The state and the Cossacks: searching for ways of revival

The object of the study is the state policy concerning the modern Russian Cossacks. The chronological framework is the late 1980s to early 1990s. The aim of the study is to analyze the main directions of the state policy on the revival of the Cossacks using a large number of documents and contemporary records. At the turn of the 1990s the Soviet state collapsed, and a crisis began. Different social groups were beginning to take an active part in the state life. They were looking for their place in the new society. Cossack organizations can be included in these groups. Cossacks appeared in different regions of the country. They wanted to participate in the social and cultural, economic and political life of the society. There were about 5 million Cossacks in Russia. So the government had to normalize social relations with the Cossacks. Besides it had to take into account the history of relations between the state and the Cossacks. Just before the disintegration of the USSR, the authorities put one of the main lines in revival of the Cossacks as a "cultural and ethnic community" which the Soviet government repressed, it was done to use their protest potential for reforming the socialist system. After the collapse of the USSR, when the new basis of the Russian state was forming, the authorities began a new policy for the Cossacks development, as the protest potential was no longer needed. In order to give the Cossacks "proper" development, its military and public service was wanted in exchange for some privileges (land owning, tax benefits, etc.). In places where the Cossacks were numerous, it was planned to create non-military structures for organizing patriotic and international education, for preparing youth to protect the Homeland, to develop applied and technical sports, to participate in the natural disasters management, in civil and territorial defense measures like DOSAAF or military patriotic clubs. This logic can also be seen as an attempt to bring the Cossacks revival under control by turning it into a "neoclass" structure. As a result of the research, it is concluded that during the period under review the state policy towards the development of the Cossacks has gradually changed from its revival as a "nation" ("cultural-ethnic community") to its revival as a "neoclass" structure, a militarized structure intended to fulfill "state and other service" and controlled by the government.

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