“Otamanshchyna”? The Self-Formation of Ukrainian and Russian Warlords at the Beginning of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
Christopher Gilley
3/2015
SUMMARY:
The article reviews some of the empirical and terminological problems associated with examining the autonomous military formations active in the current war in Ukraine. The article suggests that an understanding of a historical example of such independent bands – otamanshchyna during the Russian Civil War, 1917–1922 – might offer a means of studying the current participants in the war in the Donbas. This approach shows how military men actively engage in the construction of identities to make sense of their activity. It also reveals that the current commanders have often drawn on a set of invented traditions similar to their Civil War counterparts – above all related to the early modern Cossacks.