93. Day, March 9, 2018
Ready!
This is how they looked, the Cossacks of the Don host the Russian Tsar sent into World War I ...:
A total of 2,815 officers and 96,950 NCOs and enlisted men of the Don host were sent to the front - and on December 2, 1916, 963 officers and 17,578 were dead.
After December 2, 1916, due to the overthrow in Russia, no more loss lists were kept.
For the Cossacks, the war did not end with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918, nor with the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, for them began the relentless civil war in which they fought on both sides.
The younger (and poorer) Cossacks mostly fought on the side of the "Reds", the older ones, who had to lose house, farm and family, joined the "Whites".
When, in 1918, the territory of the Don Cossacks fell to the Bolsheviks (the Don Cossack Aleksei Kaledin's ataman shot himself in despair in February 1918!), the fighting did not end, but only in 1922.
Many Cossacks fled abroad (mostly to Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece and later also to France and Germany!), óver the backward ones and returned to their farms came Stalin's great terror in the 30's ....:
Cossacks were ruthlessly persecuted by Stalin's hunters!
First, because they were Cossacks (and thus were considered "politically unreliable"!), And also because the Soviet dictator had ordered the "kulaks" (these were wealthy peasants who had their own courts) to be "destroyed as a class".
Let's talk numbers:
In 1909 there were 129,450 able-bodied Don Cossacks of all ranks (between 16 and 60 years old).
On the eve of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, it was almost 40 percent less!
Kuzma Kryuchkov ...
...the first russian soldier who got a high award for bravery in the first world war, the real prototype of our figure died as Sotnik (Lieutenant) at the age of 29 in the summer of 1919 - the exact date is unknown - during the civil war in the Don area.
In some sources, it is said that he fell in battle, according to another version, he was captured in a skirmish by the "red" wounded - and shot right after.
He was only 29 years old.
I wanted to set him a kind of monument with my figure ....
I would like to thank you for the "accompaniment" of this sbs - but especially my friend Heinz, who has sculpted this beautiful and extremely detailed figure!
Best regards
