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Cossackia (Russian: Казакия) is a term sometimes used to refer to the traditional areas where the Cossack communities live in Russia. Depending on its context, "Cossackia" may mean the ethnographic area of Cossack habitat or a proposed Cossack state independent from Russia.[1]

The name "Cossackia" became popular among the Cossack émigrés in Europe after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing civil war. It was used to designate a union of seven Cossack territorial "units" — the Don, Kuban, Terek, Astrakhan, Ural, Orenburg, and the Kalmuk district. Calls for an independent Cossackia emerged within the vibrant émigré Cossack community in Prague, Czechoslovakia, later in the 1920s. A project of a constitution for Cossackia was also devised and envisaged the creation of the state of Cossackia and its secession from the Soviet Union. During World War II, the Cossacks rallied behind Germany attempted to establish an independent Cossack state. After the war, the idea of independent Cossackia retained some support among the Cossack émigrés in Europe and the United States. The 1959 U.S. public law on Captive Nations listed Cossackia among the nations living under oppression of the Soviet regime.[1][2][3]


  1. ^ a b Gregory P. Tschebotarioff (1964), Russia, My Native Land: A U.S. Engineer Reminisces and Looks at the Present, pp. 298-300, 365. McGraw-Hill
  2. ^ Longworth, Philip (1970), The Cossacks, pp. 333, 339. Holt, Rinehart and Winston
  3. ^ Campbell, John Coert (1965), American Policy Toward Communist Eastern Europe: the Choices Ahead, p. 116. University of Minnesota Press, ISBN 0-8166-0345-6