Cossacks grapple with irrelevance
ys feared men like these. Thousands of Cossacks clinking with an impressive array of pikes and swords marched up and down the Khreschatyk last weekend.
Not that the citizenry needed to fear these descendants of the frontiersmen who ruled Ukraine's steppes 300 years ago. Three years from the end of the millennium, the would-be-warriors, clad in traditional brightly-colored baggy trousers and embroidered shirts, contented themselves with singing, dancing, electing a new leader and photographing Cossack maidens decked out with flowers.
The first World Cossack Festival featured concerts, marches and even a political congress fraught with intrigue. But as an answer to Ukraine's search for an identity, it failed to impress some of its own younger participants, much less an indifferent nation.
'I leaned about them at school in history,' said Tolya Bulotetsky, a 26-year-old singer in a choir from Mykolaiv. 'There are no real Cossacks now, just people enjoying the nostalgia.'
At least the nostalgia is justified. The Cossacks have long been a symbol of a strong and independent Ukraine. The first communities were set up by serfs who escaped to the Ukrainian steppe. By the mid-15th century they had established a center, the Zaporizhya Sich, and organized into an army led by a hetman. They waged war on the Tatars, Turks and Poles, and were eventually brought under Russian control by Catherine the Great, who used them to fight Russia's imperial wars.
The Sich was disbanded in the 18th century, but the Cossacks had earned their reputation for patriotism, not to mention dancing, drunkenness and violence. Under Soviet rule, their traditions were relegated to museums, choirs and official dance troupes. Now Ukrainian Cossacks have once more formed an army of sorts, composed of divisions led by atamans who owe allegiance to the new Ukrainian hetman, Major General Volodymyr Mulyava. According to Mulyava, there are 590 Cossack organizations registered worldwide. But because membership is in flux, leaders can't exactly say how many Ukrainian citizens consider themselves Cossacks.
'We number in the thousands, and we are growing with each year,' Mulyava told the Fourth Annual Congress of Ukrainian Cossacks at the Ukrainian House on Monday Oct. 13, the closing day of the festival.
Not all of the new breed of Cossacks are song and dance men. A strong paramilitary element was in evidence throughout the weekend, especially at the national Cossack headquarters on Yevropeiska Ploscha. Uniformed men in military caps or woolly Cossack Astrakhan hats armed with swords, whips and gun holsters thronged the courtyard. Although Ukrainians must have a license for any blade significantly larger than a penknife, a passing police sergeant turned a blind eye to the sight of men carrying around two and three feet of sharpened steel. 'They are just walking around dressed up in traditional Cossack costumes,' said police officer Roman Toychen. 'It's nice and patriotic.'
Ataman Taras Chukhlib from Glukhov on the Ukraine-Russia border said that, traditionally, the Cossack arts of dancing and fighting were one and the same. The Cossack dance called the Hopak was originally a highly developed martial art, he said.
A group of teenage boys from a Lviv military college stepped up to demonstrate. Like the French savate or the kicking portions of Korea's tae kwan do, the Hopak as displayed by today's Cossacks is a martial art which, once mastered, allows one to kick an opponent in the knee, stomach, or head.
'We have been visited by Eastern marital arts specialists with many belts who agreed our Hopak is very similar to their arts,' Chukhlib claimed.
Feet and boots aside, other traditional Cossack gear could also be useful in a dust-up. Volodymyr Danko demonstrated how to manipulate a nagaika (a short whip with wooden handle and weighted metal tip) like a police baton. A Cherkassy Cossack, Danko was peddling whips and daggers of his own manufacture to fellow Cossacks from a table at the doorway to the Cossack Congress meeting hall. Nagaikas cost Hr 20 to 40 ($10.30 to $20.60), while the kinzhal dagger was priced at Hr 80 ($41.20).
The Cossack army is not permitted to bear arms, and most gun holsters appeared to be empty. Nevertheless, plenty of Cossacks made clear they are prepared to do battle. 'We can demonstrate our cultural abilities, and our ability to run, to shoot and to crush Ukraine's many enemies,' said Ataman Colonel Oleksandr Burdenyuk from the Bukovina Cossack detachment.
Some hanker to lose the Фpara' in the Фparamilitary.' 'Not all Cossacks, but professional military men like me, want to be allowed to organize a detachment to secure social order and guard Ukraine's borders,' said Ataman Chukhlib. 'I for instance served in the army for 30 years and know how to handle weapons.'
Another ataman went further. 'There was a Cossack army and a sich that was destroyed by Russia. Now the Cossacks are being reborn, and they will fight Russia if she interferes in our affairs,' said the visitor from western Ukraine. The Cossacks, however, understand that modern power is won at the ballot box, not saber-point.
Hetman Mulyava is already a member of Parliament, and Chukhlib claimed that 56 of the 450 seats in the Ukrainian legislature are occupied by members of Cossack organizations.
But some Cossacks admitted that their movement is not taken very seriously in the higher echelons of power. 'We need to engage in politics,' said Burdenyuk. 'There are some people in power who are not interested in Ukraine as an independent state. There are many parties, like the Communist or the Socialist parties, that are trying to strengthen ties with Russia, and the existence of these parties hampers our development. … Since the state currently doesn't pay much attention to Cossacks, we may found a Cossack party.'
If Monday's congress was anything to go by, Cossack politics may not be ready for prime time. The proceedings began late with an awarding of medals, a national anthem, and a blessing by a priest. An apathetic and overwhelming majority voted to confirm Mulyava as the hetman, though some later objected that they had not realized the term was for a full year.
'We should be able to nominate candidates! This is not Cossack democracy!' yelled Mykola Vyzhevsk, member of the Poltava regiment, along with dozens of other irate participants.
'Cossacks! Do you trust your ataman?' responded Mulyava. 'We trust you,' intoned the congress almost to a man. 'Then sit down and wait to be recognized,' the hetman ordered.
But the biggest fracas at the Cossack Congress arose over the question of who was actually in charge of the Luhansk Cossacks.
'Shapovsky, Mirynsky, Gorbatko, they're all zhidy,' shouted gray-bearded Mykola Durakov, using a derogatory word for Jews similar to 'kikes' to brand dissidents who had challenged his leadership.
Mulyava eventually managed to refer the issue to a Cossack Court of Honor. Although twice during the proceedings Mulyava had to order security personnel to silence Cossacks shouting their opinions out of order (both times the security guards did nothing), at no time did the Congress degenerate into violence.
'We are here to act as united Cossacks, not to fight among ourselves,' declared Zaporizhya Ataman Anatoly Zubov to boisterous applause.
It will take all the unity the Cossacks can muster to transform themselves from a historical footnote into a real force. Some, at least, are willing to try. 'Our goal is the rebirth of hope,' said Valera Voloshnev, a Mykolaiv farmer whose drooping mustache and well-worn outfit implied much dedication to the cause.
