The basic form of opposition by the peasants, and to some extent by the burghers, was flight. The nobility and the Polish government attempted to impose Catholicism and Polonization on the Ukrainian population. This substantially worsened the lot of the peasantry: their land allotments were decreased, their freedom of movement was limited, and corvée was expanded. Because of the favorable conditions for selling grain in Western Europe, the Polish nobility introduced the manorial system of agriculture (see Filvarok). In time the Cossacks acquired military strength and experience as well as prestige in their own society and fame throughout Europe, which at that time was resisting the Turkish onslaught.Īnother important factor in the growth of the Ukrainian Cossacks was the socioeconomic changes taking place in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th century. These leaders, together with the town and Zaporozhian Cossacks, went far into the steppes in pursuit of the Tatars in order to rescue captives or to attack Tatar and Turkish coastal towns. Polozovych in Khmilnyk by Przecław Lanckoroński in Bar by Bernard Pretwicz) as well as Samuel Zborowski, Prince Dmytro Vyshnevetsky (Baida), Prince B. They were organized by the local officials (in Cherkasy by Ostafii Dashkevych and S. A second category of Cossacks, known as town Cossacks ( horodovi kozaky), was formed for the defense of the towns. The Tatar raids forced the army of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to build fortresses in the southern region of Ukraine (in Kaniv, Cherkasy, Vinnytsia, Khmilnyk, Bratslav, Bar, and elsewhere). In the mid-16th century the Cossack structure in the Zaporizhia was created in the process of the steppe settlers' struggle against Tatar raids. The important political role played by the Ukrainian Cossacks in the history of their nation distinguishes them from the Russian Cossacks.įirst period (1550–1648). The history of the Ukrainian Cossacks has three distinct aspects: their struggle against the Tatars and the Turks in the steppe and on the Black Sea their participation in the struggle of the Ukrainian people against socioeconomic and national-religious oppression by the Polish magnates and their role in the building of an autonomous Ukrainian state. By the end of the 15th century the name acquired a wider sense and was applied to those Ukrainians who went into the steppes to practice various trades and engage in hunting, fishing, beekeeping, the collection of salt and saltpeter, and so on. It is also found in Byzantine sources and in the instructions issued by Italian cities to their colonies on the Black Sea coast, where it is applied to armed men who were engaged in military service in frontier regions and protected trade caravans traveling the steppe routes. In European sources the term first appears in a dictionary of the Cuman language in the mid-13th century. The name Cossack (Ukrainian: козак kozak) is derived from the Turkic kazak (free man), meaning anyone who could not find his appropriate place in society and went into the steppes, where he acknowledged no authority. the long-term interests of the Kremlin linked to them.Cossacks. The text closes with a list of the functions assigned to the Cossacks, i.e. The second part is devoted to Russia’s strategic policy objectives regarding the neo-Cossacks, and the organisational system set up to implement this policy. These (the Cossack state, the Cossack register, registered Cossacks, the Cossack state service) carry a large dose of misinformation, because they have been torn out of their historical context and placed in today’s Russian realities. The first part of this analysis examines the official narrative of neo-Cossackdom through the prism of key concepts. Regardless of this fundamental change, the Cossacks (or more specifically, the ‘neo-Cossacks’) still define themselves as a cultural and historical community, with the aid of such characteristics as a defensive, pro-state mentality, a militarised lifestyle and service to the state, the Orthodox religion, and their distinct traditions and customs. This text is an attempt to interpret this issue in terms of a socio-political process, which has resulted in the transformation of a spontaneous, bottom-up movement into one monitored and directed from the top down. Russia’s Cossacks evoke extreme opinions among observers: some see them as a marginal social phenomenon, a kind of political folklore others as a morally and physically healthy part of the nation, a pillar of the modern paramilitary formations which defend the national and cultural borders of the Russian Federation.