Mythologies of the Cossack Tribes

The Cossack are a predominantly East Slavic Orthodox Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Historically, they were a semi-nomadic and semi-militarized people, who, while under the nominal suzerainty of various Eastern European states at the time, were allowed a great degree of self-governance in exchange for military service. Although numerous linguistic and religious groups came together to form the Cossacks, most of them coalesced and became East Slavic-speaking Orthodox Christians. The rulers of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russian Empire endowed Cossacks with certain special privileges in return for the military duty to serve in the irregular troops. (Zaporozhian Cossacks were mostly infantry soldiers, using war wagons. Don Cossacks were mostly cavalry soldiers.) The various Cossack groups were organized along military lines, with large autonomous groups called hosts. Each host had a territory consisting of affiliated villages called stanitsas. They inhabited sparsely populated areas in the Dnieper, Don, Terek, and Ural river basins, and played an important role in the historical and cultural development of both Ukraine and parts of Russia. The Cossack way of life persisted via both direct descendants and acquired ideals in other nations into the twentieth century, though the sweeping societal changes of the Russian Revolution disrupted Cossack society as much as any other part of Russia; many Cossacks migrated to other parts of Europe following the establishment of the Soviet Union, while others remained and assimilated into the Communist state. Cohesive Cossack-based units were organized and many fought for both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II.

Several theories speculate about the origins of the Cossacks. According to one theory, Cossacks have Slavic origins, while another theory states that the Constitution of Pylyp Orlyk of 1710 attests to Khazar origins. Modern scholars believe that Cossacks have both Slavic and Turkic origins. The Academician Ivan Zabelin mentioned that peoples of the prairies and of the woods had always needed "a live frontier", and even ancient Borisphenites (Dniepr Scythians) and Tanaites could be the predecessors of the Cossacks, not only the Khazars who may have assimilated, but this also includes the Severians, Goths, Scythians, and other ancient inhabitants, as insisted by Cossack folklore, by the Constitution of Pylyp Orlyk, and by numerous Cossack historians. Because of the need of both the Soviet and the anti-Bolshevik forces to deny any separate Cossack ethnicity, the traditional post-imperial historiography dates the emergence of Cossacks to the 14th-15th centuries. Non-mainstream theories, however, have borrowed the date 948 from imperial historiography, and ascribe an earlier Cossack existence to the tenth century, but deny Cossack links both to "the old people" (Khazars) and to "the new people" (Russians and Ukrainians; the very terms "old people" and "new people" being coined by the 11th-century Metropolitan Ilarion of Kiev), specifically mentioning 948 as the year when the inhabitants of the steppe under a leader named Kasak or Kazak routed the Khazars in the area of modern Kuban and organized a state called Kazakia or Cossackia.

The Cossack uprisings (also kozak rebellions, revolts) were a series of military conflicts between the Cossacks and the states claiming dominion over the territories they lived in, namely the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russian Empire during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The conflict resulted from both states' attempts to exert control over the independent-minded Cossacks. While the early uprisings were against the Commonwealth, as the Russian Empire gained increasing and then total control over the Ruthenian (Ukrainian) lands where the Cossacks lived, the target of Cossacks uprisings changed as well. The origins of the first Cossacks are disputed. Traditional historiography dates the emergence of Cossacks to the 14th to 15th centuries. Towards the end of the 15th century, the Ukrainian Cossacks formed the Zaporozhian Sich centered on the fortified Dnipro islands. Initially a vassal of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the increasing social and religious pressure from the Commonwealth sparked a series of uprisings, and the proclamation of an independent Cossack Hetmanate, culminating in a rebellion under Bohdan Khmelnytsky in the mid-17th century. While the Cossacks were useful to the Polish-Lithuanian states in the war periods, they proved to be more problematic in the peacetime, due to their raids on the Commonwealth neighbours (primarily, the Ottoman Empire and its allies). Further, the Polish nobility tried to assert control over the Cossack territories, turn them into feudal latifundia, limit the growth of the militant Cossacks, and even reverse it, by turning the Cossacks into serfs. Afterward the Khmelnytsky Uprising, the Treaty of Pereyaslav brought most of the Cossack Hetmanate under Russian control. The Zaporozhian Cossacks were not the only notable group of Cossacks; others included the Don Cossack Host, Dlobodsk Cossacks, Terek Cossacks and Yaik Cossacks. As the Tsardom of Muscovy took over the disputed Cossacks lands from the Poland–Lithuania, eventually all Cossacks came under the Russian rule, but the Tsarist and later Imperial government had only a limited control over the Cossacks. The Cossacks provided refuge for runaway serfs and bandits, and often mounted unauthorized raids and pirate expeditions against the Ottoman Empire. While the Cossack hosts in the Russian Empire served as buffer zones on its borders, the expansionist ambitions of the empire relied on ensuring control over the Cossacks, which caused tension with their traditional independent lifestyle. As the empire attempted to limit Cossacks autonomy in the 17th and 18th centuries, this resulted in rebellions led by Stenka Razin, Kondraty Bulavin and Yemelyan Pugachev. In extreme cases, whole Hosts could be dissolved, as was the fate of the Zaporozhian Sich in 1775. In this last phase of their history, the Cossacks lost most of their autonomy to the Russian state. Cossack uprisings, like the Cossack people themselves, have been portrayed variously in the Polish, Russian and Ukrainian historiographers.

In the 15th century a new martial society—the Cossacks (from the Turkic kazak, meaning “adventurer” or “free man”)—was beginning to evolve in Ukraine’s southern steppe frontier. The term was applied initially to venturesome men who entered the steppe seasonally for hunting, fishing, and the gathering of honey. Their numbers were continually augmented by peasants fleeing serfdom and adventurers from other social strata, including the nobility. Banding together for mutual protection, the Cossacks by the mid-16th century had developed a military organization of a peculiarly democratic kind, with a general assembly (rada) as the supreme authority and elected officers, including the commander in chief, or hetman. Their centre was the Sich, an armed camp in the lands of the lower Dnieper “beyond the rapids” (za porohy)—hence, Zaporozhia (in contemporary usage, Zaporizhzhya). The Cossacks defended Ukraine’s frontier population from Tatar incursions, conducted their own campaigns into Crimean territory, and, in their flotillas of light craft, even raided Turkish coastal cities in Anatolia. The Polish government found the Cossacks a useful fighting force in wars with the Tatars, Turks, and Muscovites but in peacetime viewed them as a dangerously volatile element. Attempts to control them institutionally and to limit their numbers through an official register created serious discontent among the Cossacks, who increasingly perceived themselves as forming a distinct estate with inherent rights and liberties. Sporadically over a half century starting in 1591, the Cossacks rose up in revolts that were put down only with great difficulty.

In the first half of the 17th century, the Cossacks also became involved in the raging religious conflict. In 1620 the entire Zaporozhian host joined the Kyivan Orthodox brotherhood; in the same year, a new Orthodox hierarchy was consecrated in Kyiv under their military protection. Thus, in the great religious divide, the Cossacks became identified with staunch support of Orthodoxy and uncompromising opposition to the Uniate church. Under the protection afforded by the Cossacks and the dynamic leadership of a new metropolitan of Kyiv, Peter Mogila (Ukrainian: Petro Mohyla), Orthodoxy flourished in Ukraine; it became the driving force behind a cultural revival that included the establishment of the Kyivan Mohyla Academy, the first Ukrainian institution of higher learning.

The term “cossacks” is used to describe a class of 17th century Ukrainians, largely peasants, who separated from the burdens of traditional peasant life to form rebel communities at the furthest reaches of Polish-controlled territory. Ukrainians view them as exemplars of their unique national spirit: heroic, non-conformist, and fiercely independent, defending Ukrainian national sovereignty from all enemies. But for Jews, Cossacks are symbols of fear and hatred, the perpetrators of centuries of brutal pogroms. The Ukrainian term kozak is derived from the Turkic word kazak, meaning “free man.” Living on the fringe of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Cossacks developed communities that valued freedom above all else and owed allegiance to no political power. They launched frequent raids on neighboring Tatar communities, sometimes to rescue captives from the slave traders, and attacked Polish authorities in at least eight smaller but bloody conflicts before the middle of the 17th century. With their characteristic kokhol-style partially shaved heads, walrus mustaches and baggy pants, they created an iconic image of the Ukrainian spirit, refusing to bow before any authority. The Cossacks were unified in the middle of the 17th century by Bohdan Khmelnytsky, a military commander who launched a major attack against three enemies: Polish landowners controlling Ukrainian territories, Ukrainians who had abandoned Orthodox Christianity to join the Roman Catholic church — and Jews. Of the three, Polish landowners were furthest away to the north, followed by Ukrainian Catholics concentrated in the western reaches of what is today Ukraine. But Jews were right at hand, and consequently suffered brutal attacks in Khmelnytsky’s war between 1648-49. Why the Jews? They occupied an especially unfortunate position in the triangular economy of Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews. Although a small Jewish presence in Ukraine dated back centuries, a growing number of western European Jews had been migrating there since the 13th century, fleeing antisemitic pressures like the Blood Libel and numerous expulsions. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth represented new opportunities for Jewish migrants, many of whom came with vital skills of literacy and numeracy, because the Polish nobility owned huge tracts of land in Ukraine and they needed able administrators to manage the properties.

The Zaporozhian Cossacks were frontiersmen who organized themselves in a self-governing centre at modern Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine, first to resist Tatar raids and then to plunder as far away as Constantinople (modern Istanbul). Their prowess was recognized by Sigismund Augustus and Báthory, who “registered” a number of Cossacks for military duty. Other Cossacks and all those diverse groups of settlers or tenants whom the lords tried to turn into serfs coveted this privileged status. Even small nobles and burghers resented the heavy-handed behaviour of the “little kings,” who were bent on realizing maximum profits and employing Jews as middlemen and overseers. Growing socioeconomic antagonisms combined with religious tensions. In the Polish-Turkish war of 1620–21, the victory in the Battle of Chocim had been largely due to the participation of some 40,000 Zaporozhian Cossacks, whom Petro Konashevych-Sahaydachny had brought to aid the Poles. Nonetheless, some 12 years later Cossack demands to be placed on an equal footing with the szlachta were contemptuously rejected by the Sejm. The king and the magnates needed the Cossacks in wartime but feared them as an unruly and seditious group that was embroiling the Commonwealth in hostilities with Turkey and the Tatars. Complaints about the enlargement of the military register and about mistreatment led to several Cossack uprisings. After the rebellion of 1638 was put down by Polish troops, Cossack privileges were greatly curtailed. The undertaking of an anti-Turkish crusade opened new vistas. There was talk of massive Cossack participation, provided that some 20,000 men be “registered,” social grievances redressed, and a military border free of Polish troops established. Whatever the exact encouragements proffered by Władysław IV, the Sejm and the szlachta were adamantly opposed and frightened lest the king use the Cossacks for his own ends.