Original Items: VERY FEW Available. These are very nice unissued examples of the Terek Cossacks Volunteer Sleeve Shields. This is the printed type, with Cyrillic letters, introduced in July 1944. The lettering stands for Терское казачье войско, meaning Terek Cossack Army. Cossacks fought on both sides of the Second World War. Many Cossack prisoners of war joined NSDAP Germany who promised to free their lands from Bolshevism. Terek Cossacks made up the Vth regiment of the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Cossack Division. Soon the war came to Cossack lands themselves, in 1942 the NSDAP offensive Case Blue, and by autumn, the western regions of the former Terek Cossack Hosts were occupied. By November, the Battle of the Caucasus reached North Ossetia, and Germans were already making plans to lease the oilfields in Grozny. Most of the Cossack population took part in repelling the invader.

These Terek Cossacks volunteer sleeve shields are printed on a thin, white fabric. The printing is textbook period type, with the ink visible on the reverse. These have never been sewn on a uniform or even folded.

Each purchase includes (1) 3” x 5 ½” sheet featuring a Pair of Shields. We have a very limited quantity so be sure to get one quick before they’re gone!

Comes ready to display.

Cossacks
The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic Orthodox Christian people group originating in the steppes of Eastern Europe. They were a semi-nomadic and semi-militarized people, who, while under the nominal suzerainty of various Eastern European states at the time, such as the Russian Empire or the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, were allowed a great degree of self-governance in exchange for military service. The Cossacks were particularly noted for holding democratic traditions.

They inhabited sparsely populated areas in the Dnieper, Don, Terek, and Ural river basins, and played an important role in the historical and cultural development of both Ukraine and Russia. The various Cossack groups were organized along military lines, with large autonomous groups called hosts. Each host had a territory consisting of affiliated villages called stanitsa. The Cossack way of life persisted into the twentieth century, though the sweeping societal changes of the Russian Revolution disrupted Cossack society as much as any other part of Russia; many Cossacks migrated to other parts of Europe following the establishment of the Soviet Union, while others remained and assimilated into the Communist state. Cohesive Cossack-based units were organized and fought for both Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II.