Jewish Cossacks
Encyclopedia
Of the different branches of Cossack
Cossack
Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...

s
the only one that documents allowing Jews into their society were the Cossacks of Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

. When Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 and Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

 were merged by King Sigismund Augustus into one commonwealth
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...

 (in the Union of Lublin
Union of Lublin
The Union of Lublin replaced the personal union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with a real union and an elective monarchy, since Sigismund II Augustus, the last of the Jagiellons, remained childless after three marriages. In addition, the autonomy of Royal Prussia was...

 of 1569) the provinces of Volhynia
Volhynia
Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come...

, Podilia and the rest of Ukraine were separated from Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state from the 12th /13th century until 1569 and then as a constituent part of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1791 when Constitution of May 3, 1791 abolished it in favor of unitary state. It was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the polytheistic...

 and came under the direct rule of Poland.

Changes of sentiment during the 17th century

The Zaporozhian Cossacks were generally indifferent to religious matters and bore no particular ill will toward the Jews up to the time of Hetman
Hetman
Hetman was the title of the second-highest military commander in 15th- to 18th-century Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which together, from 1569 to 1795, comprised the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, or Rzeczpospolita....

 Nalyvaiko
Severyn Nalyvaiko
Severyn Nalyvaiko was a leader of the Ukrainian Cossacks who became a hero of Ukrainian folklore. He led the Nalyvaiko Uprising. The Decembrist poet Kondraty Ryleyev wrote a poem about him.-Biography:...

,. They often included Jews among their company, but the demographic changes caused by the Mazur immigration introduced a negative feeling against the Jews from Poland to Ukraine during the reign of Sigismund III (1587–1632). The guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...

s that were established, which always feared the competition of the Jews, played a prominent part in connection with various accusations. The higher nobility, however, depended largely on the Jews to act as their leaseholders-arendators, agents, and financial managers, and this served in a significant measure as a bar to persecution.

Historical records

Cossack society was ethnically diverse and some Cossacks may have had their origins as far away as Scotland. Maxym Kryvonis
Maxym Kryvonis
Maksym Kryvonis was one of the Cossack leaders of Khmelnytsky Uprising. In the first stage of the uprising he was the leader of the most radical faction of the rebels who rejected all compromises with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and wanted to drive all Catholics and Jews out of...

 was a mercenary soldier from Scotland. Ivan Pidkova was from Moldavia. Jews also served in the ranks of the Cossacks, although the mechanism of their entry into the Cossack ranks is unclear. The Cossack regiments in Ukraine served administrative purposes, besides military, and had constant demand for able administrators, educated diplomats and scribes. Jews could fulfill those tasks because of their level of literacy and command of several languages. Although the Cossacks were not known for religiosity before the 17th century it is presumed that conversion was a requirement for promotion in the Cossack ranks by early 17th century. In 1681 Ahmad Kalga, chief councilor of the Khan of Crimea
Crimean Khanate
Crimean Khanate, or Khanate of Crimea , was a state ruled by Crimean Tatars from 1441 to 1783. Its native name was . Its khans were the patrilineal descendants of Toqa Temür, the thirteenth son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan...

, complained to the Polish ambassador, Piasaczinski, that the Cossacks of the Lower Dnieper had attacked Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...

. Piasaczinski replied that the Cossacks were not subjects of the king of Poland, and that he therefore could not be held responsible for the "acts of uncontrollable rovers of the desert that were apostates from all faiths, Poles, Muscovites, Wallachians, Turks
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...

, Tatars
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...

, Jews, etc., among them".

The responsa
Responsa
Responsa comprise a body of written decisions and rulings given by legal scholars in response to questions addressed to them.-In the Roman Empire:Roman law recognised responsa prudentium, i.e...

 of Joel Särkes discusses "Berakha the Hero", who fought in the ranks of Severyn Nalyvaiko
Severyn Nalyvaiko
Severyn Nalyvaiko was a leader of the Ukrainian Cossacks who became a hero of Ukrainian folklore. He led the Nalyvaiko Uprising. The Decembrist poet Kondraty Ryleyev wrote a poem about him.-Biography:...

's Cossacks and fell in battle against the Muscovites. The deposition of Berakha's fellow-cossack "Joseph son of Moses" in the rabbinical court-case of Berakha's widow's permission to remarry states that there were at least 11 Jews in the cossack ranks of the Nalyvaiko
Severyn Nalyvaiko
Severyn Nalyvaiko was a leader of the Ukrainian Cossacks who became a hero of Ukrainian folklore. He led the Nalyvaiko Uprising. The Decembrist poet Kondraty Ryleyev wrote a poem about him.-Biography:...

 army in the battle in whick Berakha was killed. In 1637 Ilyash (Elijah) Karaimovich was one of the officers of the registered Cossacks, and became their "starosta" (elder) after the execution of Pavlyuk
Pavel Mikhnovych
Pavlo Mikhnovych was a colonel in Registered Cossacks аnd self-appointed hetman, as well as a leader of a peasant rebellion in Left-bank Ukraine and Zaporizhia....

. Karaimovich is presumed to be born a Karaim
Karaim
Karaim may refer to:*Crimean Karaites, the article about this group, and*Karaim language, the article about their language.*Karaite Judaism, a Jewish movement....

 (a Turkic ethnic group adherent to Karaite Judaism.)

In 1594 a Jew known only by his first name Moses served as a deputy to Stanislav Khlopitsky, the Cossack emissary to the court of Emperor Rudolph II. Both Khlopitsky and Moses took oath on the Cossack Host's behalf in their treaty with the Emperor.
Historian of the Cossacks Yuri Mytsyk describes a case in which, in 1602 a Jew from the town of Berestye converted to Christianity and joined Zaporozhian Host
Zaporozhian Host
The Zaporozhian Cossacks or simply Zaporozhians were Ukrainian Cossacks who lived beyond the rapids of the Dnieper river, the land also known as the Great Meadow in Central Ukraine...

. His children and property were seized by the qahal, and he had to apply to king Sigismund III for assistance in restitution of his children and property. His quest was successful, and his children joined him.

Saul Borovoy

In the 1930s a cache containing a large number of documents written in Hebrew and Ukrainian written in Hebrew script was found by the historian and linguist Saul Borovoy in the archives of the Zaporozhian Sich. Kept at the State Archive in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 since the razing of the Sich by the General Tekeli in 1775, the documents dealt with foreign and fiscal policies of the Sich, and evidenced not only the presence of (presumably converted) Jews in the upper stratum of the Cossack society (at least 4 are mentioned by name in the Borovoy dissertation), but also in the regiments as well.

The Sich Archive became the basis of Borovoy's 1940 tripartite doctoral dissertation. Parts I and II were published in 1940 in Leningrad
Leningrad
Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...

 and 1941 in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 respectively. Borovoy could not return to this subject in the post-War anti-semitic climate in Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, and the 3rd part of his dissertation was never printed and the typographic 'formes' already assembled were destroyed. Borovoy's articles on the subject first came under attack from the anti-semitic circles in Soviet academia, because his research refuted the label of cowardice and timidity commonly applied to the Jews by the anti-semites. Borovoy demonstrated that Jewish society in Poland became polarized due to a large stratum of destitute Jews that were marginalized by the Qahal, and these Jews were likely to lapse and seek their fortunes with the Cossacks. Later Borovoy was criticized by those Jewish circles unwilling to admit the class-related antagonism that made possible Jewish presence on the Cossacks' side.

During the 18th century

There are many known instances of Jews joining Cossacks in the era that preceded the Destruction of Sich in 1775. One notable case is Simon Chernyavsky who was baptised at the Sich in 1765. He later served as the Sich emissary to the court of Empress Catherine II. Moisey Gorlinsky served the Sich as an interpreter, and Ivan Kovalevsky (who was already baptised prior to his arrival at the Sich) reached the rank of a colonel. Some Jews joined cossacks as teenage fortune seekers, one such was Vasyl Perekhryst, son of Aizik, who joined the Host in 1748. Another Jew received exactly the same surname in baptism at the Sich 2 years later. Ivan Perekhryst was abducted with his entire heder class during a Cossack raid in 1732. Yakov Kryzhanovsky became a Cossack before 1768, he also served as a deacon
Deacon
Deacon is a ministry in the Christian Church that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions...

 at the Sich church. He was literate in many languages, and distinguished himself under the command of Petro Kalnyshevsky
Petro Kalnyshevsky
Kalnyshevsky Petro was the last Koshovyi Otaman of the Zaporozhian Host, serving in 1762 and from 1765 to 1775. Kalnyshevsky was the Hero in the Russo-Turkish war of 1768-1774 and was honoured with a gold medal with brilliants for courage.Being the leader of the Zaporozhian Host, Kalnyshevsky...

 during the Russo-Turkish War of 1769-1774.

In Folklore

In the ancient epics known as dumy
Duma (epic)
A Duma is a sung epic poem which originated in Ukraine during the Hetmanate Era in the sixteenth century...

sung by the Ukrainian kobzari there is a reference made to a colonel named Matviy Borokhovych (1647), who, as his family name (meaning "son of Baruch") indicates Jewish origin.

Cossack surnames of Jewish origin

Susanna Luber's study of registration books of the Registered Cossacks
Registered Cossacks
Registered Cossacks is the term used for Cossacks formations of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth armies.-Establishing:The registered cossacks were created on the King's edict of Sigismund II Augustus on June 5, 1572 confirming the orders of the Crown Hetman Jerzy Jazłowiecki. The first senior ...

 contain many surnames that indicate Jewish origin. Cossack families of Jewish origin include Hertzyk, Osypov-Perekhrest, Perekhryst, Kryzhanovsky, Markevych/Markovych, Zhydenko, Zhydok, Zhydovynov, Leibenko, Yudin, Yudaev, Khalayev, Nivrochenko, Matsunenko, Shabatny, Zhydchenkov, Shafarevich, Marivchuk, Magerovsky, Zrayitel' and others.

The Israilovsky Regiment

In December 1787, Prince Potemkin, Catherine the Great's favourite
Favourite
A favourite , or favorite , was the intimate companion of a ruler or other important person. In medieval and Early Modern Europe, among other times and places, the term is used of individuals delegated significant political power by a ruler...

 and minister, founded a regiment of Jewish Cossacks for the purpose of liberating Jerusalem -- the culmination of his philo-Semitism
Philo-Semitism
Philo-Semitism or Judeophilia is an interest in, respect for, and appreciation of the Jewish people, their historical significance and the positive impacts of Judaism in the history of the western world, in particular, generally on the part of a gentile...


.

The first partition of Poland
First Partition of Poland
The First Partition of Poland or First Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in 1772 as the first of three partitions that ended the existence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by 1795. Growth in the Russian Empire's power, threatening the Kingdom of Prussia and the...

 in 1772 brought large numbers of Jews into the Russian empire. Catherine granted Potemkin a huge estate, named Krichev
Krichev
Krychaw or Krichev is a city in the eastern Belarusian Mahilyow Voblast. Krychaw is the administrative center of the Krychaw Raion. It is located on the Sozh River .Krychaw was first mentioned in 1136.-External links:* 36...

, in the newly acquired lands. Potemkin thus came into contact with Jews for the first time. Potemkin was embarking on the task of populating the empty southern steppe
Steppe
In physical geography, steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes...

s around the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...

 with settlers, and he immediately tried to attract Jews from both Poland and the Mediterranean to his new settlements, in particular those Jews that were active in viticulture
Viticulture
Viticulture is the science, production and study of grapes which deals with the series of events that occur in the vineyard. When the grapes are used for winemaking, it is also known as viniculture...

. He resettled these Jews in empty smallholdings left by the Zaporozhians. He also gathered around him a coterie of rabbis with whom he would discuss theology.

One in particular, Joshua Zeitlin
Joshua Zeitlin
Joshua Zeitlin, , , was a Russian rabbinical scholar and philanthropist. He was a pupil of the Talmudist Rabbi Aryeh Leib ben Asher Gunzberg who was the author of Sha'agat Aryeh; and, being an expert in political economy, he stood in close relations with Prince Potemkin, the favorite of Catherine II...

, a wealthy merchant and scholar, became his close friend. "The two men - consort of the Russian Empress and rabbi in yamulka and ringlets - would ride together chatting amicably. Zeitlin 'walked with Potemkin like a brother and friend'. He achieved a position that no practising Jew in Russia has ever achieved before or since, remaining proudly unassimilated, steeped in rabbinical learning and piety, yet standing high in the Prince's court. Potemkin promoted Zeitlin to 'court counsellor' with a title of nobility. Russian Jews called him 'HaSar Zeitlin' (lord Zeitlin)
."

After discussions with Zeitlin and his perambulant rabbis about the fighting prowess of the Biblical Israelites, the Prince decided to arm the Jews. Potemkin had raised a Jewish cavalry squadron on his estate, and when the Russo-Turkish war started, he wanted to liberate Constantinople for the Orthodox Church; he supported the idea of helping the Jews liberate Jerusalem. Then Potemkin founded the Israelovsky Regiment of Jewish Cossacks. The Jewish Cossacks were commanded by a German, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick
Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick
Ferdinand, Prince of Brunswick-Lüneburg , was a Prussian field marshal known for his participation in the Seven Years' War...

. The Prince de Ligne
Charles Joseph, Prince de Ligne
Charles-Joseph Lamoral, 7th Prince de Ligne in French, Charles Joseph Lamoral 7te Fürst von Ligne : was a Field marshal and writer, and member of the princely family of Ligne.-Military service:He was the son of Field Marshal Claude Lamoral, 6th Prince of Ligne and Elisabeth Alexandrine...

, doyen of 18th-century cosmopolitanism and a philo—Semite wrote: 'Prince Potemkin formed the singular project of raising a regiment of Jews,' he wrote to his master, the Habsburg emperor Joseph II. 'He intends to make Cossacks of them. Nothing amused me more
.'

Soon two squadrons of Jewish Cossacks were on patrol against the Turks, but Ligne claimed that they were not a success. After seven months' training, he sadly decided to end his rare experiment.

This matter remains controversial, since no documents to corroborate the Potemkin regiment are present in the State Military Archive in Moscow.

It has been suggested
that some of the Jewish Cossacks followed Colonel Berek Joselewicz
Berek Joselewicz
Berek Joselewicz was a Jewish-Polish merchant and a colonel of the Polish Army during the Kościuszko Uprising. Joselewicz commanded the first Jewish military formation in modern history.-Life:...

 and joined Napoleon's Polish cavalry formations. Joselewicz was killed in a night ambush by the Hungarians during Napoleon's 1809 campaign. It has been suggested
that there were veterans of the Potemkin's regiment fighting for the Emperor at some of his most celebrated victories.

Jewish Polish Cossacks

The great Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...

 (who was a descendant of a Frankist
Frankism
Frankism was an 18th-century to 19th-century Jewish religious movement centered around the leadership of the Jewish Messiah claimant Jacob Frank, who lived from 1726 to 1791. At its height, it claimed perhaps 50,000 followers, primarily Jews living in Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe...

 family) helped form another regiment of Jewish Cossacks, Hussar
Hussar
Hussar refers to a number of types of light cavalry which originated in Hungary in the 14th century, tracing its roots from Serbian medieval cavalry tradition, brought to Hungary in the course of the Serb migrations, which began in the late 14th century....

s of Israel, to fight against the Russian Empire, alongside Britain, France and Turkey, in the Crimean War
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...

. These lancers fought alongside dissident Cossacks against the Russians outside Sevastopol
Sevastopol
Sevastopol is a city on rights of administrative division of Ukraine, located on the Black Sea coast of the Crimea peninsula. It has a population of 342,451 . Sevastopol is the second largest port in Ukraine, after the Port of Odessa....

.

Civil War in Russia

During the Civil War (1918–1920) that ensued after the Russian Revolution of 1917
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...

 many Jews served both in the Red Cossacks (Красное Казачество), cavalry regiments of the Red Army, and in the White Cossacks. One such regiment of Red Cossacks in the Kotovsky Brigade was commanded by the anarchist Sholom Schwartzbard
Sholom Schwartzbard
Sholem Schwarzbard was a Bessarabian-born Jewish poet and anarchist, known primarily for the assassination of the Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petliura...

. On the other hand, Jewish students also played an important role in the battalion of White Don Cossacks led by Vasily Chernetsov, so that a whole regiment of the battalion was called the “Jewish Legion”. The Chernetsov Cossacks (Chernetsovtsy) gained prominence by initiating armed resistance against Bolsheviks in the Don area.

Sources

  • Евреи-казаки в начале ХVІІ в. // Киевская старина. – 1890. – № 5. – С. 377-379. In Russian
  • Iokhvodova, A. "Jewish Zaporozhians and the Hadjibey Fortress" Vestnik; in Russian
  • Borovoy, S. «Евреи в Запорожской Сечи (по материалам сечевого архива)» («Исторический сборник», Л., 1934, т. 1); in Russian
  • Kostomarov, M. Ruina, istoricheskaia monografiia iz zhizni Malorossii 1663–1687 gg. (The Ruin: A Historical Monograph on the Life of Little Russia from 1663 to 1687, 1st edn in Vestnik Evropy
    Vestnik Evropy
    Vestnik Evropy was the major liberal magazine of late-nineteenth-century Russia; it lasted from 1866 to 1918....

    , nos 4–9 [1879] and nos 7–9 [1880]),
  • Schreiber, M. The Shenhold Jewish encyclopedia (3rd edition), N.Y. 2002
  • Dr. Serhii Plokhy. The Cossacks and Religion in Early Modern Ukraine. Oxford University Press 2001
  • Jewish Encyclopedia - Cossacks
  • Jewish Zaporozhians (in Russian)
  • Montefiore, Simon Sebag "Kosher cossacks". The Spectator. Sep 9, 2000
  • Kosher Cossacks
  • Головний Apxiв давніх актів у Варшаві. - Ф. «Apxiв Замойських». - № 3048. - p. 286.: «Mycyk J. Zyd na Siczi Zaporoskej w XVII w. // Biulatyn Zudowskego Instytutu Istorycznego w Polsce. - Warszawa, 1993. - p. 65-66.
  • Horn M. Powinnosci wojenne zydow w Rzeczy Potpolitej w XVI, XVII wieku. - Warszawa, 1978.

- p. 103.
  • Luber S. Die Herkunft von Zaporoger Kozaken des 17 Jahrhunderts nach personennamen. Berlin, 1983. - p. 100.
  • Архив Юго-Западной России. - Киев., 1914. - Ч. III. - Т.4. - № 45. - p. 100-102.
  • Січинський В. Чужинці про Україну. - К., 1992. - p. 99-100.
  • Центральний держащий історичний apxiв України в Києві). - Ф. 229. - On. I. - № 232. - Арк. 199.
  • Лиман І. I. Церква в духовному cвіті Запорозького козацтва. - Запоріжжя, 1992. - p. 8.
  • Скальковський А. О. Історія Нової Ciчi або останнього Коша Запороэького. -Дніпропетровськ, 1994. - p. 192.
  • Apxiв Коша Нової Запорозької Ciчi. Опис справ. 1713-1776. - К., 1994. - С. 77.
  • Боровий С. А. Євреї в Запорозькій Ciчi. //Праці Інституту єврейської культури ВУАН. - К., 1930.
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