[LINK] "For the Don Cossacks, Russia’s Civil War is not yet over"

[rfmcdonald]

Open Democracy carries Svetlana Bolotnikova's article noting controversies surrounding Don Cossack identity and historical memory in a confused Russian situation.

Last month, the Fifth World Congress of Cossacks took place in Novocherkassk, in the heartland of the Don Cossacks in southern Russia. 120 delegates from the Cossack diaspora attended, to discuss the possibility of closer economic links with overseas Cossack communities and offering their members a faster Russian citizenship process.

One prominent figure, however, was missing. The congress took place against the background of official harassment of Vladimir Melikhov, one of the most internationally respected Cossack leaders and the founder of two anti-Bolshevik resistance museums. This summer, the FSB searched Melikhov’s museums and property, seizing cartridges, a number of deactivated rifles and First World War bayonets, as well as several signal rockets.

With one in Podolsk, a town outside of Moscow, and the other in the village of Yelanskaya, in the Cossack heartland, these museums keep the spirit of the pre-revolutionary Cossack nation alive (‘For our faith, our Tsar and our Fatherland’ as the Cossack motto goes).

The official reason given for the Melikhov search was to look for evidence relating to criminal charges against Yury Churekov, the chief, or ataman, of an unregistered group called the Caucasus Line Cossack Host. Churekhov was arrested in June for attempting to smuggle arms into Russia via eastern Ukraine.

In 2014, Churekov, together with Sergei Popov, leader and ideologue of the Russian Caucasus Unity movement, fulfilled Melikhov’s long-held ambition of creating a dedicated Cossack political party, which they christened Brotherhood.