A stanitsa or stanytsia (Russian: станица, IPA: [stɐˈnʲitsə]; Ukrainian: станиця) was a historical administrative unit of a Cossack host, a type of Cossack polity that existed in the Russian Empire.
Etymology
The Russian word is the diminutive of the word stan (стан), which means "station" or "police district". It is distantly related to the Sanskrit word sthāna (स्थान), which means "station", "locality", or "district".[1]
Structure
The stanitsa was a unit of economic and political organisation of the Cossack peoples who lived in the Russian Empire. Each stanitsa contained several villages and khutirs.[2]
An assembly of landowners governed each stanitsa community. This assembly distributed land, oversaw institutions like schools, and elected a stanitsa administration and court. The stanitsa administration consisted of an Ataman, a collection of legislators, and a treasurer.[2] The Ataman would oversee annual allocation of the local land - held in common by the stanitsa - to Cossack families.[citation needed] The stanitsa court made judgements regarding "petty criminal and civil suits".[2]
All inhabitants, except for non-Cossacks, were considered members of the stanitsa. Non-Cossacks were required to pay a fee to use the local land owned by the stanitsa.[2]
History
In the Russian Empire
The stanitsa was first an administrative unit in the 18th century.[2] In the late 18th century, when the Cossack peoples largely lost their autonomy within the empire, they still kept self-governance at the level of the stanitsa;[3] each stanitsa was still allowed to elect its own assembly.[4]
Destruction
In the aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, a new Soviet regime took power. Beginning in 1919, the Soviet regime pursued a policy of genocide[5][6][7][8][9] and systematic repression against Cossacks known as De-Cossackization. The policy aimed at the elimination of the Cossacks as a distinct collectivity by exterminating the Cossack elite, coercing all other Cossacks into compliance and eliminating Cossack distinctness.[10] This effectively destroyed the stanitsa as a social unit.[citation needed] The Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine lists the specific end date of the existence of the traditional stanitsa as 1920.[2]
In the Soviet Union, the term stanitsa was used after 1929 to refer to rural settlements on former Cossack land that were governed by soviet councils.[2]
Modern usage
In modern Russia, the administration classifies a stanitsa as a type of rural locality in these federal subjects of Russia:[11]
The most populous stanitsas in modern Russia are Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia–Alania (75,000 people in 2010) and Kanevskaya in Krasnodar Krai (44,800 people in 2005).[11]
The town Stanytsia Luhanska in Ukraine, originally founded by Cossacks, still has stanytsia in its name.[12]
See also
- Yurt, or Cossack stanitsa
References
- ^ "stanitsa". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 2023-12-29.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Stanytsia". Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine.
- ^ Kenez, Peter (1971-01-01). Civil War in South Russia, 1918: The First Year of the Volunteer Army. University of California Press. pp. 37–38. ISBN 978-0-520-01709-2.
In the late eighteenth century the Cossacks lost their former autonomy. [...] However the Cossacks retained self-government on the village (stanitsa) level.
- ^ "Cossack". Encyclopedia Britannica. 2023-12-05.
- ^ Figes, Orlando (1998). A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891–1924. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-024364-X.
- ^ Rayfield, Donald (2004). Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him. Random House. ISBN 0-375-50632-2.
- ^ Heller, Mikhail; Nekrich, Aleksandr. Utopia in Power: The History of the Soviet Union from 1917 to the Present.
- ^ Rummel, R. J. (1990). Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 1-56000-887-3. Retrieved 2014-03-01.
- ^ Soviet order to exterminate Cossacks is unearthed Archived December 10, 2009, at the Wayback Machine University of York Communications Office, 21 January 2003
- ^ Schleifman, Nurit (2013). Russia at a Crossroads: History, Memory and Political Practice. Routledge. p. 114. ISBN 978-1-135-22533-9.
- ^ a b "Станиця" [Stanytsia]. Encyclopedia of History of Ukraine (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "Story of a city: Stanytsia Luhanska" (PDF).
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