Cossacks in the history of the local conflicts in the end of the XX century

The aim of the study was to identify the value of source analysis of the latest stage of military volunteers movement with the participation of representatives of the Cossacks. To achieve this goal the following tasks were set: to show the main directions of a Cossacks historiography of the late XX century, to identify and characterize new source material, to point out the agenda of information sources. Research methodology: the author has proceeded from the principles of objectivism and historicism, analysis of the historiography produced in the framework of conceptualistic model. Special historical methods, such as comparative historical, structural functional and chronological problem methods had been applied to understand the role described by the author of the phenomenon of volunteerism and the role of the Cossacks in the era of geopolitical fault. Source base for the study was a new kind of source. It is the memories of participants of the volunteer movement and participants of local conflicts, in this case it is the memories by I. Girkin, M. Polikarpov, and O. Valetsky. This group is introduced into scientific circulation for the first time and allows to reveal the portrait specifics of the current "segment" of the Cossacks in the general panorama of the military volunteers movement. These sources also are able to reveal the socio-organizational aspects of Cossack units. From them we learn the internal organization and management, combat skills, organizational and mobilization capacities. During the conducted research the author came to the following conclusions: in the analysis of historiography the author concludes that at the present stage of study of the Cossacks the following directions dominate in the Humanities: problems of social and political institutionalization, ethnological peculiarities of life and culture, as well as the use and modernization of the historical experience of the Cossacks. One of the problems which were not reflected in the current research is the militaristic aspect of the Cossacks. This type of activity in most of the cases are in the area of media coverage. But the source in most cases is mythological and subjective, and often does not create a full picture. The analysis of such sources as memoirs leads to the following conclusions: the qualitative superiority of the Cossack units on most of the units of the Republic of Serbia. Apart from the fact that the Cossack units were the size of a squadron, unlike the other foreign volunteer units up to platoon, also had a higher professional quality and equipped with combat vehicles, but at the same time was anarchic and had problems with discipline. The dominant motivating setting, in terms of the collapse of the USSR and deideologization of social movements and initiatives, the Cossacks were protecting the Orthodox population on the territory of Russia and outside.

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