In recent days, several news items have overlapped that directly affect Muslims in Russia, both in the past and in the present. First, it became known that the Prime Minister of Tatarstan, Alexey Pesoshin, had signed an official document proposing the involvement of Cossacks in «maintaining public order». Perhaps this is the best illustration of what the republican statehood of Tatarstan has become. Today, the Cossacks themselves actively emphasize their religious affiliation and loyalty to the Russian Orthodox Church. Why, then, are Orthodox armed formations entrusted with «maintaining order» in a historically Muslim region? Why doesn’t anyone think of creating units like «gazi» or «batyrs» in Bashkortostan, or even «mujahideen» in the North Caucasus, and entrusting them with maintaining public order? It seems that today such a suggestion could lead to charges of terrorism or preparing to create a terrorist organization. And of course, if anyone thinks it necessary to explain why this is not possible, they will say that Russia is a «secular state» and «law enforcement agencies» should be responsible for maintaining public order, not militarized religious groups. But this only applies to Muslim organizations. For the Orthodox, in Tatarstan! an action plan for the implementation of the strategy for the development of Russia’s state policy towards the Russian Cossacks until 2020 has been approved for 2019-2020.
Secondly, in recent days a number of public associations, including the opposition party PARNAS, expressed their condolences to the Cossacks on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the decolonization, which began after the signing of the directive by Yakov Sverdlov on January 24, 1919. Frankly speaking, against the background of news like the first one, there is no sympathy for the Cossacks anymore. It may seem strange that it comes from an opposition party, considering that today’s Cossacks are used throughout the country to disperse opposition events and protests. However, it is worth noting that a number of activists who claim to represent the Cossack people have spoken out against such behavior by those who call themselves Cossacks and are entrusted with «maintaining public order.» For example, the well-known dissident Vladimir Melikhov, who is being persecuted for creating a memorial in Elansky Stanitsa to the heroes of the anti-Bolshevik resistance, including Ataman Krasnov, who fought against the Stalinist regime during World War II. In his interview, he described how in the 1990s the movement for the revival of the Cossacks began as a national movement for the revival of the Cossack people, who wanted to have their autonomy and culture, but in the end the Kremlin neutralized it and turned it into its repressive tool. A little earlier, a representative of the pre-revolutionary emigration of Cossack noble families, Ataman Alexei Kelin, made a similar statement, calling on them not to participate in Cossack organizations sanctioned by the Cheka authorities (the so-called «registered Cossacks») and not to support their adventures, including the incitement of inter-ethnic conflicts.
In this regard, of course, contradictory feelings arise. On the one hand, there is no reason for the Muslim peoples to love the non-registered Cossacks, who fought against them with fire and sword in the forefront of the Russian Empire’s policy of conquest and genocide. On the other hand, it is important to understand that history is a complex process, and the history of empires is doubly complex when yesterday’s executioners become victims and vice versa, friends become enemies and vice versa. Therefore, it is important to look at it not only from the perspective of the past, but also from the perspective of the present and possible future. This applies to the history of the Cossacks, who, as a people serving Tsarist Russia, found themselves under the yoke of Soviet Russia, and to the history of a number of Muslim nations, who, like the Cossacks, participated in the construction of this empire in exchange for «land and freedom»…
From this point of view, it is also in the interest of Muslims to support the position of the Cossack patriots who oppose the use of these militarized gangs of the KGB-Russian Orthodox Church for the aggressive purposes of the current regime. As well as explaining that the so-called «Cossacks» whom the current regime is using for the widespread establishment of the «Russian world» are fakes, among whom ethnic Cossacks are not to be found, just as ethnic Russians are often not to be found among the advocates of this «Russian world».
In terms of practical conclusions, however, this does not change much. Armed Cossacks, whether registered or ethnic, have no place on Muslim lands, including the territories of the republics of titular Muslim peoples within the officially secular state of the Russian Federation. Let the ethnic Cossacks fight for the restoration of their autonomy on their ancestral lands, such as the Don, or revive their ethnic culture in the form of regular regional associations, if they are abroad. But those who will impose their orders on Muslim lands in uniforms with crosses and whips must know that they will be treated as occupiers, regardless of their origin.