers of por- 
 tentous width affected by all true Cossacks of the 
 old school. Thus arrayed and with their shaggy 
 calpackSj, decorated with ostrich feathers and jew- 
 elled aigrets, the Cossacks would march in proces- 
 sion to pay their respects to the neighboring settle- 
 ments, forcing all whom they met upon the road 
 to drink with them — Polish nobles or Cossack 
 peasants alike. "Four or five days were spent in 
 drinking, dancing and boastful discourses. Every- 
 where the Cossacks were accompanied by a rude 
 orchestra and by serving men bearing huge jars of 
 beer, hydromel (*) and Cossack brandy. Thus, 
 at the end of a few days all the profits of their 
 perilous expeditions would be dissipated."** 
 ****** 
 
 When after the Cossack revolution led by Bog- 
 dan Hmielnicki, the principal Cossack settlements 
 of the Ukraine passed under the Russian rule, it 
 
 * This delicious sounding beverage was a fermented 
 mixture of honey and water. 
 
 ** See Lesur, op. cit., Vol. I, page 289. 
 
THE ZAPOROGIAN COSSACKS 37 
 
 became apparent (especially after the rise of the 
 Romanov dynasty) that there was no place for such 
 an aggressively independent community as that of 
 the Zaporogians within the borders of the Empire 
 ruled by the Tsar. Unlike the loosely held frontiers 
 of the Polish kingdom, the Russian marches were 
 guarded by imperial troops. Yet the remoteness of 
 the Cossack settlements and the position occupied 
 by the stick, preserved for a century or more the 
 "national" pretensions of the Zaporogians. But 
 the later history of this warlike brotherhood pre- 
 sents only a series of episodes without signs of po- 
 litical development or progress. The rare docu- 
 ments of this period, preserved in the convents of 
 the Ukraine, are records of achievements startling 
 in their bravery, sometimes chivalrous, but often 
 base and cruel. The love of personal freedom, at a 
 time when their neighbours were bound in shameful 
 subjection, alone gives character and unity to their 
 story. 
 
 An attempt will now be made to give, in the 
 language and spirit of the original report (made 
 to the Ataman Dorochenko by the great Zapor- 
 ogian koskevoy Sirko), some account of a famous 
 foray of the "Free Companions" against the 
 Crimean Tartars and their allies. This document 
 may be taken as a typical example of the rare 
 "sources" of Cossack history which have survived 
 to the present day — although the golden days of 
 the stick at the close of the seventeenth century and 
 
38 THE COSSACKS 
 
 the beginning of the eighteenth were probably filled 
 with enisodes similar to the one described. The 
 author has resisted all temptation (in the interest of 
 "historical truth") to tamper with the characteristic 
 bombast which marks the original. These rare 
 written records of Cossack days and the joyous 
 "diplomatic" correspondence which accompanies 
 them are, moreover, of especial interest as having 
 suggested to the great Russian historical painter 
 Repnin, the subject for his well-known Cossack 
 pictures in the Tretiakov Gallery of Moscow. 
 
 ****** 
 
 "It was only when the Dnieper was filled with 
 floating ice floes, and the steppes covered with 
 soft snow that the ever-vigilant Cossack garrison 
 of the sitch could feel themselves in a measure safe 
 from the attacks of their implacable enemies, the 
 Tartars of the Crimea. During this season the 
 fast of St. Phillip, which occurs shortly before 
 Christmas, was always strictly kept by the members 
 of the orthodox Zaporogian brotherhood. Follow- 
 ing this period of abstinence, if the weather and the 
 conditions of the plains afforded their usual pro- 
 tection, it was an equally honoured custom for the 
 Cossacks to indulge in a period of feasting and 
 drunkenness." 
 
 In the year 1675, profiting by intimate knowl- 
 edge of their habits gained by many years of war- 
 fare, the Khan of the Crimea determined to attack 
 
THE ZAPOROGIAN COSSACKS 39 
 
 the community of the sitch at this time. Turkish 
 troops had been loaned to the Khan of the Crimea 
 by the Turkish Sultan for reinforcements and a 
 serious attempt was to be made to put an end to the 
 depredation of the Cossacks in Turkish territory. 
 
 By following the course of the Dnieper, yet re- 
 maining at a distance of several miles from its 
 frozen banks, the vigilance of the Cossack patrols 
 was avoided and a large force of Crimean Tartars 
 and Turkish Janissaries reached the neighbourhood 
 of the Zaporogian encampment unnoticed by its 
 defenders. 
 
 In judging of the numbers which composed this 
 important expedition, we can only depend on the 
 evidence in the Cossack accounts. Let us then 
 state, once for all, that (if the worthy Cossack 
 pissar or clerk can be believed) "on one side were 
 engaged no less than 15,000 Janissaries or regular 
 Turkish troops," besides a "multitude" of Tartar 
 tribesmen, while the usual winter garrison of the 
 sitch did not, as a rule, exceed 2,000 men. 
 
 On arriving at a spot nearly opposite the island 
 fortress occupied by the Zaporogians, the "per- 
 fidious" Mussulmen had the good fortune to find 
 the entire Cossack outpost guarding this important 
 point overcome by their libations in honour of the 
 "Holy Day" preceding. (The Cossack historian, 
 in strong and convincing language here sets forth 
 the iniquity of an attack made at such a time!!) 
 Through the "base advantage" thus gained nearly 
 
40 THE COSSACKS 
 
 the entire force of Janissaries and "numerous" Tar- 
 tars were enabled actually to penetrate undis- 
 covered within the narrow streets of the encamp- 
 ment where they proceeded to surround each of the 
 kouren, or wooden barracks, in which the Cossack 
 companies were housed. It was at this juncture 
 that their presence was made known to the gar- 
 rison by a Cossack named Chefchika who, "moved 
 by God" chanced to glance out of a window and, 
 by the light reflected from the snow, saw to his 
 "grim amazement," the silent ranks of the enemy 
 drawn up and awaiting the signal to attack. 
 
 His courage in no way affected by this sight, he 
 proceeded quietly to awaken his sleeping comrades. 
 It was determined that the best method of meeting 
 the attack would be to place at the few available 
 windows the most skilful of the Cossack 
 marksmen, while the others should load and pass 
 to them guns and pistols in rapid succession. This 
 system of defense in which the other hourens pres- 
 ently joined, was apparently so disconcerting to 
 the Turkish troops, that when the gallant defenders 
 sallied out for a final assault they found only a 
 demoralized mob of the enemy upon whom to 
 wreak their vengeance. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Following the example of the Cossack historian 
 we shall pass over the minor tactical details of the 
 struggle which ensued, confining ourselves to the 
 
THE ZAPOROGIAN COSSACKS 41 
 
 glorious outcome. The results of this indiscreet 
 invasion, according to the chronicler, was a "loss 
 of no less than 13,500 men among the Janissaries 
 alone, while on the Cossack side a loss of but fifty 
 killed is recorded, besides eighty wounded" (sic). 
 The first pious duty of the Cossacks was to bury 
 their own dead in consecrated ground, while the 
 wounded were given over "to the care of the barber." 
 In the meantime some two thousand cavalrymen 
 started out in pursuit of the Khan of Crimea, who, 
 on the defeat of his Turkish allies, had "fled like 
 a wolf" to his distant stronghold. To judge by 
 the account we have quoted, one of the principal 
 "annoyances" caused by this invasion was the 
 question of how to dispose of the numerous bodies, 
 of slain Tartars and Janissaries, which encumbered 
 the streets of the Cossack encampment. These, 
 after much discussion (recorded at even greater 
 length in the original manuscript than the account 
 of the actual fighting itself) were pushed under the 
 ice of the river Dnieper through holes laboriously 
 cut for that purpose, whence they were swept away 
 by the swift current. 
 
 The "facts" contained in the above short sum- 
 mary are at least borne out by the tone of the cor- 
 respondence which ensued between the Zaporogian 
 Cossacks and the Turkish Sultan, whose disloyal 
 actions during a time of peace had been so signally 
 punished. One letter reads as follows ; 
 
42 THE COSSACKS 
 
 "To the Khan of Tartary 
 
 Our Unworthy Neighbour: 
 
 We, the Cossack troops of the stick, would never 
 have conceived the idea of entering upon this war 
 had you not commenced hostilities. You have sent 
 against us (what treachery!) not only your savage 
 Tartars, but also the troops of that old fool, the 
 Sultan. Had it not been for the intervention of 
 our constant friend, the great Lord Jesus — we 
 might all have perished in our sleep! Now, since 
 your disloyal ways have brought upon you dis- 
 aster — refrain from troubling us. Otherwise, we 
 will treat you after our fashion, and that of our 
 noble Cossack ancestors, by beating down your own 
 gates ! 
 
 We wish your Majesty a long and prosperous 
 reign. 
 
 Signed by Ivan Sirko, — Koshovoy Ataman 
 (for the whole community) " 
 
 At the same time a letter was written to the Sul- 
 tan in Constantinople, Mahmoud III — beginning 
 with a parody of his imperial titles as set forth at 
 the beginning of a letter admonishing the Cossacks 
 to keep the peace. The epithets show a cunning 
 knowledge of what would be most insulting to a 
 pious Moslem. 
 
 "Thou Turkish Devil: 
 
 Brother and Companion of Lucifer himself! 
 
THE ZAPOROGIAN COSSACKS 43 
 
 Who dares call himself Lord of the Christians — 
 but is not! Babylonish cookl Brewer of Jeru- 
 salem! Goat-keeper of the herds of Alexandria! 
 Swineherd of Great and Lesser Egypt! Ar- 
 menian Sow and Tartar Goat! Insolent Unbe- 
 liever! May the Devil Take you! The Cossacks 
 refuse every demand and petition that you now 
 make to them — or that you may in future invent. 
 Thank us for condescending to answer you! 
 
 (Signed) Ivan Sirko 
 
 and the Cossack troops." 
 
 The originals of the above epistles, which, for 
 obvious reasons, have been considerably condensed 
 and modified, are to be found in the annals of Kiev, 
 Vol. II, pp. 371, 382, 1891. See also a pamphlet 
 published in Petrograd in 1902 by Professor I. 
 Evarnitzky. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 YERMAK AND THE COSSACK 
 CONQUEST OF SIBERIA 
 
 ACCORDING to Lesur, the French historian 
 (who, at Napoleon's bidding, wrote a careful 
 and erudite "History of the Cossacks") it was the 
 singular destiny of the Hetman Yermak and his 
 Donskoi followers to add the immense empire of 
 Siberia to the Russian crown, rather by chance than 
 through any deliberate plan of discovery or con- 
 quest. In the course of an attempt to escape the 
 vengeance they had incurred by breaking the stern 
 peace declared along the Volga by Ivan the Ter- 
 rible, this band of marauding Cossacks were cut 
 off by the Tsar's forces from access to the "Free 
 Steppes" and obliged to ascend the course of the 
 mighty river towards the unknown North. Here 
 Yermak repeated among the aborigines of the Arc- 
 tic, exploits only comparable with the adventures 
 met with a generation before by Pizarro during his 
 conquest of Peru.* 
 
 The vast land known as Siberia covers nearly 
 one-quarter of the habitable globe. Until the latter 
 half of the fifteenth century this great expanse of 
 
 * See Lesur, op, cit. Vol. I, Page 224. 
 
 44 
 
PQ 
 w 
 
 i— i 
 
 W 
 
 « 
 
YERMAK 45 
 
 territory was as unknown to Europe as the track- 
 less ocean crossed by Columbus. About the time 
 that the continent of America was discovered the 
 Russians first entered into relations with what was 
 then called the land of "Iougra," the wide "back 
 country" beyond the low chain of the Urals. Upon 
 the savage tribes of this borderland the free bur- 
 ghers of "Lord Novgorod the Great" laid a 
 tribute of skins and precious metals.* 
 
 In an ill-chosen moment — just after the con- 
 quest of Kazan (1556) and before Ivan the Ter- 
 rible had disbanded his victorious troops — a Si- 
 berian prince named ladiger attempted to evade 
 the promised yearly tax formerly paid to the re- 
 public of Novgorod, whose liberties the Tsars of 
 Moscow had trampled underfoot but a short 
 time before. The loss of the tribute, paid by the 
 thirty thousand subjects of the Siberian princeling, 
 — which had been set at a "marten skin per inhabi- 
 tant," — directed the attention of the redoubtable 
 Tsar towards the resources of the vast unknown 
 territories to the eastward of his empire. 
 
 In the district of Oustioug, north of Viatka, a 
 family of Russian hoyars of Tartar origin, the 
 Stroganovs, had for several generations exploited 
 salt and iron mines. Although belonging to the 
 merchant class, an exception seems to have been 
 made in their favour from the rigid policy of cen- 
 
 * Waliszewski, op, cit., p. 469. See also "Siberia" by 
 M. P. Price. 
 
46 THE COSSACKS 
 
 tralization adopted by the princes of Moscow. The 
 Stroganovs not only exercised "the rights of High 
 Justice and Low," but were also allowed to main- 
 tain an armed force, on a footing which prepared 
 them either for trade or war with the neighbouring 
 Siberian chieftains. Their venture appears to have 
 prospered, for, in 1558, Anakievitch Stroganov 
 (according to records preserved in Moscow), pe- 
 titioned Ivan the Terrible for a "further concession 
 of 106 square versts on the shores of the Kama" 
 where he proposed "to erect a fort against the 
 Tartars."* 
 
 * In October 1915 the author had occasion to visit 
 the town of Veliki Oustioug, the old capital of the country 
 ruled by the Stroganovs. This place, once so remote, 
 could then be reached, without hardship, by following 
 the new railroad connecting the town of Kotlas with the 
 Trans-Siberian Line. This town (almost as ancient as 
 Veliki Oustioug) at the outbreak of the World War en- 
 joyed great, if ephemeral, prosperity on account of the 
 heavy river traffic which grew up along the northern 
 Dvina. Here it is necessary for the traveller to change 
 to a river steamer which, after fighting the slow current 
 of the Oustioug River for a day and a night, finally lands 
 its passengers at the ancient border city, whence Yermak 
 set forth on his conquest of Siberia. 
 
 The first view of Veliki-Oustioug — the pious silhouette 
 of the town's thirty or more great churches and convents 
 suddenly breaking the monotonous sky line of stunted 
 fir trees which for miles border the almost uninhabited 
 shores of the river — presents an interesting and unfore- 
 seen incident in the journey. For every score of the 
 
YERMAK 47 
 
 At this place in the year 1579 a band of 640 
 Cossacks suddenly appeared desiring to be en- 
 rolled in the private army of the Stroganovs. 
 These adventurers were under the double leader- 
 ship of a Cossack named Ivan Koltso (who, accord- 
 cording to some authorities, had not long before 
 been condemned to ignominous death by the Tsar's 
 orders), and a hardly more reputable hetman 
 named Yermak. The name of the latter, preserved 
 in stirring popular ballads and bylines, was later 
 to typify the pioneering and imperialistic genius 
 of the Russian race. Whether the legendary ex- 
 ploits of this illustrious brigand represent the ac- 
 tual history of an individual, or whether, as some 
 Russian historians maintain, we have in Yermak 
 one of those composite heroes to the making of 
 whose reputation the fame of half a score of lesser 
 pioneers has been sacrificed, is a fact impossible to 
 verify at the present day. 
 
 Aside from their sudden and suspicious appear- 
 ance in the district administered by the Stroganovs, 
 
 present inhabitants of "Oustioug the Great" there exists 
 at least one spacious church or monastery! Local tra- 
 dition declares that most of these structures — erected 
 by adventurers returning from the Siberian trail as a 
 thank offering for the dangers they had escaped — rep- 
 resent not so much the piety of their builders as the pru- 
 dent expiation of the sins committed in the mysterious 
 beyond: the cleansing, as it were, of conscience and for- 
 tune before their builders resumed the humdrum life of 
 Holy Russia. 
 
48 THE COSSACKS 
 
 all that was known of Yermak and his Cossack 
 companions can hardly have induced these pros- 
 perous merchants to invite the newcomers to re- 
 main longer than necessary in the vicinity of their 
 warehouses filled with stores of precious furs and 
 metals. During the dark winter months following 
 their arrival, the merchants appear to have urged 
 upon their guests the glorious advantages to be 
 gained by a campaign against the forest tribes, 
 whose villages and hunting grounds lay just be- 
 yond this frontier station. In proof of these state- 
 ments they showed the eager Cossacks nuggets of 
 placer gold and specimens of those strangely col- 
 oured, semi-precious minerals of the Urals which 
 even modern geologists are often at a loss to value 
 or classify. Among the Voguls, Ostiaks and other 
 peoples of Finnish origin against whom the Strog- 
 anovs had for generations carried on their inde- 
 cisive forays, the Cossacks were assured that gold 
 was "hardly prized at all." Other booty, it was 
 urged, such as furs and mastodon ivory, might read- 
 ily be captured from such cowardly and ill-armed 
 forces. It is, moreover, probable that the Cossack 
 leaders (at least one of whom still felt a noose 
 tickling his neck) were only too glad of an excuse 
 to put further leagues of wilderness between the 
 avenging troops of Ivan the Terrible and their own 
 guilty persons. 
 
 Unknown to Yermak at this time, his most heroic 
 contest was to be waged with the natural diffi- 
 
YERMAK 49 
 
 culties of the wilderness. Such a struggle was less 
 suitable, perhaps, for the poetic treatment of the 
 bylines than his battles with the aborigines. But 
 any traveller who has had occasion to visit the 
 country lying about the Urals will find, in 
 the Cossack leader's persistent courage as an 
 explorer, a subject of admiration which will 
 out-rival his military achievements. The native 
 tribes they first encountered — unlike the more 
 warlike subjects of the Tartar princes further to 
 the southward — could not oppose any formidable 
 resistance to the better armed Cossacks. Like 
 the scattered remnants of their descendants 
 who survive to the present day, the Voguls and 
 Ostiaks lived in family groups dispersed in the 
 deepest recesses of the forest. They were small of 
 stature, cowardly and anxious to live at peace with 
 their neighbours. In addition to the real dangers 
 of the wilderness they inhabited, a thousand other 
 foolish terrors assailed them through their super- 
 stitious belief in forest demons, wood sprites and 
 other fantastic creatures, whom they propitiated by 
 a system of complicated idolatrous rites. These 
 beliefs forming their only religion led them to look 
 upon their chiefs or medicine men with uncanny 
 reverence. 
 
 Skilful hunters and trappers — so that their 
 filthy bodies were covered with the rare furs of 
 mink, otter and royal ermine — their only weapons 
 of defense were bows and arrows. Against such ad- 
 
50 THE COSSACKS 
 
 versaries the firearms of the Cossacks, like those 
 carried by the conquistador es of Peru, were quick to 
 establish a terrible superiority.* 
 
 The almost impenetrable forest through which 
 Yermak and his followers were forced step by step, 
 to cut their way, the swollen streams dashing 
 towards the Arctic Sea, across which they were 
 obliged to pass, and the deep ravines filled with 
 chevaux de f rises of fallen timber, were the difficul- 
 ties which at first combined — rather than the feeble 
 though growing resistance of the native tribes — to 
 
 * On a journey through the great northern forest 
 belt of Russia referred to in a previous footnote, the 
 author encountered at every station along the new rail- 
 way the descendants of these tribes, the "Mordvins" 
 and "Tchouds" of the present day. These strange wood- 
 land creatures — flat-faced, slant-eyed, with colourless 
 whity-blond complexions — present many notable dif- 
 ferences from the more robust Russian moujiks. It is 
 interesting, however, to note the physical characteristics 
 which this inferior stock have transmitted to the Slav race. 
 The influence of Russian civilization is, however, fast 
 spreading to these isolated districts. The men generally 
 wear the outdoor dress of the Russian lower classes. The 
 women, the conservative force in every community, 
 still affect the ancient tribal costumes: coarse-woven 
 gay-coloured shawls covering homespun smocks or 
 long shirts. Wherever concessions have been made to 
 modern "style," all, as though by common consent, wear 
 town-made material of the same bright pattern and 
 colours, clearly exhibiting the transition from tribal cos- 
 tume to individual dress. 
 
YERMAK 51 
 
 impede the eastward march of the Cossacks. In- 
 deed the short northern summer was wholly passed 
 in contending with these natural obstacles, and 
 Yermak realized the necessity of returning once 
 more to his winter quarters with the Stroganovs. 
 To the latter this second winter's visit must have 
 been even less welcome than the first. Nor did the 
 diplomatic merchants cease their efforts to en- 
 courage the Cossacks to persist in their adventure 
 of looking for a practicable pathway toward the 
 unknown riches in the "beyond." 
 
 When the second slow-coming springtime had 
 arrived Yermak had succeeded in enforcing a 
 system of rigid military discipline among his un- 
 ruly followers. Attempts at desertion, or diso- 
 bedience of orders were punished by cruel pen- 
 alties. According to Lesur, the crime of blas- 
 phemy was one of those most pitilessly forbidden. 
 By Yermak's orders a portable altar with an ikon 
 of St. Nicholas "the Wonder- Worker" was con- 
 structed to accompany the little army during its 
 second expedition and before the Holy Ikons a 
 renegade monk, assisted by two unfrocked priests, 
 regularly celebrated a forest mass on Sundays and 
 Holy Days. 
 
 The delays of the second winter also enabled the 
 Cossacks to fit themselves out with a little train of 
 portable artillery whose strange thunders (and the 
 terrifying clouds of thick smoke given off by the 
 coarse gunpowder manufactured by the Strog- 
 
52 THE COSSACKS 
 
 anovs) doubled its effectiveness against the savage 
 enemy. 
 
 The Stroganovs, by exciting the cupidity and 
 ambition of the Cossacks simplified the task of their 
 leader. Tales of the riches awaiting them, once 
 the forest-guarded mountain chain of the Urals 
 could be crossed, were eagerly listened to during 
 the long winter nights of enforced idleness. Thus, 
 from an undisciplined band of brigands and 
 ruffians Yermak's genius for leadership welded a 
 small but highly tempered little army capable of 
 resisting the hardships they were to encounter for 
 the second time. 
 
 Yet the end of a second summer's campaign 
 found Yermak only a little farther advanced than 
 at the end of the previous year. On the banks of 
 the Ka or Silver River (a stream which has since 
 become famous for its fisheries) he decided to pass 
 the winter in an entrenched camp. This enabled 
 him, in spite of terrible sufferings from the cold, to 
 push on with the first signs of spring, his route 
 following the course of the river Toura. 
 
 Until this point had been reached the principal 
 difficulties met with on Yermak's line of march 
 were the natural obstacles and the problem 
 of obtaining provisions. But the expedition now 
 found itself confronted by more valiant enemies. 
 The Tartar and Tartar-led tribes along the shores 
 of the stream they were obliged to follow offered 
 a stubborn and unexpected resistance. The whole 
 
YERMAK 53 
 
 summer was consumed in bitter skirmishes with this 
 new enemy (1580). 
 
 The third long northern winter was passed in 
 the little town of Tchingis, near the modern city 
 of Tioumen. The Tartar inhabitants of this place 
 had amassed a considerable store of grain, and pos- 
 sessed besides, flocks of sheep and cattle, so that 
 for the Cossacks the winter passed pleasantly 
 enough. Spring found them descending the swollen 
 Toura (seeking to gain the course of a stream now 
 recognized as the Tobol, whose waters were re- 
 ported to be navigable) and here Yermak and his 
 followers encountered for the first time an army 
 formidable in numbers and equipment. No less 
 than six confederated Tartar chieftains gathering 
 their subject Vogul and Ostiak tribesmen, awaited 
 the coming of the Cossacks in an easily def endable 
 pass. Fortunately the latter were now able to 
 build and launch upon the lower Toura the ''long 
 boats" which many of their number had learned to 
 manoeuvre with skill among the rocks and rapids 
 of the Dneiper. 
 
 The forces of the enemy, defending every rocky 
 pass and difficult portage, though again and again 
 dispersed, returned with fresh re-enforcements to 
 dispute the way. The more faint-hearted among 
 the Cossacks even began to talk of returning to 
 Russia. But Yermak could now afford to peer at 
 the protests of these malcontents. The intrepid 
 leader at last possessed an unanswerable argument: 
 
54 THE COSSACKS 
 
 pointing out the impossibility of returning against 
 the current of the long rapids that lay behind them. 
 In their dismal councils even the mutineers decided 
 that the only safety lay in pressing forward towards 
 the unknown.* 
 
 We now come to an incident in Yermak's voyage 
 made famous by the Russian ballad singers — the 
 telling of which never fails to draw a shout of 
 laughter from their hearers. In the peasant izbas 
 of the North or the Cossack villages of the Ukraine, 
 the cleverly planned ruse invented by the hero 
 Yermak to disengage his men from the ambuscade 
 laid by the Tartars and Voguls is always a favour- 
 ite incident of folk-history. At a place where the 
 little Cossack army was forced to pass through a 
 long fall of rapids (a point where the Tobol rushes 
 between high narrow banks) the Tartars had raised 
 a barrier of rocks and logs "clamped together with 
 iron chains," meanwhile entrenching themselves on 
 the overhanging cliffs along the shore. With their 
 little flotilla rushing headlong towards this well-laid 
 trap, Yermak and his men learned of its existence in 
 the nick of time. Some urged the leader to 
 abandon the boats — built with so much toil and 
 indispensable for the further success of their 
 journey — and by proceeding across country to 
 
 * Compare the story told by the Russian bylines with 
 the similar adventures recounted in the chronicle of Gon- 
 zalo Pizarro and Orellano in their voyage down the 
 Amazon from Quito. 
 
YERMAK 55 
 
 avoid the Tartar entrenchments. But the mas- 
 ter-cunning of Yermak was equal to the occa- 
 sion. By his orders short lengths of logs were 
 cut and set up in the "long boats." These he 
 draped with the tattered uniforms of his fol- 
 lowers, while each scarecrow figure, surmounted 
 with a shaggy Cossack calpack, was provided with 
 a long sapling to simulate the Cossack pikes. Upon 
 these dummy warriors, steering down upon them 
 during the evening dusk, — each boat guided by 
 one brave volunteer — the Tartar hordes loosed 
 the fury of their bows and arrows. What must 
 have been their dismay to find themselves in turn 
 surprised and overwhelmed by a new army — the 
 nearly naked forces of Yermak, who, creeping 
 cautiously through the bushes attacked them 
 fiercely from the flank and rear.* 
 
 Soon after this event news was brought to Yer- 
 mak that near Karatchin, a little town not far 
 from the river Ob, a Tartar prince had gathered 
 and hidden a "great treasure" which included, be- 
 sides a store of native placer gold and precious 
 stones, a part of the spoil captured by the soldiers 
 of Genghis Khan. ( These were treasures, which the 
 soldiers of the great Asiatic conqueror were carry- 
 ing back with them to Tartary, when, as the chron- 
 iclers state "they fell into the hands of the even 
 more barbarous Voguls.") Yermak now har- 
 
 * Fisher's "Histoire de Siberie," quoted by Lesur, op. 
 cit. y vol. I, page 240. 
 
56 THE COSSACKS 
 
 angued his followers concerning the merit to be 
 obtained in recovering from the heathen these 
 sacred vessels of gold and silver robbed from the 
 churches and monasteries of Holy Russia. 
 
 Decided by Yermak's persuasions to turn aside 
 from their journey in order to undertake this pious 
 adventure, the conquest proved an easy one for 
 the Cossacks. But the added weight of their spoil 
 nearly proved the undoing of these strange 
 crusaders. Again, in reading the story of Yermak's 
 exploits we are reminded of the conquistador es 
 Pizarro and Alvarado in the bleak Andean high- 
 lands, who although starving, clung to the golden 
 spoils of the Peruvian Incas until they fell ex- 
 hausted by the way. But the courage of the Cos- 
 sack army was now strengthened by tangible 
 proofs that this bleak wilderness actually concealed 
 riches and booty — a tithe at least of that promised 
 them by the Stroganovs. 
 
 In their retreat the Tartars had diligently swept 
 the entire countryside bare of provisions, but Yer- 
 mak meets each new danger with another ruse : the 
 solemn Fast of the Assumption being at hand, in- 
 stead of the fourteen days of fasting prescribed by 
 the Russian ritual, the resourceful Cossack leader 
 declares a "fast of repentance" lasting forty days. 
 Thus even the cruel hunger tearing at their vitals 
 renewed — through their mystical faith — the 
 strength of his little army. No less sustaining, 
 perhaps, was the hope of yet richer spoils through 
 
YERMAK 57 
 
 the sack of the Tartar cities which they knew lay 
 just beyond. 
 
 ^ yfc tjpr ^r ^r 
 
 Ever true to the unities of a great epic the crisis 
 of our chronicle now approaches. The Kalmouck 
 Prince Koutzum, of the imperial Tartar house of 
 Timour Mangou Khan, at this time ruled over all 
 the country between the river Ob and the Urals. 
 To his exalted leadership even the rebellious 
 Samoyeds, Voguls and Ostiaks now submitted in 
 the face of the common danger. His woodland 
 capital, protected by staked palisades and sur- 
 rounded by a deep moat, was established at a place 
 called I shir, which, as the ballad-chronicle states, 
 "the Europeans called Sibir." The site of this 
 forest metropolis (which may have given its name 
 to the whole vast territory of Siberia) was not far 
 from the present city of Tobolsk. Here was to 
 occur the inevitable meeting of those whom the by- 
 lines call the "lords of the future and of the past." 
 
 The battle, long expected and apparently 
 equally dreaded by both sides, was decided in 
 favour of the Cossacks by a curious incident. A 
 Russian cannon which during some foray with the 
 Tartars had fallen into the hands of the forest 
 tribesmen, had for generations been revered as 
 a redoubtable fetish by the Voguls. Dragging this 
 silent weapon with them to the battle field, the 
 savages confidently turned it upon the attack of 
 Yermak's little army — which was advancing upon 
 
58 THE COSSACKS 
 
 them in a dense mass, the thunderbolts of the 
 dreaded firearms playing like lightning along its 
 front. But heedless of the incantations of the 
 shamans the weapon in which the Voguls had 
 placed their hopes remained obstinately silent. 
 Their fatuous belief in its magical powers had led 
 them to expect their ordinance to vomit destruction 
 of its own accord upon their enemies ! Thus betrayed 
 in their dearest hopes they turned and fled into their 
 impenetrable forests — leaving their Tartar allies 
 to bear the brunt of the Cossack charge. 
 
 Terribly reduced in numbers, the Cossack forces 
 probably consisted at this time of but little more 
 than three hundred men, while aside from the in- 
 dependable woodlanders, the Tartar-trained war- 
 riors among the enemy were hardly more numerous. 
 It would thus appear that the fate of the great 
 Siberian empire hung on the fortunes of what 
 was little more than a woodland skirmish! 
 
 This decisive victory, won over the acknowledged 
 chief of the Trans-Ural, and the valuable spoil 
 gained in the encounter, encouraged Yermak to 
 take a momentous step. He now decided to enter 
 into negotiations with the distant court of Ivan the 
 Terrible, and to secure a pardon from his sover- 
 eign if possible for all past misdeeds. That 
 Yermak (who had now advanced into an un- 
 known country beyond the reach of the Tsar's 
 justice, and occupied a position comparable to that 
 of an independent prince) should thus trembling 
 
YERMAK 59 
 
 seek to make his peace with the distant ruler in 
 Moscow, is a sign of the great progress towards 
 national unity which Russia had made under the 
 stern rule of the Tsar Vasili and his successor. 
 The spectacle of a Spanish hidalgo, all powerful 
 in his colonial realm, ordering himself home to 
 execution or to await the pleasure of his king, had 
 already been noted on more than one occasion in 
 the chronicles of Spanish-America. In Russia, 
 however, such conduct is the mark of a new era. 
 
 But even in making his doubtful peace with Ivan, 
 Yermak was cautious. Either doubtful of his 
 own reception, or anxious to maintain his recent 
 conquests, he ordered his lieutenant, Koltso (who 
 apparently now occupied a wholly subordinate po- 
 sition) to undertake this task. A condemned 
 criminal, with a price upon his head, thus became 
 the messenger chosen to announce to Ivan that a 
 vast new territory, which Cossack courage had con- 
 quered, had been added to his empire. 
 
 Here, again, the poetic version of the folksongs 
 which have built up the popular legend of Yermak, 
 and the records of history are wholly in accord. 
 Ivan, after listening with interest to the tale of 
 Yermak's adventures, readily forgave Koltso and 
 his companions. Graciously accepting the "sixty 
 sacks of precious furs" (which the Cossack artfully 
 represented were but the first tribute of a con- 
 quered nation) he promised to take Siberia under 
 his "protection." In return, Koltso was charged to 
 
60 THE COSSACKS 
 
 deliver to Yermak, besides the cloak which the 
 Tsar wore upon his own august shoulders, a mag- 
 nificent cuirass, destined to play a fatal role in the 
 fast approaching climax of Yermak's legendary 
 career. 
 
 An even more acceptable favour was the prompt 
 dispatch of five hundred troops from Ivan's new 
 army who were sent to reinforce Yermak's de- 
 pleted forces. These were placed under the tem- 
 porary command of Prince Volkowski, a dvorianin, 
 or courtier from the imperial court. As a further 
 honour, "they were enrolled under the title of Cos- 
 sacks, heretofore no very complimentary appella- 
 tion in the eyes of constituted Russian authority." 
 Moreover, the supreme command of the expedition 
 appears to have remained in Yermak's hands in 
 spite of the presence of the imperial representative. 
 
 ****** 
 
 But the long epic of Yermak's adventures now 
 nears its close. The winter following the safe re- 
 turn from Moscow of Koltso accompanied by the 
 Russian voevod, had been a disastrous one for the 
 Cossacks. The supply of food upon which the ex- 
 pedition depended for the cold season was ex- 
 hausted long before spring, perhaps through the 
 unexpected arrival of new reinforcements.* Much 
 valuable provender had been burned or wasted in 
 brutal unnecessary forays against the villages of 
 
 * Lesur, page 257. 
 
YERMAK 61 
 
 the forest tribesmen. Even the flight of the latter 
 was fatal to their conquerors. The Voguls and 
 Ostiaks possessed secrets and "charms" unknown 
 to the Cossacks for capturing the winter game and 
 for fishing during the season when the ice upon the 
 rivers was too thick to cut through. Thus, 
 through their own misdeeds famine and a great 
 pestilence broke out among the Cossacks. Among 
 the first to succumb was the dvorianin, the imperial 
 courtier commanding Ivan's troops. 
 
 Learning of these misfortunes the enemy now 
 began to gather in formidable numbers and often 
 boldly attacked the Cossack camp. Koltso, Yer- 
 mak's fellow leader, was ambushed and slain dur- 
 ing a foray in search of provisions. 
 
 Following this series of disasters the welcome 
 news was brought to Yermak that a caravan 
 of Bokhariot merchants had arrived from Central 
 Asia to trade with the new Russian outposts. This 
 important mission, it was reported, had been halted 
 through fear of meeting Koutzum's Tartar soldiers 
 on the shores of the Vagai, an affluent of the 
 Irtish. The Cossacks now decided to go boldly 
 forth to protect the march of the caravan towards 
 their camp. Too late they learned that they had 
 been made the victims of a Tartar ruse. Yermak 
 and his men, surrounded on all sides in a woodland 
 ambush, took refuge on an island in the Irtish. 
 Here, while the whole camp slept exhausted by the 
 privations of their march, they were surprised by 
 
62 THE COSSACKS 
 
 the enemy. Yermak, at the head of a trusted hand- 
 ful of his followers, cut his way with little difficulty 
 through the ranks of the enemy, who no longer 
 dared to meet the hero face to face. Then, while 
 making good his retreat, a false step threw the 
 Cossack leader into the swift, deep current of the 
 stream. The weight of his rich cuirass, the fatal 
 gift of the Tsar, from which, with superstitious 
 reverence, he never had separated himself, pinned 
 him among the stones at the bottom of the river. 
 
 The Apotheosis : Here the sober thread of prob- 
 ability in the narrative of Yermak becomes almost 
 lost in the bright legends which the bylines have 
 woven about the hero's end. 
 
 "The Tartars, recognizing the body of the chief- 
 tain by the great golden eagle emblazoned on his 
 armor, hung the corpse upon a framework of poles, 
 and for six weeks made it a target for their archers. 
 Yet even the carrion birds of prey, wheeling in the 
 dark clouds about the hero's head, respected the 
 august remains — a terrifying and prodigious 
 proof to the Mussulmen that the dead leader was 
 of no common clay! At night a cloud of baleful 
 fire flickered about his head . . .," and this 
 although no odor of putrefaction arose from the 
 body!" The Tartars, persuaded by these omens, 
 decided to bury the remains of Yermak with all 
 the ceremony due to one of their own heroes. His 
 grave, for many generations, became the resort of 
 the Tartar magicians and of the shamans or 
 
YERMAK 63 
 
 "Medicine-men" who were most honoured among 
 the Voguls and Ostiaks . . . . " Thus bereft in turn 
 of their three leaders, the Cossack expedition re- 
 turned in disorder to the Russian outposts. For 
 a time the conquests that Yermak had made with 
 so much courage and persistence were abandoned. 
 But his discoveries and example had not been in 
 vain. The legend of the Cossack hero — an epic 
 of empire — remained to stir the Cossack spirit to 
 new adventures. It was largely through Cossack 
 exploration and settlement that the vast land of 
 Siberia was made known to Europe during the two 
 succeeding centuries. 
 
 In a recent work by Prof. Golder, the eminent 
 American authority on the history of Alaska, the 
 story of the discovery of and explorations in 
 Eastern Siberia and the Western coast of America 
 by Yermak's successors is told in fascinating detail. 
 
 Upon his deathbed Peter the Great continually 
 asked for news of a Cossack expedition which, un- 
 der his orders, had been sent out to solve the mys- 
 tery of a greatly desired "possible isthmus" which 
 he thought must join the continents of Asia 
 and the Americas. An extract from the directions 
 personally addressed by the Tsar to the leaders of 
 this quest shows what degree of pioneering work 
 was expected, even in 1719, of Cossack enterprise. 
 
 "You are to proceed to Kamchatka, as you have 
 been ordered, and determine whether Asia and 
 
64 THE COSSACKS 
 
 America are united, and go not only North and 
 South, but East and West, putting in a chart all 
 that you see." (See Golder's "Russian Expansion 
 in the Pacific," p. 114, etc.) 
 
 If the tossing waters of Behring Strait had not 
 stopped the long ride of the Cossack pioneers, the 
 western coast of North America might have been 
 added to the Tsar's empire before Anglo- 
 Saxon explorers could have gained a foothold 
 there. A Cossack captain was the first white man 
 to set foot upon the coast of Alaska — thus linking 
 the history of our great Eastern neighbor Siberia 
 with our own. And, while Cossack troopers were 
 fighting to hold a great continent for Civiliza- 
 tion — as against Bolshevik "f rightfulness" and 
 misrule — in the Siberian capital at Omsk the re- 
 puted saints-day of Yermak the Discoverer was 
 solemnly recalled by a parade and review of the 
 armies of Free Russia before his statue at the door 
 of the great Cathedral. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 BOGDAN HMELNICKY; A COSSACK 
 NATIONAL HERO 
 
 THE magic call of free land had slowly re- 
 peopled the devastated steppes of the Ukraine 
 following the withdrawal of the Tartar invasion. 
 Little did the first hardy Cossack pioneers, who 
 built their homesteads in this "smiling wilderness" 
 know or care that by this act they subjected them- 
 selves to the feudal claims of former Polish and 
 Lithuanian overlords. Too feeble to make good 
 their pretensions against the Tartars, these nobles 
 now sought to exercise their "rights" over the new- 
 comers. But until the middle of the seventeenth 
 century some acknowledged leader had been lack- 
 ing among the Cossack chieftains. Until this time 
 the very name of Cossack had indicated a "master- 
 less" man, differentiating their race from the 
 Russian peasant class who had long since bartered 
 liberty in exchange for order. In Bogdan Hmel- 
 nicky the scattered settlements and clans of the 
 steppes found a hero through whose genius their 
 warlike race was to receive for a brief period the 
 impulse of nationality. 
 
 The industry and courage of the Cossacks had 
 
 65 
 
66 THE COSSACKS 
 
 brought prosperity if not peace to the deserted 
 steppes. The Polish aristocrats of the border, 
 panye and starostsi, were now for the first time 
 safe behind the bulwark of their settlements, and 
 already had begun to look with disfavour on their 
 democratic protectors. Rightly enough, they con- 
 sidered that the "Free People" were dangerous 
 neighbors for their own serfs, meek, priest-ridden 
 folk exploited alike by Jew and Jesuit. 
 
 In our own day when the problems of a "Free 
 Poland" unite the sympathies of the victorious 
 democracies, it is difficult to realize the meaning 
 that "Polish Freedom" must have conveyed to the 
 peasant and Cossack population of the Ukraine 
 two centuries ago. The persistent loyalty with 
 which the Polish people have clung to their faith 
 and their nationality has won the admiration of the 
 whole civilized world. Yet the most superficial 
 study of Polish national history reveals the reason 
 for many of their past misfortunes. 
 
 The only recognized citizens of the old "re- 
 public" of Poland were the panye, or nobles, — a 
 class so jealous of its arrogant equality that the 
 negative vote of a single gentleman could set at 
 naught the deliberations of the entire nobiliary 
 body gathered in council. Their parliaments were 
 usually held in the open fields near Cracow or 
 Warsaw, often on horseback. These were attended 
 by all of aristocratic lineage who chose to be 
 present, either to vote or to impose their opinions 
 
BOGDAN : A COSSACK NATIONAL HERO 67 
 
 by their shouts or the clash of their weapons. The 
 great Polish nobles often attended these as- 
 semblies accompanied by private armies of horse, 
 foot and artillery, recruited from among their serfs 
 and retainers. Naturally, few of these armed as- 
 sizes passed off without conflict and the spilling of 
 much azure blood. 
 
 No Polish pan might engage in trade. To buy 
 and sell was considered degrading and, therefore, 
 forbidden their class. Yet these strange "repub- 
 lican" aristocrats might become the humble ser- 
 vants of a fellow pan without losing their rights in 
 the national assembly. Only the nobles were per- 
 mitted to own land, and too often the exploitation 
 of their peasants was left in the hands of Jew or 
 German "factors" or overseers. The only occupa- 
 tion of the masters of the soil lay in the more con- 
 genial employments of law-making — and law- 
 breaking. In the tumultuous assemblies of the no- 
 biliary Diet only one principle seems to have met 
 with general agreement — the God-given right of 
 the pan to exploit his serfs as natural "property." 
 Among the free peasants and Cossacks of the 
 Ukraine it was commonly reported that the Polish 
 priests taught their peasant parishioners to answer 
 a question of the catechism beginning "Why has 
 God created you?" by the humble response: "To 
 give our service to our noble lords." 
 
 The civilization of Poland was Catholic and 
 Roman: the civilization of the border provinces 
 
68 THE COSSACKS 
 
 looked towards the East and remembered By- 
 zance. These differences have persisted to the 
 present time, but in the early seventeenth century, 
 when Catholic Poland was a powerful state and 
 Russia still in the making, religious oppression 
 sowed the seed of differences which have not yet 
 died away. The people of the Orthodox Ukraine 
 — peasants and Cossacks alike — could only look 
 to a distant Tsar for redress when the armed emis- 
 saries of the oppressing Polish Church rode among 
 them demanding tithes and taxes. Or else — as the 
 wise King Sigismond of Poland is reported to have 
 himself advised them — they might "trust to their 
 own Cossack swords." ^ 
 
 The complete reunion of Poland and Lithuania^* ) 
 decreed at Lublin in 1569 had resulted in a promise 
 to the Greek Orthodox population of the border 
 lands that the freedom of their religion would be 
 respected. But the militant Catholic order of the 
 Society of Jesus was firmly entrenched at Warsaw. 
 To the influence of these learned and courtly 
 prelates the Polish aristocracy owed their aston- 
 ishing progress in the arts of civilization and their, 
 perhaps too faithful, conformity to the more super- 
 ficial standards of western Europe. The not un- 
 natural ambition of the Jesuits — and of the Polish 
 nobles whose political policy as well as their 
 conscience was dominated by these spiritual di- 
 rectors, — lay in bringing about the submission of 
 the Orthodox provinces of the Polish frontier to the 
 
BOGDAN : A COSSACK NATIONAL HERO 69 
 
 rule of the Catholic church. By one of those able 
 compromises which formed the basis of Jesuit 
 diplomacy, they conceived the idea of endowing 
 these border races with a separate "Uniate" church. 
 This allowed the Orthodox believers to retain some 
 features of the old ritual, to which they clung so 
 persistently, while yielding obedience to the Pope 
 at Rome. But this first crafty step towards a more 
 irrevocable union was viewed with not unnatural 
 suspicion from the beginning. In 1595 all but 
 thirty-seven of the bishops whose sees lay in the 
 Orthodox provinces had succumbed to the power- 
 ful influence of the Jesuits. Not so, however, their 
 parishioners, the sturdy Ukrainian peasantry and 
 the Cossack polki. To these latter Orthodoxy 
 meant personal liberty and the dignity of freemen, 
 while Catholicism preached obedience and blind 
 submission. 
 
 The lot of the Orthodox clergy and peasants of 
 the Ukraine, separated by a gulf of fanaticism from 
 their feudal Polish lords, was voiced in Morris 
 Drecninski's protest to the King in the Polish 
 Diet:* 
 
 "When your Majesty goes to war against the 
 Turk who furnishes the greater part of your army? 
 Russians practicing the Orthodox faith! How, 
 then, can we be asked to sacrifice our lives abroad 
 when at home there is no peace? Our miseries, the 
 miseries of the Russian subjects of Poland, are 
 
 * Rambaud, op cit, p. 314. 
 
70 THE COSSACKS 
 
 patent to everyone. In the great cities seals close 
 the doors of our churches and their holy treasuries 
 are despoiled. In our monasteries the monks are 
 driven forth and cattle stabled in their place. Our 
 children are without baptism and their corpses are 
 thrown out from the town like the bodies of dead 
 animals. Men and women must live together with- 
 out God's benediction given by a priest. Death is 
 without confession or sacrament. Is not this an 
 offence against God and will not God avenge us?" 
 
 Another grievance, even more galling to the 
 Orthodox frontiersmen, was found in the behaviour 
 of the Jew and German "intendants" who usually 
 acted as intermediaries between the Polish lords of 
 the manor and the long-suffering population of 
 their estates. These "unbelievers" were often 
 given "control of the rights of hunting and fishing, 
 the roads and wine shops" — even access to the 
 Orthodox churches was to be obtained from them 
 only by paying a fee. 
 
 The bitterest irony of the situation we have 
 described lay in the fact that these burdens were 
 laid by the aristocracy, not as in the rest of Europe, 
 upon a grovelling population of serfs to whom their 
 lords at least afforded protection, but upon a border 
 nation of alien faith and blood who, following the 
 policy of the Polish kings, possessed a system of 
 martial preparedness and, indeed, were the princi- 
 pal protectors of the Polish frontiers. 
 
 The rampart against the Turks and Tartars, 
 
BOGDAN : A COSSACK NATIONAL HERO 71 
 
 formed by the Cossack settlements, had by this 
 time become fully organized. They formed no less 
 than twenty regular Cossack polki or regiments, 
 each under its own colonel, or polkovnik. The 
 whole of this well disciplined army obeyed the com- 
 mands of a single military chief called the "Hetman 
 of the Ukraine," who received his appointment 
 from the King of Poland. In all his decisions this 
 officer was guided by the advice of a starshina or 
 council of the Cossack elders. 
 
 Besides the above troops, recruited from among 
 the inhabitants of the Cossack settlements and the 
 "slovods" or armed villages nearer the Tartar fron- 
 tier, the warlike brotherhood of the Zaporogian 
 Cossacks had now grown into a powerful military 
 organization. Their stronghold — the sitch — 
 formed a permanent camp or rendezvous beyond 
 the rapids of the Dnieper. These warriors — fa- 
 mous in all Europe — represented the perfection, 
 or rather the extreme, of devotion to the principles 
 of free Cossack life. Their celebrated infantry 
 were the only troops capable of withstanding the 
 shock of Polish cavalry, the heavily armed hou- 
 zars or hussars of noble birth, and the less showy, 
 but no less invincible dragoons. 
 
 In many places along the border the Cossacks 
 had old-established settlements scattered among the 
 serf -tilled lands belonging to the Polish and Lithu- 
 anian nobles. Often these homesteads, which the 
 Cossacks had reclaimed from the steppes, were 
 
72 THE COSSACKS 
 
 tenaciously claimed through some shadowy feudal 
 right by absentee Polish landlords. By the latter, 
 the Free Cossacks and their institutions were of 
 course considered a dangerous example to the doc- 
 ile Polish peasantry. 
 
 In order to discourage the growth of a class of 
 Cossack proprietors, even the tolerant Polish king, 
 Stephen Bathory, had tried to establish a register 
 of "Free Cossacks" whose numbers were not to 
 exceed six thousand. The surplus of the Cos- 
 sacks — those not needed for purposes of border 
 defense — were often forced to labor on the land of 
 some feudal lord. It was concerning the coveted 
 right of inscription upon this list of free men and 
 upon grounds of religious oppression that the prin- 
 cipal difference now arose which was to separate 
 the Cossack nation from their allegiance to the 
 kings of Poland. Long patient under wrongs, they 
 felt the power to redress: the Cossacks of the 
 Ukraine only awaited a hero to lead them in a war 
 of rightful assertion and protest. 
 
 Bogdan Hmelnicky had been chosen by the 
 Swedish King of Poland, Vladislas (or Valdemar) 
 Vasa, as Hetman of the Cossacks of the Ukraine, 
 on account of his record as a soldier, and because 
 judged by the standards of his time, he possessed 
 "no small share of learning" — the ability both to 
 read and write. Such talents were almost a mark 
 of erudition among the Cossacks of the seventeenth 
 century. In his youth a brilliant defense of the 
 
BOGDAN : A COSSACK NATIONAL HERO 73 
 
 fortress of Zolkiev against the Crimean Tartars 
 had made his reputation known even in Europe, 
 where the gazettes were always much concerned 
 with Polish affairs.* 
 
 The incident which changed Bogdan from a 
 conscientious official of the Polish crown and 
 made him the implacable enemy of his former pa- 
 trons is recorded in different ways by contemporary 
 historians, — usually according to their race or 
 prejudices. All are agreed that he was the victim 
 of a cruel wrong, and even a Polish writer of his 
 time finds his principal fault to have been that "he 
 revenged himself upon the state for a private 
 iniquity."** 
 
 Bogdan was a "free-holder" or non-noble pro- 
 prietor of a small farm and flour mill at a place 
 
 * If we are to accept the version set forth in Sien- 
 kiewicz's "Heroic Romance" — "Fire and Sword," Bog- 
 dan's reputation would not be much better than that of a 
 brutal adventurer who, by inciting the frontier popula- 
 tions to revolt, caused untold misery throughout the Po- 
 lish "Republic," and among his own countrymen. Fortu- 
 nately for Bogdan's good name, the fine scorn of the 
 gifted Polish writer for the "base-born" Cossack and his 
 glorification of the perjured "Yarema" (Prince Jeremy 
 Visnowiecki), are not shared by historical authorities. 
 The truth is probably to be found somewhere between the 
 work of fiction referred to and the account found in Sal- 
 vandy's Histoire de Jean Sobieski." 
 
 ** See note, Vol. L, page 189, Salvandy's Histoire de 
 Jean SobiesJci. 
 
74 THE COSSACKS 
 
 called Czehrin near the shores of the Dnieper. His 
 little property lay in a country where for leagues 
 around the land was owned, or rather claimed, by 
 the great Polish family of Konietspolski. The in- 
 tendant of these feudal lords casting a covetous eye 
 on the Naboth's vineyard belonging to the Cossack 
 hetman, summoned him before a tribunal pre- 
 sided over by their common master, Alexander 
 Konietspolski. Here, after due process of feudal 
 law, Bogdan heard himself summarily dispossessed. 
 To protest against such a sentence was unheard-of 
 insolence. Yet the hetman (although he knew that 
 Cossack "rights" stood little chance of prevailing 
 against a Polish magnate who himself interpreted 
 the laws) ventured to take this step — trusting in 
 his record of past services to the "republic." As 
 an all-sufficient answer, the veteran soldier was 
 sentenced to serve a term in the jail of the Koni- 
 etspolski. 
 
 Fortunately for the Cossack nation, Bogdan was 
 able to make his escape, and we soon find him an 
 honoured guest in that citadel of personal liberty, 
 the impenetrable sitch of the Zaporogians. Among 
 the island fortresses defended by this famous 
 brotherhood, even the armed retainers of Koniets- 
 polski dared not pursue him. Meanwhile, the in- 
 tendant, Czaplinski, in order to revenge himself in 
 true seignorial fashion, visited Bogdan's homestead 
 at the head of his retainers. The crime that ensued 
 is recounted in many ways. The poetical necessities 
 
BOGDAN : A COSSACK NATIONAL HERO 75 
 
 of the case may have caused the Cossack ballad- 
 historians to rouse their countrymen by painting 
 the intendant's conduct in its blackest colours, 
 Czaplinski, besides depriving the hetman of his 
 property sought, in his absence, "to place upon the 
 honour of his victim's family an unspeakable out- 
 rage." 
 
 The whole incident is but one in a long story of 
 oppression, yet it was the spark necessary to fire 
 the powder magazine of Cossack indignation and 
 to rouse their fierce resistance to wrongs they had 
 too long patiently endured. The war which now 
 began between the nobles of the Polish "republic" 
 on the one hand and the Free Cossacks and Ukrai- 
 nian peasants on the other was to end only after 
 the fairest provinces of the border land had again 
 and again been devastated with "fire and sword." 
 
 It was at the head of nearly 100,000 Cossack 
 soldiers and a horde of Tartars whom the promised 
 plunder of the Polish castles had enlisted on the 
 side of their bitterest enemies, that the hetman re- 
 turned to demand an accounting from the Koniet- 
 polski. As he advanced, new volunteers flocked to 
 his standards: Cossacks, peasants, and gentle- 
 men of the Ukraine, whom religious persecution 
 had driven from their estates. In the space of a 
 few weeks he found himself the leader of an army 
 of irregular troops estimated at 300,000 men — a 
 whole people in arms. From now on until his death 
 Bogdan was an uncrowned king — the head of a 
 
76 THE COSSACKS 
 
 Cossack nation for the first time united. As a sym- 
 bol or scepter of authority he carried in his hand a 
 reed from the shores of the River Dneiper. 
 
 Thinking to crush without difficulty this motley 
 gathering (for in spite of the stiffening battalions 
 of Zaporogian frontiersmen the Cossack polki were 
 scarcely a match for the regular troops maintained 
 by the Polish republic) a brilliant company of 
 nobles set forth from Warsaw "as to the chase." 
 Their leader was a brave young general — 
 Stephen Pototski. At Zoltivody — the Yellow 
 Waters — this army of Polish nobles thought to 
 ride roughshod over the peasant bands, but their 
 own defeat was complete and crushing. 
 
 Vladislas, the King of Poland — the wise ruler 
 of a distracted nobility — received on his deathbed 
 a message from Bogdan. Although the Cossack 
 chieftain was now victorious, his letter was a sub- 
 missive proposal (dated June 2, 1648) suggesting, 
 not dictating, the terms of an honourable peace. 
 The principal privilege asked for was an assurance 
 that the "ancient rights" of the Cossacks, notably 
 the famous "Register of Freemen," should be re- 
 stored, and that the right of free worship be 
 allowed to those of the Greek-Orthodox faith. Per- 
 haps the very mildness of the tone of Bogdan's 
 communication deceived Prince Jeremy Visno- 
 wiecki, the new chief of the Polish armies. Prince 
 Jeremy was the embodiment of Jesuitical intol- 
 erance and well-born arrogance, but to these de- 
 
BOGDAN : A COSSACK NATIONAL HERO 77 
 
 fects he joined one doubtful virtue — stupid and 
 uncalculating courage. Strengthened by a few 
 minor successes among his own revolted villages, 
 he now thought only of punishing the offenders. 
 "Strike so that they may feel!!" he had ordered his 
 judges and executioners. The story of his "fright- 
 fulness" brought to the Cossack camp new and 
 more desperate levies of volunteers. 
 
 No reply had even been vouchsafed by the proud 
 nobility to Bogdan's proposal of peace. Indeed 
 none was awaited: on foreign agent and Jesuit 
 priest — the twin scourges of the long-suffering 
 Orthodox peasants of the Ukraine — fell the 
 weight of Cossack vengeance. The stories of the 
 wrongs of these "martyrs" have generally survived 
 the grievances they provoked. It is but fair, how- 
 ever, to search for some underlying motive of 
 justice behind the Cossack brutalities which have 
 been so eloquently exploited. In spite of the 
 naturally prejudiced accounts of Polish historians, 
 the student of the present day will find something 
 besides blind ferocity in the acts of this "coalition 
 of Mussulmen, Socinians and Greeks," who in 
 their furious crusade overthrew churches, burned 
 monasteries, "granting their lives to monks and 
 nuns only to enjoy the spectacle of their forced 
 nuptials, celebrated in the shadow of the sword." * 
 
 Fleeing before the advancing Cossack army, a 
 horde of fugitives: old men, women and children, 
 
 * Salvandy op. cit. Vol. I, page 191. 
 
78 THE COSSACKS 
 
 the inhabitants of iiic border villages, brought to 
 the castles and cities of Poland the first news of 
 these unexpected, unbelievable disasters to her 
 armies. Thus at a time when Western Europe was 
 celebrating the end of thirty years of continual 
 bloodshed by signing the treaty of Westphalia, the 
 border world of the Slav nation took up the burden 
 of war. 
 
 After the death of the wise Vladislas, a great 
 Plenary Diet of the nobles of Poland was held on 
 the field of Volna. While the excitable Panye 
 screamed recriminations at each other's heads — 
 trying in disorderly conclave to elect a new king 
 for their distracted nation — Jeremy Visnowiecki 
 with an army of 140,000 men, nobles of Poland 
 with their serfs and mercenaries, tried to stem the 
 tide of invasion at Plavace. But at the approach 
 of the Cossacks and their allies this forlorn hope, 
 gathered from all her wide lands to meet Poland's 
 extremity, melted away in most ungentlemanly 
 panic before the waving of Bogdan's reed — the 
 peasant standard. 
 
 Bogdan's wise policy now spared the farmsteads 
 and the Roman Catholic churches dear to the Polish 
 peasants. But upon the castles of the nobility, 
 stored with treasures of art which excited the admir- 
 ation of every European traveller who had visited 
 these distant lands, the advancing host wreaked its 
 anger. Bogdan no longer desired a mere Cossack 
 vengeance. He was now the leader of a popular 
 
BOGDAN : A COSSACK NATIONAL HERO 79 
 
 movement or jacquerie which sought to secure the 
 same privilege for the peasants of Poland that his 
 victories promised for the Cossack inhabitants of 
 the Ukraine. While the only electors of the "re- 
 public" — the privileged nobles — still deliberated 
 at Volna over the choice of a king, Bogdan had 
 become the undisputed ruler of the Ukraine. By 
 establishing popular rule over an ever increasing 
 expanse of Polish territory, he seemed about to 
 solve the problem of who should be king, in his own 
 way. 
 
 In the castle at Zamosc, one of the last of the 
 "impregnable" fortresses of the Polish borders, 
 the armies of Bogdan were besieging a dis- 
 tinguished company including the heads of nearly 
 all the greatest feudal families of the western prov- 
 inces. Here, with their servants and treasures, were 
 gathered the refugees of Plavace, the lords and 
 ladies of the great families of Viesnowiecki, Za- 
 moyski, Sobieski, besides others of lesser note. To 
 join in the defense of this last stronghold of his 
 caste, John Sobieski, the future hero of all Chris- 
 tian Europe, had passed during the night through 
 the triple lines of the Cossack armies. 
 
 Under this brilliant young chieftain the besieged 
 forces still held out, when after five weeks of armed 
 debate the choice of the electors of Poland fell at 
 last upon the candidate least obnoxious to the ma- 
 jority of the electors. The honour was thrust upon 
 an unwilling prelate, the Cardinal John Cazimir, 
 
80 THE COSSACKS 
 
 a brother of the late king. This solution appeared 
 preferable to a choice of the Russian Tsar Alexis, 
 whose ambitious plans would have joined Poland 
 and Russia in a "personal union." 
 
 Cardinal John Cazimir (who was so strangely 
 to end his days in exile as Abbot of the Con- 
 vent of St. Germain des Pres in Paris) has been 
 described as "too passionate for the Church, too 
 feeble for the throne and, above all, too honest and 
 straightforward for his time and country." His 
 first royal act showed the latter traits. Refusing to 
 listen to the partisans of Prince Jeremy — who, in 
 spite of the thorough beating the Polish nobles had 
 received, continued to threaten the rebellious Cos- 
 sacks with all manner of legal punishments sol- 
 emnly voted in high conclave of the Diet — he 
 offered to treat with Bogdan's armies on the basis 
 of their old guarantees. 
 
 Over his royal signature, he wrote to their leader, 
 proposing almost in the terms used between sov- 
 ereign and sovereign, that the past be forgotten. 
 At the same time he promised to revive and confirm 
 the ancient privileges of the Cossacks which had 
 been so treacherously violated by the Jeremites. 
 The royal messenger was instructed to deliver at 
 the same time to Bogdan, if he were prepared to 
 accept them, the horse-tail standard and other re- 
 galia formerly conferred on every Cossack hetman 
 by the kings of Poland. Although the fortunes of 
 war had raised the man thus honoured above the 
 
BOGDAN : A COSSACK NATIONAL HERO 81 
 
 power of the Polish throne, Bogdan placed his lips 
 respectfully upon the King's signature. As a 
 proof of immediate obedience, he ordered that the 
 final assault about to be delivered upon the castle 
 of Zamosc should be abandoned. Chivalrously 
 trusting to the royal word, the army of Cossacks 
 and peasants was removed some ten miles from 
 the walls of this last battered stronghold of Polish 
 nobility. But the generosity of the Cossack chief- 
 tain and the hopes of the popular party were once 
 more to be deceived. By breaking the royal 
 promises, Prince Jeremy and a band of con- 
 federated "nobles" were able to throw themselves 
 upon the undefended camp of the Cossacks, win- 
 ning a treacherous but temporary advantage. The 
 unfortunate Cazimir, although a stranger to the 
 acts of Jeremy and protesting against such viola- 
 tion of his agreement, was none the less forced to 
 march to the assistance of the Polish forces. 
 
 Still wearing the rich garments they had donned 
 in honour of the Cardinal's marriage with his 
 brother's widow, the Polish court set forth to 
 attack the indefatigable Bogdan. But by the time 
 they had reached the frontier, this amazing wedding 
 cortege (whose warlike pomp astonished even 
 the accompanying envoys from the great courts of 
 Europe) learned of a second well-deserved defeat 
 of the perjured "Jeremites." Their own peril now 
 became imminent. At Zborovo the embroidered 
 tents and silken pavilions of the royal army were 
 
82 THE COSSACKS 
 
 soon surrounded and beset by the Cossack and 
 peasant troops. Only the sudden defection of their 
 undependable ally, the Khan of Crimea, saved 
 Cazimir and his bride. The Khan had been won 
 over to the Polish side by the promised renewal 
 of the degrading Polish tribute paid his ancestors. 
 In view of this temporary respite the angry Bog- 
 dan once more consented to negotiate. 
 
 The old terms of the Cossack demands were mag- 
 nanimously renewed. The popular party chiefly 
 insisted upon the expulsion of both Jews and Jes- 
 uits from the Orthodox provinces. The rights of 
 the metropolitan of Kiev to a seat in the Senate of 
 Warsaw and the opening of the Cossack registers 
 to enroll 40,000 Cossacks — who were thus pro- 
 tected from the claims and exploitation of the Po- 
 lish landholders — was also secured. In a final 
 clause Bogdan was recognized by the King of Po- 
 land as his deputy and hetman over all the prov- 
 inces of Little Russia, thus securing the practical 
 autonomy of the Ukraine provinces. 
 
 After the peace of Zborovo, Bogdan had written 
 to the Polish king as follows : — "Through his own 
 example, my father taught me loyalty in my cradle 
 by dying for the republic. If I have been forced to 
 spill noble blood, whose is the fault? Let your 
 Majesty inquire of the nobles who surround him! 
 I am ready, Sire, to satisfy all your Majesty's de- 
 sires and, for my own part, no false pride shall in- 
 terfere. I only ask one thing: the certainty of 
 living in peace under Your Majesty's laws." 
 
BOGDAN : A COSSACK NATIONAL HERO 83 
 
 The unfortunate John Cazimir, Bodgan recog- 
 nized as a statesman in whose word he could trust. 
 But the Polish nobility of that day could not feel 
 their "honour" involved in keeping faith with such 
 low-born enemies. The years that followed, — 
 marking alas ! but a truce in the popular strife, — 
 were fatal chapters in the national story of Poland. 
 It is impossible to find any true record of this time. 
 The only historical sources are so filled with the 
 recriminations and exaggerations of their authors 
 as to be almost useless to the student. 
 
 Over the whole Ukraine hangs a red mist, the 
 firelit smoke rising from hamlet and chateau. 
 Hidden by this pall the forms of the contestants 
 are but dimly seen: peasant mobs, wild Cossack 
 troops, and the brilliantly armed retainers of the 
 party e of the Polish "republic." Above the charge 
 and shock of the contending armies rise the woeful 
 cries of thousands of innocent victims sacrificed by 
 this horrible civil carnage. Even the heroic Bog- 
 dan felt the call of ambition and personal spite. 
 Turning from his pursuit of the national enemy, 
 the hetman of the Ukraine undertook a campaign 
 against Moldavia in order to force the volovoda of 
 that province to bestow the hand of his daughter, 
 Rosanda (promised to his personal foe, Jeremy 
 Viesnowiecki), on his own son, Timothy Hmel- 
 nicky. 
 
 Under the liberal-minded Sultan Mahomed IV 
 (1650) Constantinople had become a refuge for 
 
84 THE COSSACKS 
 
 all the religious exiles of Europe, fleeing from the 
 persecution of their fellow Christians. The 
 Orthodox patriarch in the Turkish capital induced 
 Bogdan to accept from the Sultan the high title 
 of "Prince of the Ukraine." A little later, the same 
 influences found no difficulty in launching the 
 Cossacks upon a renewed crusade against the 
 Catholics and Jesuitized Uniates of the border 
 provinces. 
 
 But the Poles had profited by the respite given 
 them during Bogdan' s southern campaigns to 
 strengthen their armies with troops of German mer- 
 cenaries, whose trade of war had languished in 
 Eastern Europe since the Peace of Westphalia. 
 Bogdan and his Cossacks, encamped near Zboraz, 
 ravaging at their leisure the lands of the Viesno- 
 wiecki, found himself attacked by these formidable 
 reinforcements. Although the Cossacks defended 
 themselves courageously behind their famous "ta- 
 bors" — ramparts formed by ox-carts — the for- 
 tunes of the day remained with the professional 
 soldiery of Tilly and Wallenstein. Moreover, the 
 promised Turkish reinforcements failed to arrive 
 in aid of Bogdan at the critical moment. 
 
 After the temporary advantages thus gained by 
 the party of the nobles the famous Cossack Register 
 was reduced to 20,000. But rather than return to 
 the fields of their Polish oppressors, great numbers 
 of Cossacks emigrated to join their brethren on 
 Russian territory. In the stanitzi on the 
 
BOGDAN : A COSSACK NATIONAL HERO 85 
 
 shores of the Don and Volga, they were more free 
 to exercise their national customs at the same time 
 the Tsar's armies were strengthened by recruits 
 ever ready for a new attack upon the Polish 
 frontier. Bogdan had, moreover, fully realized that 
 the pride of the Polish nobles could learn nothing 
 by experience. Their determination to exercise 
 ruthlessly their "rights'' over the peasants who had 
 entrusted their fortunes to the Cossack alliance was 
 shown by every new act of the Diet. With a nation 
 controlled only by class feeling, no compromise 
 can be made, no agreements held. Already their 
 fellows were deserting the Cossack settlements in 
 alarming numbers to place themselves under the 
 protection of the Tsar on Russian territory. The 
 time had come for Bogdan and the Cossacks of the 
 Dnieper to make their choice. 
 
 About this time an ambassador of the Tsar, 
 Prince Buturline, visited the Cossack camp, and 
 Bogdan assembled the chiefs of the Cossack nation 
 to consult with this official. At Perieslav, their 
 assembly was asked to decide the future of the 
 Ukraine nation. The hetman began his speech as 
 follows : — 
 
 "My lord colonels, scribes and captains : and you, 
 noble army of the Zaporogians: All of you, chris- 
 tians of the Orthodox faith, are witnesses that we 
 can no longer live, except under the protection of 
 a prince. We have a choice of four masters: The 
 Sultan of Turkey, the King of Poland, the Khan 
 of the Crimea, or the Tsar." 
 
86 THE COSSACKS 
 
 Continuing his long harangue, he pointed out 
 many reasons (notably their common religion) 
 that caused him to give his own vote in favor of a 
 Russian alliance. A loud shout of assent greeted 
 his words. It was decided to send a deputation 
 without delay to the Tsar Alexis, beseeching him 
 to take his "children of Little Russia" under his 
 protection. In an assembly of the Russian States 
 General summoned by Alexis, the strong argument 
 was advanced that unless the offers of Bogdan were 
 accepted, the whole Cossack nation might be forced 
 to place itself under the protection of Turkey or 
 the "Crim Tartars." Reasons of policy decided 
 the Russians to incorporate these turbulent new 
 citizens within the empire, but it is to be noted that 
 no other "conquest" of the Ukraine ever took place. 
 
 Meanwhile, Timothy Hmelnicky had once more 
 set out to seek his fatal bride, Rosanda. Attacked 
 by the Poles on the banks of the river Bug, he de- 
 feated them with great slaughter. While the inter- 
 rupted nuptials of Bogdan's son and heir with 
 Jeremy's betrothed were celebrated, the Polish 
 Diet in the extremity of its despair begged for 
 military aid from the Diet of the empire at 
 Ratisbon. 
 
 At the present time, the reasons offered as an 
 excuse for such an appeal are worthy of note: 
 "Fighting always in the name of liberty this slogan 
 strengthens the Cossack's cause. If left to them- 
 selves the Cossacks may even find partisans in 
 
BOGDAN : A COSSACK NATIONAL HERO 87 
 
 Silesia ready to help them. For these reasons the 
 Emperor's help is implored." Failing to move the 
 Emperor, the Diet next addressed itself to the 
 Khan of the Crimea, although one of their prin- 
 cipal grievances against Bogdan had been the Cos- 
 sack alliance with the Tartars. This ferocious ally, 
 whose help they could only hope to secure on con- 
 dition that two of their Polish provinces be given 
 to his troops for pillage, also refused his support.* 
 
 Although distrusting the Polish nobles, with 
 whom he was but nominally at peace, and in spite 
 of the successes of the Cossack party, the Tsar 
 Alexis still hesitated in his decision. Bogdan, 
 whose son Timothy had fallen in a border skirmish, 
 now renewed his demands that the Russians should 
 accept the Cossack alliance. According to Sal- 
 vandy the final argument which decided the Tsar 
 to make war with Poland was the victory of a bull 
 named "Moscovy" over another named "Poland," 
 during one of those trials by "ordeal" in which the 
 credulity of that day still saw the judgment of a 
 higher power. The mathematical academy of 
 Warsaw (a fact authenticated by a despatch of 
 the Emperor's envoy) was at the same time en- 
 gaged in a profound astrological calculation, whose 
 results bore out the judgment of Alexis' bulls, but 
 in a sense, of course, favourable to their own 
 country. 
 
 The final excuse for opening hostilities by a 
 
 * See Salvandy, op. cit.> Vol. I, page 2. 
 
88 THE COSSACKS 
 
 Russian advance against the Polish provinces was 
 found in the studied arrogance of the Polish dip- 
 lomats, who, in spite of the continued remon- 
 strances of Alexis' envoys, insisted upon address- 
 ing the Tsar with one "etc" less than the majesty 
 of his imperial titles required. 
 
 The Moscovite armies quickly overran Lithu- 
 ania, capturing in succession Vilna, Grodno and 
 Kovno, long centres of contention between the 
 armies of Russia and Poland. Meanwhile Bogdan 
 and his Cossacks advanced upon the border prov- 
 inces of the south, capturing the proud city of Lem- 
 berg, whose burghers enjoyed the rights of Polish 
 nobility. Few writers of the time seem to have 
 realized that the whole political balance of Eastern 
 Europe was about to change. A new "Great Em- 
 pire" whose weight in the future councils of Europe 
 was to become preponderant, had come into ex- 
 istence. The defection of the Cossacks from their 
 Polish alliance turned the scales of the balanced 
 forces at the command of the two great Slav states 
 in favour of Russia. Henceforth Poland was to 
 remain on the defensive in all her struggles with 
 her mighty neighbour. 
 
 By a strange turn of events, now briefly to be de- 
 scribed in their relation to the Cossack cause, the 
 appearance of a third enemy in the field alone saved 
 the Polish state. Charles X of Sweden, alarmed by 
 the rapid success of the Russians in Lithuania, 
 tried to secure a share of the spoil for Sweden. 
 
BOGDAN : A COSSACK NATIONAL HERO 89 
 
 After conquering — with the help of Polish mal- 
 contents — the great cities of Posen, Warsaw and 
 Cracow, he allowed himself to be elected King of 
 Poland by the distracted Diet. With little love for 
 the "republic' ' of which he was now the titular head, 
 he turned his armies and ambitions against the Tsar 
 in her defense. The Polish nation, trampled un- 
 derfoot by this double conquest, could henceforth 
 only profit by the quarrels of its destroyers over 
 their spoils, to preserve for more than a century a 
 precarious independence. 
 
 In judging of Bogdan's conduct in connection 
 with the complicated situation which now arose, it 
 must be remembered that the freedom and privi- 
 leges of the Cossack nation in the Ukraine had been 
 the primary object of his momentous revolt against 
 Poland. He had indeed appeared to abandon this 
 ambition for independence by placing the Cossack 
 nation under the rule of the Tsar Alexis. Although 
 the Assembly of Perieslav and the decisions taken 
 under Bogdan's influence became the most signifi- 
 cant and lasting event of his career, the situation 
 created by the invasion of the Swedes caused him 
 to regret this alliance with Russia. Once more the 
 Cossacks dreamed of a third great Slav state, which 
 their valor might establish in the "land of Bus." 
 In the later plans of Bogdan we may perhaps find 
 the first signs of the Butheno-Slav or Ukrainian 
 movement of the present day. 
 
 In January 1657, the Voievoda of Transylvania, 
 
90 THE COSSACKS 
 
 George Rakovsky, invaded the distracted Polish 
 "republic" as the ally of Charles of Sweden. A 
 dismemberment of Poland now threatened, which 
 might have anticipated the events which occurred 
 more than a century later. Bogdan and his Cos- 
 sacks saw in the onslaughts of this newcomer an 
 opportunity to recover the liberties which had been 
 lost or restricted by their agreements with the Tsar. 
 Although joining their forces to the new enemy of 
 their Polish oppressors, the Cossacks found them- 
 selves allied to an avowed enemy of Russia. The 
 maritime nations of Europe now began to take part 
 in these complicated struggles of the Northern 
 Powers. The jealous intervention of Sweden's old 
 enemies, the rival sea-powers of Denmark and Hol- 
 land, forced Charles to retire from Poland in such 
 haste that in his retreat, he had not even time to 
 notify his allies. Rakovsky escaped the anger of 
 the Poles through a series of humiliating conces- 
 sions, only to fall into the hands of the Tartars 
 while retreating homewards. Thus, in the short 
 space of six weeks, through a series of unforeseen 
 events .and combinations which their own courage 
 did little to bring about, the Polish nobles found 
 their territory rid of the devastating presence of 
 three armies. 
 
 At this embarrassing juncture in the affairs of 
 the Cossacks — hated by the Poles and separated 
 from their Russian allies — there disappeared from 
 the scene a man, who, in the turmoil of these events 
 
BOGDAN : A COSSACK NATIONAL HERO 91 
 
 had played so great and singular a part. "Able, 
 both as a statesman and a warrior, accorded a 
 kingly state by all the Great Powers, Bogdan con- 
 tinued until the end of his career to lead the life of 
 a peasant or a common soldier. In the same room 
 that he shared with his wife and children he re- 
 ceived embassies from the greatest crowned 
 heads of Europe. The sudden apoplectic stroke 
 which carried off the veteran chief of the Cossacks 
 removed a factor which, for ten years, had played 
 a role in Eastern Europe which has been compared 
 to that of Cromwell in the West. Yet today Bog- 
 dan's name is all but forgotten in history.* 
 
 While readers of the English race may consider 
 exaggerated a parallel between the Cossack Bog- 
 dan and the great Protector, we must take into ac- 
 count in our judgment of these men and their am- 
 bitions, the widely different circumstances which 
 confronted them. Both tried, in the name of lib- 
 erty, to build into free states nations just emerging 
 from the tyranny of feudal institutions. Both 
 sought to maintain independent of the autocratic 
 governments that surrounded them, democracies 
 anticipating those of our own day. 
 
 But, by "freedom" it is to be feared the Cossack 
 comrades of Bogdan understood little except 
 license. During the siege of Zamosc at the most 
 fatal moment of their national fortunes, even the 
 prestige of Bogdan's leadership could not prevent 
 
 * Salvandy. 
 
92 THE COSSACKS 
 
 large numbers of his followers from deserting the 
 Cossack camp in order to place in safety the rich 
 spoils of the chateaux pillaged by the way. The 
 Cossack troopers that remained, "astonished to find 
 themselves eating their coarse rations from silver 
 plates, drinking from golden goblets and sleeping 
 on couches covered with the richest furs, passed 
 their days and nights in orgies and masquerades. 
 Simple peasants, dressed in the stolen trappings of 
 noble bishops and palatines wasted the stern op- 
 portunities their courage had won." 
 
 With the death of Bogdan the free Cossack state 
 he had founded in the Ukraine fell to pieces almost 
 in a night — nor were his great projects revived 
 until recent times. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR THE UKRAINE 
 
 BOGDAN left to his surviving son a splendid 
 heritage — the duty of carrying out great 
 projects but half realized. Soon after his father's 
 death George Hmelnicky found even his right to 
 the hetmanship contested by John Wykowski, a 
 Cossack representing the faction favorable to Po- 
 land. The young hetman threw himself upon the 
 mercies of the Tsar Alexis, but the majority of the 
 Cossack settlements once more temporarily united 
 themselves with Poland, lured by the promise, 
 readily broken, that they should enjoy nationality 
 as an independent duchy under the Polish crown. 
 The Cossack officers of this faction now began to 
 copy the manners of the Polish panye fatuously 
 dreaming of a nobility of their own. At Knotop 
 the Hetman Wykowski led these "free" Cossacks 
 for the last time to victory against the Russian 
 troops. But factions known as the parties of the 
 "Left and Right Rank" (i. e. of the river Dnieper, 
 forming the geographical boundary between the 
 two Slav nations) divided the Cossacks who still 
 professed allegiance to Poland into two opposing 
 parties. Moreover the Polish nobles, blinded by 
 
 93 
 
94 THE COSSACKS 
 
 their fanatical faith in their feudal rights, lost every 
 opportunity of rallying the Cossacks to their stan- 
 dard. Religious intolerance soon played its fatal 
 role. The Catholic bishop of Cracow grossly in- 
 sulted the Orthodox metropolitan of Kiev, whose 
 place had been assured him in the Plenary Council 
 of the Diet. The Greek-Orthodox Cossacks, mad- 
 dened by this act, joined in a sudden massacre of 
 the adherents of the Hetman Wykowski. Under 
 the leadership of the son of Bogdan the majority 
 of the Cossack settlements returned once more to 
 their Russian allegiance. The fairest provinces of 
 the ancient "land of Rus," Kiev, Poltava and the 
 broad steppes of the Ukraine were lost forever to 
 the Polish Crown. Even in their undeveloped state 
 these rich borderlands were recognized both by the 
 rulers of Russia and Poland to be a prize essential 
 to the predominance of their states. 
 
 A vivid description of the appearance of the 
 Ukraine at this time is to be found in Sienkiewicz' 
 famous work, "With Fire and Sword." 
 
 "The last traces of settled life ended on the way 
 to the south, at no great distance beyond Chigirin 
 on the side of the Dnieper, and on the side of the 
 Dniester not far from Uman; thence forward to 
 the bays and sea there was nothing but steppe after 
 steppe, hemmed in by the two rivers as by a frame. 
 At the bend of the Dnieper in the lower country 
 beyond the cataracts Cossack life was seething, but 
 in the open plains no man dwelt; only along the 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE UKRAINE 95 
 
 shores were nestled here and there little fields, like 
 islands in the sea. The land belonged in name to 
 Poland, but it was an empty land, in which the 
 Commonwealth permitted the Tartars to graze 
 their herds; but since the Cossacks prevented this 
 frequently, the field of pasture was a field of battle 
 too. 
 
 How many struggles were fought in that region, 
 how many people had laid down their lives there, 
 no man had counted, no man remembered. Eagles, 
 falcons, and ravens alone saw these; and whoever 
 from a distance was heard the sound of wings and 
 the call of ravens, whoever beheld the whirl of birds 
 circling over one place, knew that corpses or un- 
 buried bones were lying beneath. Men were hunted 
 in the grass as wolves or wild goats. All who wished 
 engaged in this hunt. Fugitives from the law de- 
 fended themselves in the wild steppes. The armed 
 herdsman guarded his flock, the warrior sought 
 adventure, the robber plunder, the Cossack a Tar- 
 tar, the Tartar a Cossack. It happened that whole 
 bands guarded herds from troops of robbers. The 
 steppe was both empty and filled, quiet and terrible, 
 peaceable and full of ambushes; wild by reason of 
 its wild plains, but wild, too, from the wild spirit 
 of men. 
 
 At times a great war filled it. Then there flowed 
 over it like waves Tartar chambuls, Cossack regi- 
 ments, Polish or Wallachian companies. In the 
 night-time the neighing of horses answered the 
 
96 THE COSSACKS 
 
 howling of wolves, the voices of drums and brazen 
 trumpets flew on to the island of Ovid and the sea, 
 and along the black trail of Kutchman there seemed 
 an inundation of men. The boundaries of the Com- 
 monwealth were guarded from Kamenyets to the 
 Dnieper by outposts and stanitzi; and when the 
 roads were about to swarm with people, it was 
 known especially by the countless flocks of birds 
 which, frightened by the Tartars, flew onward to 
 the north. But the Tartar, if he slipped out from 
 the Black Forest or crossed the Dniester from the 
 Wallachian side, came by the southern provinces 
 together with the birds." 
 
 *J& jfe Jfe £fe Jfe 
 
 *^ *f* vjv *i* *& 
 
 By the terms of the Treaty of Andrusov, signed 
 January 13th, 1667, the Tsar and the King of 
 Poland came to a first definite arrangement cover- 
 ing the territories of Ukraine. This document care- 
 fully defined the influence each monarch was to 
 exercise upon the Cossack settlements of the 
 Dnieper. The classic stream became effectively 
 the boundary between the two states. Kiev, the 
 capital of Little Russia, was left (pending future 
 negotiations, to which the Tsar Alexis looked for- 
 ward without anxiety) in the hands of the Russians. 
 The administration of the turbulent Zaporogian 
 sitch was made subject to the joint "protection' ' of 
 both Crowns, a pretension which, needless to say, 
 the "Republic of the Free Cossacks beyond the 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE UKRAINE 97 
 
 Cataracts" disclaimed with scorn. Both high con- 
 tracting parties agreed not to enlist in their re- 
 spective armies subjects of the other crown, nor to 
 encourage the emigration from one bank to another 
 of Cossacks settled in their respective territory. 
 
 A final article of the treaty solemnly set forth 
 that neither King nor Tsar should interfere with 
 any measures which the other High Contracting 
 Party should deem necessary in order to discipline 
 these new, involuntary subjects. At first kept 
 secret, the clauses of this treaty which thus dis- 
 posed of their territory without their consent be- 
 came known to the Cossacks on both sides of the 
 river. The settlements blazed with indignation. 
 Doroshenko the hetman elected by the Polish 
 faction, and Brukowicki, the hetman appointed by 
 the Tsar, became equally objects of suspicion 
 among the men of their own parties. A tumultuous 
 invasion was immediately made by the Zaporogians 
 upon the neighbouring Polish and Russian prov- 
 inces in the defense of the "National Liberties." 
 Every party now understood the term "Freedom" 
 to mean the right to sack and pillage unrestrained 
 the fair territory of the Ukraine whose interest all 
 professed to defend. These disorders finally re- 
 sulted in a second convention with Russia, to which 
 the majority of the Cossacks adhered. 
 
 Under the Hetman Samoilovitch devoted to the 
 cause of the Tsar, the imperial power was greatly 
 extended. By the signature of a new peace at 
 
98 THE COSSACKS 
 
 Moscow in 1686 both Kiev and Smolensk were 
 abandoned by Poland to the administration of 
 Russia, the Tsar undertaking to maintain order 
 along the troubled frontiers of the Crimean Tar- 
 tars, thus leaving Sobieski free to continue his 
 famous crusade against his sworn enemy, the Tur- 
 kish Sultan. 
 
 Through the skilful diplomacy of the Tsar 
 Alexis — even greater as an empire builder than 
 his son Peter the Great — these negotiations finally 
 resulted in drawing closer the bond uniting 
 the Cossack class to the Russian Crown. Their 
 obstinate pride and determination to exercise their 
 feudal "rights" over a free and warlike population 
 had lost to the Polish nobles of the frontier the 
 jurisdiction they had formerly claimed. It must 
 not be supposed, however, that in passing to Rus- 
 sian allegiance the Cossacks abandoned their claim 
 to autonomy. 
 
 The story of the Cossack revolts during the 
 eighteenth century fills an important page in Rus- 
 sian history. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Even under the regime of the last Romanovs a 
 service was held every year in many of the churches 
 of Russia for the solemn cursing — with full 
 ritual — of all religious and political heretics who 
 in the past had ventured to disturb the public order 
 of the empire. Mentioned separately the names of 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE UKRAINE 99 
 
 "the False Dmitri," Boris Godounov, Stenka 
 Razin, Mazeppa and Pougatchev were greeted by 
 the clergy with thundering responses of "Ana- 
 thema! Anathema!" 
 
 The fact that three of the persons judged worthy 
 of this curious distinction were Cossacks, while "the 
 False Dmitri" generally enjoyed their support, 
 would seem to demonstrate that even the potent 
 brew contained in the "melting-pot" of Russian im- 
 perialism found difficulty in absorbing such recal- 
 citrant elements as the "Republics" of the Dnieper, 
 the Don and the Jaik. 
 
 In spite of its brief importance, the Cossack re- 
 volt led by Stenka Razin in the years 1671-3* may 
 be dismissed as an outbreak of border ruffianism 
 led by a particularly successful river pirate and 
 brigand. Profiting by a time of famine and dis- 
 tress along the Volga, Razin became a kind of 
 border Robin Hood, enjoying the popularity easily 
 acquired by anyone who pretends to revenge the 
 wrongs of the poor upon the purses of the rich. 
 His name will, moreover, always be remembered 
 in Russia for its connection with the unforgetable 
 lilt of the song "Volga, Volga," etc. But his over- 
 throw near Zimbirsk by Bariatinski and his exe- 
 cution at Moscow put a sudden end to a career 
 which left no aftermath.** 
 
 * The date is variously given from 1673 to 1679. 
 ** The incident celebrated in the popular song "Volga, 
 Volga," tells of Razin's ready solution of an ethical prob- 
 
100 THE COSSACKS 
 
 The early years of the reign of Peter I were 
 troubled by a series of revolts or mutinies in the 
 Cossack territories of the Don, which, although 
 ending in a severe punishment of the ringleaders, 
 exhibited the determination of this important 
 branch of the "Free People" not to allow their 
 privileges to be overridden by the growing power 
 of the autocracy. 
 
 As in the previous two centuries, the flight or 
 emigration of their serfs from the estates of the 
 boyars in the north had continued to excite the ap- 
 prehension of the Russian nobles. During the 
 opening years of the eighteenth century it was cal- 
 culated that the call of liberty and free land had 
 drawn nearly 30,000 serfs to the Cossack settle- 
 ments of the Don. The Tsar, Peter the Great, 
 whose far-reaching reforms did not contemplate 
 any immediate amelioration of the lot of the 
 peasants or the conditions of serfdom, now deter- 
 mined to send Prince Dolgorouki to force these 
 fugitives to return. While the Cossacks of the Don 
 at first formally submitted to the authority of the 
 
 lem arising through the capture by his Cossacks of a 
 Persian princess endowed with such surpassing beauty 
 that her charms threatened to distract the attention of 
 the bandit leader from his sanguinary duties, and even 
 to sow discord among his entire troop. In order to re- 
 move this danger to his "cause" Stenka consigned his 
 too-fascinating spoil of the Orient to a watery grave, 
 greatly to the satisfaction of his followers and the en- 
 hancement of his own popular reputation. 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE UKRAINE 101 
 
 Tsar's envoy, they privately determined in solemn 
 council to support the new companions who had 
 thus loyally sought their protection. Dolgorouki 
 at first met with little opposition. During his re- 
 turn journey, however, while encumbered with 
 troops of captives, he was led into a Cossack ambush 
 where the peasants were released and his army all 
 but destroyed. The fact that a leader in this 
 assault, a Cossack named Boulavin, was subse- 
 quently elected hetman, added a fresh provocation 
 to the previous conduct of the Don Cossacks. 
 
 The result of these events was not long awaited. 
 Peter, realizing that any weakness he might show 
 in meeting the situation might end in a general re- 
 volt of the provinces of the Ukraine, sent another 
 Prince Dolgorouki with fresh troops to revenge his 
 kinsman upon the inhabitants of the "turbulent 
 provinces of the Don." 
 
 "The principal mutineers," wrote this officer a 
 few months later in a grim report addressed to the 
 Emperor, "have been hanged. Of their companions 
 one in every ten have been hanged; all of those I 
 have had hanged were placed upon gibbets, which I 
 erected on the rafts and set afloat, so that along 
 the whole course of the river they might serve as 
 an example."* 
 
 After the sanguinary hint offered to the Cos- 
 sacks of the Don, the Tsar was able to introduce 
 his favourite methods of military administration 
 
 * Rambaud, "Histoire de Russie," page 300. 
 
102 THE COSSACKS 
 
 mong the "settlements" or slovods of the Don 
 
 ithout further armed resistance. But the dis- 
 content aroused by these innovations was deep and 
 implacable. 
 
 In considering the "treason" of Mazeppa and 
 the course adopted by his fellow conspirators 
 during the important events about to be narrated, 
 the unpopularity of these reforms, which infringed 
 some of the most cherished privileges assured by 
 the Tsar's predecessors to the population of the 
 Ukraine, must first be taken into account. 
 
 The historians of this period have generally been 
 too deeply in sympathy with the reforming policies 
 of Peter the Great to do full justice to the Cossack 
 cause. The actions of Mazeppa and his Cossack 
 followers are only accounted perfidious obstacles in 
 the pathway of Russia's progress towards unifica- 
 tion. There is nothing, however, in the history of 
 this fateful struggle, wherein the defeat of a couple 
 of mutinous regiments of Cossacks and a few 
 thousand exhausted Swedish veterans actually de- 
 cided the balance of power in the north — to show 
 that Mazeppa acted otherwise than as a disin- 
 terested upholder of the rights and national priv- 
 ileges of his adopted comrades in arms. 
 
 Consideration of the part played by the Cossacks 
 in the winter campaign of Poltava, throws an im- 
 portant light on the military history of Charles 
 XII. Even the "Madman of the North," in spite 
 of his over-confident (not to say vain-glorious) 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE UKRAINE 103 
 
 methods of strategy, would never have permitted 
 his army to be drawn so far from its base of sup- 
 plies unless the assurance of Mazeppa had led him 
 to suppose that a discontented "Free Ukraine" 
 party were ready to welcome him as a deliverer. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 MAZEPPA 
 
 TO have held for an instant the balance of power 
 in the momentous struggle which fixed the su- 
 premacy of Russia among the "Powers of the 
 North" ; to lose by narrowest chance a great place 
 in history; to be remembered only as the hero of 
 a romantic poem; the central figure of a popular 
 opera, — such has been the strange fate of the Cos- 
 sack hetman Mazeppa ! * 
 
 So complete was the downfall of the great Im- 
 perial State which Sweden had planned to encircle 
 the Baltic that Charles XII, whom Voltaire calls 
 the leading military genius of his time, now appears 
 but a pale and legendary figure when contrasted 
 with Peter the Great — the mighty rival over whom 
 he so nearly triumphed. No struggle of the 
 eighteenth Century led to more portentous con- 
 sequences than the winter campaign ending in the 
 battle of Poltava. 
 
 It is significant in view of present events to con- 
 sider the part played by the Cossacks of the Ukraine 
 during these decisive moments in the world's his- 
 
 * See Tchaikowski's "Mazeppa" and Byron's poem of 
 the same name. 
 
 104 
 
MAZEPPA 105 
 
 tory. Had the united strength of the Free Cos- 
 sacks and the Ukrainian peasant-proprietors been 
 exercised on behalf of Charles XII rather than in 
 favor of their oppressor the Tsar, there is little 
 cause to doubt that a great Ukrainian state might 
 have arisen on the steppes of South Russia, to which 
 the less favored lands of "Great Russia" and the 
 forest regions to the north would perhaps have be- 
 come tributary. For in spite of their relatively 
 small numbers the warlike caste of the Cossacks 
 possessed not only military training and initiative 
 but also a strong sense of loyalty and fellowship in 
 arms lacking to a great extent among the moujiki 
 comprising Peter's armies. Had Mazeppa in ad- 
 dition to his military qualities been born a Cossack 
 instead of belonging to the hated Polish race, he 
 might have united his adopted people at this critical 
 moment of their career to face Peter's German-led 
 and German-drilled troops. Napoleon's dictum 
 that Russia is destined to become either Cossack or 
 German appears all the more plausible in the light 
 of the events surrounding the invasion of Charles 
 XII. Indeed the French emperor — a close 
 student and an ardent admirer of "the Mad King's" 
 strategy — may have based his statement upon his 
 appreciation of the all but forgotten yet fateful 
 events which we shall now briefly review. 
 
 Contemporary historians (including Voltaire, 
 who, however, in matters of history scarcely ex- 
 hibits the same critical spirit that won him so 
 
106 THE COSSACKS 
 
 great a reputation in his discussion of religious 
 questions) agree in repeating the romantic episode 
 which transformed the youthful Mazeppa from 
 a page at the brilliant Polish court into a 
 leader of the rough Cossack bands of the Ukraine. 
 
 Their accounts are, in the main, identical with 
 the circumstances narrated in Byron's famous 
 poem. Mazeppa was by birth a Polish noble from 
 the province of Podolia. Through the graces of 
 his person and an education which — at least by 
 comparison — distinguished him among his fellows, 
 he obtained the position of "serving gentleman" in 
 the household of a rich Polish nobleman. The 
 young wife of this notable, having somewhat over 
 frankly exhibited her admiration for Mazeppa's 
 qualities, the outraged husband conceived the ven- 
 geance which effectually removed Mazeppa from 
 the neighborhood of his inamorata, but with results 
 far different from those planned or expected. The 
 handsome page, bound, naked and defenceless, on 
 the back of an unbroken stallion, instead of suc- 
 cumbing to the roving wolves of the steppes, was 
 carried by his mount among a herd of horses be- 
 longing to a camp of wandering Cossacks. Join- 
 ing this wild company the youth soon found him- 
 self enrolled a member of the band, and in the 
 course of a few months his education and personal 
 bravery gave him the post of aide-de-camp to the 
 hetman. 
 
 At this point the legends surrounding Mazeppa's 
 
MAZEPPA 107 
 
 advent among the Cossacks give place to more 
 authentic accounts. A few years later we find 
 him — risen in turn to the post of hetman — carry- 
 ing on a series of forays in conjunction with Rus- 
 sian troops against the Tartars of the Crimea. 
 These skirmishes resulted in establishing his repu- 
 tation, not only as a brilliant and successful leader 
 in border warfare, but also as a dependable instru- 
 ment of Russian policy. 
 
 During the first siege of Azof, Peter the Great 
 first learned from personal observation to appre- 
 ciate the qualities and military capabilities of his 
 new Cossack subjects. When a serious check to 
 the Russian forces occurred before that strong 
 fortress in 1695, it was the mobility and resource 
 of the Cossack levies under Mazeppa that covered 
 the retreat of the famous "New Armies" organized 
 by the Tsar on the European model. The Emperor 
 or "Bombardier Peter," serving at the time in their 
 ranks under the command of General Lef ort, took 
 part in all the hardships of this retreat. It was, 
 however, through such defeats that every military 
 advantage of Peter the Great was to be obtained. 
 The faulty strategy which had failed to secure his 
 object during these first operations was cast aside 
 and Peter now conceived the idea of capturing 
 Azof by a combined sea and land attack. 
 
 On the upper reaches of the river Don, the Tsar 
 began at once to construct his armada, consisting 
 of "twenty-two galleys, a hundred rafts and 
 
108 THE COSSACKS 
 
 canoes"* The number of the latter craft indicates 
 that the part played by the Cossacks and notably 
 the Zaporogians in these first Russian naval oper- 
 ations must have been a considerable one. Relying 
 on their skill as river boatmen and the tactics de- 
 veloped during many a raid against the Turks in 
 the Black Sea, they were now launched in a sudden 
 attack on the Turkish fleet. Less than 1500 Cos- 
 sacks manning long river-boats, similar to those 
 used by the Zaporogians, did not hesitate to attack 
 the great Turkish galleys defending the com- 
 munications by means of which the beleaguered 
 fortress received its provisions from the Turkish 
 colonies of Anatolia. 
 
 We can readily imagine with what enthusiasm 
 and anxiety the Tsar followed the fortunes of the 
 Cossack attack. Peter was himself in command of 
 a small wooden frigate. He had now become 
 "Steerman Peter Alexievitch," serving under the 
 command of "Admiral" Lefort (for, together with 
 the principal officers of his staff he had assumed 
 naval titles and duties) . Prodigies of valour were 
 displayed in the hand to hand conflict which en- 
 sued. Little by little the surprising manoeuvres of 
 the handy Cossack flotilla completely overcame the 
 more regular naval strategy of the Turkish com- 
 mander. The Ottoman fleet was gradually dis- 
 persed and the heavy galleys — separated from 
 their fellows and rendered helpless — were cap- 
 
 * Rambaud, "Histoire de Russie," p. 363. 
 
MAZEPPA 109 
 
 tured one by one. This wholly unexpected disaster 
 cut off the Turks from their base of supplies and 
 gave the garrison within the town no other al- 
 ternative but to raise their turbans on the points of 
 long lances in sign of surrender. 
 
 Fifteen hundred ducats were accepted (not, we 
 are told without much grumbling) by the Cos- 
 sacks instead of the promised right of sacking the 
 town. Mazeppa and his Cossack boatmen were 
 personally thanked by the Tsar — the latter in high 
 good humor because he had himself been promoted 
 to a superior grade by Lefort for the part he had 
 played in the fight. It was thus as actual comrades 
 in arms that the basis of the long friendship be- 
 tween the Emperor and Mazeppa was formed. 
 
 In 1705 Peter carried out his wholesale execution 
 of the streltzi — the privileged but undependable 
 militia of the old Russian court — a terrible re- 
 quital for their disloyal behaviour during his 
 famous European tour. Following this event the 
 Cossacks became a more important factor than 
 ever in the border armies of Russia. At the same 
 time, they received as recruits a great number of 
 streltzi fleeing from Peter's drastic military re- 
 forms. This new element was in all probability 
 largely responsible for the revolt that spread 
 among the Don Cossacks in the following year 
 (1706). 
 
 The victories of Azof and the conquest of the 
 shores of the Black Sea awakened the military am- 
 
110 THE COSSACKS 
 
 bitions of Tsar Peter. Moreover it was at this 
 juncture that the King of Sweden died and his son 
 Charles, a lad but 18 years of age, came to the 
 throne. In the accession of so youthful a prince 
 both the Tsar and the King of Poland saw an op- 
 portunity of ridding themselves of a rival power 
 whose ambition clashed with their own. The po- 
 sition occupied by Sweden had long given her the 
 control of the Balance of Power in the north. In 
 every election for the Polish crown the King of 
 Sweden had either sought the electoral honor for 
 himself or had made his support essential in 
 choosing the successful candidate. 
 
 Another reason urged Augustus of Saxony, the 
 newly elected King of Poland, to curb the hated 
 "imperialism" of Sweden. So unpopular was this 
 German prince in his elective kingdom that he wel- 
 comed any opportunity for a foreign war which 
 would turn the attention of his Slav subjects from 
 internal affairs. Certain of victory in this enter- 
 prise he even took steps to reserve the honors of the 
 promised campaign for the detested bodyguard of 
 German troops who had accompanied him from 
 Saxony. But the King of Poland and the Tsar 
 were to learn that Charles of Sweden, in spite of his 
 youth, was the first military genius of his age and 
 that he commanded the most perfectly drilled and 
 disciplined army in the north. 
 
 In the course of a single brilliant campaign 
 Charles drove the King of Poland from the prov- 
 
MAZEPPA 111 
 
 ince of Lithuania. The Russians who had mean- 
 while advanced towards the Baltic were thrown into 
 consternation by these events. At his leisure 
 Charles now inflicted upon the Tsar's troops a 
 great defeat at Narva. This victory, the more 
 humiliating because even Peter's personal bravery 
 was involved through stories of his cowardly con- 
 duct during the battle, also threatened the Rus- 
 sians' confidence in the value of the military re- 
 forms he had been at so much pains to introduce in 
 place of their old drill and tactics. Meanwhile, 
 isolated from his subjects by the intrigues of Piper 
 (Charles' great foreign minister, whose diplomacy 
 was almost as redoubtable as his master's sword) 
 the King of Poland had become a dishonoured fugi- 
 tive in his own dominions. The new candidate im- 
 posed upon the Poles in the person of Stanislaus 
 Lesczynski was but a docile representative of the 
 real King — Charles of Sweden. 
 
 But the genius of Peter the Great never dis- 
 played itself so brilliantly as after these disasters. 
 "The Swedes," he repeated again and again, "will 
 soon teach us how to fight." Gathering a new 
 army he attempted to intervene on behalf 
 of the deposed Saxon elector Charles easily 
 crushed their united efforts at Altranstadt (1706). 
 Even the electoral dominions of Saxony were now 
 threatened and Augustus, in order to save his 
 German possessions, was obliged formally to re- 
 nounce all pretensions to the throne of Poland. So 
 
112 THE COSSACKS 
 
 threatening was the danger that he consented 
 at the bidding of Charles to write a letter of con- 
 gratulation to his successor, Lesczynski. Peter 
 nevertheless resolved to continue the contest. 
 
 In the long struggle between Russia, Poland and 
 Sweden that ensued, success almost invariably at- 
 tended the armies of Charles XII. During this 
 period the fortunes of Sweden were carried to their 
 highest pinnacle. Historians now see that the 
 "Mad King's" resolve to shatter the yoke of Mos- 
 covite influence in Poland by striking at the heart 
 of Peter's vast empire, was more than a military 
 adventure. The success of such a plan would have 
 safeguarded the new Swedish possessions along the 
 Baltic and established upon a lasting foundation 
 his scheme, now all but realized, of making Sweden 
 the supreme arbiter of the north. 
 
 But in the nine years which had elapsed since 
 the battle of Narva, Charles had expended 
 Sweden's hoarded treasure of men and money. 
 Haw recruits now weakened the ranks of the vet- 
 eran regiments he had inherited from his father. 
 Youthful pride and obstinacy had induced him to 
 discard the prudent ministers whose advice had 
 been of such advantage in the earlier years of his 
 reign. Charles might, with every advantage, have 
 accorded the peace which the Tsar so earnestly de- 
 sired in order to carry out his great plan of in- 
 ternal reform. He, nevertheless, continued active 
 preparations for a new campaign. 
 
MAZEPPA 113 
 
 With the approach of the invading Swedish 
 armies twenty thousand Cossacks were summoned 
 by Peter to join in the defense of the Ukraine. His 
 emissaries found the Cossack settlements in a state 
 of almost open rebellion. A tax of seventy kopecks 
 (no small sum of money in that day) had recently 
 been placed upon every Cossack, not excepting 
 those who were performing military service — an 
 act bitterly resented as an infringement of the 
 rights they had been assured at the time of their 
 voluntary subjection to Russia. In Peter's plans 
 for an accurate census of the Ukraine the Cossacks 
 saw only a plan for fresh taxations and even more 
 onerous terms of military service. 
 
 By thus overriding privileges of the Ukraine, 
 Peter had aroused the resentment of both Cossack 
 and non-Cossack inhabitants. Both classes felt 
 themselves subjected for the first time to the same 
 treatment as the despised moujik population of 
 Great Russia — the serfs of the great adminis- 
 trative class favored bv Peter's "reforms." Ma- 
 zeppa as hetman of the Cossacks of the Ukraine 
 had for many years been accorded nearly all the 
 honours of an independent prince. Secure in 
 Peter's favour, which he had enjoyed ever since 
 the siege of Azov, he had looked forward in his old 
 age to the easy enjoyment of this lucrative post. 
 He now saw himself forced to take sides in a 
 quarrel the probable outcome of which would only 
 rivet more tightly the yoke of Russian im- 
 
114 THE COSSACKS 
 
 perialism on the inhabitants of the Cossack prov- 
 inces. In the crisis now confronting him he took 
 refuge in a time-honoured ruse. Although a half 
 century of warlike service had till now seemed to 
 weigh but lightly upon the veteran hetman, at 
 Peter's summons he seemed suddenly overtaken by 
 all the ills of deferred old age. For weeks at a time 
 he remained in bed invisible to his followers, or else, 
 propped in a great chair, supported by numerous 
 cushions, he only received the Cossack officers to 
 accept their condolences and to issue orders in the 
 feeble voice of a valetudinarian. In expiation of 
 past sins he commenced the construction of a great 
 church, and to his former boon companions, ex- 
 pressed the edifying sentiment that "his thoughts 
 were wholly withdrawn to the affairs of another 
 life." 
 
 Nevertheless, in careful fulfillment of his duties 
 as hetman he appeared to make every effort to fur- 
 nish the Tsar with the levies of troops required. 
 These were placed under the command of a Cos- 
 sack colonel named Apostol. Although all these 
 measures were taken in Mazeppa's name and he 
 appeared zealously preparing to oppose the in- 
 vasion of the Swedes, it seems equally certain, that 
 at the same time constant negotiations were carried 
 on with the emissaries of Charles. Offers of free- 
 dom and autonomy for the Ukraine were freely 
 made by the Swedish monarch: Mazeppa's place 
 was assured as the head of an independent state 
 
MAZEPPA 115 
 
 guaranteed by the armies of Charles. At last the 
 hetman consented to enter into open revolt against 
 the Tsar. In order to act with more certainty he 
 suddenly quitted his role of an invalid and placed 
 himself at the head of the Cossack armies. Ap- 
 pearing to yield to the urgent appeals of the Rus- 
 sian generals, he ordered all his polki to cross the 
 Polish frontier.* 
 
 Charles does not appear to have rated very high 
 the military ability of the troops recruited among 
 the Cossacks and peasant-proprietors of Little 
 Russia. He was anxious, however, to secure a 
 base for supplies for his own armies and guides 
 for the vast unmapped country of the Ukraine, 
 where he intended to develop his campaign. Per- 
 haps the weakest feature of Charles' plans was his 
 dangerous confidence in the ability of his veterans 
 to overthrow almost any number of Russian troops 
 which could be brought against him. But as the 
 Cossack polki were only needed as auxiliaries, Ma- 
 zeppa was instructed to maintain his fellow 
 countrvmen in a state of "discontent" — a none 
 too difficult task!! — without definitely engaging 
 himself until the last moment. 
 
 The hetman's position was, however, soon com- 
 
 * Norberg's "History of Charles XII." Nothing in the 
 history of the time is more confusing than the numbers 
 given with respect to the troops engaged during this cam- 
 paign. Even Norberg, although an eye-witness of the 
 events he describes, cannot be wholly relied upon. 
 
116 THE COSSACK 
 
 plicated by the constant reports which his rivals 
 forwarded to the capital in order to convince the 
 Tsar of his disloyalty. At first Peter was deaf to 
 all such rumours, believing that Mazeppa in his old 
 age would never betray a confidence he had done 
 so much to deserve. As a fresh proof of his belief 
 in the hetman's loyalty the Tsar sent back to the 
 Ukraine bound in heavy chains, the principal 
 agents of the malcontents who had undertaken 
 the long journey to Moscow in order to denounce 
 their chief. Thus perished two of the hetman's 
 oldest comrades in arms, Iska, a colonel of the Cos- 
 sacks of Poltava, devoted to the cause of Russia, 
 and Koutchebey, chief of one of the most important 
 families of the Ukraine. These chieftains who had 
 been the first to discern Mazeppa's intended 
 treachery, would have been spared by the hetman 
 if they would join his side, but scorning to save 
 their lives at such a cost, both were now put to a 
 shameful death with heavy blows from a poleaxe 
 before the assembled polk and their own fellow 
 townsmen.* 
 
 For a brief time Mazeppa appears again to have 
 wavered, perhaps touched by this display of loyal 
 confidence on the part of a master he was about to 
 betray. In his indecision he decided to summon a 
 council of the Cossack notables, and himself pro- 
 posed that a deputation be sent to Moscow to lay 
 
 * The above events are the subject of a famous scene 
 in Tchaikowski's opera of "Mazeppa." 
 
MAZEPPA 117 
 
 before the Tsar the grievances of the Ukraine. But 
 Peter, growing suddenly suspicious, appears to 
 have acted at this critical moment with the hasty 
 violence which so often marred his statesmanship. 
 His reply to the Cossack representatives was to 
 throw into prison the entire deputation, at whose 
 head the hetman had placed his favourite nephew. 
 At the same time one of the Tsar's ablest generals, 
 Mentchikov, commanding the Russian troops 
 stationed in Cossack territory, received strict 
 orders to spare no effort to prevent any com- 
 munication between the Swedes and Poles. 
 
 The tenor of these orders persuaded Ma- 
 zeppa that his treacherous negotiations were known 
 and he could hesitate no longer without endanger- 
 ing his own safety. Placing garrisons chosen from 
 the Cossacks of his faction in Romni, Tchernigov 
 and Baturnin — thus securing important strategic 
 points protecting his rear — he now advanced into 
 Poland to join the Swedish armies, although keep- 
 ing his intentions secret from those of his followers 
 of whose loyalty he had reason to be doubt- 
 ful. On the shores of the Desna, he drew up his 
 entire army in a hollow square and in an impas- 
 sioned harangue set forth their common wrongs. 
 Appealing to the loyalty of the Cossack nation, he 
 made the most of Peter's conduct respecting the 
 ominous military reforms, recalling the Tsar's con- 
 tempt for the agreements which, since the days of 
 the Hetman Bogdan, had united Moscow and the 
 
118 THE COSSACKS 
 
 Ukraine. But Mazeppa had either miscalculated 
 the resentment which had been aroused by these 
 measures, or, as appears more likely, the Cossacks 
 hesitated to ally themselves with their ancient 
 enemy, Poland. When thus called upon to forego 
 at a few moments' notice the traditions and resent- 
 ments of a life-time, they may have remembered 
 that Mazeppa himself was of Polish origin. Their 
 turbulent Orthodoxy caused them to recall all that 
 their ancestors had suffered at the hands of the 
 Catholic gentry and Jesuit leaders of the Polish 
 court. The result of Mazeppa's ill-timed frank- 
 ness was far different from his expectations. 
 At first a grim silence greeted his eloquence, while 
 murmurs of disapproval followed each new pro- 
 posal. As he ended his appeal to Cossack preju- 
 dice, cries of "Treason" were heard on all sides. 
 In the uproar that followed Mazeppa even ap- 
 pears to have had some difficulty in escaping from 
 the violence of the Russian partisans among his 
 excited followers. 
 
 With but two regiments remaining loyal, both 
 belonging to his personal guard, his "invasion" of 
 Poland became little better than a flight from the 
 Ukraine. Of all the "host" of Cossack cavalry 
 with whom he had promised to await his allies upon 
 the shores of the Desna there remained but a hand- 
 ful of horsemen, while the main body of the 
 Ukrainians and Cossacks returned homewards to 
 make their submission to the Tsar's generals. 
 
MAZEPPA 119 
 
 One consolation remained, however, to Mazeppa 
 in his extremity. The famous Zaporogian Cos- 
 sacks were by this time too deeply compromised by 
 the wily hetman's intrigues to desert his cause and 
 they now set forth in their usual tumultuous array 
 to join Mazeppa's little army. 
 
 Realizing the importance of ensuring the loyalty 
 of this important part of the Cossack community, 
 the Tsar had in the early stages of the events just 
 narrated forwarded a present of sixty thousand 
 florins to the sitch. It had, however, pleased the 
 independent humour of these warriors to keep the 
 money sent by the Russians and at the same time to 
 declare for Charles and his Polish allies. In the 
 pages of Norberg's History a full account is given 
 of these negotiations, wherein the customs of the 
 once famous Zaporogian brotherhood appear in no 
 very creditable light. Their "war" leader, or 
 hoshevoy ataman, was, at this time, a Cossack 
 named Gordianko. This worthy had but a short 
 time before narrowly escaped massacre in the 
 course of the tumultuous public assembly which 
 had elected him to his office — a fact for which he 
 held the envoys of the Tsar responsible. It was 
 the recollection of this incident which may have 
 disposed him so warmly to adopt the cause of the 
 Hetman Mazeppa. At a meeting held in a secret 
 spot on the shore of the Dikanka the temporary 
 submission of the Zaporogians to the Hetman of the 
 Ukraine had been agreed upon. The horse-tail 
 
120 THE COSSACKS 
 
 standards of the Zaporogians had been dipped be- 
 fore the national flag of the Ukraine, and Mazeppa 
 in an eloquent speech pointed out the necessity of 
 an alliance against the Tsar. In order formally to 
 celebrate the accession of the Zaporogians to the 
 "Cossack cause" a banquet was now served to the 
 delegates from the sitch. Around a board fur- 
 nished with a magnificent service of silver plate 
 (borrowed for the occasion from a Polish gentle- 
 man among Mazeppa's retinue) the Zaporogians 
 renewed their solemn oath of allegiance to the cause 
 of Charles XII and the Polish party with whom he 
 was in alliance. On leaving the tent where these 
 ceremonies had taken place the Zaporogian dele- 
 gates were found to be in a state of complete 
 drunkenness. Some of the more intoxicated even 
 insisted on taking away the silver plates and gob- 
 lets as a souvenir of the occasion saying that this 
 was a Zaporogian's privilege. An unfortunate 
 butler in an ill-advised attempt to save his master's 
 property aroused the anger of these turbulent 
 guests and was seized and stabbed to death. Not 
 content with thus vindicating their injured dignity, 
 the noble Zaporogians now declared through their 
 Koshevoy that if they were not allowed to keep this 
 spoil, according to ancient custom, they would im- 
 mediately break off the newly-formed union to 
 which they had engaged their followers. The 
 matter was satisfactorily arranged, but during a 
 subsequent interview with the King of Sweden it 
 
MAZEPPA 121 
 
 was considered wise to exact a promise from the 
 Zaporogian envoys to "refrain from getting drunk 
 before the banquet." It was upon the caprice of 
 such allies that Charles depended to overthrow the 
 power of Peter the Great I* 
 
 * A strange survival of "Cossack law" has just come 
 to light through an incident connected with the recent 
 allied occupation of Archangel. Under the date of April 
 5th, 1919, the New York Times printed the following 
 cablegram : 
 
 "Archangel, April 5, 1919 (Associated Press). — 
 The theft of 4,000,000 rubles that were in possession of 
 the Bolsheviki by a band of Circassian Cossack officers 
 whose activities also included the arrest of the American 
 Consul at Archangel and the kidnapping of the North 
 Russian Government, was explained at the trial of the 
 officers today before the supreme judiciary authority of 
 Northern Russia. The officers, among whom were Cap- 
 tain Bers and Colonel Melia, were convicted and sen- 
 tenced to imprisonment and deprivation of their rank 
 and decorations. Because of their military valor the 
 court recommended that they be pardoned. 
 
 "The defendants unfolded an astonishing story of the 
 inner details of the days before the allied troops landed 
 at Archangel and the political plots that occurred after- 
 ward. They admitted nearly every accusation, pleading 
 old Cossack laws and the political situation as justifica- 
 tion. 
 
 "Last July, when an allied landing at Archangel seemed 
 imminent, Captain Bers and the other Cossacks were 
 aligned with the Bolsheviki. As the allied transports ap- 
 proached the city the bulk of the Bolshevist force fled, 
 but Bers and the Cossacks remained behind as did Colonel 
 
122 THE COSSACKS 
 
 In the meantime, Mentchikov, the Tsar's 
 favourite, had not been idle. As we have already 
 observed the Russian troops had for some time been 
 preparing for the not unexpected defection of Ma- 
 zeppa and the Zaporogians. Shortly after the het- 
 man's departure, Mazeppa learned that his own 
 household, together with all the provisions he had 
 amassed there for the winter campaign of the 
 Swedish army, had been captured by a brilliant 
 Russian attack. To serve as an example the Cos- 
 sack notables of the town were put to death by 
 Mentchikov with every refinement of cruelty. On 
 
 Potapoff, the Bolshevist commander, who was arrested 
 later. 
 
 "Captain Bers seized the safe containing the Bolshevist 
 war fund of 4,000,000 rubles. Then, with Colonel Pota- 
 poff, the Cossacks arrested the American Consul, Felix 
 Cole; the British and French Consuls, and the French 
 Military Mission. The allied officials were taken to a 
 barn and hidden, the Cossacks holding them and the money 
 as hostages until something definite happened. 
 
 "When the allies landed and the local counter-revolution 
 broke out almost simultaneously on Aug. 1 and 2, the 
 Consuls were released. The Cossacks, however, after 
 declaring themselves ready to support the new Govern- 
 ment claimed that they were secretly against the Bol- 
 sheviki throughout. 
 
 Needless to add, such appeals to "old Cossack Law" 
 would have little standing in the Cossack territories — 
 although wild bands like the Siberian border ruffians led 
 by General Senenov — "Cossacks" in name only — might 
 resort to such a plea. 
 
MAZEPPA 128 
 
 the same scaffold perished a famous Cossack colonel 
 named Glutchov and a Prussian officer named 
 Koenigseck who had acted as the Cossack Chief of 
 Artillery. At the same time an effigy of Ma- 
 zeppa was vicariously "tortured" and solemnly de- 
 graded from the rank of hetman while a cross of 
 St. Andrew was torn from the mannikin's breast. 
 A more effectual punishment than this childish 
 mummery was the solemn anathema launched 
 against the hetman by the metropolitan of Kiev, a 
 terrible indictment which included all the Orthodox 
 Cossacks who were fighting with the heretics 
 against the head of the Russian church. 
 
 As in the case of the rebellious Donskoi, the 
 lacerated bodies of the most important of Ma- 
 zeppa's adherents were placed on rafts and sent 
 adrift on the Dnieper, so that the news of the Tsar's 
 vengeance might be spread along the whole course 
 of that stream. 
 
 At the famous battle of Poltava, whose course 
 and the momentous results it entailed have so often 
 been described, the Cossack nation again found 
 itself hopelessly divided. The majority of the Cos- 
 sacks and "free citizens" of the Ukraine fought 
 under the banners of the Tsar, their oppressor. On 
 the side of Charles XII the Zaporogians and the 
 hetman's faithful regiments distinguished them- 
 selves in a last vain blow for the liberties of the 
 Ukraine. But the armies of Sweden, until now 
 victorious against Russian troops, were for the first 
 
124 THE COSSACKS 
 
 time definitely defeated. The Tsar's troops, 
 thoroughly drilled after the European model and 
 his generals schooled in adversity, were at last able 
 to prove their worth and the value of Peter's pa- 
 tient training. Russia's natural allies, cold and 
 distance, added completeness to a defeat which an- 
 ticipated the appalling disaster which overtook 
 Napoleon a century later. Russia, not Sweden, be- 
 came the preponderant power in the north of 
 Europe, while, except for sporadic mutinies, little 
 more was heard of the "liberties of the Ukraine" 
 until the present day.* 
 
 * "It was the recollection of Narva that caused Charles 
 to lose the battle of Poltava. At daybreak twenty-one 
 thousand confident Swedes attacked the Russian forces 
 taking with them but four pieces of artillery. The King 
 in person conducted the attack, lying in a litter drawn by 
 two horses on account of the wound he had received a 
 few days before. Slipenbak's famous cavalry charged the 
 enemy with great courage. The Muscovite formations 
 were driven in and the Tsar who had himself hurried to 
 rally them received a bullet through his hat. 
 
 "Mentchikov had three horses killed under him — and 
 already the Swedish troopers raised a shout of victory." 
 
 Shortly after, during the Russian counterattack, the 
 two horses carrying the wounded chief of the Swedish 
 forces were killed by a volley of grape shot, and their 
 place was taken by 24 infantrymen — 21 of whom were 
 shot down before the close of the engagement. Indeed 
 the personal courage of both the Tsar (serving with the 
 simple title of Major-general under General Sheremetiev) 
 and Charles was displayed to every advantage, in their 
 terrible duel for supremacy. 
 
MAZEPPA 125 
 
 The conduct of Mazeppa, whose miscalculations 
 had destroyed one of the chief factors upon which 
 Charles' strategy had been based, now gives the lie 
 to those who see in his character only the acts of a 
 finished opportunist. Accompanied by some three 
 thousand Cossacks, Mazeppa and Charles (who, in 
 spite of an agonizing wound had directed the battle 
 from a bed borne on a litter of pikes) fled towards 
 Turkey. The indomitable spirit of the "Lion of 
 the North" still dreamed of rallying Sweden's 
 broken armies. His plan was now to join the 
 troops of General Loewenhaupt, who were waiting 
 the king's arrival somewhere on the Bessarabian 
 border. On the shores of the Dnieper, the fugi- 
 
 Charles seems to have based his strategic plan upon a 
 flank attack by the main force of his cavalry under Gen- 
 eral Creutz, but this officer lost himself in the steppes 
 during the night and was absent at the critical moment, 
 enabling the Tsar to rally his shattered legions, and to 
 turn upon the broken formation of Slipenbak's victorious 
 reiters. At the same time Prince Mentchikov cleverly 
 manoeuvred his forces between the Swedes and their base 
 at Poltava, thus cutting them effectually from their re- 
 inforcements. Later in the day, this town was captured, 
 and a number of officers, including Charles' great Minister 
 Piper, fell into the hands of the Muscovites. When all 
 appeared lost — the wounded Charles was placed upon 
 a horse by the Polish Colonel Poniatowski — and escorted 
 by a few dragoons and Cossacks, fled, more dead than 
 alive, from the scene of this decisive blow to Sweden's 
 greatness. (For a full account of the battle of Poltava 
 see Voltaire's "History of Charles XII," pp. 199 et seq.) 
 
126 THE COSSACKS 
 
 tives were thrust by their followers into a leaky 
 boat and with an escort of about a dozen men 
 abandoned to the swollen stream. Such was their 
 peril that, in order to save themselves from sinking, 
 the greater part of the hetman's treasure was 
 thrown into the river. 
 
 At the same time a terrible fate overtook a large 
 body of Swedish and Cossack cavalry who sought 
 to cross the flooded Dnieper by swimming their 
 horses in a compact mass, following the methods of 
 the ancient Tartar invaders. Near the middle of 
 the river this living raft became broken apart and 
 the struggling horsemen met a terrible death among 
 the rocks and rapids. Swept along by the ice 
 floes of the treacherous stream their bodies accom- 
 panied the flight of their chief and the Hetman Ma- 
 zeppa towards their exile in Turkish territory. 
 
 A few days later the fugitive learned of the de- 
 feat of the army commanded by Loewenhaupt. 
 Continually pressed by Mentchikov's cavalry this 
 general had finally been forced to surrender; 
 fourteen thousand veteran Swedes laying down 
 their arms to less than nine thousand Russians. 
 The days when Charles' troops, as at Narva, 
 had not hesitated to attack a force of Russians 
 double or treble their own strength were ended. 
 This victory was a final disaster to the Cossack 
 faction devoted to Mazeppa. Mentchikov refused 
 to include in the armistice and terms of surrender 
 any amnesty for the Cossack partisans found 
 
MAZEPPA 127 
 
 among the Swedish armies. All who could not es- 
 cape were massacred on the river bank "within 
 sight of their fatherland," * while the rest, accord- 
 ing to the Tsar's orders, were relentlessly hunted 
 down "in their lairs." 
 
 After this execution only three thousand Zap- 
 orogian warriors remained of all that famous 
 brotherhood. On the approach of the Tsar's 
 troops, these were forced to seek shelter among 
 their ancient enemies the Turks. Realizing the 
 value of such allies the Khan of the Crimean Tar- 
 tars welcomed them in his camp, in spite of the 
 wrong they had done his territory in the past. In 
 order to show the Russians that they had definitely 
 passed under Ottoman protection he conferred 
 upon Mazeppa and the Zaporogian Hetman Gordi- 
 anko the insignia of Turkish generals. Lands were 
 also set apart for the Zaporogians on the shores of 
 the Koninke, where in ancient time the sitch or 
 encampment of the free republic had been 
 located.** 
 
 The unfortunate hetman, Mazeppa, did not long 
 survive his disgrace. With the feeble Cossack es- 
 cort which had remained faithful to his cause he 
 took refuge (still accompanied by the King of 
 
 * L,esur, p. 116. 
 
 ** The Zaporogians were, however, so reduced in num- 
 bers that they were not able to resist the attacks of the 
 Russians and soon found themselves obliged to retire 
 farther into the Crimea. 
 
128 THE COSSACKS 
 
 Sweden) at Bender under the protection of the 
 Sultan of Turkey. Here his last days were con- 
 stantly troubled by the fear that he might be de- 
 livered up to the agents of the Tsar. For losing 
 sight of more immediate advantages, Peter now 
 showed himself determined to secure the person of 
 the old comrade in arms who had so traitorously 
 deserted him. But the Ottoman Sultan, in spite of 
 bribes of money and offers even more advanta- 
 geous, remained loyal to the Cossack chieftain. In 
 their misfortune, a warm friendship appears to 
 have united Mazeppa and the fallen hero Charles. 
 All through the last illness of the former hetman, 
 the young monarch continued to encourage the 
 dying veteran with hopes of future success and 
 revenge. Although Charles after a series of ex- 
 traordinary adventures was at last restored to his 
 native land, Mazeppa was unable to bear the double 
 weight of years and misfortune. At the age of 
 eighty he died in the Turkish camp without learn- 
 ing of the disaster which soon after overtook his 
 great enemy the Tsar, in the full tide of his suc- 
 cess at the battle of the Pruth. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE END OF THE FREE UKRAINE: 
 LITTLE RUSSIA 
 
 NOT the least important result of the battle of 
 Poltava was the subjection of the greater 
 part of the Free Ukraine to the will of the Russian 
 crown. Although a majority of the Cossack inhab- 
 itants had refused to follow the lead of Mazeppa 
 and might, therefore, have maintained in all fair- 
 ness their rights to a continuation of the old privi- 
 leges, the determination of Peter the Great to carry 
 out his unifying reforms soon set definite bounds to 
 the autonomy of the "settlements." 
 
 Even those most loyal to the Russian alliance 
 could not see without sorrow the abrogation of priv- 
 ileges which dated from the days of Bogdan. More- 
 over, even in the most Russianized districts, 
 the Tsar's suspicion of these turbulent, half -alien 
 subjects soon led to further vexations and laws 
 restricting their ancient Cossack liberties. 
 
 Peter's first act, after a strong military occupa- 
 tion had secured the imperial hold, was to require 
 of the hetman and the principal Cossack dignitaries 
 an oath of allegiance identical in form to that im- 
 posed upon the majority of his subjects. Hence- 
 
 129 
 
130 THE COSSACKS 
 
 forth the Tsar was legally "Autocrat" and the 
 Ukraine became officially known by the hateful 
 title as "the Province of Little Russia." 
 
 At the same time a demand was made upon each 
 of the Cossack polki or regiments for a contingent 
 of men to be incorporated among the troops of the 
 Russian army. By this means it was clearly indi- 
 cated that the Cossacks of the Ukraine were now 
 considered liable to regular military service like 
 any other subjects of the empire. This policy also 
 effectually weakened the power of resistance which 
 the regiments furnished by the stanitzi might have 
 opposed to Peter's "reforms" had they remained 
 at their full strength. 
 
 In order to accentuate the changes which the old 
 "Free Cossack" regime had suffered separate 
 courts of justice were established at Joukhoff to 
 administer the new Russian law instead of the old 
 Cossack law based upon the "Institutes of Magde- 
 burg." The only appeal from this tribunal lay in 
 the courts of the empire and not, as heretofore, in 
 the great Cossack reunions or the Council of Elders 
 of each stanitza. 
 
 Meanwhile, in his camp at Bender, sometimes 
 treated by the Turk as a distinguished prisoner, 
 again consulted as an ally, Charles XII continued 
 his intrigues against the Tsar and his vehement ap- 
 peals to the powers of Europe to be allowed to 
 return to his kingdom. 
 
 After the death of Mazeppa, Charles had con- 
 
THE END OF THE FREE UKRAINE 131 
 
 tinued on terms of friendly intimacy with Peter 
 Orlick, who had been elected Hetman of the Zap- 
 orogians. The new chief of the former Free Re- 
 public was now wholly under the influence of his 
 Turkish patrons. Although such base sycophancy 
 offended the turbulent orthodoxy of his compan- 
 ions, Orlick affected even the dress of the Ottoman 
 protectors. In order to make his position more 
 secure, he also married a Tartar woman chosen in 
 the seraglio of the Khan of the Crimea. His con- 
 duct could not fail to widen the breach which al- 
 ready existed between the Zaporogians and the 
 Cossacks of the Ukraine. 
 
 But Peter still viewed with suspicion the border 
 population of his new province. Any Cossack sus- 
 pected of intercourse with the Zaporogians was 
 cruelly put to death or transported to the pestilen- 
 tial marshes of Lake Ladoga, where tremendous 
 drainage works were in progress in the neighbour- 
 hood of the new capital. This harsh treatment 
 aroused widespread discontent throughout the 
 Ukraine, and aware of this spirit of revolt, both the 
 Turks and Zaporogians were encouraged to at- 
 tempt once more an invasion of the Russian 
 frontier. 
 
 In furtherance of this scheme, the diplomats of 
 the Porte and the Grand Vizir of the Khan of Tar- 
 tary pretended to treat the Zaporogians as an in- 
 dependent power. In a manifesto widely distrib- 
 uted among the villages of the old Ukraine the 
 
132 THE COSSACKS 
 
 Cossacks were called upon to return to their Polish 
 allegiance. The Turks not only promised to re- 
 establish the rights of the Zaporogians, but also 
 offered to assist the Cossack settlements along the 
 upper Dnieper to regain their former freedom, if 
 they would openly resist the oppressions and ex- 
 actions of the Russians. 
 
 An expedition was next set on foot by the Porte 
 wherein thirty thousand picked Tartar and Turkish 
 troops were to join with Orlick and his Zaporo- 
 gians in an invasion of the Russian and Polish 
 Ukraine. In the same army was included a con- 
 tingent of Poles disaffected by the Tsar's treat- 
 ment of their country, under the leadership of a 
 powerful noble of the ancient house of Pototski. 
 
 During this skilfully planned political-military 
 campaign — wherein the diplomacy of Charles is 
 plainly visible — orders were given to spare the 
 Poles and Cossacks of the invaded districts while 
 punishing without mercy the Russian troops and 
 their adherents. This scheme, however, did not 
 coincide with the time-honoured methods employed 
 by the Tartars in their warfare. The subjects of 
 the Khan and the even less disciplined Zaporo- 
 gians soon began to indulge their talents for ruth- 
 less pillage, and following a few slight military 
 successes in the beginning of the campaign, the 
 allied armies dispersed in search of plunder. This 
 enabled these scattered bands to be easily defeated 
 by regular Russian troops under Prince Galitzine 
 
THE END OF THE FREE UKRAINE 133 
 
 near Kiev. Their losses in battles and skirmishes 
 are placed as high as five thousand. 
 
 While the Zaporogians and their Cossack allies 
 were thus wasting a last opportunity to recover the 
 freedom of the Ukraine, a body of picked Tartar 
 troops, under the command of the Khan in person, 
 succeeded in penetrating in a compact mass to the 
 heart of Russian territory as far as Vorentz. The 
 horrors of this invasion, recalling the excesses of the 
 Tartar hordes under Batu Khan, rallied many dis- 
 tricts wavering in their loyalty to Peter's standard. 
 The principal military result of the expedition was 
 obtained at Samara, where the Khan succeeded in 
 destroying the Russian shipyards and a half -built 
 flotilla, by means of which the Tsar had planned 
 to descend the river Dnieper in an attempt to 
 transfer the seat of war to the frontier of the Otto- 
 man dominions. This feat of arms was probably 
 responsible in part for the disastrous results of the 
 famous Pruth campaign, upon which Peter now 
 embarked at the instance of the Hospodars of the 
 Christian provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia. 
 
 The events of this strange crusade, the most 
 critical incident in Peter's career, do not belong to 
 the subject in hand. It is sufficient to remark that 
 his ill-prepared expedition cost Peter in the course 
 of a few weeks, not only the prestige won through 
 his defeat of the invincible armies of Charles of 
 Sweden, but also placed him for a time at the en- 
 tire mercy of his Turkish enemies. Had it not 
 
134 THE COSSACKS 
 
 been for the fascinations and diplomacy of his new 
 wife, the Empress Catherine, and the wholly un- 
 expected clemency of the Turkish vizir, Tsar Peter 
 — no longer "the Great" — would probably have 
 ended his career a prisoner in Constantinople. 
 
 At the cost of nearly all the ready money in his 
 treasury, a dearly won military reputation and a 
 disastrous treaty, the emperor of all the Russias 
 was at last enabled to return to his dominions — in 
 spite of the frenzied protests of the Swedish king. 
 
 By the humiliating terms of the temporary peace 
 of Falksen, which closed these "negotiations," the 
 Russians returned the fortresses of Azov and Tag- 
 anrog, commanding the littoral of the Black Sea, to 
 the Turks. In the same document they promised 
 not to infringe the "liberties" of the Cossacks of 
 Poland nor those under the protection of the Khan 
 of Crimea. But these advantages the Zaporogians 
 enjoyed for only a brief period. By the terms of 
 the Treaty of Pruth a more regular arrangement, 
 far less favourable to the Free Cossacks, was con- 
 cluded between the Tsar, the Khan of Crimea and 
 the Porte. The Tsar was allowed to keep Kiev, 
 together with the castles and fortified places de- 
 fending the surrounding provinces as far south as 
 Samara and Orel. To the "Free Cossacks" was 
 assigned a territory with vaguely defined bound- 
 aries, forming a buffer state between the Southern 
 province belonging to the Tsar and the Turkish 
 provinces of the Black Sea and the Crimean lit- 
 
THE END OF THE FREE UKRAINE 135 
 
 toral. A final clause, highly galling to the national 
 susceptibilities of the brotherhood, engaged the 
 Tsar on one hand and the Khan and Sultan on the 
 other to repress and punish any invasion by the 
 Zaporogians across the borders of the territory set 
 aside for their use. These measures were fatal to 
 Orlick's dream of an independent Cossack princi- 
 pality and put an end for the time being to further 
 military activities on the part of his turbulent 
 followers. 
 
 Although the Zaporogians had voluntarily 
 sought the protection, rather than an alliance with, 
 the Turks and Tartars, and could therefore hope 
 for no special favours from these traditional ene- 
 mies, — they appear nevertheless to have felt 
 greatly aggrieved at their treatment. A special 
 cause of complaint was the too ready acquiescence 
 of their commander, Orlick, in every new require- 
 ment of the Turks. The Hetman, in order to re- 
 main in favour with the Porte, even consented to 
 allow the Cossacks to be deprived of their artillery, 
 while constant drill and reviews enforcing the irk- 
 some Turkish discipline in their ranks were looked 
 upon as an infringement of their easy-going "mili- 
 tary privileges." Although the Free Companions 
 were soon weary of an alliance or tutelage which 
 so estranged them from their fellow-Cossacks 
 in Russia, during the lifetime of Peter the Great 
 their overtures of peace were treated with contempt. 
 It was not until the year 1732 that events occurred 
 
136 THE COSSACKS 
 
 which caused a modification in Russia's policy 
 towards them. On the death of Augustus II (to 
 whom the Tsar had given the crown of Poland after 
 Poltava), the Polish republic had relapsed into the 
 customary state of anarchy which preceded the 
 election of every new candidate to the vacant 
 throne. Another king, Augustus III, was soon 
 imposed upon the Poles by the Russian armies. Re- 
 senting this act of arbitrary power, a party among 
 the Polish nobility and peasants now resolved once 
 more to ask for the help and intervention of the 
 Tartars and Cossacks. 
 
 In view of the possibility of such an invasion, 
 the ministers of the Empress Ann were more ready 
 than their predecessors to negotiate with the Zap- 
 orogians. A Russian officer visited the Zaporo- 
 gian camp with regalia and presents for the ataman 
 and the chiefs of the Kourens.. Not only was an 
 invitation extended to the "Free Companions" to 
 return to their old allegiance, and to re-establish the 
 sitch on Russian territory, but a present of several 
 million roubles was also offered towards the re- 
 building and equipment of their camp below the 
 cataracts of the Dnieper. 
 
 In order to counteract the success of these nego- 
 tiations, the Sultan sent messengers from Constan- 
 tinople charged with even richer presents than those 
 offered by the diplomats of the Russian mission. 
 But the Cossack leaders repulsed the Turk- 
 ish overtures with scorn, and, loud in their expres- 
 
THE END OF THE FREE UKRAINE 137 
 
 sions of attachment to the Orthdox Church and 
 the Russian cause, sent the Pasha back to Constan- 
 tinople with a negative reply. An untoward inci- 
 dent, however, marred the dignity of this noble 
 action and the patriotic alliance which it sealed. No 
 sooner had the Turkish envoy reached the limits of 
 the Ottoman dominions, than he was set upon by 
 a company of Zaporogians, who had secretly fol- 
 lowed his march till he had crossed the borders 
 where the laws of hospitality protected him. The 
 returned presents were then carried back as booty 
 to the sitch. While disavowing this action, by a 
 characteristic process of reasoning the Zaporogians 
 nevertheless decided that the goods involved must 
 now be considered "fair-prize," and as such they 
 were duly divided among the entire company! 
 
 In order to give immediate proof of their zeal 
 for the Russian alliance, thus irretrievably renewed, 
 a raid was forthwith undertaken upon the ill-starred 
 provinces of the Polish frontier. The indiscrim- 
 inate massacre which ensued warned the Russians 
 of the dangers of allowing too much liberty to the 
 Zaporogians. The government took measures to 
 restrict in many ways the famous "liberties" of the 
 sitch. Thus the "Free Companions" were forced 
 for the first time to accept the control of a Russian 
 officer stationed in their midst, while a council made 
 up of three Russians and three Cossacks was placed 
 in command of the territories assigned to them in 
 the Ukraine. 
 
138 THE COSSACKS 
 
 It will readily appear from the preceding para- 
 graphs that the old characteristics of the sitch — a 
 border garrison drawn from the Cossack frontier 
 settlements of the Ukraine as a protection against 
 the raids of Tartars — had by this time wholly dis- 
 appeared. The Zaporogians had become in the 
 course of time little more than an organized band of 
 border ruffians, anxious only to sell their services 
 to the best advantage. Their conduct during the 
 years of their association with the Porte had more- 
 over estranged them from their old neighbours. It is 
 even doubtful whether the true "Cossacks" in their 
 ranks represented any element but the offscourings 
 and incorrigibles of the Ukrainian Cossack villages 
 and farmsteads. 
 
 The last occasion on which the Zaporogians were 
 regularly employed as auxiliaries by the Russian 
 government was in the war which broke out between 
 Russia and the Porte. The open violation of the 
 Treaty of Pruthby Peter's successors, the Empresses 
 Elizabeth and Ann, left no other course open to the 
 Sultan but war. In the famous campaigns which 
 ensued, planned by General Miinnich, the Turkish 
 provinces of the Black Sea and the territories of the 
 Khan of the Crimea were overrun and devastated. 
 Nearly eight thousand Zaporogians shared the diffi- 
 culties and the privations of the expedition, and 
 their knowledge of the peculiar tactics of desert 
 warfare made them of great service. 
 
 At the si^ge of Ochakov, an operation carried on 
 
THE END OF THE FREE UKRAINE 139 
 
 by land and sea, the Zaporogians constructed a 
 fleet of their famous long boats and in these fragile 
 craft boldly attacked the Turkish fleet. As at the 
 siege of Azov, the disconcerting movements of this 
 light flotilla succeeded in inflicting heavy damage 
 upon the galleons of the enemy. The characteristic 
 reward received for these actions is set down by 
 Lesur in the following terms : 
 
 "Letters patent of 'satisf action' ; a great stand- 
 ard embroidered with the arms of Russia; a horse- 
 tail Cossack standard enriched with gold ; an enam- 
 elled bundchuk or a mace for the koshevoy, and sev- 
 eral millions of roubles as a gratification for the 
 Tree Companions.' At the same time Ann is 
 reported to have caused herself to be inscribed as 
 a member of the sitch — a strange distinction, in- 
 deed, for this womanless community." 
 
 However, by thus aiding in the destruction of 
 their traditional foes, the Tartars of the Crimea, 
 the Zaporogians had at the same time removed the 
 principal reason for which their unruly garrison 
 had so long been tolerated. The passing of frontier 
 conditions along the borders of the Ukraine inev- 
 itably led to the disappearance of the Zaporogian 
 sitch, the classic stronghold of Cossack liberties and 
 traditions. 
 
 In 1768, in a last burst of "Zaporogian fury," 
 the garrison of the sitch had fallen upon the hap- 
 less frontiers of the Polish Ukraine. "All who 
 were not of the Greek religion, including old men, 
 
140 THE COSSACKS 
 
 women, children, nobles, servants, monks, labourers, 
 artisans, Jews, Catholics, Lutherans, were mas- 
 sacred without distinction. The entire province 
 presented the appearance of a city taken by as- 
 sault." (Lesur.) 
 
 The lust for plunder, masquerading under the 
 excuse that their co-religionists were persecuted by 
 the Poles, was the cause of this outrage. Such bar- 
 barity sent a thrill of horror through all the civilized 
 courts of Europe. So great was the indignation 
 that the Empress Catherine hastened formally to 
 disclaim all responsibility for the behaviour of her 
 Zaporogian subjects. Russian regular troops were 
 sent to surround the isolated bands returning to the 
 sitchj and besides depriving them of their loot, 
 forced the majority of the best troops to enroll in 
 the sternly disciplined Cossack slovodni regi- 
 ments of the Ukraine. Only the outbreak of an- 
 other Turkish war saved the sitch from further re- 
 prisals. A sudden attack by Turks and Tartars on 
 the new frontier provinces, coinciding with the 
 strange revolt of the wild Cossacks of the Asiatic 
 frontier under Pougatchev — "the false Peter the 
 Third" — deferred this righteous execution. 
 
 Representations were, however, made to induce 
 the Zaporogians "to conform to the laws of civiliza- 
 tion." In vain they objected that their organiza- 
 tion had always existed as it stood. Their peculiar 
 discipline (or rather the lack of military rules) they 
 justified by the successes of their tactics against the 
 
THE END OF THE FREE UKRAINE 141 
 
 enemies of Russia. Forgetting their frequent dis- 
 loyalties they invoked the ukases of former Tsars 
 confirming them perpetually in their privileges. 
 Their favourite threat when pressed by Catherine's 
 officers was to pretend that they were about to re- 
 turn to their Turkish allegiance. Thus, while the 
 war with the Sultan lasted, Catherine feared to 
 punish their insolence. 
 
 But with the signing of the treaty of Kainardji 
 the Empress turned her attention to reorganizing 
 the Russian border provinces against a possible re- 
 newal of Turkish aggression. It was now decreed 
 that the Zaporogian sitch, the focus of all disorders 
 in the Ukraine, should disappear. Even the priv- 
 ilege of a spirited or heroic climax to their long 
 career of disorder was to be denied them ! A force 
 of troops so overwhelming that to resist would have 
 appeared madness, surrounded the stronghold on 
 every side. Completely surprised and cowed by 
 such a determined campaign the Zaporogians 
 "without even bloodshed" surrendered their arms 
 to the representatives of Catherine's authority. The 
 sitch was declared "forever destroyed and the name 
 of Zaporogian wiped out." In order the more 
 effectually to ensure that no reorganization of their 
 band might take place, the territory of the Zaporo- 
 gians was divided among the neighbouring prov- 
 inces of Little Russia and colonized with "foreign- 
 ers." The lands once under the immediate control 
 
142 THE COSSACKS 
 
 of the sitch now form part of the Russian "govern- 
 ment," of Ekaterinaslav, Kherson and Tauride.* 
 The conditions of the Cossacks living in the 
 
 * An ukase issued by Catherine in August, 1775, con- 
 tains a careful analysis of her political reasons for the 
 annihilation of the Zaporogians. It embodies, moreover, 
 an interesting review of the history of the sitch which has 
 generally formed the basis for the rare studies dealing 
 with this subject. The following edifying passage would 
 seem to indicate that the empress laid much of the blame 
 for the disorderly conduct of the Zaporogians upon their 
 repugnance for family life : "... Historians tell us that 
 the Zaporogian Cossacks once formed part of the Cos- 
 sacks of Little Russia, but that they afterwards separated 
 themselves from these and adopted manners and customs 
 of their own. While the former remained faithfully at- 
 tached to their sovereign, the latter established them- 
 selves beyond the cataracts of the Dnieper, where, having 
 little by little augmented their number, they finally formed 
 a warlike and political association, as singular in its 
 customs as it was contrary to the views of the Creator. 
 The ordinances which tend to facilitate the propagation 
 of the human species were not considered by the Zaporo- 
 gians. One of the principal rules of the establishment 
 forbade the Cossacks to bring with them from the Ukraine 
 their wives or children. . . . This Cossack custom, 
 which arose from a desire not to expose their families 
 to the fury of the enemy, and in order to improve their 
 discipline by freeing them from domestic ties, was finally 
 raised to the place of a cardinal principle by the Zaporo- 
 gians. Through the workings of their law, which en- 
 joined celibacy, they forgot their native land and lived 
 on the shores of the Dnieper in a state of absolute 
 irresponsibility." 
 
THE END OF THE FREE UKRAINE 143 
 
 settlements or stanitzi of Little Russia differed but 
 little at the end of the eighteenth century from that 
 of the Onodvortzi, or peasant-proprietors of Greater 
 Russia. From the account of contemporary- 
 writers, it would appear that the warlike qualities 
 which formerly distinguished the Ukraine — fos- 
 tered by a life of continual campaigning against 
 their numerous enemies — had largely disappeared 
 under the conditions brought about by the long- 
 enforced peace following the firm establishment of 
 Russian rule. 
 
 The old system of land tenure was fast disap- 
 pearing and great estates had already been formed 
 from Cossack land and granted to Russian and 
 Polish nobles. Moreover at this time the ancient 
 territory of the Free Ukraine was invaded on all 
 sides by the advance of Russian colonists. An en- 
 tire new province, known as New Servia, was thus 
 settled on the Turkish frontiers with a population 
 drawn from the Christian provinces of Turkey and 
 peasants of Northern Russia. In order to estab- 
 lish these newcomers as quickly as possible, Cath- 
 erine sent regiments of dragoons to plough and 
 sow these fertile territories long uncultivated owing 
 to fear of the Mussulman. 
 
 Internal change also threatened the characteris- 
 tic civilization of the Cossacks of Little Russia. 
 During the short-lived rule of Peter III an attempt 
 was made to introduce a system of nobility among 
 the officers of the Cossack regiments, undermining 
 
144 THE COSSACKS 
 
 the democratic principle of equality which had 
 formed one of the strongest traditions of Cossack 
 life. Under Catherine the Great, even more stren- 
 uous measures were taken to wipe out all differ- 
 ences between the Ukraine and the neighbouring 
 Russian provinces. 
 
 During the strange parliament summoned at 
 Petrograd by the Empress (in an access of what she 
 flattered herself was "liberalism") we find "repre- 
 sentatives" from the Ukraine Cossacks among the 
 delegates forcibly gathered to deliberate upon a 
 general system of laws for the "people" of Russia. 
 Proud of their national customs and regulations, 
 the Cossacks of the Ukraine appear to have strenu- 
 ously resisted all these innovations. But the ter- 
 rible Roumianzov, now Catherine's favourite min- 
 ister, would not allow this imperial passion for 
 reform to be denied. The delegates from the Cos- 
 sack provinces were dragged to the capital in 
 chains and forced to take part in the debates under 
 the guard of Russian troops. As a result of their 
 strange deliberations a new code of laws was 
 adopted for the Ukraine, in which the ancient cus- 
 toms of the Cossacks were given little consideration. 
 Thus a n ew impetus was given the great migrat ion 
 of Cossa cks towa rds the Caucasus and the Kou- 
 ban — beyond the settlemen ts of the Don — where 
 their descendants have p reserved their customs to 
 the present day. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 POUGATCHEV 
 
 AT no time since the "Troublous Days" which 
 followed the death of Boris Godounov has 
 the padarok or public order of the Russian people 
 seemed so irretrievably disturbed as at the present 
 time. The period of anarchy to which the above 
 name was given has always been looked upon with 
 pious horror by the moujik, at heart a none too 
 heroic lover of peace and quiet above all other con- 
 siderations. Yet the "Red Terror" of the present 
 day is not the only grave upheaval which, since the 
 days of the "False Dmitri," has disturbed the slow 
 evolution of Russia toward light and civilization. 
 The strange "seeking" un-European idealism of the 
 peasantry makes them liable — in spite of their 
 instinctive docility — to almost savage outbreaks 
 of impatience. Again and again false prophets 
 have arisen to deceive the people. If true Russians, 
 these have often deceived themselves. 
 
 Pougatchev, the leader of the great Cossack re- 
 volt during the latter half of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, was a typical specimen of the Russian mob- 
 leader. In addition to ruthlessness and the gift of 
 command he possessed talents of organization and 
 
 145 
 
146 THE COSSACKS 
 
 military leadership which the Bolshevik chieftains 
 of the present day might well envy. Above all he 
 appears as a master of the note of religious appeal 
 which in Russia must always accompany "popular" 
 success — an appeal recalling the dominant note 
 of Russian life, whether made in the name of a 
 schism in the Orthodox Church, on behalf of some 
 socialist doctrine like that preached to-day in the 
 form of a gospel "according to Marx."* 
 
 After the partition of Poland and the suc- 
 cess of Catherine's armies during their Polish cam- 
 paigns, every curious detail with respect to the 
 vast empire governed by "The Semiramis of the 
 North" was eagerly sought after and commented 
 upon in the distant capitals of Europe. The cor- 
 respondence which the Empress Catherine con- 
 scientiously maintained with Voltaire and Diderot, 
 besides her letters to Grimm, her unofficial repre- 
 
 * Among the author's books is an edition (in Ger- 
 man) of a pamphlet entitled "The False Peter Third, or 
 the Life and Adventures of the Rebel Yemelyan Pougat- 
 chev." Originally published in England, by "Seyffert in 
 Angel's Court, Westminster, 1775," this work was trans- 
 lated into French, German and Dutch. Although the 
 style of its contents scarcely rises above the descriptions 
 contained in the "Chap-Books" of the time — dealing 
 with the life and death of celebrated criminals — the ex- 
 traordinary interest aroused by the now almost forgot- 
 ten adventure of the Cossack "usurper" obtained for 
 this biography a wide circulation for several generations 
 following the strange events it describes. 
 
POUGATCHEV 147 
 
 sentative and accredited gossip in Paris — kept this 
 extraordinary woman constantly before the eyes of 
 her contemporaries. For in spite of their fine con- 
 tempt for kings and kingship, the philosophers 
 thus honoured were in no way averse to publishing 
 the details of their literary intimacy with a powerful 
 sovereign. Catherine, on the other hand, forever 
 cut off by the circumstances of her position from 
 the brilliant society she felt so well qualified to 
 grace, seems to have been consoled by the thought 
 that vicariously at least she had become known to 
 the salons of Paris and London. 
 
 Social philosophy was the fashionable distraction 
 of the hour. Like the "Parlor-Bolsheviki" of our 
 own day, Catherine delighted in the parading be- 
 fore her literary friends principles of the most ad- 
 vanced and enlightened liberalism. Taking its 
 tone from the dilettante reformers of the gardens 
 of Versailles, the correspondence of the Empress- 
 Autocrat is constantly concerned with the solution 
 of problems concerning the welfare of her fellow- 
 beings and the "Rights of Man." The news which 
 she herself announced of the revolt of Pougatchev, 
 bringing to the attention of these courtly republi- 
 cans the stirring of mighty primitive forces in the 
 depths of a wholly unknown Russia, came as a sen- 
 sational bit of news to Catherine's correspondents. 
 In the doings of the mysterious beings known as 
 "Cossacks" they may perhaps have recognized the 
 embodiment of that strange philosophical concep- 
 
148 THE COSSACKS 
 
 tion, "Primitive Man," whose virtues were so 
 lauded by their oracle, M. Rousseau. And the fact 
 that the hardy rebel chieftain (the Cossack leader 
 to whom Catherine refers as "M. Pougatchev") 
 actually claimed to be the husband of the Tsarina 
 added an almost scandalous touch to a situation 
 filled with every possibility of interest. 
 
 From the mass of exaggerations and fiction 
 which have grown up about the great Cossack 
 revolt and the person of Pougatchev we may now 
 try to clear away some of the inaccuracies with 
 which the legends of the Chap-Books have overlaid 
 established facts. Yet even as set forth in the 
 pages of the judicious historian of the Cossacks, 
 Lesur, the barest report of these doings would 
 seem hardly to require literary embellishment. "If 
 audacity of character and conception — and ex- 
 cesses dictated by brutality and ferocity — can 
 make a brigand worthy to figure in history, no one 
 has more merited this deplorable honour than the 
 subject of the present account." ("Histoire des 
 Kosaques," Lesur.) 
 
 Yemelyan Pougatchev, generally known by the 
 Russian diminutive of his name, "Yemelka," was 
 born about 1723 in the Cossack stanitza of Zimov- 
 nikaja on the Don. Enrolled at an early age in the 
 Cossack regiment to which this district was obliged 
 to furnish its quota, he followed the campaigns and 
 shared in the honors gained by Catherine's 
 armies during the Seven Years' War and in the 
 
POUGATCHEV 149 
 
 subsequent War of 1769 against the Turks. After 
 the siege of Bender some difference with his mili- 
 tary chiefs caused him to desert from the army. 
 Taking refuge in Poland he was next heard from in 
 a convent of the Greek Orthodox Church near the 
 Russian border. 
 
 In the villages nearby the religious sectarians 
 known as Easkolniki or "Old Believers" had estab- 
 lished numerous "congregations." These fanatics 
 represented the reactionaries or "Puritans" of the 
 Russian Church. The principal tenet of their be- 
 lief was an uncompromising resistance to the re- 
 forms which Peter the Great had introduced in the 
 ritual of the Greek Orthodox Church. It is diffi- 
 cult to believe that the Cossack trooper Pougat- 
 chev had any deep knowledge of the finer points of 
 this ecclesiastical controversy. His rebellious na- 
 ture, however, found sympathetic fellowship with 
 the Raskolniki, who, on account of continued re- 
 fusal to conform to the government's decrees, either 
 in political or religious matters, were subject to 
 persistent persecution. 
 
 Above all else "The Old Believers" prided them- 
 selves in following with literal exactitude the teach- 
 ings of the Old Testament. A favourite text 
 among them was the verse setting forth that 
 "among the followers of Christ there shall be 
 neither first nor last." To this doctrine of absolute 
 equality — travestied by the Bolshevik philosophy 
 of our own day — they joined an almost Moham- 
 
150 THE COSSACKS 
 
 medan conviction that to die for the faith was the 
 highest form of happiness. 
 
 To stop the spread of Raskolnik doctrine all 
 kinds of limitations had been placed upon the ac- 
 tivities of their missionaries. In many places they 
 were forbidden to own property, or when permit- 
 ted to do so were forced to pay double taxes. In 
 some towns it was enacted that, like Jews, the 
 Raskolniki must wear clothing of a distinguishing 
 colour and fashion. These measures had the usual 
 effect of religious persecution: increasing both 
 their zeal and numbers. 
 
 In the older provinces of the Ukraine the strong 
 arm of the Orthodox Church, strengthened by the 
 determination of Peter the Great to rule over a 
 uniform and religiously "united" empire, reduced 
 even the most fanatical opponent of his policy to 
 silence or obedience. To the Puritan-minded Ras- 
 kolniki existence in "Holy Russia" became intol- 
 erable. 
 
 In the remote provinces of "New Russia," along 
 the Asiatic frontier, especially among the Cossacks 
 of the Jaik whose free traditions were opposed to 
 any infringement of personal liberty, many Raskol- 
 niki who had fled for refuge found that their teach- 
 ing met with particular success.* 
 
 * "Jaik" was the name by which the present River 
 Ural was formerly known and the title of the Cossacks 
 long settled on its shores. The name of Ural was im- 
 posed by imperial edict as a punishment after the revolt 
 
POUGATCHEV 151 
 
 It was probably in the company of one of these 
 bands that Pougatchev emigrated to this congenial 
 frontier atmosphere. Here he was assured of a 
 welcome both as a Raskolniki and as a Cossack who 
 had already suffered in the cause of liberty by re- 
 sisting the harsh discipline of the slovodi of the 
 Don. 
 
 - Even allowing for a certain degree of religious 
 sincerity in Pougatchev's beliefs, the course of con- 
 duct he now adopted tends to show that considera- 
 tions of morality entered very little into his plans. 
 Soon after his arrival among the Jaikskoi, Pougat- 
 chev became the chief of a mixed band of Cossacks 
 and frontiersmen who, on the pretence of levying 
 toll or passage money from the merchants travel- 
 ling in the no-man's land near the River Kontai, 
 in reality carried on depredations worthy only of 
 a crew of bandits. For some time these strange 
 Puritans continued to "spoil the Egyptians" with 
 considerable success. In the end it was as a common 
 highwayman, rather than on account of any dan- 
 gerous "revolutionary" activities, that he earned 
 
 led by Pougatchev had finally been stamped out. As an 
 example of Cossack conservatism, my friend Prof. Borodin 
 (a delegate of the Uralsk Cossacks to the recent Congress 
 held in Petrograd) informs me that among the first 
 projects entertained by the local gathering of the Cos- 
 sacks in the town of Uralsk after the March revolution 
 was a proposal to change the official title of the commu- 
 nity by resuming the ancient name of "Cossacks of the 
 Jaik." 
 
152 THE COSSACKS 
 
 the distinction of being arrested by the authorities 
 and taken to Kazan for judgment. Soon after, 
 through the carelessness of the Russian officials in 
 charge of his prison and the aid of fellow-Raskol- 
 niki, he managed to escape. 
 
 Now began the career which has given to Poug- 
 atchev such strange and terrible notoriety. His 
 plan was to return, with as little delay as possible, 
 to the distant Cossack bands of the Jaik, where, 
 among the malcontents of the frontier, he could 
 resume his interrupted leadership. Disguised as 
 a boatman he followed the great highway of the 
 Volga and its tributaries until these carried him to 
 a point where the settlements near the town of 
 Jaikskoi could be reached.* 
 
 His return came at an opportune moment. The 
 Russian government had again attempted to intro- 
 duce among the unruly inhabitants of this thinly 
 populated province the same military reforms that 
 had been imposed on the Cossacks of the Dnieper 
 and Don. Besides the settlements of the ancient 
 | Jaikskoi, whose origin is traced from the remnants 
 of Scythian tribes, Cossacks of the lower Jaik 
 included large numbers of runaway Russian serfs 
 and religious refugees. Above all else they were a 
 liberty-loving race. 
 
 * So identified had the Cossacks become with the river 
 traffic on these great streams that in Hakluyt's "Voyages" 
 we find the English Merchants Adventurers of the Mus- 
 covy company referring to their boatmen under the 
 name of "Casaks or barkmen." 
 
POUGATCHEV 153 
 
 Like all true frontiersmen the Jaik Cossacks 
 held agriculture in small esteem. Cattle-herding, 
 hunting and the rich fisheries of the river Ural fur- 
 nished the means of a far easier existence. To 
 these pleasant pursuits they added a profitable ex- 
 ploitation of the great natural salt fields found in 
 the marshes of the river. 
 
 The Empress Catherine's policy was to build up 
 in all her frontier provinces an agricultural popu- 
 lation of peasant farmers. Although none of these 
 foreign colonists were transferred to the Jaik, whole 
 villages were settled about Samara on the Volga. 
 But by this means new animosities were aroused, for 
 in the process many of the original settlers were de- 
 spoiled in favour of the newcomers. Most of the 
 latter were, moreover, Germans, whose descendants, 
 aliens in language and belief, were to be found, 
 until the outbreak of the present war, living side 
 by side with the Russian population, still divided 
 from their neighbours by ancient quarrels.* 
 
 At the same time that the Cossacks found them- 
 
 * The foolish and short-sighted policy of the imperial 
 German government in tampering with the Russian al- 
 legiance of these colonists through specious offers of "dual 
 nationality" made just before the outbreak of the war 
 has led to the irremediable dispersal — two hundred years 
 after their foundation — of the chief source of German 
 influence in this district. Here, again, the cynical disre- 
 spect of Germany's rulers for international conventions 
 brought the natural punishment for their misdeeds on 
 innocent heads. 
 
154 THE COSSACKS 
 
 selves ousted from great tracts of "range" neces- 
 sary for their cattle, the government had sought to 
 force them to more "civilized pursuits" by cutting 
 off the subsidies which had been allowed to every 
 head of a Cossack family in return for his military 
 services against the neighbouring Turkoman tribes- 
 men. The strong element of Raskolniki among 
 the Cossacks held to their beliefs with fanatical 
 determination. These observances were often the 
 cause of serious trouble with the authorities. Like 
 the boyars of Peter's time, the sectarians refused, 
 on religious grounds, to shave or "trim the corners 
 of the beard." When the military authorities were 
 ordered to enroll these matchless horsemen into 
 regiments of "Hussars" for service during the 
 Turkish war, the first act of the general in com- 
 mand (a German, one of many serving in the 
 Russian armies) was to order that his bearded 
 recruits be publicly shorn in the principal square 
 of the town of Jaikskoi. His fixed belief that no 
 hussar could fight unless wearing moustaches pre- 
 scribed by the German regulations ended in the 
 massacre of all the foreign officers engaged in re- 
 cruiting service. Only the arrival of regular troops 
 put an end to this mutiny. The leaders, enjoying 
 the approval and support of the Cossacks, easily 
 escaped to the neighbouring desert. 
 
 In their secret headquarters on the Kirghiz 
 steppes, Pougatchev joined the leaders of this re- 
 volt. Although in the eyes of the Tsarina's offi- 
 
POUGATCHEV 155 
 
 cials Pougatchev was only an escaped convict, his 
 prestige was now established among the "Old Be- 
 lievers" by the imprisonment he had suffered for 
 his religious belief. Successful defiance of the reg- 
 ulations protecting the merchants on the caravan 
 road was but an added title to their respect. Before 
 long he found himself elected the leader of a band 
 of desert "Free Companions," who, with some pre- 
 tence of copying the organization and customs of 
 the Zaporogian Cossacks, now declared themselves 
 independent of all authority. Travelling merchants 
 and caravans were attacked under the pretext of 
 levying toll on all who ventured across their terri- 
 tory. Organized "lifting" of the cattle belonging 
 to their more peaceful neighbours also furnished 
 the means of an easy, even joyous, existence. 
 
 In the spring of the year 1773 Pougatchev, per- 
 haps in order more formally to establish his leader- 
 ship among his wild companions, or dreaming of 
 wider opportunities for his ambition, appears first 
 to have conceived the plan of appealing to their 
 allegiance by claiming to be the murdered Tsar 
 Peter III. Wildly improbable as the scheme may 
 appear, it had, nevertheless, many features which 
 promised success. The circumstances surround- 
 ing the assassination of this unworthy monarch, 
 whom Catherine had supplanted, had always re- 
 mained a disquieting mystery to the peasants of 
 Russia. According to popular belief (but for what 
 historical reasons it is difficult to determine) he 
 
156 THE COSSACKS 
 
 was generally supposed to have suffered martyr- 
 dom on account of his devotion to the cause of the 
 peasant reforms. Among the "Old Believers" and 
 the other strange sects which flourished on the 
 Russian borders, he was, moreover, greatly revered 
 because of the leniency he had shown to their 
 brethren during his brief and disordered reign. The 
 manner in which the Empress had succeeded her 
 unworthy husband on the throne had always been 
 left unexplained by Catherine in her proclamations 
 announcing this event in distant parts of the em- 
 pire. The belief appears to have existed that the 
 rightful Emperor was only held in prison by the 
 officials devoted to Catherine and her favourites. 
 Thus the rumour that "Father Peter" was still alive 
 had probably long been current among the Cos- 
 sacks of the Asiatic frontier before Pougatchev 
 sought to turn the legend to his own advantage. 
 
 Pougatchev, for this device or impersonation, 
 could not even claim originality. Only a century 
 before the boy Tsarevitch Dmitri — murdered 
 by his ambitious guardian, Boris Goudonov — had 
 been successfully impersonated by a mysterious 
 personage known in history under the name of the 
 "False Dmitri." This was probably one Gregory 
 Ostrepiev, a young monk who, with the support 
 of the Polish nobility (whose credulity, in view of 
 the questions of policy it involved, it is unnecessary 
 to fathom), actually succeeded in revenging upon 
 the son of the Russian usurper the crime to which 
 
POUGATCHEV 157 
 
 the father owed the throne. For a few months 
 Gregory ruled the distracted Russian Empire as 
 Tsar (1606) * 
 
 That the "fraud" of Ostrepiev did not result in 
 establishing a new dynasty permanently upon the 
 Russian throne seems rather due to the character 
 of the new Tsar than to any doubts with respect 
 to his legitimate rights. His advent as a force 
 capable of restoring order in the midst of the 
 "Troublous Times" had been hailed with delight 
 by the whole Russian people. Had not Dmitri 
 shown himself too Polish in his habits and taste to 
 suit his new subjects, he would probably have 
 reigned to the end of his days. But "because he 
 ridiculed the monks and went bear hunting like 
 the Polish king, the populace of Moscow struck 
 him down, burning his body as that of a 'sorcerer' 
 who had deceived the people." 
 
 The reign of the succeeding Tsar Shouiski 
 (little more legitimate than the pretender who op- 
 posed him) was troubled by a whole series of 
 "False Dmitris." One of these, a Donskoi Cossack, 
 
 * For a full discussion of the problem of the "False 
 Dmitri" see an article in the Russian Review for Novem- 
 ber, 1913, by George Afanasyev. The writer quotes an in- 
 terview between the English traveller Cox and the Russian 
 historian Miller, which tends to prove that the latter be- 
 lieved the pretensions of Ostrepiev to be genuine. A 
 study by Count Shermetev concerning this much-debated 
 mystery is about to be published. 
 
158 THE COSSACKS 
 
 succeeded in backing up his pretensions with a 
 Falstaffian army in whose ranks marched four or 
 five fellow-pretenders, each impersonating some 
 member of the imperial family.* 
 
 It would seem highly probable that the traditions 
 of these more or less successful impostors would 
 have been preserved in the folk-songs and legends 
 of the Don stanitza where Pougatchev was born. 
 In turning their example to account by attempting 
 to exploit the belated popularity of the ignoble 
 husband of Catherine the Great, the bandit leader 
 only followed a generally successful precedent 
 well known in Cossack history. 
 
 From the beginning Pougatchev seems to have 
 found little difficulty in inducing the majority of 
 his companions to accept his pretensions to be Peter 
 III, the rightful Tsar of Russia. While the Rus- 
 sian authorities treated with ridicule the bombast 
 of the false "monarch" who, from his capital or 
 encampment in the salt desert of Jaik, addressed 
 them in pompous manifestoes, new recruits flocked 
 to his standard in alarming numbers. Soon the 
 Raskolniki and the element of discontented peas- 
 ants and landless Cossacks, to whom his eloquence 
 was generally directed, began to believe in the in- 
 fallibility of this fierce desert Messiah. A few 
 easily won military successes also added stability 
 to his throne. Skilfully choosing as the object of 
 his attacks the almost defenceless German colon- 
 
 * See Rambaud, "Histoire de Russia," page 288. 
 
POUGATCHEV 159 
 
 ists, established by Catherine near the Free Cossack 
 lands, and therefore objects of particular hatred 
 to the entire Cossack population, — he directed a 
 popular crusade to restore this territory to the pre- 
 vious owners. His speedy triumphs were even 
 tempered with a certain "royal" clemency. Leaving 
 to his alien victims the bare necessities of existence ; 
 in return for a promised tribute and the acknowl- 
 edgment of his imperial claims their lives were 
 spared. At the same time a rich booty provided 
 his followers with much needed stores and equip- 
 ment to continue their campaign. 
 
 Along the course of the lower Jaik only the prin- 
 cipal town, Jaikskoi, was able to resist the fury 
 of Pougatchev's attack. When summoned to sur- 
 render "in the name of the Tsar," the leaders of the 
 garrison replied that they were too familiar with 
 the name of Pougatchev and the reputation of the 
 ruffians composing his band even to consider such 
 an impudent demand. In the face of this challenge, 
 whether because he felt himself unprepared for a 
 siege, or on account of the possible effect of the 
 derisive rebuke he had received upon the allegiance 
 of his followers, Pougatchev now returned to his 
 desert stronghold, where he began busily recruiting 
 his forces for an attack upon Orenburg, the prin- 
 cipal town of the Russian frontier provinces. 
 
 The Governor of Orenburg was at this time an 
 officer in the regular Russian army, newly arrived 
 and without experience in desert warfare. Under- 
 
160 THE COSSACKS 
 
 estimating the force of a movement led by so ridicu- 
 lous an individual as a "false Peter III" he angrily 
 ordered the small garrison of the two nearest fron- 
 tier outposts to proceed, without delay, against the 
 rebels. By a series of lightning marches — such as 
 only Cossack troops are capable of performing — 
 Pougatchev succeeded in defeating first one and 
 then the other of these detachments. The soldiers 
 who volunteered to join his ranks were welcomed 
 among the armies of the pretender. The remainder, 
 including nearly all the officers, were pitilessly mas- 
 sacred. (When one recalls the composition of 
 Catherine's frontier armies, the lifelong exile of the 
 serf-soldiers and criminals who served out their 
 penal sentences in its ranks, it is in no way sur- 
 prising to learn that many disciplined recruits were 
 gained by the rebels from prisoners and deserters 
 from the imperial forces.) 
 
 Orenburg, the rich centre of an important group 
 of caravan trails crossing the Turcoman deserts, 
 although defended by a fortress and heavy earthen 
 walls, was next attacked. Only the courageous 
 conduct of the garrison of a neighbouring post 
 whose defense delayed the advance of the Cossacks 
 long enough to enable the governor to obtain rein- 
 forcements, saved the capital of Russia's Asiatic 
 provinces from the fierce attack of Pougatchev's 
 army. 
 
 Following the continued success of their leader, 
 these had now become a force by no means to be 
 
POUGATCHEV 161 
 
 readily dispersed. Besides a majority of the Jaik- 
 skoi Cossacks, Pougatchev had under his command 
 a great body of Bashkir tribesmen and several 
 bands of unruly Budjiak Tartars who had but 
 recently been exiled to these deserts from the 
 Crimea by Catherine's orders. Eleven thousand 
 Kalmoucks, after massacring the Russian officials 
 set over them, joined his standard in a body. Even 
 a detachment of Polish gentlemen and their re- 
 tainers, exiles on their way to Siberia, lent him the 
 aid of their military knowledge, burning to avenge 
 on Catherine, by any means at hand, the wrongs 
 she had inflicted upon their country. 
 
 Pougatchev now found his word the undisputed 
 law over an empire geographically as vast as the 
 Central Europe of to-day. In all this wide but 
 sparsely settled territory only the garrisons of a 
 few strongly fortified towns were able to hold out 
 against his assaults. Had the Cossacks waited 
 until hunger and despair brought about the sur- 
 render of these isolated garrisons, the results might 
 have been different. But in order to maintain the 
 military ardour of his followers, anxious for plun- 
 der, an active siege of Orenburg was undertaken. 
 In full sight of the garrison of Orenburg, the Cos- 
 sack leader carried out the reviews and ceremonies 
 of his grotesque court, seeking by every means in 
 his power to impress both upon his fickle subjects 
 and the beleaguered enemy a sense of his new 
 importance. 
 
162 THE COSSACKS 
 
 The personality of Pougatchev had by this time 
 become entirely merged in that of Peter III. Per- 
 haps deluded by some strange doctrine of trans- 
 substantiation, he appeared to have persuaded him- 
 self of the actual truth of his claims. His supporters 
 among the Raskolniki enabled him to adopt the 
 role of prophet as well as Tsar. Dressed in gor- 
 geous pontifical robes he distributed absolution and 
 blessings on his wild followers reduced to a state of 
 reverential awe by these mummeries. (Pushkin's 
 "The Captain's Story," a piece of brilliant fiction 
 founded on profound historical research, deals 
 with these events.) 
 
 On his banners was inscribed in letters of gold 
 the legend "Redivivus et ultor" (Resurrected and 
 avenging). About his person high-titled officers 
 and attendants exercised their offices real and imag- 
 inary. At meals Polish noblemen, of authentic lin- 
 eage, served him as lackeys. To the sound of trum- 
 pets and the beating of drums royal toasts were 
 drunk — to the future of the "popular cause." In 
 the government of his strange dominions a council 
 of ministers, with the title of boyars, carried out 
 his orders and issued ukases in due form. An order 
 of chivalry was established which conferred grand- 
 iloquent titles upon Cossack peasants and Kal- 
 mouck braves. Pougatchev even succeeded in 
 issuing a rough coinage bearing his effigy with the 
 title "Peter III Emperor of all the Russias." 
 
 Had Pougatchev possessed the strength of char- 
 
POUGATCHEV 163 
 
 acter necessary to maintain the role he had first 
 affected — that of a religious and social reformer — 
 the forces of discontent might have gathered from 
 all over Russia to his banners. The long-promised 
 reforms, demanded by the peasants, had been but 
 the amusement of Catherine's leisure. The endless 
 formal enquiries and reports which she had caused 
 to be drawn up with reference to taxation and peas- 
 ant emancipation, and the "Congress" to which del- 
 egates were dragged, sometimes in chains, to listen 
 to adulation of their mistress, were only intended by 
 her courtiers to flatter the Tsarina's "liberalism." 
 The signs of a deep-rooted discontent with the 
 established order was everywhere apparent. 
 
 In spite of the grotesque pretensions which at- 
 tended his career, Pougatchev's crusade against the 
 nobles and landlords might have gathered a for- 
 midable following. Like the "False Dmitri," he 
 now dreamed of Moscow and a throne in the Krem- 
 lin. The gravity of the situation which confronted 
 Catherine was, to a certain degree, admitted. Proc- 
 lamations in which she at last condescended to no- 
 tice, and even argue, with respect to Pougatchev's 
 claims to be Peter III now appeared. Although 
 she wrote to Voltaire of the doings of "Monsieur 
 de Pougatchev,"* she was, nevertheless, careful at 
 the same time to warn her subjects "to obey only 
 the laws signed by my own hand." An appeal was 
 
 * Letters of Catherine to Voltaire. 
 
164 THE COSSACKS 
 
 also made to the Cossacks of the Jaik to return to 
 their true allegiance.* 
 
 A measure far more dangerous to the cause of 
 the pretender was an offer of a tremendous reward 
 (100,000 roubles) to be paid for his person or proof 
 of his death. Pougatchev, who could neither read 
 nor write, caused a series of manifestos to be issued 
 in answer to these ukases promising among other 
 reforms freedom of the serfs and restoration of all 
 Cossack privileges. This was a political move of 
 no little sagacity. Even in the distant parts of 
 European Russia Pougatchev's "program" was 
 everywhere greeted with enthusiasm. 
 
 The chief danger to Pougatchev's cause was now 
 to arise from his own natural ferocity of character 
 and the unbreakable chains of brutal passions. 
 Imagining that his kingly state was now assured, 
 he allowed himself to indulge with impunity in the 
 most outrageous debauchery. His conduct soon 
 became a cause for scandal among the Raskolnik 
 elders who had formed his first disciples. The 
 "unco guid" of the Cossack community — rigid fol- 
 lowers of the text of the ancient Scriptures — 
 might condone acts of freebooting and piracy which 
 could be considered in accordance with the divine 
 ordinance to "spoil the Egyptians," but the spec- 
 tacle which their leader soon afforded them, and 
 especially his amorous subjection to a notorious 
 harlot of Jaikskoi, lost him the support of these 
 
 * Lesur, page 221. 
 
POUGATCHEV 165 
 
 rigid sectarians. When he insisted on the presence 
 of the elders at a wedding feast with "Jezebel" (for 
 in spite of the fact that he had a legally wedded 
 Cossack wife, he was bent upon celebrating a fresh 
 alliance by an orgy worthy in every respect of his 
 bride) , a mutiny occurred among his followers. In 
 order to distract the attention of his army from 
 these troublesome domestic matters he now threat- 
 ened to lay siege in regular form to the great city 
 of Kazan, and a strong Russian force under Gen- 
 eral Bibikov was sent to the relief of that place. 
 
 By a quick march towards the frontier, Samara, 
 an important city on the Volga, was recovered from 
 the rebels, and the lower course of this stream once 
 more opened to navigation. But the wild character 
 of the country, among whose deserts and salt 
 marshes his followers found themselves at home, 
 enabled "Peter III" not only to keep his armies 
 intact, but also to obtain a sudden advantage. Re- 
 turning after a long detour, he surprised an isolated 
 force forming the personal guard of General Bib- 
 ikov. Amazed by this unexpected attack the Rus- 
 sians were almost annihilated and their leader 
 escaped, only to die later of a slight wound, which 
 his rage and mortification alone rendered serious. 
 
 Galitzine and his regulars now once more ap- 
 peared upon the scene, attacking the Cossack bands 
 with such vigour that in the course of a six hours' 
 struggle the rebels were in their turn completely 
 defeated. This time, Pougatchev with a few fol- 
 
166 THE COSSACKS 
 
 lowers barely succeeded in escaping to the unknown 
 country among the foothills of the Urals. Through 
 the success of these military operations the great 
 Cossack rebellion was generally supposed in Eu- 
 rope to be at an end. But the cause of Pougatchev 
 had become identified with the wrongs of the peas- 
 ants, the sufferings of the enforced colonists of the 
 Siberian frontier and the "privileges" of which the 
 Cossacks felt themselves unjustly deprived. Even 
 the wild tribes of Bashkirs and Kalmoucks inhab- 
 iting the deserts and steppes about Orenburg 
 looked to Pougatchev to relieve them of the taxes 
 and tasks imposed upon them by Catherine's offi- 
 cers. His misfortunes, moreover, had done much to 
 wipe out the unfavourable impression made by his 
 excesses in the minds of the Puritan Raskolniki. 
 In ever-increasing numbers recruits once more 
 travelled by desert ways, unknown to the Russians, 
 to join the new "Army of Revenge." Fanaticized 
 by his indomitable eloquence and energy, his wild 
 horsemen made a sudden descent upon the frontier 
 blockhouses undeceiving the officials who had 
 thought Pougatchev's powers for mischief -making 
 at an end. 
 
 This time the help of one of Russia's ablest gen- 
 erals, Michelson (a soldier of Scottish descent, the 
 favourite pupil of the great Romarzov), was in- 
 voked to meet the situation. Wholly new tactics 
 were adopted. Quantities of mounted troops were 
 improvised from the foot regiments, and during a 
 
POUGATCHEV 167 
 
 running battle of three days Michelson finally suc- 
 ceeded in cornering his enemy. A crushing defeat 
 put an end to the strange career of the Cossack 
 "Peter III" — "redivivus" no more. Pougatchev 
 escaped, but veteran troops, including several regi- 
 ments of Cossacks from the Don lately returned 
 from the Turkish wars, were now used by the Rus- 
 sian authorities to hunt down the scattered bands 
 of the malcontents. A last tragic episode was, how- 
 ever, to be added to the ill-fame of the chieftain. 
 
 The wrongs of the dispossessed Cossacks and 
 peasants who formed a large part of Pougatchev's 
 armies, justified in a measure their actions and 
 their revolt against tyranny. But no cause, how- 
 ever just, could long prosper under such a leader. 
 To the last, the career of the "Cossack Tsar" re- 
 mains unrelieved by a single ray of noble or gener- 
 ous intention. Seldom was a popular "hero" so 
 unworthy of his opportunities. The news of the 
 final defeat of Pougatchev's armies was coupled 
 with that of a brutal murder which, even in his re- 
 treat, he paused to accomplish. The philosopher 
 Lowitz, who, with a few learned companions, had 
 been engaged in surveying a route for a canal to 
 join the great highway of the Volga with the Black 
 Sea, was surprised by the fleeing "Tsar Peter" 
 during this work. The celebrated savant — to give 
 point to a brutal jest — was impaled upon a long 
 stick "in order to continue star gazing." 
 
 Pougatchev's intemperate and brutal nature was 
 
168 THE COSSACKS 
 
 also the cause of his final capture. In spite of the 
 reward set upon his head, three faithful compan- 
 ions had shared with him the dangers and priva- 
 tions of his flight. While lurking in hiding among 
 the salt lakes not far from the Jaik, one of these 
 three — overcome by fatigue and the hopelessness 
 of their situation — dared to suggest to his chief 
 the advisability of considering a surrender. Poug- 
 atchev, perhaps thinking to overawe his comrades, 
 without hesitation drove his dagger into the 
 speaker's throat. 
 
 The companions of the murdered man now threw 
 themselves on their leader and binding him with 
 his own horse's reins and bridle, carried him to the 
 Russian troops under General Zaharov, com- 
 manding the town of Jaikskoi. From this place, 
 which had been the scene of "Peter Ill's" wildest 
 exploits and excess successes, he was carried to 
 Moscow in an iron cage, a species of terrible show 
 and example to all the villages along the way. 
 
 In captivity Pougatchev showed the psychologi- 
 cal transformations so common to wild and brutal 
 natures. His jailers and those who visited him in his 
 prison were astonished to find, instead of the ter- 
 rible monster created by popular belief, a mild and 
 cringing convict continually hopeful of a reprieve. 
 
 Yet the extraordinary powers of persuasion or 
 personal magnetism of which the Cossack leader 
 was master were to be exercised even upon his 
 executioner. The sentence passed upon the "False 
 
POUGATCHEV 169 
 
 Peter the Third" — no more barbarous than his 
 crimes demanded in the opinion of his time — re- 
 quired that "he should be quartered alive, his hands 
 and feet cut off, and his ashes then to be thrown to 
 the winds." As a last grace the public hangman 
 consented on the scaffold to alter the course of this 
 terrible punishment, moved by Pougatchev's tears 
 and eloquent pleadings. First cutting off the ban- 
 dit's head at a single blow, he thus mercifully ended 
 his sufferings. As a punishment for this humane 
 weakness, defeating the ends of justice, the un- 
 fortunate official was given the knout, his tongue 
 was cut out, and he was sent to end his days in Si- 
 berian banishment. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE HETMAN PLATOV 
 
 IN the days of public rejoicing following the 
 Peace of Paris no hero of the armies of the 
 Grand Coalition which had overthrown Napoleon 
 enjoyed such unrivalled popularity as the Hetman 
 Platov, the leader of the Cossacks of the Don. 
 The versions of his terrifying exploits which became 
 current in Europe were often so exaggerated 
 that the hetman — like Mazeppa — began to be 
 considered by a later generation as a character in 
 fiction. Always modest in his own accounts, Platov 
 became the victim of overzealous biographers. It 
 is only in recent years that writers of his own race 
 have succeeded in making clear the history of the 
 stirring events in which he took part and the im- 
 portant military role played by the Cossacks during 
 the retreat of the French from Moscow. 
 
 During Platov's visit to England in the personal 
 suite of the Emperor Alexander, his fame threat- 
 ened to eclipse even the reception accorded to the 
 "Tsar Idealist" himself. At a memorable race 
 meeting held in Ascot in the year 1815 the hetman 
 was almost mobbed by his admirers : "his arrival was 
 greeted by a tempest of cheers so prolonged that 
 
 170 
 
THE HETMAN PLATOV 
 
THE HETMAN PLATOV 171 
 
 they threatened to interrupt the serious busi- 
 ness of the occasion. Five men at one time were 
 shaking his hand, each one passing on to a friend 
 the finger that he had enjoyed the honour of hold- 
 ing. An attention even more annoying to the gal- 
 lant Cossack was offered by a throng of ladies, who, 
 armed with scissors, insisted either upon being pre- 
 sented with locks of the hero's hair, or when, for 
 obvious reasons, this was refused, on cutting sou- 
 venirs from the tail of his charger."* Yet in spite 
 of this overwhelming reception, Platov always 
 looked back on this stay among the warm-hearted 
 Londoners as the happiest epoch of his life. 
 
 Platov was born about the middle of the XVIIIth 
 century at Tcherkass, the old capital of the Don 
 Cossacks. 
 
 The exact date of his birth is unknown because 
 in later years he was always careful to conceal his 
 age from his companions-in-arms — many of them 
 younger than his own grandchildren. His military 
 career, like that of the veteran Prince Kutusov, 
 forms a connecting link between the group of bril- 
 liant generals who directed the victorious wars of 
 Catherine the Great and the history of the Napo- 
 leonic era. 
 
 Ivan Platov, the future hetman's father, was a 
 simple Cossack officer who, like his son, was born 
 at Tcherkass. It is considered a noteworthy fact 
 
 * Platov's own account, quoted by Prof. A. E. Tar- 
 rasov, in "The Hetman Platov," in Russian, 1902. 
 
172 THE COSSACKS 
 
 by his biographers that the elder Platov knew how 
 to read and write, advantages which he took pains 
 to secure for his son, young Matvei Ivanovitch. But 
 in the warlike times of Catherine's reign school days 
 were necessarily brief in all Cossack stanitzi on the 
 Don. At the age of thirteen we find the fu- 
 ture hetman serving as a private in the ranks of the 
 Tcherkask regiment. 
 
 Like all true Cossacks Platov welcomed the end 
 of the long peace which was marked by the out- 
 break of the first Turkish war. Great, therefore, 
 was his disappointment when the elder Platov was 
 summoned (on account of his knowledge of the 
 frontier conditions) to the general staff in Petro- 
 grad, so that in his absence his son became charged 
 with the direction of the family's modest affairs. It 
 was in disobedience, therefore, of his father's orders 
 that in 1770 Platov joined his old comrades-in-arms 
 in the Crimea, where they were then serving under 
 the command of the Russian General Dolgorouki. 
 His stay at the main front was, however, not a 
 prolonged one, for we next hear of him stationed 
 among the frontier garrisons of Cossack troops on 
 the shores of the Kouban. With them he engaged 
 in a brisk little campaign against the warlike moun- 
 taineers of the Caucasus, a never failing accompa- 
 niment of Russia's wars against the Sultan. 
 
 During the years 1775-1777 Platov served with 
 the Russian troops engaged in hunting down the 
 rebellious Cossacks of the Jaik, who under their 
 
THE HETMAN PLATOV 173 
 
 unworthy leader, Pougatchev, were defending their 
 right to follow out their own religious customs and 
 beliefs. After the capture and execution of the 
 "False Tsar Peter," Platov continued to serve in 
 the border garrison along the Kouban, earning dis- 
 tinction and experience in campaigns against the 
 courageous Tcherkess, Lesghians and the other 
 mountain tribesmen of these romantic regions. 
 
 The outbreak of Catherine's second war against 
 the Turks was welcomed by Platov as offering an 
 opportunity for more rapid promotion. At the 
 famous siege of Otchakov he found himself pro- 
 moted to be a colonel of Cossacks, and in 1789 
 (when his regiment captured the famous Turkish 
 general Gazan Pasha) Potemkin consented to lend 
 him his powerful support, the surest road to further 
 promotion. To please her favourite the empress 
 appointed Platov "Hetman of all the Cossacks of 
 the Don," and to this title was shortly added that 
 of Governor of the province of Ekaterinoslav. 
 
 A few months after this event the young het- 
 man's reputation for personal bravery and his con- 
 tinued warlike success caused Catherine to express 
 a wish to meet the "most famous Cossack of her 
 armies." This high compliment, which was con- 
 veyed to Platov through his protector, Potemkin, 
 involved a long and tedious journey to Petrograd. 
 At court he was received with favours which might 
 well have turned the course of his career, or even 
 
174 THE COSSACKS 
 
 engaged him in a dangerous rivalry with his patron 
 the favourite. 
 
 The great Catherine, although by no means in 
 her first youth, had never ceased to show her in- 
 terest in gallant — and especially in handsome 
 — soldiers. For those who bravely served her 
 she considered no reward too exalted. So 
 pleased was the Empress with the young Cossack's 
 martial yet modest bearing that she even accorded 
 him the honour of personally conducting him 
 through the marvels of the imperial apartments. 
 For nearly a week the Winter Palace hummed 
 with the news of his good fortune. Ambassadors 
 of Great Powers began to concern themselves with 
 a possible change in the imperial "policy" of the 
 day. But age had not made Catherine more con- 
 stant. Soon tiring of the simple and soldierly 
 manners of her new favourite, an intimation that 
 she would no longer detain him from his military 
 duties ended his brief career as a courtier. We can 
 well imagine with what relief young Platov quitted 
 the stifling atmosphere of the Winter Palace, heavy 
 with scent and intrigue, to breathe once more the 
 pure breezes of the Don steppes. 
 
 Yet this interlude in Platov's military career does 
 not seem to have caused him to lose the favour of 
 the powerful Potemkin. In their cynical enjoy- 
 ment of power, the group of "ministers" surround- 
 ing the Empress had little time for jealousy. Under 
 Zoubov, another favourite promoted by Catherine 
 
THE HETMAN PLATOV 175 
 
 to be "Hetman of all the Cossack Armies," he 
 fought through the Persian campaign of 1795 and 
 was present at the fall of Baku and Elizabethpol. 
 The cross of the Order of Saint Vladimir and a 
 sword bearing the legend in diamonds "In recogni- 
 tion of Bravery," was the reward of Platov's ser- 
 vices at court and in the field. 
 
 The death of Catherine the Great brought her 
 son, the Emperor Paul, to the throne. This im- 
 perial Hamlet — whose youth was constantly over- 
 shadowed by the fate of his father — had always 
 considered his mother in the light of a usurper. 
 Constant brooding over his wrongs and misfortunes 
 had made him in reality little better than a mad- 
 man. "You must know," he once declared to a for- 
 eign ambassador soon after his accession, "that 
 there is no one worth considering in Russia, except 
 the person to whom I am speaking, and then only 
 during the time I am addressing myself to him." 
 But the Emperor Paul had little of the character of 
 Louis XIV except his overwhelming self-conceit. 
 The Tsar hated everyone who had found favour in 
 his mother's eyes. Every plan by which she had 
 raised her adopted country to be the first Power of 
 Europe, even the glorious military traditions of 
 Catherine's reign, were set at naught and revised. 
 Paul's mania for reforming and his passion for 
 copying Prussian models did not even spare the 
 national uniforms of the Russian army, so suitable 
 for the changing climate and conditions of steppe 
 
176 THE COSSACKS 
 
 warfare. These were replaced by tight-fitting 
 Prussian military tunics, plaited queues, buckled 
 shoes, gaiters and the awkward beaver hats worn 
 by Frederick's troops of the line.* 
 
 How seriously the Emperor was attached to these 
 military details is shown by his treatment of the 
 veteran general Souvarov, hero of a hundred vic- 
 torious battles, who was sent to Siberia for com- 
 posing a little rhyme in which the virtues of "wig- 
 powder" and "gun-powder" were somewhat disre- 
 spectfully compared. 
 
 "Russia no longer looks for conquest, nor war- 
 like aggrandizement — only for peace." This was 
 the platitudinous message which Paul's diplomats 
 were instructed to deliver to a distracted Europe! 
 
 In pursuit of his mania for undoing the schemes 
 of his great predecessor, the Russian troops on the 
 frontiers of Persia were so abruptly withdrawn 
 that the brave little kingdom of Georgia, which 
 for centuries had formed the bulwark of Chris- 
 tianity against the forces of Islam, was left to bear, 
 almost without warning, the brunt of the uneven 
 struggle. 
 
 During this time the subject of our sketch, the 
 Hetman Platov, like many others of Catherine's 
 party, had the misfortune to fall under the morbid 
 displeasure of the Emperor. No reasons were given 
 for the order which exiled him to the provincial 
 capital of Kostroma, from which place he was soon 
 
 * See Rambaud, "Histoire de Russie," p. 513. 
 
THE HETMAN PLATOV 177 
 
 afterwards brought under heavy guard to Petro- 
 grad and imprisoned in the fortress of St. Peter 
 and St. Paul.* 
 
 Platov has himself described the painful condi- 
 tions of his captivity passed in company with many 
 other distinguished officials of Catherine's reign. 
 How this second involuntary stay in the capital 
 must have recalled strange memories of his first 
 visit! "Even in Summer the dampness and cold 
 which radiate from the walls of our prisons pene- 
 trate to the very bones. In the hot season we all 
 suffer from fever. In winter, however, our condi- 
 tion is far worse. We must then huddle together 
 about the stoves to keep from freezing, in spite of 
 the blinding sting of the wood smoke which fills our 
 cells. Nearly all of us are half blind from this 
 cause. Our only distraction is to watch the antics 
 of the rats. These are everywhere, but though at 
 first odious, they have finally became my most 
 sympathetic companions." 
 
 Like many another brave soldier of Catherine's 
 army, Platov might have remained forgotten 
 among the sad company gathered in this famous 
 fortress until death released him, had not a fresh 
 turn in the weather-vane of Paul's foreign policy 
 incidentally recalled him to his sovereign's 
 
 * It is now known that Platov was accused of tam- 
 pering with the loyalty of the Kirghiz and Kalmouk 
 tribesmen with whom the honest soldier had become popu- 
 lar during his campaign along the Kouban. 
 
178 THE COSSACKS 
 
 memory. The course of the French Revolution 
 had been diverted by the personal ambitions of 
 Bonaparte into channels more acceptable to Paul's 
 autocratic views. Moreover the cowardice or treach- 
 ery shown by his Austrian allies during the cam- 
 paign against the French in Switzerland had cooled 
 his enthusiasm for the Hapsburgs. Napoleon's 
 great victory over the Austrian armies at Marengo 
 was applauded all over Russia. The English am- 
 bassador, always alert to note the varying changes 
 of Paul's enthusiasms, now reported that "por- 
 traits of Bonaparte are found even in the public 
 rooms of the imperial palaces." 
 
 Bonaparte, on the other hand, lost no oppor- 
 tunity to reconcile Paul to the great changes which 
 had taken place since the Revolution on the map 
 of Europe. Soon after an interchange of notes 
 marking beyond a doubt the new disposition of the 
 Russian foreign office, the courts of Europe heard 
 with astonishment of a "great project" upon which 
 the armies of France and Russia were about to 
 embark. From the correspondence which was now 
 exchanged between Paul and Napoleon with re- 
 spect to an invasion of India it is difficult to deter- 
 mine how deeply Napoleon entered into the prac- 
 tical details of the adventurous scheme. His doubts 
 concerning its successful outcome are everywhere 
 apparent. But as a diversion likely to trouble pub- 
 lic opinion in Great Britain, and as a lure whereby 
 the Russian monarch might be more firmly attached 
 
THE HETMAN PLATOV 179 
 
 to his system, he undoubtedly saw in this venture a 
 useful adjunct of his policies. In documents mi- 
 nutely setting forth the military itinerary which lay 
 before the Franco-Russian troops may still be seen 
 the objections noted down in the handwriting of 
 the greatest general of his age, followed by the 
 "triumphant" refutations of the Russian Em- 
 peror scrawled in an unformed schoolboy's hand. 
 According to this plan thirty-five thousand picked 
 French troops (at Paul's request these were to be 
 commanded by General Massena, the hero of the 
 great Russian disaster at Zurich) were to descend 
 the Danube in vessels requisitioned from the Aus- 
 trian government. Crossing the Black Sea to 
 Taganrog, flatboats were then to carry them up 
 the course of the river Don to Piati-Isbiankaja. 
 Here it was planned that the expedition should 
 march overland to Tsaritzin on the Volga. De- 
 scending that great river to Astrakhan, the French 
 detachment would cross the Caspian to Asterabad, 
 where a corps of 35,000 Russians were to await 
 their arrival. 
 
 Impatient to take the first steps in the execution 
 of his "great design," Paul now ordered Russian 
 troops once more to occupy the Caucasus and on 
 the demand of the son of the heroic Tsar Heraclius 
 of Georgia, this warlike little kingdom was peace- 
 fully incorporated in the Russian empire. At the 
 same time General Knorring was ordered to lead a 
 Russian division against the upper Indus, passing 
 
180 THE COSSACKS 
 
 through the country under the jurisdiction of the 
 powerful Khans of Khiva and Bokhara. To co- 
 operate with this difficult campaign the hetman of 
 the Cossacks of the Don, Orlov Denissov, was 
 ordered to proceed at once to Orenburg. 
 
 The soldier who, of all his officers, could best 
 aid the emperor in carrying out the proposed plan, 
 was a forgotten prisoner in the fortress of St. Peter 
 and St. Paul. To transfer the ex-hetman Platov 
 from a prison cell to the command of an important 
 military expedition was an act which presented no 
 incongruities to a convinced autocrat like Paul. 
 The imprisoned Cossack chieftain, thus suddenly 
 drawn from the society of rats and convicts by a 
 summons to the Imperial Council, was confident 
 that his last hour had come. Shaved and dressed in 
 his old-fashioned uniform — scorning the assur- 
 ances of his jailers — he bade farewell to his com- 
 rades, and marched bravely forth to his expected 
 execution. His surprise may be imagined when he 
 found himself suddenly introduced by a side door 
 to the Winter Palace, where, after a meal such as 
 he had not enjoyed for months, he was led directly 
 into the private study of the Emperor. 
 
 Reassured by the Emperor's manner (which as 
 Platov himself tells us seemed to ignore both the 
 hetman's past wrongs and Paul's share therein) 
 the prisoner of yesterday was invited to give his 
 opinion upon the intricate military affairs which 
 now engaged the Tsar's attention. 
 
THE HETMAN PLATOV 181 
 
 On the table before the strangely assorted pair 
 were spread out the only available maps of the 
 almost unknown regions of Asia where Paul had 
 planned to initiate the role of Alexander the Great. 
 No one knew better than Platov himself the unsur- 
 mountable difficulties of these desert wastes. "Here 
 is the path I have chosen for you — the route of 
 Alexander the Great," said the Emperor dramati- 
 cally. "Can you follow it, to India?" 
 
 Although recognizing at a glance the military 
 faults and incongruities of the scheme proposed by 
 the Emperor Paul, Platov (as he declares in 
 his memoirs) was fully "resolved to follow any line 
 which led away from the prison of St. Peter and 
 St. Paul." Without further committing himself 
 he gravely nodded his approval of everything the 
 imperial strategist had proposed. More than ever 
 satisfied with his own plan and his manner of choos- 
 ing a general to carry it out, the Emperor dismissed 
 his late prisoner. On the lapel of Platov's coat, 
 stained and discoloured by the smoke and dirt of his 
 prison, glittered the high Russian order of St. John 
 of Jerusalem. In his pocket was a draft on the im- 
 perial treasury for an almost unlimited amount, 
 and a snuffbox ornamented with the insignificant 
 features of his master. It is more than probable 
 that Platov, whose breast had already been deco- 
 rated by the great Catherine "with as many crosses 
 as a graveyard," cared but little for these honours 
 compared to the liberty he thus so strangely 
 regained. 
 
182 THE COSSACKS 
 
 Without waiting the expiration of the three days 
 graciously allowed him in Petrograd, the hetman 
 set out for the Don, where he was received as one 
 returning from the dead. Cutting short all demon- 
 strations of welcome he began at once to gather the 
 troops of the warlike community, without, however, 
 disclosing the objects of the ill-planned campaign 
 upon which they were to set forth. Every Cossack 
 capable of carrying a lance was ordered to report 
 at a given rendezvous, bringing with him two 
 horses and six weeks' provisions. In the month of 
 January, 1801, 27,500 Cossacks of the Don were 
 able to set forth on their long march towards the 
 deserts of Asia. 
 
 In Orenburg the Russian governor, Bakmetiev, 
 had assembled provisions, camel transport and 
 even a corps of interpreters speaking the languages 
 or dialects of the numerous tribes whose countries 
 they were to traverse. Before their departure 
 from the fortress a letter from Paul was read prom- 
 ising the Cossacks "all the riches of India." Plung- 
 ing boldly into the almost trackless wilderness that 
 lay beyond the frontier outposts the Russian troops 
 travelled like mariners across an unknown sea, 
 marching, or rather navigating, by means of the 
 compass and observed positions of the stars. 
 
 On the horizon hovered great bands of horse- 
 men, Bashkirs and Kalmoucks, astonished to see a 
 body of troops so numerous that they could not be 
 attacked by any known tactics of desert warfare. 
 
THE HETMAN PLATOV 183 
 
 Without fear of surprise or ambuscade the troops 
 marched at their ease and in open order. But an- 
 other danger now threatened the Cossack army. 
 The distant objective of their march having 
 become rumoured about, the Kirghiz camel drivers 
 began deserting with their animals, thus depriving 
 the Russians of the only means of transport. It 
 even became necessary to abandon a large part of 
 the provisions, tents and other equipment neces- 
 sary for the troops. Moreover, on account of the 
 intense cold the supply of fuel was rapidly disap- 
 pearing. The Cossacks, unaccustomed to economy 
 in this respect, insisted upon building roaring fires 
 during the long cold nights. Sickness also broke 
 out in the ranks and the problem of transporting 
 those no longer capable of remaining in the saddle 
 added to Platov's difficulties. In the absence of all 
 recognizable marks in the featureless landscape one 
 day's march appeared to the impatient and half 
 mutinous troops precisely like that of the preceding 
 day. The desert mirage, amazingly vivid in these 
 latitudes, showed them the domes of distant cities 
 and oases which they took to be Khiva or Bokhara, 
 and the next moment dissolved these fairy scenes 
 ito clouds of mist. Such phenomena increased the 
 superstitious fears of the Cossacks. Many declared 
 that the whole army was bewitched by Tartar sor- 
 cerers and that they were all marching forward 
 without advancing towards their goal.* 
 
 * The old atavistic fear of the Tartars has fostered 
 among the moujiks and Cossacks of the frontiers a 
 
184 THE COSSACKS 
 
 At last the hetman was obliged to yield to the 
 demands of the mutineers. Glad of an excuse 
 which hindered him from further carrying out 
 plans he considered impossible of execution, he 
 ordered that a camp be formed to rest the tired 
 horses and attend to the sick. At the same time he 
 sent out scouts and patrols in order to obtain news 
 of Knorring's expedition. All soon realized that 
 this halt was but the preliminary to an inevitable 
 return. In the mirage which haunted the desert 
 horizon Platov now began to see once more the 
 slender golden spire which crowns the grim sil- 
 houette of the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. 
 
 It was at this critical juncture that a messenger 
 arrived with the welcome news of the sudden death 
 of the Russian Emperor. Paul had been the vic- 
 tim of a palace revolution which resulted in seating 
 his son, the popular young Grand Duke Alexander, 
 on the throne. All Russia breathed more freely, 
 but nowhere, we may be sure, was the news of this 
 change more welcome than in the famine-stricken 
 camp where, on the pitiless Turcoman desert, the 
 uncalculating ambition and faulty geography of a 
 tyrant had engaged the Cossacks of the Don in a 
 hopeless quest. Thus ended the first and last at- 
 
 firm belief in the uncanny powers of the yellow races. 
 The magic lore of the Tartar priests and Kalmouck 
 bonzes is held in high respect to the present day among 
 the superstitious peasants of the Russian frontier. See 
 M. P. Price's "Siberia." 
 
THE HETMAN PLATOV 185 
 
 tempt of an invasion of India by land, a plan which, 
 since the days of Peter the Great, had tempted the 
 ambition of succeeding Russian sovereigns. 
 
 The years that ensued between the events just 
 related and the outbreak of the Napoleonic wars of 
 1807-1812 were perhaps the happiest of Platov's 
 life. The Russian biographer assures us "the het- 
 man was looked upon by the Don Cossacks as a 
 father to whom the wants of all the Cossacks were 
 as well known as the needs of his own family." The 
 peaceful duties of administrating the Cossack start- 
 itzi kept him more busily employed than during his 
 most energetic campaigns. The capital of the Don 
 provinces, Novotcherkask, was moved under his 
 direction to its present site, and the ancient capital, 
 always subject to the inundations of the Don, 
 was abandoned. The foundations of several 
 important public buildings were laid, and among 
 the first of these a cathedral and public schools. 
 The education of the Cossack children was the sub- 
 ject of the hetman's particular attention. A school 
 system was organized caring for the needs of the 
 children in the most remote stanitzi. Those who 
 could not otherwise secure the services of a teacher 
 were brought to Novotcherkask at the public ex- 
 pense. 
 
 At the same time Platov used all his powerful 
 influence to preserve the traditions of Cossack na- 
 tional life. To those who wished to change the 
 "old frontier ways" he pointed out that it was only 
 
186 THE COSSACKS 
 
 their military organization which differentiated the 
 Cossacks from the surrounding peasant population, 
 whose abject condition they all despised. Towards 
 a class of young Cossack officers, who thought by 
 abandoning their characteristic uniforms and by 
 imitating the ways and manners of the local Rus- 
 sian nobility to raise themselves above their fellows, 
 he was especially severe. Recognizing that in uni- 
 versal service — the basis of the Cossack system 
 of land tenure — lay their chief usefulness to the 
 Russian state, he mercilessly enforced the disci- 
 pline necessary to ensure their privileged position. 
 Even at the present day the lessons taught by the 
 worthy hetman are playing their part in keeping 
 the Cossacks alive to their duties in the great strug- 
 gle which Russian democracy is waging against 
 Bolshevism and the poison of Marxian Kultur. 
 
 At the outbreak of the first Russian campaign 
 against the Emperor Napoleon, in 1807, Platov 
 was nearly sixty years of age. He might, there- 
 fore, have honourably asked for permission to con- 
 tinue his calm and useful retirement. But like an- 
 other famous Cossack leader, Mazeppa, his most 
 renowned exploits were to be performed after the 
 age when a general — and especially a leader of 
 light cavalry — is considered unfit for active ser- 
 vice. During the Turkish wars Russia's Cossack 
 cavalry and the peculiar tactics which their officers 
 had perfected had aroused the interest of military 
 students all over Europe. But although invaluable 
 
THE HETMAN PLATOV 187 
 
 for scouting and reconnoissance, and for harrying 
 the flanks of an enemy or turning defeat into a 
 rout, the Cossacks were nevertheless the despair 
 of the German and Austrian tacticians of the Em- 
 peror Alexander's staff. The ideal soldier, ac- 
 cording to these experts, was embodied in the little 
 blocks of wood they could manoeuvre so convinc- 
 ingly across their field maps. 
 
 When, as only too often happened, these theoreti- 
 cal operations refused to repeat themselves as 
 planned, it was the Russian troops, especially the 
 Cossacks, who were generally blamed. But Prince 
 Koutusov, the popular hero of Catherine's wars, 
 who recognized the irreconcilable differences be- 
 tween the Russian and German methods and shared 
 the national "distrust" of Alexander's foreign ad- 
 visers, placed great reliance upon the Cossack 
 levies. His whole campaign against Napoleon's 
 army after the disaster of Moscow was indeed a 
 strategic development of Cossack principles — the 
 manoeuvres which had been practised for centuries 
 upon the broad plain of Scythia since the days of 
 Darius' invasions.* 
 
 To carry out his plan of a long and orderly re- 
 treat — leading his enemy ever deeper into the 
 treacherous steppes — he needed just such mobile 
 troops as were furnished by the soldiers of the Don, 
 
 * Tolstoi's famous novel, "War and Peace," contains 
 an interesting account, historically true, of the military 
 conditions prevailing in Russia at this time. 
 
188 THE COSSACKS 
 
 the Kouban, the Terek and the Urals. But only a 
 leader enjoying their respect and confidence could 
 turn their military talents to the best account. 
 Platov's personal popularity and prestige made 
 him an invaluable leader of these redoubtable 
 squadrons among whom the free Cossack spirit 
 too often degenerated into license and indiscipline. 
 For this reason, in spite of his advanced years, 
 Koutousov urged him to take part in the coming 
 campaign. 
 
 In treating of the glorious campaign of 1812 — 
 the uprising of the entire Russian nation against 
 Napoleon's ambition for World Power — only the 
 part played by the Cossack troops will be consid- 
 ered here. Thirty-six thousand Cossacks formed 
 the vanguard of the heroic army which first ad- 
 vanced against Napoleon. These were divided into 
 fifty polki or "regiments," each provided with its 
 own light artillery. The flying column under Pla- 
 tov's immediate command was composed of four- 
 teen regiments, to which were added a few chas- 
 seurs and dragoons. The principal duty assigned 
 to the Donskoi troops was that of covering the 
 flanks of the second army under the command of 
 his old friend and patron, Prince Bagration. 
 
 A great rivalry soon sprang up between Na- 
 poleon's scouts — Polish uhlans and hussars — and 
 the Cossack cavalry. During the advance of King 
 Jerome's army (at the very beginning of the 
 French attack) three regiments of uhlans on their 
 
THE HETMAN PLATOV 189 
 
 way to Novgoroudka were cut off in the village of 
 Karelichi by two regiments of Platov's troops.* 
 The greater part of the uhlans fell or were taken 
 prisoner at the first onslaught, while the rest were 
 pursued to the very outpost of Jerome's head- 
 quarters. 
 
 For more than a month these combats between 
 Polish and Cossack cavalry continued. It was 
 largely due to such minor engagements fought be- 
 tween these old-time enemies that the advance of 
 the main French army was so seriously retarded, a 
 delay which enabled Bagration to retire in good 
 order to his entrenchments at Bobrinsk. 
 
 This task accomplished Platov was ordered to 
 cross the Dnieper and to join the first army. While 
 attached to this new command Platov and his Cos- 
 sacks witnessed the terrible disaster of the first bat- 
 tle of Bordino. While this engagement was not 
 of a character to give the Cossacks an opportunity 
 to employ their peculiar tactics, nevertheless Prince 
 Koutousov, the aged commander-in-chief, declared 
 that Platov was "getting too old for active service." 
 Showing little mercy for an officer who had grown 
 grey in the same service as himself, Koutousov re- 
 lieved the veteran of his command in the field, 
 ordering him to proceed to the Don in order to 
 gather new reinforcements. 
 
 Platov's soldierly rejoinder to this crushing blow 
 was redoubled activity in serving the cause 
 
 * The Fifth Isvolaski and the Second Karpor. 
 
190 THE COSSACKS 
 
 of his beloved country, now grown so desperate. 
 Every Cossack military colony had long since been 
 swept of recruits at the first call to arms. Only 
 the old men and children too young to bear arms 
 had been left to help the women in tilling the field. 
 It was among these veterans of Catherine's wars 
 and their younger grandchildren that Platov de- 
 termined to find material for his new regiments. 
 Weapons were improvised from the ancient 
 trophies of former Cossack campaigns, taken from 
 the walls and made over to suit more modern mu- 
 nitions. From the Monument of Victory erected 
 after the Turkish wars before the new church in 
 Novotcherkask six ancient bronze cannon were re- 
 covered and made serviceable by mounting them 
 on cart wheels. In an incredibly short space of 
 time this heroic "forlorn" was ready for the road. 
 Between grey-headed heroes who had served with 
 Potemkin and Souvarov were placed children of 
 twelve and fourteen glowing with pleasure at this 
 unexpected privilege of playing a soldier's part. 
 None but a Cossack population could have pro- 
 duced such a levy. At their head marched the sep- 
 tuagenarian hetman, now once more serving as the 
 simple colonel of a Cossack polk. 
 
 The arrival of these recruits in the Russian 
 headquarters camp at Tarantino was the occasion 
 of a spirited ovation. Without regard to the pres- 
 ence of Koutousov, the Cossack sires, in high spirits, 
 showered good-natured abuse upon the regular 
 
THE HETMAN PLATOV 191 
 
 regiments drawn up at parade. "We have come to 
 rescue you with all our poor little grandchildren," 
 they cried. 
 
 Already they had proven their worth. A sotnia 
 from one of these veteran regiments (the regiment 
 of Isvolaski) had averaged sixty versts a day in 
 their march from the Don to Tarantino, a record 
 scarcely equalled in Russian military annals. Even 
 the stern Koutousov was moved at the sight of 
 these glorious recruits reporting for duty long be- 
 fore the time set for their arrival. When among 
 the greybeards in their ranks he recognized com- 
 rades-at-arms who had served with him in former 
 campaigns, he called Platov from the head of his 
 regiment and fell into his outstretched arms. While 
 the two veterans mingled their tears of joy and 
 reconciliation, fathers, sons and grandchildren 
 toasted each other with boisterous Cossack cheer 
 around the same bivouacs.* 
 
 The delayed retreat of Napoleon's Grand Army 
 which began soon after the events described now 
 gave the Cossacks their terrible opportunity. Dur- 
 ing the long stay in Moscow, the French troops had 
 lost all discipline. Against their disordered flee- 
 ing host, concerned only with reaching the Russian 
 frontier, the Cossacks were able to drive home their 
 continual, untiring attacks. To assist them in 
 gathering the terrible harvest peasant bands sprang 
 up everywhere. Even these undisciplined parti- 
 
 * A. E. Tarasov, "The Hetman Platov." 
 
192 THE COSSACKS 
 
 sans and such feeble troops as the veteran levies of 
 the Don could now venture to measure their 
 strength against the most famous regiments of 
 Napoleon's guard. The English "Cossack" Wilson 
 in his memoirs recounts a ghastly saying current in 
 the Cossack ranks, "It is a shame to leave such 
 skinny ghosts wandering about without their 
 graves." 
 
 Platov, restored once more to service with his 
 old division, had singled out the corps commanded 
 by the Viceroy of Italy as his special prey, troops 
 which still courageously kept up a semblance of 
 discipline. All day, through the driving snow, the 
 fugitives saw far across the terrifying expanse of 
 white plain about them, a long dark line following 
 their march. Just out of musket shot, bands of 
 Cossacks prowled awaiting nightfall. Around 
 every bivouac their fitful sleep was haunted by a 
 nightmare of Cossack pikes. To fall but a few 
 paces behind the column meant a terrible death at 
 the hands of outraged peasantry and their Cossack 
 protectors. 
 
 On October 28, near Rabouga, an attack in 
 force was made by a Cossack flying column, and 
 the long straggling line of fugitives, dragging it- 
 self like a wounded snake across the steppes, was 
 cut in two. The rear half, thus hopelessly cut off, 
 tried to save itself by breaking up into little bands. 
 Sixty-four cannon fell into the hands of the Cos- 
 sacks. The greater part of these troops perished 
 
THE HETMAN PLATOV 193 
 
 from cold on the steppes or were killed by the 
 Cossacks. When the unfortunate Viceroy had 
 taken refuge at Smolensk (without cavalry or 
 transport and with only twelve cannon), Plato v, 
 gathering fifteen regiments and all the Don artil- 
 lery, next engaged Ney and the heroic rearguard, 
 taking from the "Lion," as even his enemies called 
 the famous marshal, 1300 prisoners and four 
 cannon. 
 
 At Kovno, where the enemy were at last driven 
 from Russian soil, Ney and his rearguard made a 
 final heroic stand. After another victory stub- 
 bornly won, Platov and his Cossacks heard a Te 
 Deum in the public square, the horsemen drawn up 
 in grim and silent ranks, while the inhabitants 
 knelt about them. Before the bells which rang out 
 so joyfully in the cold air had ceased their pealing, 
 the Cossacks swept beyond the frontier into 
 "Europe."* 
 
 History next notices Platov and his Cossacks 
 preparing to take part in the attack on Danzig, still 
 in the possession of Napoleon's German allies. The 
 news that Frederick William of Prussia had finally 
 summoned up courage to join the Alliance in the 
 "Befreiungskrieg" caused the surrender of that 
 place. On the road near Kalice, Platov was sent to 
 meet the none too heroic Hohenzollern and soon 
 after conducted him to the General Staff of Em- 
 
 * The true Slav always refers to the land west of 
 Russia in this way. 
 
194. THE COSSACKS 
 
 peror Alexander, the real Liberator of Germany. 
 At the famous "Battle of the Nations," fought at 
 Leipzig in October, 1813, Platov received the Cross 
 of St. Andrew. 
 
 To reward his conduct during the engagement 
 near Frankfort-on-Oder, there remained no higher 
 honour to bestow upon the hetman. The thanks 
 of his sovereign and a diamond aigrette to orna- 
 ment his Cossack Tshapka were the only official 
 means of recognizing the valor of his troops. It 
 was, perhaps, fortunate that the war was drawing 
 to a close ! 
 
 The last warlike enterprise in which we h$ar of 
 Platov and his Cossacks was their chivalrous at- 
 tempt to rescue the captive Pope at Pontainebleau. 
 But the unfortunate head of the Roman Church 
 (dragged about together with the royal treasures 
 of France in the wake of the fallen conqueror) 
 had already left that place. Thus the strangest 
 booty that could have fallen into the hands of the 
 orthodox Cossacks of the Don escaped their well- 
 meant efforts. 
 
 Soon after the peace of Paris, Platov made his 
 famous visit to London of which we have already 
 had occasion to speak. The "hundred days" fol- 
 lowing Napoleon's return from the island of Elba 
 cost the veteran a last long ride across Europe to 
 the battle of Waterloo. 
 
 His next return to the now peaceful shores of the 
 Don was, however, to be the last. For three years 
 
THE HETMAN PLATOV 195 
 
 the tired veteran enjoyed unbroken rest and the 
 inevitable reaction ensued. The steel springs of 
 his energy uncoiled, and after a short illness due to 
 a cold the Hetman Platov died peacefully in his bed 
 in the year 1818. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE COSSACKS OF TO-DAY: ORGANIZATION 
 AND GOVERNMENT 
 
 AT the close of the imperial regime, the term 
 "Cossac k" was legally applied to a disti nct 
 class or caste within the Russian state, dif feren - 
 tiated by well-defined rights and duties from the 
 ordinary subjects of the empire. For military 
 reasons the Tsar's government fostered the clan 
 spirit and esprit de corps which has always char- 
 acterized the "Free People." 
 
 To the North Russian peasant the Cossack 
 troops were often associated with measures of po- 
 lice and oppression. Historical reasons, as we have 
 seen, have also played their part in separating the 
 Cossack from the Moujik class — whose infinite 
 docility the former have always regarded with con- 
 tempt and aversion. Yet the distrust existing be- 
 tween them and the "great gray mass" of the Rus- 
 sian peasantry did not prevent the Cossacks from 
 playing a notable role in the events which brought 
 about the constructive revolution of 1917. 
 
 The Cossacks are at present organized into 
 eleven "armies," each occupying its own settle- 
 ment or allotted territory. Their stanitzi, or set- 
 
 196 
 
TO TEHERA 
 
 PERSIA pTTORIES OF THE PRESEN T DAY. 
 
 SKETCH ^AP OF THE PRINCIPAL COSSACK TER J^ AUTHORS ROUTE S&SfflS 
 N -Z- 'URAL, Caszvekz igg ^t^£°^#"S 
 
 MHH ORENBURG - EE= f^r/&^;^^r4^ 
 
 TEREK 
 
 'AN » 
 
 ■MlMIII 
 
 i seMIrechensk 
 
 -•++ SIBERIAN 
 
 AMUR ^du^u^ o/ . theaey 
 
 -r^rrH-or-ies along Ln*>" 
 
 Territories 
 
 Siberia- 
 
ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT 197 
 
 tlements, are generally distributed along the fron- 
 tiers, old and new, of what was formerly the Em- 
 pire of All the Russias. Officially these stanitzi 
 were known as the territories of the Cossack armies 
 of the Don, Ural, Terek, Kuban, Orenburg, As- 
 trakhan, Trans-Baikal, Siberian, Siemriechinskoe 
 (Seven Rivers), Amur and Ussuri. (See Map.) 
 Thus with eveiy Cossack "army" or its subdivision 
 was associated some definite grant of land to which 
 ) it was "territorially" attached. 
 
 The Cossacks of the later "armies," formed for 
 the purpose of patrolling and safeguarding the 
 long frontiers of Russia's newly acquired Asiatic 
 provinces, never enjoyed the same generous grants 
 of land that were conferred upon the earlier sub- 
 divisions, such as the Cossacks of the Kouban and 
 Terek. 
 
 On the other hand, the present territories of the 
 Cossacks of the Don and Uralsk represent but a 
 small portion of the huge "Free Steppes" over which 
 their ancestors established their control. Indeed, 
 the vague boundaries of these holdings were only 
 "confirmed" when the advance of non-Cossack 
 pioneers made such an act necessary. The polic y 
 vigorously maintained by the imperial government 
 was that of granting land in the neighbourhood of 
 Cossack outposts only in return for military service. 
 The system adopted — even during the closing 
 years of the empire — did not differ materially 
 from that employed by the early Tsars. Moreover, 
 
198 THE COSSACKS 
 
 in order to foster the community spirit, all land 
 ceded by the Russian crown to the different Cos- 
 sack "armies" was to be held rigorously in common. 
 This principle with certain modifications brought 
 about by the passing of the "frontier conditions" 
 (notably in the Don region) underlies the system 
 of Cossack land tenure to the present day. Each 
 adult male Cossack "soul" is entitled to the use 
 of 30 dessiatines (about 75 acres) of agricultural 
 land. These allotments may be re-distributed 
 yearly, and the quantity increased, if local condi- 
 tions (such as the quality of the land) make such 
 a step desirable. The areas set aside for "military 
 purposes" are used for forestry, and horsebreeding, 
 and as a reserve for the future needs of the com- 
 munity. 
 
 Under the former imperial regime, the adminis- 
 tration of the Cossack "armies" was placed di- 
 rectly under the ministry of war, where a special 
 "Chancellery" had charge of all matters affecting 
 this class of citizens. A special "Committee of the 
 Cossack armies" aided the Chancellery in its de- 
 cisions, and all questions both of civil and military 
 character were decided by these two organizations. 
 While in theory elective, the members of this ad- 
 visory committee were formerly in reality ap- 
 pointed by the Minister of War. One of the first 
 acts of the various Cossack congresses which rati- 
 fied the change to a republican form of government 
 was to provide for a popular and representative 
 
ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT 199 
 
 membership of this important body. The prin- 
 cipal Cossack armies, viz.: Don, Uralsk, Terek, 
 Kouban, Orenburg and Astrakhan, have each one 
 permanent representative on this committee, while 
 the smaller Cossack communities of Western and 
 Eastern Siberia have each one delegate. 
 
 The head of each "army" preserves the ancient 
 title of ataman, an office usually uniting the mili- 
 tary and civil duties of a governor-general. At 
 the head of each stanitza — which usually com- 
 prises from one to four villages according to the 
 size of their population — is placed a stanitzi 
 ataman, who is responsible for the general order. 
 Out of respect for Cossack particularism, each 
 stanitza in theory became an administrative unit 
 enjoying the fullest autonomy. 
 
 The actual government in most of these com- 
 munities is generally exercised by a council of 
 Cossack elders, generally men past military age, 
 whose patriarchal decisions are respected by all. 
 This council or sbor is responsible to a stanitza 
 gathering in which all the Cossack heads of families 
 are represented. In view, however, of the in- 
 creasing population and the unwieldy proportions 
 which these gatherings attained in many of the 
 larger stanitzi the old principle of the obshi kroug, 
 i.e., the "Circle of All," is generally limited to 
 communities not exceeding twenty or thirty fam- 
 ilies. In the larger communities a representative 
 system has been adopted based on the universal 
 
200 THE COSSACKS 
 
 suffrage of men over twenty-five years of age. De- 
 cisions must be reached in all important affairs by 
 the vote of at least a two-thirds majority. 
 
 In the Cossack stanitzi non-Cossacks, or "persons 
 not of the military class," are permitted to live on 
 the payment of certain dues to the community, 
 but without the right to vote or hold office. (Jews 
 were formerly rigorously excluded from the enjoy- 
 ment of this privilege.) 
 
 Cossacks have the same fondness for cattle 
 raising and other pastoral pursuits noticeable in the 
 inhabitants of nearly all new countries. Like the 
 true "cowboy" of the Far West — with whom he 
 has much in common — the Cossack will only put 
 his hand to the plow when driven to it by the 
 sternest necessity. Although in many parts of the 
 Cossack country the soil of the steppes is surpass- 
 ingly rich, the rigours of a continental climate are 
 felt with especial severity. In these vast almost 
 treeless plains droughts, floods and other climatic 
 extremes are enemies of the Cossack husbandmen. 
 
 Under the imperial government the breeding of 
 horses and cattle was especially encouraged in order 
 to furnish mounts for the cavalry, and to ensure 
 the best results the Ministry of Agriculture pro- 
 vided the Cossack herders with blooded stock. 
 Breeding farms are established for the direction 
 and supervision of this industry at convenient 
 points. 
 
 Besides horses a great part of the wealth of the 
 
ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT 201 
 
 Cossack nations consists in their herds of cattle, 
 sheep, swine, and camels. Indeed in many parts 
 of the stanitzi the size of these herds forms the chief 
 criterion of Cossack wealth and position, much in 
 the same way that this standard is applied among 
 nomad races. 
 
 The old tradition that pictures the Cossack 
 troops as a levy of wild horsemen, only useful for 
 the purpose of partisan warfare, in no way rep- 
 resents the actual state of their military capabilities. 
 Besides living from childhood in a military atmos- 
 phere their officers are drilled with especial severity 
 for their long period of duty. Under the old re- 
 gime, while special military institutions existed for 
 Cossack officers, they were subjected to the same 
 educational requirements as the cadets graduating 
 from regular military schools. Moreover, no 
 amount of training could take the place of the 
 marvellous esprit de corps — an almost instinctive 
 "clan" feeling — existing in every Cossack regi- 
 ment. 
 
 The introduction of universal military service 
 in 1874, and the enactment of laws by which every 
 male Russian was called upon to take up his share 
 in the burden of state defence, removed many of 
 the differences existing between the Cossacks and 
 their peasant or moujik neighbours. But in spite of 
 the important change thus realized the military tra- 
 ditions of the Cossack race remained unchanged 
 and the imperial government continued to treat 
 
202 THE COSSACKS 
 
 them as a distinct body in the community. Each 
 Cossack was still required to furnish his own horse, 
 uniform and weapons, and the only changes made 
 in the old conditions of Cossack service had in view 
 placing the Cossack armies in a position enabling 
 them to co-operate with the regular troops of the 
 Russian line.* 
 
 Nearly all the Cossack troops engaged in the 
 heroic struggle which the Russian army made on 
 the side of the Allies during the opening years of 
 the World War, were cavalry formations. The 
 levy of the united Cossack armies just before the 
 war constituted a minimum of 144 cavalry regi- 
 ments, 830 sotnia or "hundreds" and a quota of 
 light Cossack artillery, accompanying the infantry 
 divisions. As Cossack cavalry drill included a 
 certain training in infantry tactics, their services 
 were useful even in trench warfare, but it was as 
 scouts and raiders that the traditional Cossack 
 qualities gained for these troops such well-deserved 
 reputation. 
 
 For military purposes all male Cossacks are di- 
 vided into two general categories, active and re- 
 
 * While many of the most famous Cossack regiments 
 wear a uniform which differs little from those of the 
 Russian dragoon regiments, the more characteristic Cos- 
 sack military dress is an adaptation of the Circassian 
 tcherkesJca — the convenient martial costume of the un- 
 conquerable Mussulman Tcherkess tribesmen who inhabit 
 part of the Caucasus. 
 
ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT 203 
 
 serve. The active category is again divided into 
 three divisions : 
 
 (1) Preparatory, composed of Cossacks and 
 cadets undergoing military instruction. 
 
 (2) Line Cossacks. 
 
 (3) Depot or reserve for the second division. 
 Cossack military service begins at eighteen years 
 
 and is continued as follows : three years in the pre- 
 paratory class ; twelve years in the line ; five years in 
 the reserve. The "line" category, in view of the 
 long service required, is divided into three divisions, 
 only the first of which serves constantly with the col- 
 ours, while the other two are allowed to remain near 
 their homes subject to "the call to arms." (See 
 Russian Encyclopedia, article by A. Saroff.) 
 
 With the negligible exception of twenty in- 
 fantry "hundreds" and a greatly reduced quota 
 of light Cossack artillery, nearly all the Cossack 
 troops serve as cavalry, or "dismounted cavalry."* 
 
 In addition to the regular Cossack troops the 
 imperial armies included a division of cavalry, 
 armed and drilled according to Cossack methods, 
 but exclusively recruited among the war-like tribes 
 of the Tcherkess, Abkhazes, Lesghians, Daghes- 
 tani, etc. These wild horsemen, who compose the 
 celebrated "Dikki Division" or "Wild Division," 
 enjoy not only a great reputation for reckless 
 
 * The above figures are based upon widely differing 
 data furnished by the usual "official sources" before the 
 revolution. They are given with the greatest reserve. 
 
204 THE COSSACKS 
 
 bravery but also for the excesses which they are 
 reputed to commit in enemy territory. Few, if 
 any, of these troops are Cossacks, and only the sim- 
 ilarity of dress and equipment causes them to be 
 confused with the latter. On the other hand a bit- 
 ter rivalry exists between them and the true Cos- 
 sack troops against whom their ancestors were so 
 long engaged in frontier feuds and skirmishes. 
 (This is the division which General Kornilov was 
 reported to be leading in his much misunderstood 
 movement against the former Provisional Govern- 
 ment. ) 
 
 The Cossack divisions preserved their discipline 
 to the last during the terrible moments when Bol- 
 shevik propaganda was successfully sowing dis- 
 order in the Russian lines. As noted elsewhere, 
 the Cossack regiments everywhere gave their sup- 
 port to the changes brought about by the construc- 
 tive revolution of March 1917 (conducted along 
 lines so acceptable to the traditions of the "Free 
 People") . By keeping intact military organization 
 most of the Cossack regiments were able then to 
 reach their own territory during the horrors of the 
 Bolshevik demobilization. They thus escaped the 
 lot of so many wretched peasant soldiers of the old 
 regime, who found it necessary to enlist in the 
 ragged regiments of the Red Guards in order to 
 keep body and soul together. When the Bolshevik 
 directorate, which had replaced the officialdom of 
 the old regime at Petrograd, sought to obtain Cos- 
 
ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT 205 
 
 sack support, they found the Cossack territories 
 organized, not only to conduct their own affairs, 
 but also to resist dictation from without. 
 
 It is perhaps premature to consider here the 
 problem of the place which the Cossacks will oc- 
 cupy in relation to the rest of "What was Russia." 
 When the ominous symbol of the red flag every- 
 where replaced the national standard throughout 
 Northern Russia — through the teachings of ma- 
 terialistic Socialist doctrines — "class conscious- 
 ness" took the place of patriotic ideals. The blue 
 and yellow flag of the old Cossack Ukraine imme- 
 diately appeared in the south, an unmistakable 
 answer to these denationalizing influences. The 
 ideal maintained in all the Cossack territories is 
 that of a Russian federal republic, wherein a large 
 measure of autonomy will be allowed the widely dif- 
 fering peoples and districts who were "gathered 
 together" by the long imperialistic process of the 
 old regime. The opposition of the Bolsheviki at 
 Petrograd to this logical desire for decentralization, 
 and the eagerness with which Lenine and his asso- 
 ciates seized upon the machinery and methods of 
 Tsardom for their own form of "government," 
 will probably for some time form an obstacle to 
 any close union between north and south. Here 
 again, however, geographical factors, notably the 
 absence of any natural frontiers separating the 
 older provinces of "Muscovy" from "New Russia," 
 will be a force making for future reunion. 
 
206 THE COSSACKS 
 
 At a time when Russia is distracted by the at- 
 tempts of doctrinaires to solve the vast problems of 
 land tenure left by the collapse of the imperial re- 
 gime, it is interesting to consider the present situ- 
 ation of the Cossack land holder. The stanitzi rep- 
 resent a system of communal ownership developed 
 by practical experience and adjustment through a 
 long period of time, and thoroughly adapted to the 
 needs of the Cossack community. Unlike the 
 grinding tyranny of the mir — the primitive 
 communal system under which the Russian 
 peasants of the north sought to administer their 
 own affairs — the Cossack system has been able to 
 give wide latitude to individual effort, and even to 
 adapt itself to the passing of frontier conditions by 
 frankly admitting the right to private ownership. 
 Thus land (such as orchard and homestead land) 
 where permanent improvements have been made 
 through the owner's own outlay of work or capital 
 becomes, with certain restrictions, private prop- 
 erty. It is, therefore, easy to understand why 
 Bolshevik propaganda has met with so little suc- 
 cess, not only among the peasant proprietors of 
 the Ukraine, where Cossack civilization ceased to 
 exist many years ago, but also in the newer Cos- 
 sack territories, of the "armies" established during 
 the last century along the eastern frontiers of New 
 Russia. In spite of the infiltration of landless 
 peasants from the North among the Cossack set- 
 tlements, the doctrines of Marxian Socialism have 
 
ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT 207 
 
 generally met with a hostile reception throughout 
 the Cossack territories. 
 
 The situation was well set forth in the homely- 
 language of a delegate of the Uralsk Cossacks to 
 the Cossack congress in Petrograd: "The Cos- 
 sacks — or Tree People' — of Russia have not 
 maintained their liberty and manhood during these 
 centuries of crushing autocratic tyranny without 
 learning how to preserve their own liberties in their 
 own fashion. The spectacle afforded us by the 
 prophets of a Socialistic cult imported from Ger- 
 many and preached by an alien race is enough to 
 disgust any lover of freedom, to whatever nation 
 he may belong. It seems to be forgotten in cer- 
 tain parts of Russia that in the organization and 
 administration of our hasah lands we have our- 
 selves developed what may be called the only prac- 
 tical system of community life to be found in ac- 
 tual operation anywhere on the world's surface. 
 
 "We, therefore, demand, and feel ourselves 
 more than ever prepared to insist upon, the main- 
 tenance under a democratic order of the privilege 
 to manage our own affairs — a privilege which 
 could not be withheld from us under a tyrannical 
 autocracy. This can only be secured, we feel cer- 
 tain, through a regime of complete local autonomy 
 embracing all the widely differing provinces of the 
 old empire. The geographical character of the 
 Russian empire clearly indicates what form of gov- 
 ernment should there exist. This should be similar 
 
208 THE COSSACKS 
 
 to that prevailing in the United States: a federal 
 republic, wherein the Cossack territories, our old 
 neighbours of the Ukraine and the regions of North 
 Russia, will all find their place, and freedom to 
 live their own lives according to their own tradi- 
 tions and aspirations." 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE COSSACKS OF TO-DAY: THE DON 
 
 ONE might seek in vain to-day in many parts 
 of the old Cossack Ukraine for traces of its 
 former masters. Although a modern statue of 
 Bogdan Hmelnicky stands in the public square of 
 Kiev, the Cossack element of the old border cap- 
 ital may be said to have almost disappeared. Yet 
 throughout all the vast territory of South Russia, 
 the traditions of the days of Cossack ascendency 
 are still a precious heritage. The descendants of 
 the Freemen inscribed on the old military registers, 
 and the "little proprietor" or obnodvortzi of 
 Kharkov and Poltava, feels himself the equal of 
 the former great landlords of Northern Russia. 
 Even the none too reputable memories of the 
 "heroes" of the later sitch — the license and dis- 
 orderly existence of the Zaporogian Brotherhood 
 — are proudly recalled on account of the de- 
 votion to the principles of personal liberty which 
 kept alive the spark of free manhood in the face 
 of a Russia sunk in serfdom. 
 
 Although the plains of the Ukraine about Kiev 
 and Kharkov have long since been abandoned by 
 the "Free People" — and the wild riders of the 
 
 209 
 
210 THE COSSACKS 
 
 steppes have disappeared in a cloud of dust and 
 a scamper of hoofs towards the more congenial 
 frontiers of Asiatic Russia — their spirit remains 
 alive in the individualistic and independent peas- 
 ant landholders of Little Russia. 
 
 Any description of the "old Cossack" country of 
 South Russia, notably the provinces of the Don, 
 must first take into account the geographical in- 
 fluences of the great steppes upon the development 
 of this typical civilization. 
 
 The great prairies of wild grass have given way 
 to far-stretching wheat fields, and the Cossack 
 stanitzi have been replaced by the villages of South 
 Russian peasants. Nevertheless conditions pe- 
 culiar to the Black Sea littoral still give a charac- 
 teristic note to the scenery. Travellers of every 
 race and country have exhausted their vocabulary 
 in trying to convey some idea of the effect made 
 upon the observer by the ceaseless uniformity of 
 this landscape. The reader will, therefore, be 
 spared a repetition of these descriptions and asked 
 instead to consider the more cheerful side of the 
 subject — the enormous agricultural possibilities 
 and the stores of natural wealth which in many 
 places underlie these plains. 
 
 For in spite of their monotony when viewed 
 from the standpoint of scenery the steppes of Little 
 Russia are perhaps the richest agricultural region 
 in the world. Their fertility is due to the famous 
 tsherno zemli or "black earth" which covers the un- 
 
THE DON 211 
 
 derlying strata for more than a yard in thickness 
 — a deposit which except for certain sandy 
 stretches, extends over nearly the entire southern 
 portion of Russia from the Dnieper to the Caspian. 
 In many places the name popularly given this rich 
 soil is no exaggeration, for when newly turned by 
 the plow it is almost as black as coal. The compo- 
 sition of this natural garden soil is due to a century- 
 long process. Layers of decaying vegetation are 
 deposited by the natural crop of grasses with 
 which these plains are covered every season when 
 left uncultivated. The Russian peasant firmly be- 
 lieves that even without manure or artificial fer- 
 tilizer the richness of this land is inexhaustible. In 
 many parts scientific investigation seems to bear 
 out his contention that manures are not only su- 
 perfluous, but detrimental. By plowing to a depth 
 of only six inches the black earth is capable of 
 giving phenomenal crops for five or six years in 
 succession after which if allowed to lie fallow dur- 
 ing a few seasons all its fertility appears to return. 
 It is this natural richness of soil which has 
 brought about the dangerously improvident forms 
 of agriculture to which the Cossack farmer is 
 wedded. Indeed, his inability to compete with more 
 skillful farmers from less fertile localities lies at the 
 bottom of his slow expropriation by the latter when- 
 ever they meet in open competition. If fertility 
 were the only question to be considered in the black 
 earth region, the plains of South Russia would be 
 
212 THE COSSACKS 
 
 an agricultural paradise and the Cossacks and 
 peasants inhabiting them the happiest of men. Un- 
 fortunately, however, these vast plains are the 
 scene of such sudden and violent changes of weather 
 that no human ingenuity may forestall their effect. 
 So powerful are the rays of the southern sun that 
 disastrous droughts frequently result from a sea- 
 sonable rainfall deferred but for a few days. 
 Again, under normal winter conditions these plains 
 are covered by snow for five months of the year, 
 forming a necessary protection against the biting 
 frost which otherwise destroys the autumn sowing. 
 But in many parts of the "black earth" region 
 (notably towards the east) the violent winds of 
 winter blow unchecked by hill or forest, carrying 
 away the snowy covering, thereby allowing the soil 
 to freeze sometimes to a depth of a yard or more. 
 In such cases the whole process of sowing must be 
 begun over again in the spring. The preference of 
 the Cossack "old-timer" for cattle raising and 
 breeding, even on such fertile pasturage, is there- 
 fore readily to be understood. 
 
 In the face of great natural forces wholly be- 
 yond his control, fatalism and faith in the omnipo- 
 tence of a higher power are outstanding charac- 
 teristics of the Cossack farmer. These qualities 
 carried beyond a certain point are, however, curi- 
 ously liable to resemble indolence and improvi- 
 dence. Moreover, these faults are especially dan- 
 gerous when they do not carry with them the in- 
 
THE DON 213 
 
 evitable punishment meted out to men of northern 
 climes. The recent development of the coal and 
 iron fields underlying the agricultural riches of 
 South Russia have done much to change the char- 
 acter of the country and its inhabitants. 
 
 The journey from Kiev to Kharkov lies through 
 a classic land of old Cossack history and romance. 
 Yet there is little to remind one of this vanished 
 civilization until the shores of the Don are reached. 
 The contrast between Kiev — its pious silhouette 
 of domes and convent towers rising from the plains 
 of the Dnieper — and Kharkov, the commercial 
 and industrial center of South Russia, is wholly 
 significant of the changes which have overtaken all 
 the western Cossack steppes. Once a mere Cos- 
 sack settlement, Kharkov lies at the apex of the 
 triangle formed by the great industrial region of 
 South Russia, the Krivoi-Rog. Thus, the iron 
 fields to the north of the Dnieper and the relatively 
 new industrial enterprises of the Donetz coal basin 
 are at its doors. Here center the three essential 
 elements of a modern commercial and industrial 
 El Dorado, i.e., coal, iron and population. 
 
 The country in which these rich deposits are 
 found, instead of presenting the barren and unat- 
 tractive landscape so often associated with mining 
 districts, is covered with wheat-fields and pasture 
 lands. Here it is no uncommon spectacle to see 
 great factories and work shops trailing their plumes 
 of black bituminous smoke across acres of ripening 
 
214 THE COSSACKS 
 
 grain — cultivation of which ends only at the foot 
 of their dingy walls. 
 
 No wonder that an unconquerable optimism — 
 the true American "western spirit" — pervades the 
 population of these favoured lands. In the clear 
 air and flooding sunlight of the old steppes the 
 northern Russian peasant nature expands with re- 
 newed activity. The strong force of "passive re- 
 sistance," so characteristic of the fatalistic North- 
 Slav civilization, is transformed into a source of 
 boundless physical energy. Even the great work- 
 shops and foundries set down among the smiling 
 landscape of fields and orchards lose much of the 
 grim enslaving aspect which characterize the roar- 
 ing mills of the commercial quarters of Petrograd 
 and Moscow. In the promised land of the old Cos- 
 sack "Republic of the Don" a new commercial pro- 
 letariat is arising — a new race of workers who 
 seem to have absorbed some of the sturdy tradi- 
 tions of freedom of the early inhabitants. 
 
 Kharkov is a city of about 200,000 inhabitants. 
 The ancient architectural features of the old 
 Ukranian capital have all but disappeared. German 
 influence is evident on every hand. A hideous 
 Lutheran Church of raw red brick raises its towers 
 next to the bulbous cupolas of the Russian cathe- 
 dral, while long streets are lined with houses and 
 shops in the "modern style" of Munich and 
 Carlsruhe. Indeed, the threat of German com- 
 mercial domination was the direct cause of the early 
 
THE DON 215 
 
 revolutionary movements which broke out in Khar- 
 kov in 1917. Another reason for this hostile at- 
 titude to the German influence at Petrograd lay in 
 the fact that Kharkov had a large population of 
 Poles from German Poland, who had settled here 
 in the freer commercial atmosphere of Russia. 
 
 A few hours ride beyond Kharkov brings the 
 traveller to the first stanitzi of the Don Cossacks. 
 The first view of these villages shows them to be- 
 long to a different civilization. Comparison with 
 the settlements of the moujik workmen who have 
 invaded their territory since the opening of the 
 great modern factories of the Donetz makes this 
 contrast the more remarkable. For the moujikj 
 even in new surroundings, long remains true to 
 type. 
 
 Even where there is little to prevent their villages 
 from spreading at their ease across the steppes, 
 atavism, or love of each other's company, keeps 
 them crowded about the great red-brick factory 
 buildings, in much the same way that their an- 
 cestors huddled about the fortresses of their over- 
 lords in the Tartar-raided pinewoods of the north. 
 
 The villages inhabited by the true natives of the 
 soil present a far different appearance. The first 
 view of the Cossack stanitza shows that their inhabi- 
 tants take interest not only in the outer appearances, 
 but also concerning questions of cleanliness and 
 sanitation. Another significant fact: schoolhouses 
 begin to appear beside the churches. Each neat 
 
216 THE COSSACKS 
 
 fenced garden is of precisely the dimensions pre- 
 scribed by its owner's military rank in the Cossack 
 polk. Even the favourite sunflowers of Little Rus- 
 sia, which stand sentinel about every modest door- 
 way, seem to have been manoeuvred into place at 
 the drillmaster's command. 
 
 Orchards whose boughs are nearly breaking with 
 their weight of fruit, and an occasional vineyard 
 producing the heady Cossack wine, show the suita- 
 bility of this rich steppe land for any kind of agri- 
 culture. There is, however, another side to the 
 picture. Often for miles at a stretch, the land lies 
 fallow or is left in luxurious pasture for herds of 
 cattle, sheep and sturdy little Cossack horses, 
 among whom occasionally appears the gaunt apoc- 
 alyptic silhouette of a camel mother and her 
 ungainly offspring. Now and again the sight of a 
 wheat-field stretching in its broad shimmering ex- 
 panse to a misty horizon gives an insight into the 
 true agricultural possibilities of the Don country, 
 but this latter method of farming "wholesale," re- 
 minding one of America or the Canadian provinces 
 of the West, is in no way indigenous to the soil. 
 Even the implements used in this form of hus- 
 bandry are American, or the cheaper and flimsier 
 German imitation of American models. Cossack 
 capital is often interested in the development of 
 these grain-lands, yet even the well-to-do Cossack 
 proprietor still infinitely prefers to do his farming 
 by hand. The owner of many such broad acres is 
 
THE DON 217 
 
 more likely to be found hoeing the garden before 
 his own door, or, better still, if his wealth permits, 
 he likes to ride about among his patriarchal flocks 
 and herds. The exploitation of his steppe heritage 
 he leaves to the more mechanically minded farmer 
 of an alien race. Thus the richest profits of the 
 "black earth" belt are garnered by North Russian 
 moujiks, or even Tartars or Armenians, rather 
 than by the native Donskoi. 
 
 An adjustment of relations between the Cossack 
 proprietors and the non-Cossack emigrants now 
 tilling the vast tracts of fertile territory owned in 
 common by the "armies" is one of the most impor- 
 tant problems that the future has in store. Whether 
 the land-hungry peasants, who are the lessees of so 
 much of the best Cossack agricultural land, will, 
 with the spread of modern ideas, consent to remain 
 in the relation of tenants towards the community 
 appears highly doubtful. 
 
 In the past the rich "black earth" region of 
 the Don and the great coalfields which underlie the 
 old "free steppes" of the Donetz were a greater 
 menace to Cossack institutions than all the at- 
 tempts of the Russian Tsars to curtail their lib- 
 erties. The general distaste for trade and industry 
 characterizing the Cossack of the classical days is 
 shared by his descendants. Nearly all mercantile 
 enterprises in the larger towns are in the hands of 
 "strangers." Already a foreign merchant class is 
 growing up among the stanit?d under the present 
 
218 THE COSSACKS 
 
 policy of toleration. Armenians and Jews are 
 obtaining control of nearly all the retail business in 
 the neighbourhood of Rostov, and even in the last 
 stronghold of Cossack conservatism — Novotcher- 
 kask. Yet, in spite of these signs of the changing 
 times the Cossack still remains to a surprising de- 
 gree the master in his own house. 
 
 The old Cossack communal system, while fre- 
 quently modified by alien changes, has, in point of 
 fact, prospered exceedingly through this peaceful 
 invasion. A definite share in the increment earned 
 falls to nearly every member of the stanitza. 
 Thanks to the conservative workings of Russian 
 law the proprietor is as hard to expropriate as the 
 traditional limpet. This many a promoter of mod- 
 ern, if dubious, prosperity discovered to his cost. 
 With respect to every new project proposed the 
 Cossack officials and elders must have their say, 
 and a spirit of healthy conservatism prevails in 
 their councils. 
 
 Even the first glimpse of NWoJcherkask, the 
 Cossack capital, will show that here, at least, the 
 old ways are still followed. The streets, though 
 wide and tree-bordered, are often so steep that only 
 a horseman may safely negotiate the grade. On 
 the crest of the highest hill rises the cathedral, a 
 warlike little shrine set about with cannon and other 
 trophies captured from the Turks and English dur- 
 ing the Crimean war. In a narrow space of flat 
 ground in front of the sbor stands a fine statue of 
 
THE DON 219 
 
 the famous hetman Yermak, the embodiment of 
 Cossack genius, who first conquered Siberia for the 
 Russian empire in the days of Ivan the Terrible. 
 All about the Cathedral are built the great barracks 
 and other military dependencies, while even the 
 private houses clearly indicate the military rank 
 rather than the wealth of their owners. 
 
 The little museum, which stands near by, is a 
 veritable Acropolis for the whole Donskoi race and 
 the treasures it contains are proudly exhibited to 
 the rare visitor: crudely carved Scythian idols 
 are reminders of the primitive Lords of the Steppes, 
 beautifully chiselled Greek coffins tell of the early 
 commercial colonies established on the Black 
 Sea littoral; marble slabs bearing long inscriptions 
 in Latin record a succeeding influence — that of 
 the Genoese merchant-lords who formerly occupied 
 strategic points on the great "Highway of the Na- 
 tions." 
 
 Next to these remains, showing the commercial 
 importance of the Don basin in ancient times, are 
 piously preserved the regalia, half-Tartar, half- 
 Christian, of the old Cossack chieftains and ata- 
 mans of the Don: horsetail standards, copied from 
 those carried before the Asiatic khans when they 
 went to war; the heavy silver-gilt boundchouks, or 
 war-clubs, formerly the insignia of office, carried 
 by the hetman; icons and Cossack standards em- 
 broidered with the pictures of wonder-working 
 saints and martyrs of the Ukraine, who accom- 
 
220 THE COSSACKS 
 
 panied the wild chivalry of the Don in their wars 
 against the Tartars.* 
 
 There is also preserved in the museum a me- 
 mento of Empress Catherine's famous journey 
 through the newly conquered provinces of Southern 
 Russia. It was from the window of a travelling 
 vehicle (which she presented to the Donskoi) that 
 she gazed upon the carnivalesque villages which the 
 zeal of her favourite Potemkin caused to be erected 
 all along the route followed by the imperial cortege 
 in its journey across the empty Cossack steppes. 
 The boisterous welcome of the Cossack stanitzi of 
 the Don — a contrast to the theatrical rejoicings of 
 the fictitious peasants and bayaderes of Potemkin's 
 improvised population — seems to have pleased the 
 august sovereign, who showed them the most gra- 
 cious side of her character. The Donskoi, in turn, 
 elected her an "honorary Cossack" and still cherish 
 the memory of "Mother Catherine's" vis s it to their 
 capital. 
 
 In the library of the museum are carefully pre- 
 served the charters and other documents attesting 
 the privileges conferred upon the Donskoi race by 
 
 * Another interesting relic is a finely jewelled sword 
 presented by the "Merchants of the City of London" 
 (in recognition of the services the Cossacks rendered to 
 the cause of the Grand Alliance of a century ago against 
 the imperialistic "welt-politik" of Napoleon) to the fa- 
 mous hetman Platov, a native of old Tcherkask, and one 
 of the founders of the present city. 
 
KOUBAN COSSACKS 
 
 And "Cossacks" of the "Wild Division' 
 
THE DON 221 
 
 succeeding Tsars, each confirming the "rights" 
 which the valour of the Cossack armies obtained at 
 the hands of the Russian autocrats. 
 
 Novotcherkask is the centre of the Cossack edu- 
 cational system. It boasts of a large institution, the 
 "Academy," whose faculty was famous all over 
 Russia for the sturdy independence of its teachings. 
 The Cossack school system was liberally endowed 
 and illiteracy is lower in the Don stanitzi than in 
 any province of the old empire. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE FRONTIERS OF EUROPE 
 
 LESS than a century ago no traveller would 
 have dreamed of crossing the river Don with- 
 out a strong escort of Russian troops — unless 
 journeying as the guest of some Cossack chieftain 
 or hetman of the "Cossacks of the Black Sea." Con- 
 cerning this wild country the Englishman Clarke 
 wrote in his celebrated "Travels in the Ukraine" as 
 follows: "Here one finds the Cossack race still 
 living according to the manners and customs of 
 their ancestors. A savage pride in their complete 
 independence is reflected in their dress and manner 
 of existence. Each Cossack is the equal of every 
 other member of the community, whether clad in 
 simple sheep-skins and dwelling in a cave, or in- 
 habiting a fine well-built house and dressed in 
 velvet covered with gold and silver lace." And 
 until the coming of the great trunk line connecting 
 the "Petroleum-Metropolis" of Bakou on the Cas- 
 pian Sea with Rostov-on-Don,* these primitive 
 frontier conditions were to be found existing over 
 all the fertile steppes to the north of the Caucasus. 
 
 * Rostov-on-Don is a busy young commercial city — 
 the port and distributing centre for the Don region. It 
 
 222 
 
THE FRONTIERS OF EUROPE 223 
 
 These low-lying plains — the watershed of the 
 Kuban and Terek — were formerly the bed of a 
 great sea or strait connecting the Caspian with the 
 Black Sea. Overlying a sandy substratum filled 
 with the debris of shells and marine life is spread a 
 generous layer of the famous agricultural soil 
 known as "the black earth,' , the foundation of the 
 agricultural empire of South Russia. The bur- 
 ial mounds of forgotten races, huge Kourgans, 
 sometimes still surmounted by rudely carved 
 guardian deities of stone, alone break the flat hor- 
 izon. These are relics of the Scythian tribes who 
 formerly pastured their flocks on the rich grass that 
 covered these plains. Their numbers show that a 
 numerous population, even in pre-historic times, oc- 
 cupied this favored territory. 
 
 About the growing modern city of Ekaterinodar, 
 or "Catherine's gift" — another reminder of the 
 famous visit which that great Russian ruler made 
 to her Cossack territories in South Russia — lies 
 the province where the famous Zaporogian Cos- 
 sacks were formerly granted lands in order to pro- 
 tect the new frontiers from the inroads of the 
 Tcherkess (Circassians) and other wild mountain 
 tribes of the Caucasus. No encouragement was 
 given these emigrants from the shores of the Dnie- 
 per to resume the peculiar organization of their 
 
 has, however, lost all Cossack character, and its popu- 
 lation is principally made up of Armenians, Jews, Great- 
 Russians and other "strangers." ) 
 
224 THE COSSACKS 
 
 sitch, the armed camp or stronghold whence they 
 formerly set at defiance not only the authority of 
 the Turks and Tartars, but also (when it so pleased 
 their humour) the commands of the Russian Tsars 
 as well. At the present day the descendants of the 
 "Free Companions" differ little from other Cossack 
 communities of the Russian frontier. The enter- 
 prise and energy which characterized their forbears 
 is now exercised along wholly peaceful lines. 
 Foreign agricultural machines are sold in all the 
 principal shops of Ekaterinodar. The spectacle 
 afforded by a bewhiskered Cossack armed with the 
 inevitable dagger, peacefully bestriding an Ameri- 
 can mowing machine — is wholly typical of the 
 "new days." Bee culture, a traditional occupation 
 of the steppes, where the wildflowers give honey of 
 especially agreeable flavour, is another vocation car- 
 ried on with success by these descendants of the 
 redoubtable pirates of the Lower Dnieper. In the 
 sandier parts of the plains cattle and sheep raising 
 (pastoral pursuits in which the Cossack population 
 excel) are the principal source of the wealth of 
 these fortunate "Cossacks of the Kuban/' 
 
 Along the foothills of the great Caucasian walls, 
 
 where the Terek flows through flat, sandy plains to 
 
 the Caspian Sea, lies the territory of the "Cossack 
 
 ^ Army of the Terek." To the north lies a salt 
 
 desert inhabited only by nomad Buddhist Kal- 
 
THE FRONTIERS OF EUROPE 225 
 
 moucks — so isolated by their inhospitable sur- 
 roundings that they are able to continue the primi- 
 tive existence of their forefathers within a few hun- 
 dred versts — as the crow flies — of Russian civili- 
 zation. These are generally peaceably disposed, but 
 in the mountains to the south of the Terek in the 
 highland fastness of Kabardia and Daghestan 
 dwell Mussulman tribes whose independent spirit 
 is a continual source of petty disorder. Here, in a 
 veritable natural fortress, the Caucasian hero 
 Schamyl and his followers made their last heroic 
 stand against the Russian forces but half a century 
 ago. 
 
 In the isolated valleys, unvisited except by that 
 unwelcome fellow brigand, the Russian tax-gath- 
 erer, Schamyl's descendants have maintained their 
 tribal customs to the present day. On these the Cos- 
 sack stanitzi still keep careful watch, for now and 
 again some local Robin Hood ventures to exercise 
 the old tribal right to exact an involuntary toll on 
 the Russian post roads.* 
 
 In Tolstoi's splendid story, "The Cossack," is 
 found the following description from the Russian 
 view-point of the old Grebenski stanitzi,, of whom 
 the present-day Cossacks of the Kuban and Terek 
 are the successors : 
 
 * But a few months before the writer's last visit 
 to Vladikavkas, a noted outlaw had been hunted down 
 by the Terek Cossacks. I talked with several people who 
 had seen this popular hero's body brought into the city, 
 
226 THE COSSACKS 
 
 "The whole line of the Terek along which, for 
 some eighty versts, are scattered the stanitzi, or 
 villages of the Grebensky Cossacks, has a dis- 
 tinctive character, by reason not only of its situa- 
 tion, but also of population. The river Terek, which 
 separates the Cossacks from the mountaineers, 
 flows turbid and swift, but still in a broad and tran- 
 quil current, constantly depositing gray silt on the 
 low, reed-grown right bank, and undermining the 
 steep but not lofty left bank, with its tangled roots 
 of century-old oaks, decaying plane trees, and un- 
 s y derbrush. O n th e right bank lie auls, or native 
 villages, peaceable but restless ; along the left bank, 
 half a verst from the river, and seven or eight versts 
 apart, stretch the Cossack villages. In former 
 times, the majority of these villages or outposts 
 were on the very edge of the river; but the Terek 
 each year, sweeping farther away from the moun- 
 tains toward the north, has kept undermining them, 
 and now there remain in sight only the old ruins, 
 gardens, pear trees, poplars, and limes, thickly 
 overgrown, and twined about with blackberries and 
 wild grape-vines. No one any longer lives there, 
 and the only signs of life are the tracks on the sand, 
 made by deer, wolves, hares, and pheasants, which 
 haunt such places. 
 
 A road runs from stanitza to stanitza, through 
 the forest, as a cannon-shot would fly. Along the 
 road are the military stations or cordons, guarded 
 by Cossacks. Between the cordons are watch- 
 accompanied by his weeping relations and the tribesmen 
 who refused to abandon their feudal chief, even in death. 
 These had become voluntary captives upon hearing the 
 news of his untimely end. 
 
THE FRONTIERS OF EUROPE 227 
 
 towers with sentinels. Only a narrow strip of 
 fertile forest land — say twenty-one hundred feet 
 wide — constitutes the Cossacks' domain. On the 
 north begin the sandy dunes of the Nogai, or Moz- 
 dok steppe, stretching far away, and commingling, 
 God knows where, with the Trukhmensky, Astra- 
 khan, and Kirgiz-Kaisak steppes. On the south, 
 beyond the Terek, is the Great Chechnya, the ridge 
 of the Kotchkalosof range, the Black Mountains, 
 then still another sierra, and finally the Snowy 
 Mountains, which are visible, indeed, but which 
 have never yet been trodden by the foot of man. 
 On the fertile strip of forest land, rich in all kinds 
 of vegetation, have lived, since immemorial times, 
 a warlike, handsome, and wealthy Russian popula- 
 tion, professing the "Old Faith," and called the 
 Grebensky Kazaki or Border Cossacks. 
 
 Very, very long ago, their ancestors, the Staro- 
 vyerni, or "Old Believers," fled from Russia and 
 settled beyond the Terek among the Chechens on 
 the ridge — "Greben" — or first spur of the 
 wooded range of the Great Chechnya. These Cos- 
 sacks intermarried with their new neighbours, the 
 Chechens, and adopted the habits, mode of life, and 
 manners of the mountaineers; but they succeeded 
 in maintaining even there the Russian language and 
 the old belief in their pristine purity. A tradition, 
 still preserved among these Cossacks, declares that 
 the Tsar Ivan the Terrible came to the Terek, in- 
 vited the elders of the Cossacks from the Ridge to 
 meet him, gave them the land on that side of the 
 river, charged them to live in peace, and promised 
 not to compel them either to subjection or to a 
 change of belief. 
 
 From that time to this the Cossack families have 
 
228 THE COSSACKS 
 
 kept up their relations with the mountaineers, and 
 the chief traits of their character are love of liberty, 
 laziness, brigandage, and war. The influence of 
 Russia has been exerted only in a detrimental way, 
 by forced conscriptions, the removal of their bells, 
 and the presence of troops quartered among them. 
 The Cossack is inclined to have less detestation for 
 the mountaineer-jig^ who has killed his brother 
 than for the soldier who is quartered on him for the 
 sake of protecting his village, but who scents up 
 his hut with tobacco-smoke. He respects his moun- 
 tain enemy; but he disdains the soldier, whom he 
 regards as an alien oppressor. 
 
 In the eyes of the Cossack the Russian peasant is 
 a nondescript creature, uncouth and beneath con- 
 tempt, the type of which he finds in the peripatetic 
 Little Russian peddler or emigrant, called by the 
 Cossacks shapoval y or tile-wearer. 
 
 The height of style there is to dress like the 
 Tcherkess. His best weapons are procured from 
 the mountaineers ; from them also his best horses are 
 bought or stolen. The young Cossack brave prides 
 himself on his knowledge of the Tartar language, 
 and, when he is on a drunken spree, he speaks 
 Tartar even with his brother. 
 
 In fact this petty population of Christians, bar- 
 ricaded in a little corner of the world, surrounded 
 by semi-civilized Mohammedan tribes and by sol- 
 diers, regards itself as having attained the highest 
 degree of culture, looks on the Cossack as alone 
 worthy of the name of man, and affects to despise 
 every one else. The Cossack spends the most of 
 his time at the cordons, in expeditions, hunting and 
 fishing. He almost never works at home. His 
 presence in his stamtza is an exception to the rule, 
 
THE FRONTIERS OF EUROPE 229 
 
 but when he is there he lounges. Wine is a common 
 commodity among all the Cossacks, and drunken- 
 ness is not so much a universal propensity as it is 
 a rite, the non-fulfilment of which would be re- 
 garded as apostasy. 
 
 The Cossack looks on a woman as the instrument 
 of his well-being. Only while she is unmarried does 
 he allow her to be idle and make merry; but when 
 she is once a wife he compels her to work for him 
 from youth to the very end of old age. He is thor- 
 oughly Oriental in his demand on her obedience 
 and toil. As the result of this state of things, 
 woman, though to all appearances in subjection, 
 becomes powerfully developed both physically and 
 morally, and, as is commonly the case in the East, 
 possesses incomparably more influence and conse- 
 quence in domestic affairs than in the West. Her 
 seclusion from society and her inurement to hard 
 manual labour give her still more authority and com- 
 mand in domestic affairs. The Cossack who, in the 
 presence of strangers, regards it as unbecoming to 
 talk affectionately or gossip with his wife, cannot 
 help feeling her superiority when he is left alone 
 with her. His whole house, his whole estate, his 
 whole establishment have been acquired by her, and 
 are maintained solely by her labours and exertions. 
 And though he is obstinately convinced that toil is 
 degrading for a Cossack, and is the proper occupa- 
 tion only of a Nogai labourer or a woman, yet he has 
 a dim consciousness that everything that redounds 
 to his comfort, and that he calls his own, is the re- 
 sult of this toil, and that it is in the power of his 
 mother or his wife, even though he looks on her as 
 his serf, to deprive him of all that makes his life 
 agreeable. 
 
230 THE COSSACKS 
 
 Moreover, the constant hard field labour, and the 
 duties intrusted to them, give a peculiarly inde- 
 pendent, masculine character to the "greben" 
 women, and have served to develop in them, to a 
 remarkable degree, physical powers, healthy minds, 
 decision and stability of character. The women are 
 for the most part stronger and more intelligent, 
 better developed and handsomer, than the men. The 
 beauty of the women among the "Grebensky" (or 
 Terek) Cossacks is due to the striking union in 
 them of the purest type of the Tcherkess with the 
 full and powerful build of the northern woman. 
 Their usual dress is Tcherkess : the Tartar shirt, the 
 beshmet, or under-tunic, and the foot-gear called 
 ckuvyaki; but they wear the kerchiefs in the Rus- 
 sian way. The wearing of clean, rich and elegant 
 attire, and the decoration of their cottages, belong 
 to the inseparable conditions of their existence." 
 
 While the monotonous garrison routine of the 
 stanitzi of the Terek still offers the occasional con- 
 genial adventure of a foray against their wild 
 mountaineer neighbours, the Astrakhan Cossacks 
 who have their headquarters in the picturesque, but 
 unhealthy metropolis of the lower Volga, are prin- 
 cipally engaged in the lucrative but unwarlike trade 
 of fishing. The Astrakhan Cossacks form a fast 
 disappearing branch of the Cossack race. Origi- 
 nally an offshoot of the DonsJcoi they are now 
 slowly being absorbed by the neighbouring non- 
 Cossack population. 
 
 The whole northern end of the shallow sandy- 
 
THE FRONTIERS OF EUROPE 231 
 
 bottomed Caspian is a vast natural fish-pond. In 
 spite of a yearly catch of countless sturgeon, her- 
 ring, beluga, soudak and other varieties of fish, 
 many of them wholly unknown outside the waters 
 of this finny paradise, the supply seems inex- 
 haustible. 
 
 From the Volga fisheries (and those of the Ural) 
 is obtained the world's principal supply of the fa- 
 mous Russian delicacy — caviar; unknown, how- 
 ever, under that name, and always locally called 
 ikra. As the Cossack communities of the Volga 
 and Ural have preserved to a great extent ancient 
 exclusive rights to the river fisheries, they are by 
 far the richest of the Cossack armies. These fish- 
 eries, which have existed for centuries, are now ex- 
 ploited by the most scientific methods. The never- 
 failing demand for caviar, of both the coarse and 
 finer qualities, always far exceeds the supply. In 
 Russia as well as in Europe, it is a highly expensive 
 delicacy. In the early days of these colonies, salted 
 caviar, packed in little wooden kegs, formed the 
 most acceptable tribute which could be offered to 
 the Russian court, and this delectable product pur- 
 chased indemnity for many a Cossack misdeed. On 
 account of its portable nature the price of caviar is 
 almost as high in the restaurants of Astrakhan as 
 in the great restaurants of Europe. A true gour- 
 met will, however, be rewarded threefold should he 
 make the pious pilgrimage to Astrakhan for the 
 purpose of tasting the silver-grey, nearly unsalted 
 
232 THE COSSACKS 
 
 ikra, only to be^ obtained at its best near the place 
 
 of origin. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Just across the administrative boundaries of 
 European Russia lies the little Cossack capital of 
 Uralsk, still in many ways the most characteristic 
 of the Cossack communities. The adventurous his- 
 tory of this frontier stronghold is especially associ- 
 ated with the name of Pougatchev and the great 
 Cossack revolt of the reign of Catherine II. Fol- 
 lowing the defeat of the armies of the "False Peter 
 III," only accomplished after a long and bitter 
 struggle, the ancient name of Jaik, which had for- 
 merly distinguished both the Cossacks and their 
 country, was changed to its present name of 
 Uralsk.* 
 
 On account of their isolation from their neigh- 
 bours, the Uralski Kasaki have preserved many of 
 the manners and customs of the ancient Cossacks, 
 long since abandoned by the Cossacks of the Don. 
 In these rarely visited districts the ancient system 
 of Cossack land tenure and communal existence 
 are still maintained in all their purity. (See Ap- 
 pendix.) 
 
 The Cossacks of the Uralsk deserve, perhaps 
 more than any other branch of their race, to be 
 called the true survivors of the old "Free People." 
 
 * Since the author's visit to Uralsk, in 1916, the old 
 name of Jaik has been restored by a vote of the Cossack 
 community. 
 
THE FRONTIERS OF EUROPE 233 
 
 For more than three hundred years they have 
 figured in Russian history. To the remnants of 
 ancient tribes, perhaps of Scythian origin, fugitive 
 Russian peasants and other foreigners joined them- 
 selves to form the earliest community inhabiting 
 the shores of the Jaik. Among these first settlers 
 were many religious refugees, a majority of them 
 belonging to the strange Russian sect known as 
 Raskolniki or "Old Believers." These Russian 
 sectarians, rather than obey the reforming edicts of 
 the Tsars who desired to modernize the ritual of 
 the ancient faith, fled to the deserts to worship God 
 after the primitive fashion of their fathers. A cen- 
 sus made during the reign of Peter the Great 
 (1723) shows that the colony included the members 
 of several sects of dissenters, many of whom held to 
 creeds stranger than those of the Raskolniki, Along 
 the shores of the Jaik all who were persecuted and 
 oppressed, whether Poles, Hungarians or Cossacks 
 of the Don, could live their lives as they pleased. 
 
 It was not until the end of the eighteenth century 
 that the Russian Government sought to exercise 
 any control other than a nominal supervision over 
 these liberty-loving citizens. It is to be feared, 
 however, that the Cossack Puritans of Uralsk had 
 their own strange ideas of the ethics of freedom: 
 for, as one of their rollicking songs expresses it, 
 
 "Formerly we Cossack fellows 
 Sailed at home upon the sea ; 
 Our long boats upon the waters 
 Took a toll from Khiv and Persia."* 
 * See an article by N. Borodin. Popular Science 
 Monthly. 
 
234 THE COSSACKS 
 
 As long as these austere brigands confined their 
 attention to the subjects of the Shah and the Khan 
 of Khiva the Russian Government interfered but 
 little with their affairs. It was only when, at the 
 end of the eighteenth century, Russian trade upon 
 the Caspian began to be an important factor that 
 the business of piracy fell upon evil days. However, 
 the great extension which contact with Russian 
 merchants gave to the fishing industry more than 
 made up for the toll which the Cossacks formerly 
 levied on the trade passing near their shores. 
 
 An interesting historical note, concerning these 
 "fishing" Cossacks, may be found in Hak- 
 luyt's "Voyages." In this account we are told 
 that in 1673, Master Geoffrey Ducket, returning 
 from his fifth voyage for the Muscovy Company, 
 ran afoul of these pirates, when, "by reason of the 
 variety of the winds and dangerous flats of the 
 Caspian Sea" he was riding at anchor near their 
 shores. He tells that "certain Rus Cossacks, which 
 are outlaws or banished men . . . came to us with 
 divers boats under cover of friendship and entered 
 our ship." The suspicious conduct of these visi- 
 tors, however, soon undeceived the wise British 
 merchants with respect to their intentions and they 
 thereupon took their hatchets and "skowred the 
 hatches." 
 
 For many years the Uralski Cossacks have lived 
 as orderly and peaceable an existence as frontier 
 conditions permit. They were among the first to 
 
THE FRONTIERS OF EUROPE 235 
 
 declare their allegiance to the constitutional gov- 
 ernment after the overthrow of Tsarism in 1917, 
 and have since resisted the tyranny exercised from 
 Moscow and Petrograd by "King Stork" Lenin, 
 with the same courage and determination which 
 they opposed to the officials of "King Log" 
 Nicholas. The leaders of the Soviet movement — 
 realizing the necessity of winning the Cossack ele- 
 ment to their doctrines — have tried every method 
 learned from their German teachers, from ter- 
 rorism to propaganda, to enlist the sympathies of 
 the sturdy Uralski, But the excesses of the pande- 
 moniac government at Petrograd have so disgusted 
 the Cossacks that the adherents of the Bolsheviki 
 were none too gently thrown out of their settle- 
 ments, early in the struggle between order and 
 anarchy.* 
 
 ******** 
 
 Some 210 miles northwest of Uralsk lies the Cos- 
 sack capital of Orenburg, a frontier post which has 
 played a famous part in the stirring annals of Rus- 
 sia's conquest of the khanates of Central Asia. 
 Several times the entire city has been transferred to 
 another site, but always nearer to the goal of Rus- 
 
 * According to a dispatch to the New York Evening 
 Post of May 26, 1919, the advance of a relieving force 
 of General Kolchak's Siberian troops found the garrison 
 of Uralsk maintaining the gallant resistance to the "Red 
 Army" which they have carried on since the beginning of 
 the war. 
 
236 THE COSSACKS 
 
 sia's ambition — the rich oases of Khiva, Merv, Bo- 
 khara, and Samarkand, the centre of Mussulman 
 culture and power in the days of the World Empire 
 of Tamerlane. 
 
 Between Orenburg and Tashkent a commercially 
 strategic line of railway, which may be said to rank 
 but second in importance to the Trans-Siberian, 
 now unites European Russia with these prosperous 
 Asiatic markets. The wonderful fruits grown in 
 the orchards of Samarkand and Bokhara were be- 
 fore the present disturbances transported via Oren- 
 burg in long trains of refrigerating cars and 
 distributed all over the Moscow area. On the far 
 Chinese frontier a great cotton-raising district had 
 also sprung into existence during the last two 
 decades of imperial government, when the abroga- 
 tion of the Russo- American commercial treaty 
 caused the government to aim at becoming economi- 
 cally independent in this respect. 
 
 The present city of Orenburg, standing on a high 
 bluff, overlooking a boundless sweep of Tartar 
 steppes, is fast losing its Cossack character through 
 the influx of an alien commercial population. 
 
 In the neat public gardens of Orenburg, where 
 before the advent of the Bolsheviki a Cossack band 
 discoursed almost nightly to the promenaders, the 
 population of Orenburg could be studied in all the 
 strange variety of its racial elements. Apparently 
 on the best of terms, the Russianized Tartar inhabi- 
 tants and the military and civil officials of the gov- 
 
THE FRONTIERS OF EUROPE 237 
 
 ernment here met on common ground. Hither 
 came the comely Tartar maiden (who of her 
 national costume only retained the not unbecoming 
 Tartar headdress) to flirt discreetly with the stu- 
 dents of the Cossack military school. On the 
 benches sat Sart and Tartar merchants talking over 
 the day's business with Russian or Armenian shop- 
 keepers. 
 
 Ranking after the territory of the Don and 
 Uralsk Cossacks in extent, the land of the Oren- 
 burg Cossacks, stretching in a long narrow band 
 along the course of the upper Uralsk River, is far 
 more Cossack in character than the capital city. Yet 
 under the colonial policy of the old imperial gov- 
 ernment, the fertile land was becoming filled with 
 new-comers of the non-Cossack class — moujjik 
 colonists from the overcrowded villages of the 
 north, besides Tartar peasants from the south. 
 Even the half -nomad tribesmen, Kirghiz and Kal- 
 moucks, who have wandered over these plains since 
 the days of the Golden Horde, are now beginning 
 to settle in village communities. Often these little 
 agglomerations are composed partly of mud huts 
 or hovels, partly of the old felt tents of the more 
 conservative tribesmen. 
 
 Everywhere the virgin soil is capable, even under 
 the most primitive agricultural conditions, of phe- 
 nomenal returns for labour expended upon it. The 
 statistics of Orenburg show that the population of 
 this province and its dependencies were, before the 
 
238 THE COSSACKS 
 
 war, among the most rapidly growing communities 
 of Russia. 
 
 The Russian has always been successful as an 
 Asiatic colonist — for reasons worthy of considera- 
 tion by our new "mandatory' ' powers. In this 
 "melting-pot" one may study the process, so much 
 freer of "race-pride" than the Anglo-Saxon 
 methods of colonization, which enabled the Tsarist 
 government to fling wide the frontiers of their Em- 
 pire during the last half of the nineteenth century. 
 
 In this task of Europeanization the Cossack has 
 played an important role. Fitted by his origin and 
 history to be an intermediary between East and 
 West, he is happily endowed with sympathy and 
 understanding for two often irreconcilable view- 
 points. Above all, he has none of the fine contempt 
 for the "yellow races" which besets the Anglo- 
 Saxon, not to mention the now happily disarmed 
 apostles of Kultur. Aside from the pathetic and 
 ridiculous attempts of the Bolsheviki to introduce 
 their stereotyped Marxian kultur into the world- 
 old Cosmos of Asia — Russia has played a note- 
 worthy role in her Asiatic dominions. While show- 
 ing powers of as. imilation, only to be explained by 
 Russian racial history, the rule of Tsarism was 
 generally less resented among her subject nations 
 than England's milder sway in India. Autocracy 
 and its methods came from Asia and is in no sense 
 generally disliked by the vast majority of Asiatics 
 to-day. 
 
THE FRONTIERS OF EUROPE 239 
 
 In its future dealings with these subject people 
 of the old empire a liberalized Russia will find a 
 difficult problem, yet to aid her in this task she will 
 have the organized experience of her Cossack fron- 
 tiersmen. No one who has had first-hand knowl- 
 edge of these borderlands can believe for a moment 
 that the Cossack's mission will end until the vast 
 plains of Central Asia have advanced much farther 
 than they have to-day along the paths of Europe's 
 compelling — if not so immeasurably superior — 
 civilization. 
 
 THE END 
 
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