The Zaporozhian Cossacks or Zaporizhian Cossacks, also known as the Zaporozhian Cossack Army or the Zaporozhian Host,Письмо запорожцев турецкому султану. — Русская старина за 1872 г., т. VI, с. 450—451. — Текст по двум спискам: сборнику XVIII века, сообщённому А. А. Шишковым, и списанный Н. И. Бахтиным из бумаг московского архива и сообщенный Н. Н. Селифонтовым. Ответ запорожцев по списку Н. И. Костомарова. were Cossacks who lived beyond (that is, downstream from) the Dnieper Rapids.Ostapchuk, Victor. The Zaporozhian Cossacks and the Dnipro River Refugium., in Bernhardt, Johannes C., Markus Koller, and Achim Lichtenberger (Eds.), Mediterranean Rivers in Global Perspective. Leiden, Netherlands: Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2019, pp. 273–302. ISBN 978-3-506-78636-4 They were predominantly Ruthenians, but also included other ethnic groups (most notably their kish otaman Ivan Sirko was of Moldavian origin). Scientific studies conducted on the Zaporozhian Cossack genetics show that their Y-chromosomal genetic makeup forms the southern fragment of East Slavic population, with minimal levels to absence of Caucasian and Asian component in their paternal gene pool. Along with Registered Cossacks and Sloboda Cossacks, Zaporozhian Cossacks played an important role in the history of Ukraine and the ethnogenesis of Ukrainians.
The Zaporozhian Sich grew rapidly in the 15th century from serfs fleeing the more controlled parts of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The least controlled region, that was located between the Dniester and mid-Volga was first known from the 15th century as the Wild Fields, which was subject to colonization by the Zaporozhian Cossacks.Shcherbak, V. "Wild Field (ДИКЕ ПОЛЕ)". Encyclopedia of History of Ukraine. 2004 Zaporozhian Host became established as a well-respected political entity with a parliamentary system of government. During the course of the 16th, 17th and well into the 18th century, the Zaporozhian Cossacks were a strong political and military force that challenged the authority of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Tsardom of Russia, and the Crimean Khanate.
The host went through a series of conflicts and alliances involving the three powers, including supporting an uprising in the 18th century. Their leader signed a treaty with the Russians. This group was forcibly disbanded in the late 18th century by the Russian Empire, with much of the population relocated to the Kuban region on the south edge of the Russian Empire, while others founded cities in southern Ukraine and eventually became state peasants. The Cossacks served a valuable role of conquering the Caucasian tribes and in return enjoyed considerable freedom granted by the Tsars.
Etymology The name comes from the location of their fortress, the Sich, in ( "land beyond the rapids"), from Ukrainian "beyond" and "rapids".
As for Cossacks, Max Vasmer's etymological dictionary traces the name to the Tatar Turkic word , , in which cosac meant 'free man' but also 'conqueror'.For a detailed analysis, see The ethnonym Kazakh is from the same Turkic root. In written sources, the name is first attested in the Codex Cumanicus from the 13th century. In English, Cossack is first attested in 1590. Combined, Zaporizhian Cossacks may thus be understood as "the free people from the land beyond the rapids".
Origins
It is not clear when the first Cossack communities on the Lower Dnieper began to form. There are signs and stories of similar people living in the Eurasian Steppe as early as the 12th century. At that time they were not called Cossacks, since cossack is a word that also in Turkic language means a "free man" which shares its etymology with the ethnonym "Kazakh". It later became a Ruthenian (Middle Ukrainian) and Muscovite (Middle Russian) word for "freebooter." The steppes to the north of the Black Sea were inhabited by nomadic tribes such as the Cumans, Pechenegs and Khazars. The role of these tribes in the ethnogenesis of the Cossacks is disputed, although later Cossack sources claimed a Slavicised Khazar ancestry.
There were also groups of people who fled into these wild steppes from the cultivated lands of Kievan Rus' in order to escape oppression or criminal pursuit. Their lifestyle largely resembled that of the people now called Cossacks. They survived chiefly from hunting and fishing and raiding Asiatic tribes for horses and food, but they also mixed with these nomads as well adopting a lot of their cultural traits. In the 16th century, a great organizer, Dmytro Vyshnevetsky, a Ruthenian noble from Ukraine, united these different groups into a strong military organization.
The Zaporozhian Cossacks had various social and ethnic origins but were predominantly made up of escaped serfs who preferred the dangerous freedom of the wild steppes, rather than life under the rule of Polish (or Polonised) aristocrats. However, townspeople, lesser noblemen and even Crimean Tatars also became part of the Cossack host. They had to accept Eastern Orthodoxy as their religion and adopt its rituals and prayers.
The nomadic hypothesis was that the Cossacks came from one or more nomadic peoples who at different times lived in the territory of the Northern Black Sea. According to this hypothesis the Cossacks' ancestors were the Scythians, Sarmatians, Khazars, Polovtsy (Cumans), Circassians (Adygs), Tatars, and others. The nomadic hypothesis of the origin of the Cossacks was formed under the influence of the Polish historical school of the 16th–17th centuries and was connected with the theory of the Sarmatian origin of the gentry. According to the tradition of deriving the origin of the state or people from a certain people of antiquity, the Cossack chroniclers of the 18th century advocated the Khazar origin of the Cossacks. In the 20th century, the Russian scientist Gumilyov was an apologist for the Polovtsian origin of the Cossacks.
Within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
In the 16th century, with the dominance of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth extending south, the Zaporozhian Cossacks were mostly, if tentatively, regarded by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as their subjects. Registered Cossacks were a part of the Commonwealth army until 1699.
Around the end of the 16th century, relations between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire, which were not cordial to begin with, were further strained by increasing Cossack aggression. From the second part of the 16th century, the Cossacks started raiding Ottoman territories. The Polish government could not control the fiercely independent Cossacks but, since they were nominally subjects of the Commonwealth, it was held responsible for raids by their victims. Reciprocally, the Tatars living under the Ottoman rule launched raids in the Commonwealth, mostly in the sparsely inhabited south-east territories of Ukraine. Cossacks, however, were raiding wealthy merchant port cities in the heart of the Ottoman Empire, which were just two days away by boat from the mouth of the Dnieper River.
Consecutive treaties between the Ottoman Empire and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth called for both parties to keep the Cossacks and Tatars in check, but enforcement was almost non-existent on both sides. In internal agreements, forced by the Poles, the Cossacks agreed to burn their boats and stop raiding. However, boats could be rebuilt quickly, and the Cossack lifestyle glorified raids and looting.
During this time, the Habsburg monarchy sometimes covertly employed Cossack raiders to ease Ottoman pressure on their own borders. Many Cossacks and Tatars shared an animosity towards each other due to the damage done by raids from both sides. Cossack raids followed by Tatar retaliation, or Tatar raids followed by Cossack retaliation, were an almost regular occurrence. The ensuing chaos and string of conflicts often turned the entire south-eastern Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth border into a low-intensity war zone and led to an escalation of Commonwealth–Ottoman warfare, from the Moldavian Magnate Wars to the Battle of Cecora (1620) and wars in 1633–34.
Cossack numbers expanded, with Ukrainian peasants running from serfdom in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Attempts by the szlachta to turn the Zaporozhian Cossacks into serfs eroded the Cossacks' once fairly strong loyalty towards the Commonwealth. Cossack ambitions to be recognized as equal to the szlachta were constantly rebuffed, and plans for transforming the Polish–Lithuanian Two-Nations Commonwealth into a Polish–Lithuanian–Ruthenian Commonwealth (with the Ukrainian Cossack people) made little progress, owing to the Cossacks' unpopularity. The Cossacks' strong historic allegiance to the Eastern Orthodox Church put them at odds with the Catholic-dominated Commonwealth. Tensions increased when Commonwealth policies turned from relative tolerance to the suppression of the Orthodox church, making the Cossacks strongly anti-Catholic, which at that time was synonymous with anti-Polish.
The waning loyalty of the Cossacks and the szlachta's arrogance towards them resulted in several Cossack uprisings against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the early 17th century. Finally, the King's adamant refusal to bow to the Cossacks' demand to expand the Cossack Registry was the last straw that prompted the largest and most successful of these: the Khmelnytsky Uprising, which started in 1648. The uprising became one of a series of catastrophic events known as the Deluge, which greatly weakened the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and set the stage for its disintegration one hundred years later. Even though Poland probably had the best cavalry in Europe, their infantry was weak. Since Poland recruited most of its infantry from Ukraine, once this became free from Polish rule, the army of the Commonwealth suffered greatly.
The Koliivshchyna was a major haydamak rebellion that broke out in right-bank Ukraine in June 1768. It was caused by the dissatisfaction of peasants and Cossacks with the treatment of Orthodox Christians by the Bar Confederation. Zaporozhian Cossack Maksym Zalizniak was one of the leaders of the rebellion.
Organization
The Zaporozhian Host as a military-political establishment developed based upon unique traditions and customs called the Cossack Code, which was formed mostly among the cossacks of Zaporozhian Host over decades. The host had its own military and territorially administrative division: 38 kurins (sotnia) and five to eight palankas (territorial districts) as well as an original system of administration with three levels: military leaders, military officials, leaders of march and palankas. All officership (military starshyna) was elected by the General Military Council for a year on 1 January. Based on the same customs and traditions the rights and duties of officers were explicitly codified. The Zaporozhian Host developed an original judicial system, at the base of which lay the customary Cossack Code. The norms of the code were affirmed by those social relations that have developed among cossacks. Some sources refer to the Zaporozhian Sich as a "cossack republic", as the highest power in it belonged to the assembly of all its members, and because its leaders (starshina) were elected.