Participation of the Don Cossacks in the Volunteer Movement During the Great Patriotic War as Part of Special Cossack Cavalry Formations

Introduction . During the Great Patriotic War, in the general context of a significant mass volunteer movement of Soviet people, the volunteer movement of the Don Cossacks arose and developed quite actively. It manifested itself in various organizational and structural forms as common, in the form of the voluntary entry of the Don Cossack men and women into fighter battalions, regular and irregular military units, partisan detachments, and special in the form of separate volunteer Cossack cavalry divisions. Materials and Methods . Documents and materials containing information on various aspects of the volunteer movement during the Great Patriotic War in the Rostov Region were identified, analyzed and used. Various research tools are used: complex and multifactorial approaches, descriptive, comparative-historical and historical-systemic methods. Results . The participation of the Don Cossacks in the volunteer movement during the Great Patriotic War was very significant. The Cossack volunteer movement began almost immediately after the outbreak of war. In the Don villages, at numerous rallies of local residents, resolutions were adopted calling on the Cossacks to enlist in the ranks of volunteers of the people’s militia. Two Cossack cavalry divisions were formed from the Don Cossack volunteers. During the war, fighters of Don volunteer Cossack units and formations demonstrated personal courage and bravery, high morale and level of combat training, sustained power and response to orders, were awarded a great number of military orders and medals. Discussion and Conclusion . The volunteer movement of the Don Cossacks was considered in a number of monographic studies and scientific articles devoted, in general, to the study of events during the Great Patriotic War on the Don and the participation of its inhabitants in the war. In historiography, there are also some works in which some aspects of the formation of Cossack regular and volunteer military units were studied. In this study, on the basis of a complex and multifactorial approach, a comprehensive analysis of the participation of the Don Cossacks in the volunteer movement during the Great Patriotic War as part of special Cossack cavalry formations was carried out.