Host Council

the assembly of the entire host, the highest body of authority among the Don, Volga, laik, and Caucasian cossacks in the 16th to 18th centuries. The Host Council had jurisdiction over the major questions of outside relations, such as questions of war and peace, and internal organization, such as elections of the ataman (cossack chieftain), esauls (assistants to the ataman), and other officials. With the growing social differentiation, the influence of the host starshina (executive body) in the Host Council greatly increased. In the first half of the 18th century, as the cossacks came under the control of the central authorities and the latter began appointing atamans for them, the role of the Host Council became nominal. In the 19th and early 20th centuries the term host council was the name of the assembly of representatives of the stanitsas (large cossack villages) on the occasion of various festivities. During the Civil War in the USSR the cossack elite tried to revive the Host Council in order to consolidate the counterrevolutionary forces.