Flankirovka
ФланкировкаA term for work with edged weapons, historically mainly with the spear and today with the shashka. Yarovoy considers this form modern and unknown to the Don Cossacks.
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About Flankirovka
Flankirovka is a term that, according to Andreev (2006) and Yarovoy (2018), referred mainly to work with the spear in Siberian and Don Cossack training, and that today, according to the St Petersburg club ORS RRB, means exercises for acquiring the culture and skill of handling an edged weapon. Andreev cites a condition of the first prize for horsemanship in the Siberian Cossack Host, which included correct, skilful flankirovka with the spear and cutting with the shashka, and Yarovoy states that before the revolution young Don Cossacks learned flankirovka with the spear and cutting with the shashka.
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RIA Novosti (2021) describes today's flankirovka as work with the shashka in one or both hands in motion, with circles, figure eights and cutting and thrusting blows. Yarovoy (2018) writes that this flankirovka with the shashka, with weapon juggling and demonstrations of hand and foot strikes, was never known to the Don Cossacks and arose from the fantasies of enthusiasts of Eastern martial arts. According to ORS RRB, since the late 1990s many hand-to-hand combat schools have turned to bladed weapons, and it names the figure eight as a classic element. Yarovoy (2021) states that today's Don Cossack competitions called shermitsii include flankirovka with the shashka and require historical and ethnographic justification. We have not found the founder or the year of origin in the sources.
History
According to Andreev (2006), a condition of the first prize for horsemanship in the Siberian Cossack Host was, among other things, correct and skillful flankirovka with a lance and cutting with a shashka. Yarovoy (2018) states that before the revolution, instructors drawn from the uryadniks taught young Don Cossacks shooting, raiding, flankirovka with a lance and cutting with a shashka. The ORS RRB club (2021) explains that flanking, from the French flanquer, historically denoted the lance maneuvers of riders in close combat, and circling movements of the blade were called moulinets. According to Titorenko (2016), raiding was included in the training complex of the Kuban Host from 1854 and also covered spinning the shashka while standing in the saddle. RIA Novosti (2021) states that the new Cossack youth in the Rostov Oblast formed in the late 1980s, mostly from boxing and karate athletes, and that in 1998 the Don Host Federation of Cossack Martial Arts Pernach was founded, which Kuban Cossacks joined from the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century.
How it differs
RIA Novosti (2021) distinguishes flankirovka from shashka rubka, which has four disciplines and about 80 types of exercises, and from sshibka, fencing with historical daggers or bebuts 60 cm long. Yarovoy (2018) writes that weapon dances performed in Soviet Russia, apparently before the war, bore no resemblance to today's shashka flankirovka, which he calls a product of the fantasies of fans of Eastern martial arts, now passed off as a national martial art of the Cossacks. The ORS RRB club states that individual schools of hand-to-hand combat give their own names to combinations of strikes, for example the two-handed vertical figure eight Vikhr and the voluminous two-handed nines Smerch.
Technique
Yarovoy (2018) states that the Don Cossacks were taught to cut with ottyazhka so the blade would not hit the horse, the best cut with both hands, and strikes with the back of the blade served to disable the opponent's hand. He says potyag, a slicing drawing motion for soft, bulky targets, was practised on bread. RIA Novosti (2021) describes today's flankirovka as moving work with the shashka in one or both hands, circles and figures of eight called kolobrody, and cutting and thrusting strikes, to which some add jumps, rolls and kicks. Rossiyskaya Gazeta (2017) lists among the techniques krutit cherta, elliptical blade movements, work with two blades, throwing and catching the shashka, and cutting twigs and plastic bottles. The ORS RRB club lists the figure eight as a classic element, a series of cutting strikes in one plane where the tip draws the numeral 8, and the elements chert, or the nine, and chert with a turn. According to the club, flankirovka uses a guardless weapon, usually a Cossack shashka of the 1881 pattern or a Caucasian shashka.
Training
Titorenko (2016) states that the riding training of the Kuban Cossacks included cutting willow switches and threading the shashka through a ring hung on a rope, and that young Cossacks aged 16 to 18 chopped a wooden block floating on water with the shashka. According to Yarovoy (2018), the training of adult Don Cossacks took place in winter and spring at gatherings, and after 1891 a part on fencing was introduced into the Cossack Ustav. From his own field research he reports children's games with wooden or wicker shashkas. According to RIA Novosti (2021), children usually begin flankirovka at 6 to 8 years of age and are to master all the elements at 13 to 15, and in the Rostov Oblast girls make up 30 to 45 percent of the children. Rossiyskaya Gazeta (2017) states that Yuliya Kalinina, an instructor at the Kremlin Riding School, teaches children from the age of 4, training is at least twice a week for an hour, slowly at first, and the whistle of the blade serves as feedback on the correct plane.
Competition
According to Andreev (2006), from 1910 the Siberian Cossack Host held competitions for young Cossacks from the age of 14 in gymnastics, dzhigitovka and obstacle jumping, and the winners received shashkas and silver items. RIA Novosti (2021) states that flankirovka was formerly called dzhigitka and was judged on three criteria, now on twelve, including speed, throws, juggling, cutting and thrusting blows and combat movement. According to the same agency, Rostov Oblast hosted at least 30 large competitions a year before the pandemic. Yarovoy (2021) states that today's ethnosport competitions of the Don Cossacks, called shermitsii, include, among other things, cutting with the shashka and shashka flankirovka, and require historical and ethnographic justification.
Today
According to Yarovoy (2021), Don Cossack fencing events were held in the Aksay District of Rostov Oblast in 2015 and 2019 at the Monastyrsky tract near Old Cherkassk. RIA Novosti (2021) names the All-Russian Kazarla federation, in whose branches more than 500 children learn rubka with the shashka and up to 40 competitions a year are held, and the Don federation of Cossack martial arts Pernach, founded in 1998. The agency also mentions Olga Ganeeva, a two-time champion of Russia, who founded a school of flankirovka and shashka rubka in Stavropol. The St Petersburg club ORS RRB announced that since 17 January 2021 Aleksandr Dauranov has led flankirovka training with the Cossack shashka within it.
Did you know
The ORS RRB club states that the 1889 Cossack Service Ustav prescribed only three shashka techniques, the horizontal and vertical cut and the thrust to the left. Yarovoy (2021) notes that Cossackdom is a widely used label, which raises the question of authenticity at modern competitions. According to Rossiyskaya Gazeta (2017), practice from old Cossack manuals begins with the command kist razvyazat. Instructor Yuliya Kalinina says that one does flankirovka into old age and that the shashka is a weapon even if unsharpened. The same report says the shashka length is chosen so that the tip touches the floor with the arm relaxed, and the movement comes from the torso.
Frequently asked questions
What did flankirovka mean historically?
According to Andreev (2006) and Yarovoy (2018), the term in Siberian and Don Cossack training was tied mainly to work with the spear, and the sources give flankirovka with the spear alongside cutting with the shashka.
Is today's flankirovka with the shashka a Cossack tradition?
Yarovoy (2018) writes that today's flankirovka with the shashka, with weapon juggling and demonstrations of hand and foot strikes, was never known to the Don Cossacks.
From what age is flankirovka taught?
According to RIA Novosti (2021), children usually start at 6 to 8 years old and are expected to master all the elements at 13 to 15 years old. Rossiyskaya Gazeta (2017) states teaching from 4 years old.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.