Nikolai Grigorievich Nazarenko (19 December 1911 – 20 November 1992) was a Don Cossack emigre leader who served as president of the World Federation of the Cossack National Liberation Movement of Cossackia and the Cossack American Republican National Federation.
Emigre and spy
Nazarenko was born in Starocherkasskaya in the territory of the Don Cossack Host. The Don Cossacks in common with the other Cossack Hosts of the Russian empire were a privileged group, being granted exemption from taxation, allowed to own their own land and to elect most of the officials of the Host government (through not the ataman who headed the Host who was always appointed by the Emperor) in exchange for serving as one of the main bulwarks of the House of Romanov. The culture of the Cossacks was centered around riding horses and warfare. For a certain period of time every year, the men of the Host had to leave their farms to serve in the Imperial Russian Army as irregular cavalry or alternatively as a para-military police force in one of the provinces of the vast Russian empire, which served to increase the popular identification of the Cossacks as one of the most important bulwarks of the system . In 1913, the 2 million people of the Don Cossack Host owned 13 of the 17 million hectares of the land by the banks of the river Don and whose income was double that of a typical Russian muzhik (peasant). The Don Cossacks spoke their own dialect of Russian and the men dressed in distinctive colorful uniforms, which marked them out. Every Host had its own uniform, but a common aspect of all Cossack uniforms was that the men wore a gazyr (a bullet carrying vest), a wool hat known as the papakha and carried around a type of sword called the shashka. The Cossack Hosts who had long owned their land quickly came into conflict with the new Bolshevik regime, and all of the atamans committed their Hosts to fight for the White Army in the Russian Civil War. In 1918 Nazarenko's family fled to Romania. Nazarenko grew up in Romania and subsequently enlisted in the Romanian Army.
Owing to his Russian language skills, he was recruited as a spy for Romania. Nazarenko was sent on an espionage mission for Romania into the Soviet Union in 1933, but was captured crossing the Dniester river at night and imprisoned. After escaping from prison, Nazarenko settled in Taganrog in 1935. Taganrog was in the traditional territory of the Don Cossack Host, and many of the local people were hostile to the Soviet regime. Using an assumed name, Nazarenko was able to take command of a Don Cossack militia being sent to support the Red Army in the fall of 1941. At the factory he worked in, a militia was recruited to fight for the Red Army, and Nazarenko had enough knowledge of military matters to be given command with the rank of First Lieutenant. Nazarenko subverted his workers' militia unit and persuaded them to fight for Germany instead. The fact that most of the men in the workers' militia were fellow Don Cossacks who had lost their land under the Soviet regime greatly assisted Nazarenko with persuading his unit to switch sides.
World War II
As German forces approached the Mius river, Nazarenko's workers' militia company attacked the Red Army. Nazarenko and his men were positioned on the second line, and seeing the Wehrmacht was close by, he gave the orders to attack the Red Army's first line. In October 1941, the XIV Panzer Corps of the Wehrmacht discovered that the 9th Soviet Army was engaged in battle against a Cossack formation led by Nazarenko, which surprised them. After being relieved by the Wehrmacht, Nazarenko and his 80 surviving men were sent to the rear. Nazarenko met General Gustav von Wietersheim and insisted to him that his loyalties were to Germany. Nazarenko argued that he wanted to overthrow the Soviet regime and he saw Operation Barbarossa as the beginning of the "liberation" of his people. Nazarenko and his men were enlisted into the Wehrmacht as a reconnaissance battalion, wearing German uniforms with the words Kosaken stamped on them.