Cossacks

Cossack (Polish: Kozak ; plural: Kozacy ; Russian: Kazak ( Казак ); plural: Ukrainian Kazaki ( Казаки ), : Kozak ( Козак ); plural: Kozaky ( Козаки )) is the name given to a group of population of Eastern Europe and adjacent parts of Europe to Asia.

The name cossack is derived from the Tatar: quzzaq which means adventurous or free man . This term goes up with 1395, where he was written on a document ruthénien. There is no relationship between the Kazakh Cossacks and the ( Казах ), nor the Khazars, though living the same areas, at several centuries of interval.

The first Cossacks were free men who roved in the steppes of the Ukraine depopulated after the Mongolian Invasion, formally under the authority of the Large-Duke of Lithuania. The oldest known document mentioning them, the Codex Cumanicus in 1303, indicates them like sentinels and guards of the convoys against the hordes tatares. But they also quickly become plundering on the occasion, attacking the convoys in agreement with the Tatars. It will be the origin of the Cosaques Zaporogues.

Thereafter the Cossacks formed other groups more in the East as noble, generally Polish, colonized, as from the 16th century, with their peasants serfs the areas inhabited by the Cossacks. Some of those which remained were recorded with the service of king de Pologne, but the majority which was not it refused to become serfs and revolted regularly. The most famous revolt will be that of 1648 led by Bohdan Chmielnicki.

After the occupation of the Ukraine by the sovereigns of Russia, an important part of the Cossacks put herself at their service, not hesitating to carry out the massacres which their new Masters required. Others tried to keep their freedom, organizing them also revolts against the tsars. Most famous will be that of Pougatchev. Considered as gendarmes of the Tsarism, which they became for the majority indeed at the 19th century, the Cossacks was persecuted under the Soviet Union. It was necessary to await the bursting of this one so that the culture cossack reappears.

the Cossacks Zaporogues

The first Cossacks are established between the rivers Boug and Dniepr on a territory called " Fields sauvages" under the formal authority of the large-duke of Lithuania until in 1569, of the king of Poland then. There one finds especially peasants corvéables having fled the obligations of their lords, of the poor of the cities, the adventurers of all kinds, sometimes resulting from the nobility, and the criminals of common right. For the adventurous Polish noble young people, to make the Cossack made it possible to acquire a great military experiment quickly.

The Zaporogues Cossacks were ethniquement primarily inhabitants of the duchy of Kiev (Ukraine current) and Belorusse, with an important Polish minority, a Moldavian tenth approximately, and . It is probable, at least at the beginnings of the cosaquery, that of Tatars became Cosaques. As for the adventurers it came from there from all Europe, including France. Actually, the Cossacks accommodated all the men who, giving up what they were, wanted to live like them, whatever their nationalities or religion. It was even formed, at the beginning of the XVIIe century, a group of Jewish Cossacks.

At the beginning the refugees tried to become if not farmers at least stockbreeders, but, attacked by Tatars who plundered their harvests and destroyed their goods, they were quickly organized as military brotherhoods, alive of hunting, fishing and plundering at Tatars, when they did not reside in their fortified camps, the Sitch. The area is giboyeuse and the rivers abound in fish. In water of Dniepr some Esturgeon S (white whales) left measured more than six meters and weighed more than one ton.

Organizing in Direct democracy, they elect their military chiefs (at the time of general meetings called Rada), whose highest in the hierarchy the name of “otaman” or Hetman carries. It is at the time of these assemblies that they determined the procedure to follow and the objective. However, station with the otaman when forwarding failed, which was rare. The first Sitch of the Cossacks is on an island, the Mala Khortytsia, downstream from the rapids of the Dniepr, from where their name of Zaporogue ( za porohy means " beyond the rapides").

Certain Cossacks put at the service Staroste S of the borders of king de Pologne of which one of the tasks were to put an end to forwardings tatares in the kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. These Cossacks remained downtown at disposal of the starostes, not traversing the steppe that during the seasons of hunting and fishing. Others lived in the steppes permanently. But all the Cossacks remain primarily free and those which want to organize forwardings with them must join them. Certain domanial administrators of king de Pologne, such Dimitri Wisniowiecki, become thus Cosaques.

The art of warfare cossack is that of the farming community from which the Cossacks come essentially. Not having good horses at their disposal and bad riders in the beginning, the Cossacks form convoys of carriages which they attach between them at the time of the battle, forming a rampart in the shape of triangle, insuperable by the horses. Having sometimes of long pikes on which were impaled enemy mountings which try to jump, always of firearms and sometimes small guns, the Cossacks thus pushed back all the attacks of the riders tatars. When the enemy had undergone heavy losses after several attacks, the riders cossacks left their camp to complete work with blows of sabers and axes. Later, even the cavalry of the Polish nobility, however heavily equipped, is overcome on several occasions by the troops cossacks.

Quickly, the Cossacks also become of excellent navigators, using oar boats. They organized, while skirting the coasts, of forwardings (primarily of plundering), which carried out them until Constantinople.

At the 16th century, the Polish government begins a policy of official recording, i.e. of inscription on the registers granting to them the property of the ground of the steppes, this one belonging in theory to the king, against a military service. At the time of the king de Pologne Sigismond II Auguste, there were as well as possible 500 recorded Cossacks, whereas the troops cossacks could reach 10 000 soldiers at the end of the century. The number of recorded Cossacks increases on several occasions, but is always largely lower than the real number of Cossacks.

The not recorded Cossacks were to become serfs in theory on the fields of noble Polish, which was the cause of the revolts. At the beginning of the 17th century, several thousands of Cossacks are recorded; approximately 6000 before the revolt of 1648. There was already between 100 000 and 200 000 Ukrainians who said Cosaques, often peasants who did not want to be serfs any more. The number of Cossacks did not exceed actually 50 000 men, including those which traversed the steppes only occasionally. In 1648, it is in fact all the Ukraine which revolts in the name of freedoms cossacks.

Cossacks of Russia

Starting from the beginning of the 16th century the Russian Cossacks left for the service guet and from patrol, protected the frontier territories from Moscovie against the incursions of Tatars of the Crimea, Kazan and Astrakhan and the hordes transvolgiennes. The area between Donetz and Don also becomes populated peasants who there become hunters, fishing, sometimes stockbreeders, organizing forwardings at Tatars. These Cossacks form the community of the Gift.

The Russian Cossacks played a big role during the expansion of Russia in Siberia (in particular Yermak Timofeyevitch), in the Caucasus and in Central Asia of 16th at the 19th centuries. They were also used as guides for the majority of Russian forwardings of Géographe S, tradesmen, explorers and land-surveyors civil.

At the end of the 16th century, the Russian Cossacks of Siberia of the west founded the towns of Tobolsk, Beresow, Surgut, Tara, Obdorsk and Narym. At the beginning of the 17th century the Russian Cossacks reached the river Ienisseï.

At the time of the reign of Michail Romanov, the Russian Cossacks of Siberia of the east founded the towns of Jenisseisk, Krasnoïarsk and Iakoutsk and reached the Pacific Ocean. The Cossack Vassili Pojarkov passed in 1645 the river Amour and discovered the septentrional coast of the island Sakhaline. In 1648, another Cossack, Semjon Ivanovitsch Deschnev reached the mouth of the river Anadyr (in the peninsula of Tchoukotka) and discovered the road between Asia and America, while between 1697 and 1699, Vladimir Vassiljevitch Atlassov reaches when with him the peninsula of the Kamtchatka.

Communities of Cossacks of Russia

the Cossacks of the Gift, appeared in 1570
the Cossacks of the Ural, 1571
the Cossacks of Terek, 1577

Only these three communities are of primarily spontaneous and endogenous creation.

The following communities are groups of frontier guards created by the tsars.

Cossacks of Kouban, 1696
Cossacks of Orenburg, 1744
Cossacks of Astrakhan, 1750
Cossacks of Siberia, 1760
the Cossacks transbaïkaliens, 1851
Cossacks of the river Love, 1858
Cossacks of Semirechensk, 1867
Cossacks of Ussuri, 1889

See too

List of the hetmans cossacks
Hetmanat cossack
Kazatchok, Ukrainian dance of the Cossacks
Brigade cossack Persian

Simple: Cossack

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