A
plastun
or
plastoon
(
Ukrainian
,
Russian
:
пластун
) was a
Cossack
foot
scouting
and
sentry
military unit
.
[1]
Originally, they were part of the
Black Sea Cossack Host
and then later in the 19th and 20th centuries
Kuban Cossack Host
.
Early history
[
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]
The tradition of foot scouts, vanguard troops, and ambushes, together with the term
plastuny
, belong to the early Cossack history of the
Zaporizhian Sich
and mentioned, e.g., by
Vladimir Dahl
in his
Explanatory Dictionary of the Live Great Russian language
. Plastun foot units were introduced during the
Russian-Circassian War
to guard and scout beyond the "Kuban Line", a frontier in the
Kuban
plains, against sudden
Circassian
raids.
Later, the name "plastoon regiments" was applied to all Cossack
infantry
. In the
Russian Imperial Army
, whole plastun regiments were formed. Normally, Cossacks had to buy their horses and
horse tack
with their own money, and plastuns did not have these expenses. Despite this, regular plastun units were not popular, since they did not fit the traditional notion of Cossack pride. Therefore, plastun units tended to consist of poorer people.
[2]
Soviet period
[
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]
The term was revived in the
Soviet Army
during the
Great Patriotic War
and used in the names of several Cossack
battalions
and
regiments
. The only plastun Cossack division of that time was the
9th Krasnodar Plastun Division
, which fought in Northern Caucasus, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, and was one of the elite Soviet military units. Germans called them "Stalin's cutthroats". At the same time, "plastun" (i.e., infantry) regiments existed in the Cossack military that fought on the German side, in the
15th SS Cossack Cavalry Corps
.
Name
[
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]
The name derives from the word
plast
, "sheet" via an expression "to lay like a sheet", i.e., flat and low. The word "plastoon" also can refer to a member of a Ukrainian
scouting
organization
Plast
, named after the original plastoons.
References
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]