Fedosova, Elena V.
Kavkaz Forum. 2021. Issue 8.

Abstract:
Within the framework of this article, the problems of the revival of the
Cossacks in the North Caucasus and the South of Russia are considered. The
modern Cossacks are one of the main factors influencing the socio-political
situation in the North Caucasus and South of Russia. However, the formation
and revival of the Cossacks in the post-Soviet period is rather ambivalent in
nature, which in different socio-political and economic circumstances is able to
form opposite tendencies, both of the Cossack movements themselves, and in
the most serious way to influence various processes taking place in the region.
Unfortunately, due to objective and other circumstances, the problems of the
revival of the modern Cossacks have not become the subject of serious research
within the framework of scientific discourse. With all the visible variety of various
publications on the topic of the Cossacks, unfortunately, there are no uniform
scientific methodological approaches to the study of this phenomenon of public
life. Despite the fact that the processes of the «revival of the Cossacks» covered a
significant number of people, especially in the initial period of their development,
however, in the scientific discourse, this phenomenon has not become the subject
of interdisciplinary analysis and discourse. The «Cossack theme» was practically
immediately privatized by publicists or pseudoscientific studies, the authors
of which were either very weak or very biased in the history and specifics of the
«revival of the Cossacks.» In the proposed study, we tried to move away from
the simplification inherent in pseudo-studies of Cossack topics, which are often
based on a descriptive approach to assessing both the “revival” and the specifics
of the modern Cossacks. For the most fruitful analysis of the prospects and risks
of the development of the modern Cossack movement, a problem-chronological
approach was used, which made it possible to analyze the development of the
Cossacks in a fairly short time frame.

Keywords: Cossacks, revival of modern Russian Cossacks, North Caucasus, South of Russia

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