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Ivan Alexeyevich Polyakov
Ivan Alexeyevich Polyakov (; 1886-1969) was a Cossack military leader who fought in World War I (on the Russian side), and in World War II (on the German side). According to his file at the Hoover Institution website, he joined Pyotr Krasnov's Cossack army in 1917. He moved to Serbia in 1919. In World War II he joined Andrey Vlasov's Russian Liberation Army (ROA), which fought on the side of Germany against the Soviet Union. He was Don Cossack Ataman (leader/chief) from 1947-1965. In 1952 he moved to the United States. He wrote two books. In 1949 a letter of his was published in the journal ''Russia'', describing the post-war fate of the Cossacks who had fought on the German side against the Soviet Union. He claimed that tens of thousands were killed by the Red Army after being violently repatriated by British troops. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cossack
The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic Eastern Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Cossacks played an important role in defending the southern borders of Ukraine and Russia, countering the Crimean-Nogai raids, alongside economically developing steppe regions north of the Black Sea and around the Azov Sea. Historically, they were a semi-nomadic and semi-militarized people, who, while under the nominal suzerainty of various Eastern European states at the time, were allowed a great degree of self-governance in exchange for military service. Although numerous linguistic and religious groups came together to form the Cossacks, most of them coalesced and became East Slavic–speaking Orthodox Christians. The rulers of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russian Empire endowed Cossacks with certain special privileges in return for the military duty to serve in the irregular troops: Zaporozhian Cossac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
