The Crisis of the Cossack Yurt 1875–1914

Abstract

The War Ministry imposes on itself in relation to the Cossack Armies the twin obligations of maintaining their military strength as an army while worrying at the same time about their civil prosperity as a people.’¹ So the War Ministry defined its responsibilities to the Cossacks. Balancing these two concerns was the chief preoccupation of the Ministry in its relations with the various Cossack hosts. In 1863, the year of this quotation, this was a statement of policy and did not express any anxiety. Even ten years later, the War Ministry could restate its policy in similar words and tones.² In 1881, however, there was a change of tone, a sense of urgency even, in its policy declaration. A complete harvest failure in 1879 followed by an unusually dry winter had made 1881 ‘altogether difficult for all the Cossack hosts of European Russia.’³ By 1895 the War Ministry realized it was dealing not with isolated cases of harvest failure or a breakdown in a particular Cossack Voisko, but a systemic crisis in all the Cossack hosts which were kept going only by large cash handouts from the government.⁴ Three years later, the War Ministry established a commission under Lieutenant-General Maslakovets to examine the causes of the collapse of living standards in the Don Voisko, the worst affected, and to suggest possible remedies.⁵