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COSSACK VILLAGE COMMUNITY IS THE FOUNDATION FRAMEWORK OF THE COSSACKS
© Erokhin LUr*
Croudon College, U.K., London
The article examines the functioning stanitsa community. Role of the community is considered in connection with the state role in the history of Russian Cossacks.
Key words: Cossacks, ethnicity, class, history, Russia, culture, traditions.
Cossack village community is crucial for the legal and state system of the Cossacks. In its structure, Cossack village community includes the following essential elements: Cossack village gathering, Ataman board, Court. All regulatory power belongs to Cossack village gathering. Executive power is delegated to the board and elected Ataman. Judiciary of the Cossacks is represented by a separate branch. For example, such a structure traditionally evolved in the Terek Cossacks [1, p. 310].
The Cossack diaspore does not live closed in state and administrative terms, it is not a «thing-in-itself» unlike many other ethnic enclaves and social groups, it is actively involved in state regulation and management - functions delegated to it by authorities.
It is noteworthy that since elder times, the Cossack Ataman was administrative and police person in the territory subordinate and accountable to him, and all persons, without exception, even completely unrelated to the Cossack ethnicity were expected to obey him.
The state and authorities vested The Cossack Ataman with a significant arsenal of measures of action concerning guilty citizens and other delinquent offenders. It could be financial measures (a fine of not more than 3 rubles), coercive measures or public works (for up to 3 days). For particularly malicious violators, these measures could be increased to five rubles of fine and up to five days of forced labor, respectively [1, p. 310].
The Cossack Ataman had the right to carry out any measures to maintain order, law, peace and decorum in the controlled territory. In some cases, he and his closest associates functioned as the institution of contemporary bailiffs, i.e. supervised the execution of court verdicts and other decisions made by the Cossack gatherings. This list has also included private law of the Cossacks. Ataman had the right to resolve mortgage, private and other contracts, and disputes of population. The Cossack Ataman set vetoes and resolutions on trips (absences) in the petitions of the Cossacks.
* Старший научный сотрудник.
The longest time it was usual to focus attention namely on military structure of the Cossacks. Overwhelming number of both past and modern studies suffered it. At the same time, the issue of interaction of military structure of the Cossacks with civil administrative-territorial and local governments was not investigated. Recently, timid attempts were made by historians and politologists to move in this direction, but it should be noted that rather questions than answers still remain in this topic.
During execution of his duties, Ataman who had no Cossack military rank, was appointed to the position of cornet and was equivalent to that rank. Administrative-territorial unit - the Cossack village - was responsible for preparation and military duty bearing of any member of the Cossack community. Many researchers even say, and spoke about «the Cossack service as a special form and kind of self-government» in legal and public capacity.
From time to time, the Cossack community practiced not only their own innovations in the specifics of organization of military service and self-defense system of the Cossack villages, but also redistribution of land shares among the Cossacks. It is important to note that there was rather complicated system of land property relations in Tsarist Russia. The main owner of the land was state. On behalf of the Sovereign, the authority granted the land to a certain troop on the rights of collective, community property. Later this troop itself distributed this land as shares and allotments between individual villages. The system of most of the Cossack troops also included the institution of «noble military Cossack allot-ments». For using the land, a common Cossack had to perform military service under the contract with the village. Noble Cossacks were granted with the land upon receipt of the Cossack officer rank. Their property was of a hereditary nature, but a descendant must have been related to and originate from the structure of the troop itself.
If initially, in the ancient history of the Cossacks «a Cossack was the enemy of the land», and for its treatment he risked the death penalty, then later land relations of the Cossacks became one of the overriding factors of military, administrative and territorial structuring of the Cossacks. Naturally, no any other kind of agricultural activities (fishing - Ural Cossacks, hunting - Siberian Cossacks, winemaking - the Kuban and the Terek Cossacks, etc.) could not affect the statehood of mentality of this community as a system of special land relations. It became decisive.
Historians attribute the following (and it should be attributed) to the features of the Cossacks as a separate class within the Russian Empire:
- A system of specific procedure for serving compulsory military service;
- Exemption from capitation tax;
- Exemption from the system of recruiting activities;
- Exemption from state territorial fee;
- Granting a right of free trade in military areas and lands;
- Privileged rights to use public lands and diverse agricultural lands (salt and fishing industries, gardens, etc.).
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If we consider that all of the above privileges and rights granted to the Cossacks by the state could be implemented into practice exclusively within the Cossack community system, its huge and undeniable role as a structural state element in the system of organization of the Cossacks becomes clear and certain.
Despite the fact that the Cossacks had many structural elements «cementing» it as a single community (military service, village government system) along with this, there are several features that defined heterogeneity, «inequivalence» of community. Already in Zaporizhzhya Sich, we find mentioning of the so-called Cossack «embassy» (a system of noble and privileged Cossacks), which contrasted with the Cossack «mob» which consisted of commoners. With the development of civil service of the Cossacks, processes of its structuring and centralization, similar elements of disintegration should have only been intensified. And it actually happened.
Processes of the Cossacks disintegration in the territory of Sich, got its subsequent sequel. Its initiators and instigators were usually wealthy Cossacks. Some of them, upon returning to the Don, formed an independent group of «old» or «thrifty» Cossacks. Although it is rather difficult to clearly define the structure and nature of this group, it is possible to speak about its social status and special government claims. This group of Cossacks saw its special and crucial role in economic situation. In addition, they returned to the Don much earlier than their compatriots - less wealthy «newcomer Cossacks» or so-called «Golutvennye Cossacks».
However, the system of customary Cossack law implemented through the execution of resolutions of meetings, gatherings, rounds and Rada significantly impeded disintegration of the Cossacks. Possession of special rights was encouraged only during military service, but in every way was neutralized by the Cossack ideological doctrine in peacetime. Neither nobility, nor gentility and economic position of a member of the Cossack community could contribute to its rise in the environment of people like him.
The Cossacks serve faithfully not only to Moscovia. It is deep and fundamental misconception to assume so. At least we can talk about large-scale facts and evidences of service of the Orthodox Cossacks to Catholic and Muslim rulers.
It is revealingly, that the modern state structures do justice to the importance of existence of the Cossack village community, giving it exclusive rights in establishing linkages between government, society and the Cossacks. «Primary territorial association of the Cossacks (the Cossack community) provides training of each member of the community for line of duty, training, timely and proper administration of the duties of public service. In turn, a member of the Cossack community is responsible to the government and to the community to which he belongs. Thus, in order to have the rights and obligations arising from the specific form of public service of the Cossacks, the citizen must be a member of the Cossack community. A Cossack makes relations with the government already being a member of the Cossack community when he is first called to military service or
taking office on another type of public service by signing the contract and adoption of a special oath of allegiance» - modern sources say.
An attempt to set a buffer directly between a citizen represented by the Cossack and the state represented by the Cossack community is quite a controversial measure. It can bear both great fruits in «public education of the Cossacks» and end in a fiasco.
But we can still come to completely clear and unambiguous conclusions that the strength and power, organizational structuring and ideological concept of the Cossack village in Tsarist Russia is determined by the following issues: military mobilization and land issue. And at the present stage of development of the Cossacks, it has many uncertainties - first of all, in law and practice of regulatory relations. The Cossacks, their leaders and the state excruciatingly try to find a way out of the situation. Typically, completely different ways out of this systemic crisis are offered.
The issue has been on the agenda since the advent of the public Cossacks establishment in post-perestroika Russia in the 90-s. There were no complications in case of revival of the Cossack village community and its ideology, but the situation with property and legal aspects was quite different. Emergence of state (roster) Cossacks was largely actualized.
Consequence of the role of the community reflected in the many manifestations of statehood Cossacks set out in the author's works [2-9].
Список литературы:
1. Караулов М.А. Терское казачество в прошлом и настоящем. - Пятигорск, 2002.
2. Ерохин И.Ю. Этно-социальные традиции и ценности казачества // Научный аспект. - 2013. - Т. 2, № 2 (6). - С. 167-168.
3. Ерохин И.Ю. Парадоксы истории развития казачества // Актуальные проблемы гуманитарных и естественных наук. - 2013. - № 12-1. - С. 153-154.
4. Ерохин И.Ю. Многообразие казачьих территорий // Сборник конференций НИЦ Социосфера. - 2013. - № 45. - С. 94-100.
5. Ерохин И.Ю. Казачья семья: уникальный культурный феномен в системе государства // Сборник конференций НИЦ Социосфера. - 2013. -№ 25. - С. 25-28.
6. Ерохин И.Ю. Казачьи республики и традиции государственности // Сборник конференций НИЦ Социосфера. - 2013. - № 20. - С. 10-14.
7. Ерохин И.Ю. Казачество и государственность // Научно-информационный журнал Армия и общество. - 2013. - № 2 (34). - С. 74-79.
8. Ерохин И.Ю. Актуальные вопросы методологии истории казачества: новые подходы и концепции // Перспективы науки и образования. - 2013. -№ 6. - С. 176-178.
9. Ерохин И.Ю. Государство: роль и влияние на трансформации казачества // Общество и право. - 2013. - № 3 (45). - С. 323-325.
