Self-Identification of Don Cossacks and Austrian Grenzers in the Context of Government Policy of the 1860s in the Russian and Austrian Empires

Abstract

The 1860s were marked by aggravation of national issues in the Austrian Military Frontier and in Russian Don Host. This paper undertakes an attempt to compare the processes that took place among the Don Cossacks and Austrian Grenzers at that time. The author shows that in both cases there were three variants of identity: state (as loyal servants of their emperor), corporate (as Cossacks/Grenzers), and national (as Russians/Croats/Serbs etc.). Historically, these identities complemented each other without being juxtaposed in direct contradiction; moreover the isolation of Cossacks and Grenzers, as well as their clear association with particular territory by the middle of the nineteenth century had already brought into their corporate identity traits of another, national, identity. However, by the 1860s, the economic problems of the Military Frontier and Don Host Oblast became so acute, that the issue of the abolishment of their special militarised status was discussed. In given circumstances, the imperial governments tried to establish dialogues with the Cossacks and Grenzers, which however led to unexpected consequences and greatly destabilised the situation. In fact, subsequently both at Don and at the Military Frontier a public struggle started between the proponents of convergence of local populace with their respected nations, and the people who considered that the Cossack/Grenzer estate status had to be preserved no matter the cost. As a result, by the 1870s the corporate identity of the Cossacks and Grenzers was increasingly becoming not an addition, but an alternative to their historical national identity, which created preconditions for the emergence of new political nations, although this did not occur.