ABSTRACT
This chapter explores an experiment in representative democracy and self-governance in Kuban, a Cossack region in the North-West Caucasus, during the Revolution of 1905–6. It focuses on the Rada, a popular assembly convened in December 1906 in the Kuban region’s administrative center, Ekaterinodar. First conceived by Cossack conservatives as a platform to assert the Cossacks’ loyalty to the throne, it eventually turned into a consultative body with parliamentary ambitions. Being at the same time a modern, revolutionary phenomenon, the Rada fashioned itself as a “restored” ancient political practice of the Zaporozhian Host. At the same time, the coming together of more than five hundred Cossack representatives from all over the region brought to the fore the issue of the region’s ethno-cultural diversity.
