"One of the most important goals of the current Cossack movement is the revival of traditional Cossack culture. And the best means to this goal is through giving children an education in traditional Cossack culture. To this end, enthusiasts are creating Sunday schools, Cossack Lyceums and Cossack military schools. In the summer (July),young Cossacks (age 14-17) live for a month in a Cossack camp. (And there are young cossacks not only from former USSR. There were already visitors-descendants of Cossacks living now abroad, who want to know traditions of their ancestors)."
So far as I can see and by their own admission, the goal of this identity movement is to develop an elite warrior class to serve whoever rules the "Fatherland." I'm sure that this is pretty good real-politic so far as contemporary conditions in Russia go, but it is, in the bigger picure, scary as shit. It reminds me a lot, historically and psychologically, of the Aryan "identity" movement of the twenties and thirties.
Social relations and social orders are breaking up across the globe as a result of neo-imperialist "globalization" . While I can understand how a yearning for a familiar "order" develops in response to that; while I can understand the nostalgic appeal of "The Godfather," it seems to me that militarizing the male population and putting them in the service of the warlord of the moment is a regressive and extremely dangerous development.
In fact, even so far as capitalist global order is concerned, this new militarism cannot succeed as the expansion of capital depends upon a hedonistic and not a spartan society.
Joanna