e Russian language in all its
purity, as well as their Old Faith. A tradition, still fresh among
them, declares that Tsar Ivan the Terrible came to the Terek, sent for
their Elders, and gave them the land on this side of the river,
exhorting them to remain friendly to Russia and promising not to
enforce his rule upon them nor oblige them to change their faith. Even
now the Cossack families claim relationship with the Chechens, and the
love of freedom, of leisure, of plunder and of war, still form their
chief characteristics. Only the harmful side of Russian influence shows
itself--by interference at elections, by confiscation of church bells,
and by the troops who are quartered in the country or march through it.
A Cossack is inclined to hate less the dzhigit hillsman who maybe has
killed his brother, than the soldier quartered on him to defend his
village, but who has defiled his hut with tobacco-smoke. He respects
his enemy the hillsman and despises the soldier, who is in his eyes an
alien and an oppressor. In reality, from a Cossack's point of view a
Russian peasant is a foreign, savage, despicable creature, of whom he
sees a sample in the hawkers who come to the country and in the
Ukrainian immigrants whom the Cossack contemptuously calls
'woolbeaters'. For him, to be smartly dressed means to be dressed like
a Circassian. The best weapons are obtained from the hillsmen and the
best horses are bought, or stolen, from them. A dashing young Cossack
likes to show off his knowledge of Tartar, and when carousing talks
Tartar even to his fellow Cossack. In spite of all these things this
small Christian clan stranded in a tiny corner of the earth, surrounded
by half-savage Mohammedan tribes and by soldiers, considers itself
highly advanced, acknowledges none but Cossacks as human beings, and
despises everybody else. The Cossack spends most of his time in the
cordon, in action, or in hunting and fishing. He hardly ever works at
home. When he stays in the village it is an exception to the general
rule and then he is holiday-making. All Cossacks make their own wine,
and drunkenness is not so much a general tendency as a rite, the
non-fulfilment of which would be considered apostasy. The Cossack looks
upon a woman as an instrument for his welfare; only the unmarried girls
are allowed to amuse themselves. A married woman has to work for her
husband from youth to very old age: his demands on her are the Oriental
ones of submission