The situation was well set forth in the homely language of a delegate of the Uralsk Cossacks to the Cossack congress in Petrograd: "The Cossacks — or 'Free People' — of Russia have not maintained their Hberty and manhood during these centuries of crushing autocratic tjTanny without learning how to preserve their own hberties in their own fashion. The spectacle afforded us by the prophets of a Socialistic cult imported from Germany and preached by an alien race is enough to disgust any lover of freedom, to whatever nation he may belong. It seems to be forgotten in certain parts of Russia that in the organization and administration of our kasak lands we have ourselves developed what may be called the onlj^ practical system of community life to be found in actual operation anjnvhere on the world's surface.
"We, therefore, demand, and feel ourselves more than ever prepared to insist upon, the maintenance under a democratic order of the priWlege to manage our own affairs — a pri\nlege which could not be withheld from us under a t\Tannical autocracy. This can only be secured, we feel certain, through a regime of complete local autonomy embracing all the widely differing provinces of the old empire. The geographical character of the Russian empire clearly indicates what form of government should there exist. This should be similar to that prevailing in the United States: a federal republic, wherein the Cossack territories, our old neighbours of the Ukraine and the regions of North Russia, will all find their place, and freedom to live their own lives according to their own traditions and aspirations."
CHAPTER XI
F TO-DAY:
ONE might seek in vain to-day in many parts of the old Cossack Ukraine for traces of its former masters. Although a modern statue of Bogdan Hmelnicky stands in the public square of Kiev, the Cossack element of the old border capital may be said to have almost disappeared. Yet throughout all the vast territorj^ of South Russia, the traditions of the days of Cossack ascendency are still a precious heritage. The descendants of the Freemen inscribed on the old military'' registers, and the "little proprietor" or obnodvortzi of Kharkov and Poltava, feels himself the equal of the former great landlords of Xorthem Russia. Even the none too reputable memories of the "heroes" of the later sitch — the license and disorderiy existence of the Zaporogian Brotherhood — are proudly recalled on account of the devotion to the principles of personal liberty which kept alive the spark of free manhood in the face of a Russia sunk in serfdom.
Although the plains of the Ukraine about Kiev and Kharkov have long since been abandoned by the "Free People" — and the wild riders of the steppes have disappeared in a cloud of dust and a scamper of hoofs towards the more congenial frontiers of Asiatic Russia — their spirit remains alive in the individualistic and independent peasant landholders of Little Russia.
Any description of the "old Cossack" country of South Russia, notably the provinces of the Don, must first take into account the geographical influences of the great steppes upon the development of this typical civilization.
The great prairies of wild grass have given way to far-stretching wheat fields, and the Cossack stanitzi have been replaced by the villages of South Russian peasants. Nevertheless conditions peculiar to the Black Sea littoral still give a characteristic note to the scenery. Travellers of every race and country have exhausted their vocabulary in trying to convey some idea of the effect made upon the observer by the ceaseless uniformity of this landscape. The reader will, therefore, be spared a repetition of these descriptions and asked instead to consider the more cheerful side of the subject — the enormous agricultural possibilities and the stores of natural wealth which in many places underlie these plains.