Ask your friend 10 questions on the text.

 

TEXT 3

Some Words about Life and Traditions of the Don Cossacks

 

If you are interested in history and culture of the Don Cossacks, full of heroism and romance and called by V.G. Belinsky «...a big river falling into the river of Russian history», you can visit the Rostov Regional Local Lore Museum. The Cossacks are known as the outstanding warriors because for centuries they had been constantly struggling against the Turks and the Tatars who attacked them. Nevertheless the Cossacks gradually acquired the skills of hunting, fishing and agriculture. The living conditions influenced upon the cossack culture – the way they arranged their dwellings, their clothes, customs, traditions and economy.

In the middle of the 19-th century the most common dwelling in the Don area was a cossack house called «kuren». Its architecture is very specific: it was built on a high foundation in which there was a store-room with a front door facing the street and windows decorated with carved platbands. A house was painted green or blue. The shutters were white making the house look particularly cheerful. A house was planned as 2, 3 or 4-roomed depending on the well-being of the owner. No matter how few rooms there were in the house one was used as a kitchen where meals were cooked and another as a reception-room for guests to be received and treated. In the «red» corner of the reception room a number of icons were put. On the walls there used to be many photographs. Nearby there was a table covered with a beautiful table-cloth. Along the walls stood wooden chairs and an obligatory piece of furniture was a chest with a woman‘s clothes.

At the end of the 17-th century a specific type of cossack dress was formed in the Don area. It combined features of Russian and oriental dress. Cossacks wore knee-long shirts and wide cossack trousers. Over there a coat without collar was put on. To complete the dress there were boots, a mutton hat «papakha» and a bright girdle. A cossack woman had a heel-length chemise with puffed sleeves and over it «a kubelyok» – a kind of a robe with high waist, tight sleeves of an elbow length made of silk or wool, buttoned down to the waist. It was tightened with a belt decorated with silver and pearls. Married women had a specific horned head-dress and unmarried girls – a head-ribbon.

In 1801 the government edict prescribed a blue and red cossack uniform, obligatory at service and on holiday. Its main components were a coat, a hat «papakha», a bashlyk (a hood), cossack trousers with stripes boots.                              

When free from service the men took agriculture which had become the main branch of economy since the beginning of the 18-th century. Wine-growing was an important part of agriculture and in spite of being a hard work it was done by old men and children. Cattle-breeding did not form a separate branch of agriculture, but on every cossack farm there were horses, oxen, cows and sheep. In 1748 the Cossacks were granted the right of tax-free fishing in the Don mouth. And as fishing lasted practically all the year round it had become an important branch of economy. Elderly cossacks were engaged in pottery, they also wove baskets for vine.

The Cossacks due to their life conditions were very close to nature, and their history as well as culture are in many ways unique and amusing. Michael Sholokhov, a famous Russian writer, who glorified the Don area, wrote: «I dreadfully love the Don, this centuries-old cossack way of living. I love my cossack men and women. I love everything. The scent of the steppe makes me cry... And when the sunflowers are in blossom and the odour of vineyards wet with rain flows over the Don, I love this deeply and sharply».

VOCABULARY

1 The Rostov Regional Local Lore Museum – Ростовский краеведческий музей

2 carved platbands – резные наличники

3 shutters – ставни

4 pottery – гончарное ремесло

5 winegrowing – виноделие

6 a chest  – сундук

 

EXERCISES

Compare the cossack costume described in the text with the present-day uniform.

2 Answer the questions:

1 Have you ever seen a typical cossack «kuren» and where?

2 Why is the Cossack culture so unique and amazing?

3 Try to draw a cossack dress.

TEXT 4

The Famous Cossacks

                         

ERMAK

Ermak, a monument to whom we can see in Novocherkassk, is known as «a Conqueror of Siberia». He was born in the Don area but no one knows when and where. He participated in the Livon war of 1558-1583 and after it organized a group of soldiers to liberate the Russians captured by the Tatars. The tzar troops stopped this activity and Ermak was invited by the merchants – the Stroganovs – to defend their property against the Siberian Tatars.

On the 1-st of September 1582 Ermak with 850 Cossacks equipped with cannons, powder and food started a trip to Siberia in order to widen the lands belonging to the Stroganovs. His army gained several victories over the Tatars. Ten thousands of the Tatars led by khan Kuchum were defeated. But Ermak realized that he was not able to continue struggling as only 300 Cossacks stayed alive. He sent a letter and many presents to the czar, Ivan the Terrible, asking him to include Siberia into the Russian borders. The tsar was pleased and awarded the Cossacks. He proclaimed Ermak the Prince of Siberia and sent 500 soldiers to him.

In 1585 Ermak with only 50 Cossacks were moving along the Irtish. When the soldiers fell asleep khan Kuchum treacherously attacked them. Ermak fought heroically but he was seriously wounded. He tried to escape by swimming but his wounds as well as heavy armour – a present from the tzar – made him sink.

Ermak Timofeevitch is one of the most popular heroes in the Don history. Many legends, songs and pictures are devoted to him. There are several monuments to Ermak and his name is given to stanitsa Ermakovskaya. His deeds and his name are immortal.  

STEPAN RASIN

Stepan Rasin is a legendary personality in Russian history. He was born in Cherkassk (now stanitsa Starocherkasskaya) approximately in 1630. His father Timofey Rasya came from Voronezh and became a lieutenant-colonel of the Cossack Army thanks to his military deeds. Nothing is known about his mother but that she was of eastern origin (from Turkey or Persia) and died very young.

In 1658 Stepan with a group of Cossacks who constituted the Embassy traveled across Russia to Moscow. He got a lot of vital experience about the life of poor people during this trip. By this time he had already learnt eight foreign languages. He was readily appointed a diplomat because he possessed an outstanding will-power, an ability to communicate and have an influence upon different people. Besides he was very imposingly looking: everything in him – his deliberate manners, reserved speech and gestures -– excited respect and trust. Stepan was a skilful warrior as well: during all his life full of battles he was wounded only once. As a military leader he was famous as an experienced and cunning tactician. There was nothing pretentious in his clothes and he could have been accused only of two «sins»: card gambling and smoking a pipe.

In spring 1667 Stepan Rasin was elected the ataman of the poorest Don Cossacks who decided to move to the Volga in order to enrich themselves. At first they attacked Tsaritsin and after several battles approached the Caspian Sea. The army of Rasin was met with enthusiasm everywhere: the poor felt themselves ready to get free from their landlords. In 1668 Rasin and his people destroyed a powerful Persian fleet and returned to Astrakhan where they decided to stay after the czar had forgiven Stepan.

In 1670 Rasin with his people established a democratic order in a number of towns: Astrakhan, Tsaritsin, Saratov, etc. The people of these towns were liberated from the yoke and all the matters were solved by voting. But near Simbirsk Rasin was seriously wounded and his army retreated to the Don. He reached Kagalnik safely and after some time started a siege of Cherkassk. The ataman of Cherkassk at that time was his god-father Kornila Yakovlev. As many other well-to-do Cossacks he was against Rasin‘s actions and in 1671 his people defeated Rasin and took him and his brother Frol into custody. They were taken to Moscow where in June 1671 they were executed in the Red Square.

Many centuries passed since then and the names of the people who fought against Stepan Rasin erased from our memory but every Russian remembers this talented and brave person whose deeds will be kept for ever in people‘s songs and legends.

 

VOCABULARY 

1 a lieutenant-colonel – войсковой старшина

2 card gambling – игра в карты

3 to take into custody – взять под стражу

 

 

MATVEY PLATOV

Ataman Matvey Platov is considered to be the most popular cossack general and an outstanding military leader awarded almost with all the Russian and many foreign awards. He was born in 1751 in the town of Cherkassk. When he was 13 he joined the army and for his brave struggle against the Turks he was proclaimed an officer.

Serving in the Crimea he got acquainted with A.V. Suvorov who highly appreciated his military talent and heroic deeds during the battles of Ochakov and Ismail.         

Platov’s activity was also appreciated and respected by Katherine II and Potemkin who awarded him more than once. However during the reign of Pavel I he was sent into the exile in Kastroma and then was taken into prison for a number of months in Petropavlovsky fortress being accused in organizing a rebellion against the czar. But when the conviction was reversed Platov got an award and was appointed the Don Army Ataman.

In 1806-1807 he heroically participated in severe battles against the Napoleon Army and was even awarded with the order by Napoleon himself but refused to accept the award from the enemy of his Motherland. His military career reached its culmination during the years of the Patriotic War in 1812-1814. The Cossacks under his command became the greatest threat for the enemy and glorified themselves in the battles of Borodino and Krasnyi. In 1814 ataman Platov with the Russian Army entered the defeated Paris. After some time he was awarded with the law diploma of Oxford University.

Ataman Matvey Platov died in 1818. His tomb is in Novocherkassk Cathedral and there is also a magnificent monument to him in this city. His deeds were described by such great Russian writers as N.S. Leskov, L.N. Tolstoy, A.I. Gertsen, M.A. Sholokhov and others and will always inspire gratitude among his compatriots.

 

 

EMELYAN PUGATCHOV

Emelyan Pugatchov was born in stanitsa Zimoveyskaya-on-Don about 1742. As many other Cossacks he honestly defended Russia in several wars but then being tired of constant struggle and hardships he fled from the army. For several years he lived among the peasants and understood that their life had not been better. So he made an attempt to persuade the Cossacks to move to the Kuban in search for «free lands». But he was arrested and sentenced to a penitentiary term in Siberia. In 1773 he managed to escape from the prison again and returned to the Cossacks. It was decided among them that Pugatchov would proclaim himself the emperor Peter III and organize a new rebellion of Cossacks and peasants against the tzar. His ultimate aims were as following: a just state can be ruled by a czar who was a poor common man himself.

Though having no special education he turned out to be an outstanding military leader and organizer of the peasant movement. He had an inborn wit and wisdom, he was brave and resolute. A lot of writers and artists were attracted by this outstanding character, however, the best psychological analysis of Pugatchov’s activity one can find in The Captain’s Daughter by A.S.Pushkin. In 1774 he was betrayed by several conspiracy-makers and arrested. After a trial in Simbirsk and Moscow he with four of his friends wereexecuted and his family was sent into the exile.  

 

 

THE MILLERS – THE DON COSSACKS

When you hear the name of the town Millerovo or Millerovsky Region you can be surprised because it sounds quite unusual among the other cossack villages. As a matter of fact, the Millers contributed much into the history of our native land.

The name of their family was mentioned for the first time in the chronicles about the coup d’etat which led Elizaveta Petrovna to the Russian throne. In 1741 a German physician in ordinary Abraham Miller together with Shetardy and Lestok participated in this historic event.

But after mounting the throne Elizaveta took all the measures in order to reduce the influence of the foreigners in Russian policy and sent almost all her former supporters to the suburbs of the country. So Abraham Miller was appointed a doctor in one of the Don armies. He settled in Cherkassk, married a relative of the ataman Efremov, changed his religion into Orthodoxy and thus gave a birth to the new Cossack kin. His son Ivan became a Colonel of the Don Army, and the grandson, Feodor, being in the detachment of ataman Platov participated in the attack of Ismail. Many other descendants of this kin served in the Don Cossack Army defending their Motherland - Russia.

The Millers’ kin gave also a number of outstanding engineers, scientists and lawyers. Mikhail Miller, for example, was an archeologist and in 1926-1932 he organized several expeditions on the shores of the Azov Sea. Since 1934 he was a professor of the Rostov State University and the Teachers’ Training Institute. Many of his investigations dealt with the history of the Don land. After the World War II he became one of the founders of the Munich Institute which studied the USSR and since then his work was conducted in Germany. Professor Miller was elected the honoured member of several other foreign Academies and Societies. In 1963 M.A. Miller died. He stayed in the history as a Don Cossack of German origin, a great patriot and an outstanding historian.

VOCABULARY

1 coup d’etat – государственный переворот                  

2 a physician in ordinary – (истор.) лейб-медик

3 kin – род

4 to mount the throne – взойти на престол

5 descendant – потомок

TEXT 5