Tale of Cossacks and Men #2 Some research and thoughts

So I have my first five pieces of research:

• Historians still argue about who the Cossacks were, descents of espcaed serfs or Tartar warriors, an ethnic group in their own right or a caste of horsemen. They played a crucial role in colonizing the south for the Russian empire, and later suppressed peasant and worker uprisings, defending the tsar.
• When Tolstoy sat down to write his classical novel "The Cossacks", he captured the ethnic divide between the regions people in a scene where a young Cossacks spots a Chechen swimming across the Terek disguised as a log and shoots him.
• During the Feburary revolution, the Petrograd Cossack garrison consisted of reservists and new recruits from poor regions meant that their defection to the rebellion was a severe blow that encouraged other defections.
• In the Russian civil war, Cossacks fought on both sides. Cossacks formed the core of the White Army, but many also fought with the Red Army. Some Cossacks participated in pograms against Jews. After the war, the Soviet government began a policy of Decossackization, in which the land of the Cossacks was divided among other peoples.
• Traditional Russian values, culture and Orthodox Christianity form the bedrock of their beliefs

It is important to understand exactly what I want to talk about through this book, and what I want to comment on about reality and other deep things. For me, the Cossacks were at their most symbolic, a representation of the division between Russia's upper and lower classes, almost a guard at the bridge sort of figure. However, at the same time, they could often take on the worst of both sides, terrible violence and attempts to justify or throw it under the rug. Furthermore, I also seek to make a comment on religion in our day and age through the book, as religion persecuted and religious values no longer being applied to the world as they once were. Lastly, the third main thing I want to discuss is how people react to fast-paced situations with choices meaning irreprehensible moral consequences. Not to mention, a want to show how this crumbling world challenges the values of golden age Russian literature.

Alright. For my next entry I will provide more research as well as discuss some of those themes within golden age Russian literature and how I will seek to challenge them in my book.