I know that there is a lot of compelling news these days, but I've been meaning to write this diary for a while, because I just cringe every time I see the word "Kossack" on this site. "Kossack", which sounds like "Cossack" (Казак), which might conjure images of rough wild rebels to some, or political outlaws to others. Well, I just wanted to let you know that anyone of Ukrainian Jewish ancestry associates Cossacks with the murder and robbery of Jews.
I realize that this may be a touchy subject to Ukrainians, and mean no disrespect to anyone by writing this diary. It just seems that many people might not be aware that there is a dark side to the Cossack's history.
Many accounts of the pograms do not name the Cossacks as the main perpetrators. I am not a historian, and do not know whether this history of the Cossacks is contentious. I know about this from my family.
The following quotes are from "Bloody Bacchanalia: The Pogroms of Proskurov and Felshtin" by Michael Nevins M.D. (www.west.net/~jazz/felshtin/redcross.html).
Twice before (1919)Ukrainian Jews had been persecuted and plundered in the land where they had settled at the end of the 16th century. First the Cossacks of Bogdan Khmelnitzky ravaged the land (1648-1658) and in the 18th century, another Cossack band known as the Gaidamaks matched their predecessors in brutality. Gaidamak leaders spoke of a holy war against the traitorous and accursed Jewish people. According to reliable accounts, 50,000 to 60,000 Jews lost their lives.
The 1919 pogroms cannot be compared to earlier waves of violence against the Jews during the 1880s and early 20th century. After the assassination of Alexander II in 1881, the Jews had been represented as exploiters and bloodsuckers who robbed peasants of the fruits of their work. The aim then was mainly the destruction of Jewish possessions by robbery and plunder. True, there were beatings and rapes, but rarely murders.
During the "first" Russian civil war, Jews were depicted as leaders of unrest and rebellion against the Fatherland and the "Little Father" (the tsar). Again, loss of life was relatively small compared to what came later. For example, in the famous pogrom of Kishinev in 1903, there were 49 Jewish deaths out of a Jewish population of about 50,000; in Bialystok in 1906 70 deaths out of about 48,000 Jews. Moreover, the pogroms of the tsarist period were almost exclusively confined to the cities.
Not so the pogroms of 1919 when the Ukrainian village played the main role and starting from the periphery, waves of violence embraced the whole land. In all, over 700 localities were annihilated and the main oppressors were a mix of peasants and bands of undisciplined military irregulars and insurgents.
Ten days before the pogrom, a brigade of Cossacks and a regiment of Gaidamaks commanded by the Ataman Semosenko, in the name of Petlura arrived in Proskurov and informed the municipal government that he was assuming local authority.
Indeed, a feeble Bolshevik uprising was initiated on schedule in the early morning of Saturday, February 15, but it was easily suppressed within a few hours. In the aftermath, Semosenko plied the Gaidamaks with vodka and cognac, exhorted them that the most dangerous enemies of the Ukrainian people and the Cossacks were the Jews. He demanded an oath that the Cossacks fulfill their sacred duty to extirpate the Jewish population, but not to destroy property. Later that same day, the carnage was accomplished efficiently in three hours and, true to their word, the Gaidamaks cut down without mercy, but did not loot. Roughly 1,500 of Proskurov's Jews were killed within about three hours.
My paternal grandmother's family fled Ukraine early in the 20th Century, around the time when pograms were sporadic. They converted to Christianity, so I am not Jewish, and there is still much mystery surrounding my grandmother's life.
I checked if there was already a dairy on this subject and there wasn't one listed. Just suggesting that "Kossacks" might want to consider calling themselves something else.