Cossack listen listen (Polish:Kozak; plural:Kozacy; Russian:Kazak (Казак); plural:Kazaki (Казаки), Ukrainian:Kozak (Козак); plural:Kozaky (Козаки)) is the name given to a group of people from Eastern Europe and parts of Europe adjacent to Asia.
The Cossack name is derived from the Tatar:quzzaq which means adventurer or free man. This term dates back to 1395, when it was written on a Ruthenian document. There is no relationship between the Cossacks and the Kazakhs (Казах), nor the Khazars, although they live in the same regions, several centuries apart.
The first Cossacks were free men who roamed the depopulated steppes of Ukraine after the Mongol invasion, formally under the authority of the Grand Duke of Lithuania. The oldest known document mentioning them, the Codex Cumanicus in 1303, designates them as sentinels and guards of the convoys against the Tatar hordes. But they also quickly become raiders on occasion, attacking convoys in agreement with the Tatars. This will be the origin of the Zaporozhian Cossacks.
Artistic rendering of a Ukrainian Cossack (see Szlachta, context of the Union of Poland-Lithuania).
Rendering artwork of a Ukrainian Cossack (see Szlachta, context of the Union of Poland-Lithuania).
Subsequently the Cossacks formed other groups further east as the nobles, most often Polish, colonized, from the 16th century, with their peasant serfs the regions inhabited by the Cossacks. Some of those who remained were registered in the service of the Polish king, but most who were not registered refused to become serfs and revolted regularly. The most famous revolt will be that of 1648 led by Bohdan Chmielnicki.
After the occupation of Ukraine by the sovereigns of Russia, a significant part of the Cossacks put themselves at their service, not hesitating to carry out the massacres demanded by their new masters. Others tried to keep their freedom, also organizing revolts against the tsars. The most famous will be that of Pugachev. Considered as policemen of tsarism, which they effectively became for the most part in the 19th century, the Cossacks were persecuted under the Soviet Union. It was not until the breakup of the latter that the Cossack culture reappeared.
The Zaporozhian Cossacks
The first Cossacks settled between the Bug and Dnieper rivers on a territory called "Wild Fields" under the formal authority of the Grand Duke of Lithuania until 1569, then of the King of Poland. We find there especially peasants who have fled the obligations of their lords, the poor of the cities, adventurers of all kinds, sometimes from the nobility, and common criminals. For adventurous young Polish nobles, playing the Cossack offered a great deal of military experience quickly.
The Zaporozhian Cossacks were ethnically mainly inhabitants of the Duchy of kyiv (current Ukraine) and Belarusians, with a large Polish minority, around one tenth, and Moldavians. It is probable, at least in the early days of the Cossacks, that Tatars became Cossacks. As for the adventurers, they came from all over Europe, including France. In reality, the Cossacks welcomed all men who, abandoning what they were, wanted to live like them, whatever their nationality or religion. There was even formed, at the beginning of the 17th century, a group of Jewish Cossacks.
At first the refugees tried to become, if not farmers, at least breeders, but, attacked by the Tatars who plundered their crops and destroyed their property, they quickly organized themselves into military brotherhoods, living from hunting, fishing and looting among the Tatars, when they were not residing in their entrenched camps, the Sitch. The region is full of game and the rivers are full of fish. In the waters of the Dnieper, some of the sturgeons (belugas) that came out measured more than six meters and weighed more than a ton.
Organizing themselves in direct democracy, they elect their military leaders (during general assemblies called Rada), the highest in the hierarchy of which bears the name of “otaman” or hetman. It was during these meetings that they determined the way forward and the objective. However, beware of the otaman when the expedition failed, which was rare. The first Cossack Sitch was on an island, the Mala Khortytsia, downstream from the Dnieper rapids, hence their name Zaporozhian (za porohy means "beyond the rapids").
Some Cossacks put themselves at the service of the starosts of the confines of the King of Poland, one of whose tasks was to put an end to the Tatar expeditions in the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. These Cossacks remained in town at the disposal of the starosts, only traversing the steppe during the hunting and fishing seasons. Others lived in the steppes permanently. But all Cossacks essentially remain free, and those who want to organize expeditions with them must join them. Some state administrators of the King of Poland, such as Dimitri Wisniowiecki, thus became Cossacks.
The Cossack military art is that of the peasantry from which the Cossacks essentially come. Having no good horses at their disposal and originally bad riders, the Cossacks formed convoys of wagons which they tied together during battle, forming a triangle-shaped rampart, impassable by horses. Sometimes having long pikes on which the enemy mounts which tried to jump were impaled, always firearms and sometimes small cannons, the Cossacks thus repelled all the attacks of the Tatar horsemen. When the enemy had suffered heavy losses after several assaults, the Cossack horsemen would come out of their camp to finish the job with sabers and axes. Later, even the heavily equipped cavalry of the Polish nobility was repeatedly defeated by the Cossack troops.
Quickly, the Cossacks also become excellent navigators, using rowing boats. They organized expeditions along the coasts (mainly looting), which took them to Constantinople.
In the 16th century, the Polish government began a policy of official registration, that is to say, registration in the registers granting them the ownership of the land of the steppes, this one belonging in principle to the king, against a service military. In the time of King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland, there were at best 500 registered Cossacks, while Cossack troops could reach 10,000 soldiers by the end of the century. The number of registered Cossacks increases several times, but is always significantly lower than the actual number of Cossacks.
Unregistered Cossacks were supposed to become serfs on the estates of Polish nobles, which was the cause of the revolts. At the beginning of the 17th century, several thousand Cossacks are recorded; about 6000 before the revolt of 1648. There were already between 100,000 and 200,000 Ukrainians who called themselves Cossacks, often peasants who no longer wanted to be serfs. The number of Cossacks actually did not exceed 50,000 men, including those who roamed the steppes only occasionally. In 1648, in fact, the whole of Ukraine revolted in the name of Cossack freedoms.
Russian Cossacks
From the beginning of the 16th century the Russian Cossacks went on watch and patrol duty, protected the border territories of Muscovy from the incursions of the Crimean, Kazan and Astrakhan Tatars and the Transvolgian hordes. The region between Donetz and Don is also populated by peasants who become hunters, fishermen, sometimes breeders, organizing expeditions among the Tatars. These Cossacks form the Don community.
Russian Cossacks played an important role during Russia's expansion into Siberia (especially Yermak Timofeyevich), the Caucasus and Central Asia from the 16th to the 19th centuries. They also served as guides for most Russian expeditions of geographers, traders, explorers and civilian surveyors.
At the end of the 16th century, Russian Cossacks from western Siberia founded the cities of Tobolsk, Beresow, Surgut, Tara, Obdorsk and Narym. At the beginning of the 17th century the Russian Cossacks reached the Yenisei River.
During the reign of Michail Romanov, Russian Cossacks from East Siberia founded the cities of Zheniseisk, Krasnoyarsk and Yakutsk and reached the Pacific Ocean. In 1645, the Cossack Vasily Pozharkov crossed the Amur River and discovered the northern coast of Sakhalin Island. In 1648, another Cossack, Semjon Ivanovitsch Deschnev reached the mouth of the Anadyr river (in the Chukotka peninsula) and discovered the route between Asia and America, while between 1697 and 1699 Vladimir Vassiljevich Atlasov reached when to him the Kamchatka peninsula.
Cossack communities in Russia
* The Don Cossacks, which appeared in 1570
* The Ural Cossacks, 1571
* The Terek Cossacks, 1577
Only these three communities are of essentially spontaneous and endogenous creation.
The following communities are border guard groups created by the tsars.
* The Kuban Cossacks, 1696
* Orenburg Cossacks, 1744
* The Astrakhan Cossacks, 1750
* The Siberian Cossacks, 1760
* Transbaikalian Cossacks, 1851
* The Amur River Cossacks, 1858
* Semirechensk Cossacks, 1867
* The Ussuri Cossacks, 1889