Origins & history of the Cossacks (Kozaki) of Ukriane's steppes & Zaporozhye area along the Dneiper River.

Ukrainian Kozak History

For almost 300+ years the history of the middle and low Dnieper reaches was connected with the history of the Ukrainian Kozaki who came into being at the end of the 14th century in a bloody contest between the East and the West. From the very beginning of their existence they presented a willful force which neither Polish nor Turkish sovereigns were able to subjugate. They were born together with the people which being enslaved seeked to be free and struggled for that. Kozak or Cossack simply means free man.


The land situated near the Dnieper rapids had attracted people for a long time by then. The mighty Dnieper clad in stony rocks, a diverse animal and vegetable kingdom "....those were the characters of the land called ....Zaporozhye."


In the 15th century Ukrainian cities & villages inhabitants seeking to escape from the yoke of serfdom and feudal oppression began to run to the low reaches of the Dnieper and settle there. The fugitives called themselves kozaki, that is free people. Nothing but an age-long aspiration for being free made them abandon their dwellings and open up new lands, cultivate them by the sweat of their brow and defend them. The Kozaki fought constantly for their right to exist against Turkish & Tartar conquerors on the one hand along with the Polish gentry which had turned Ukraine into a Polish colony on the other.


It was the everpresent threat of attack that made the Kozaki build fortifications and defend their dwellings with arms in hand. The fugitives united into a military organization which was named Zaporozhskaya Sech. It united all the Kozaki garding the Zaporozhye land. The vast steppes of the now Dnipropetrovs’k region and partially other Ukrainian regions made up those lands on both Dnieper banks. The Kozaki built their fortifications in the islands and at low bosky places by rivers. "Oh, Mother Sech, Mother Sech And Father Great Meadow," sings an old Dnieper Kozaki's song. The left, gently sloping Dnieper Bank at the place where the Konka flows into the Dnieper often was these brave people's haven. It was called Great Meadow and glorified in songs. Kozaki built there their fortifications too. Some of these fortified camps became fortresses where the Dnieper Kozaki did their military duties & from which they set forth upon their raids of the nomads. Legends & contemporary evidence both mention in detail Kozaki fortifications in Chortitsa, Tomakovka, Bazavluk & Nikitinsky Rog as well as by the rivers Chertomlik & Podpolnaya. The Sech in Chortitsa island is within the bounds of modern Zaporozhye which came into existence as early as 1553-1557 is considered to be the first. And the last Podpolnenskaya or Novaya Sech was demolished by Katerina the Great's order in 1775.


Zaporozhskaya Sech existed as a unique phenomenon incarnated as a protest against oppression. It was a hotbed of the Ukrainian people's struggle against feudal & national oppression. Duting many ensuing decades Zaporozhskaya Sech was not only a military but also an administrative, an economic & a political center. Forced to defend themselves without aid or relief from anyone else and in view of the continuous threat of being devoured by the adjoining powers, the Ukrainians created an army of their own. This army was the Voisko Zaporozhshoe. Zaporozhskaya Sech had a peculiar political and administrative system described by Karl Marx as a "Kozaki Christian Republic" having inherent within it a traditional right, a distinct social structure, high morals & a set of respectful manners as well as a effective military philosophy & traditions. The Sech became the most important factor for forming the Ukrainian people by retaining & expanding its ethnic territory. Whoever came to Sech no matter what his origin or property statuses were was considered to be a free man & thus had the right to participate in the Voiskovaya Rada as well as the use of lands.


The Voiskovaya Rada which was convened to decide the most important questions was the highest power body. All Kozaki gathered in the central square. An drummer beat the kettledrum & its sound was the signal for the council's business to commence. All Kozaki present made a circle into which the starshina entered. The army's symbols, colors, maces, trophies of war, etc. were brought in with them as well. While the council was in session the starshina held their power symbols. The "hetman", the Kozak Chieftain held a mace, the judge,the stamp and the military clerk, an inkstand. They stood under the colors & bowed to all those present as a show of mutual respect. If the Kozaki were so inlcined they could demand that the starshina be changed. If this happened the starshina put down their caps & power symbols thus resigning their powers. At the end of the 16th century Zaporozhskaya Sech presented a harmonious military organization. The army was divided into regiments, sotni, Kozak squadrons & kurens, mobile units of Zaporozhian Kozaki troops. The army was led by the hetman. The army's office was run by the chief military clerk & the court, that is by the judge. The hetman's military assistants were esauls, Kozak Captains, Cornet (a junior officer equivalent to a lieutenant) in the Kozak cavalry and other ranks. It was these men who formed the starshina. From the very beginning Sech was not homogenous in its structure but was divided into rich Kozaki then into the rank and file members.

In their secular struggle against their enemies the Kozaki created a distinctive & highly effective military art. Severe life conditions along with the continuous threat of annihilation made for cultivating such moral and physical qualities as courage, endurance and quick wit. Kozaki endured easily hardships of military life, learned to be content with little. When waging war they ate dried crusts & fish-soup mixed with flour. Resolution and valor shown by them in battles excited even their enemies' admiration. G. S. de Boplan, a French historian of the second half of the 17th century, who has left a description of the Dnieper Kozaki traditions and mode of life. Prominently mentioned their wit & he made an effort to point out that they didn't seek riches and valued their freedom above all else.


The Kozaki were armed with all kinds of cold steel and fire-arms and wielded them with equal perfection. They highly esteemed the sabre calling it lovingly sabre-sister. It was suspended from the belt by leather straps. Battle axes, maces, spears & knives were widely used as well. Powder and bullets were kept in powder-flasks cut of wood or bone. In their battles with Crimean Tartars & Turkish janissaries, Kozaki often got rifles & pistols encrusted richly with ivory, silver, corals and mother-of-pearl. Now and then those valuable goods were brought by merchant-traders from Russia & Persia. Sech gunsmithes made guns & sabres. The powder invented by the Kozaki was known far beyong the bounds of Zaporozhye. A mounted Kozak was always armed with a lance. Apart from fighting the ingenious Dnieper Kozaki used them to make deckings in marshland.


The Famous Cossack Letter immortalized in the painting " Zaporozhian Cossacks of Ukraine Writing a Letter in Reply to the Sultan of Turkey" by Ilya Repin is a historical puzzle. We know that an insulting letter was actually written in the 1660s in answer to a letter from Sultan Mohammed IV of the Turkish Empire. However the question is was it actually composed as a historical document or was it only created as a piece of literature? Historians have taken both sides of this question.


Many are the variations of the letter but the main thrust of the letter is a parody of the Sultan's titles in a manner which shows cunning knowledge as well as subtle & stinging wit of what would be most insulting along with being most antagonistic to such a mighty ruler. The letter was probably originally composed in the 1660's. Ivan Sirko, circa. 1605-1680, a famous and fierce Ukrainian Kozak warrior, is reputed to be the signer of this letter. This letter is in reply to the Sultan's demand to the Kozaki of Ukraine to voluntarily accept Turkish rule.


The Ukrainian Cossacks did not make empty boasts when they wrote of battles on land and sea. The courageous Zaporozhians fought on several occasions to the gates of mighty Constantinople itself. These events were reported throughout Europe and even distant England and Holland took an interest in them.


The Dnieper Koazki were famous both for their courage as well as their comradeship and also for their constant willingness & readiness to rescue one another. Unwritten laws of brotherhood-in-arms did not let them leave a comrade in peril. To perish, sacrificing oneself for the common cause was considered a matter of honor. In the most critical moments their innate intelligence, mother-wit & experience acquired in the course of long years of battles came to their aid. They could approach an enemy secretly & attack him from a short distance, could make ambushes and lay snares and, if necessary, disappear as it dissolving in the steppe. Long grass, a bush, a tree, a reed hid steppe-comrades their pursuers could not find them. As an adage says: "Behind each cane we have a Kozak and 100 or 200 hundred of them in every ravine." A scanty Kozak detachment was able to repulse superior enemy forces erecting a fortified camp using carts chained together. Consummate military skill won the Kozaki the fame of a courageous and tireless army. Western sovereigns have turned to them for help more than once. Handling a sabre and an oar as well as a lance and a pole the Dnieper Kozaki each time managed to repulse those eager to rob and humiliate them not passing up a chance to revenge themselves on their offenders. His features, hand and dress' pleats show through the darkened paints. <"Oseledets", the single scalp lock, a warrier's pride, each hearcut being characteristic of Kozak veterans, rests on his left ear. The Kozaki's clothes are rather ordinary:

* a shirt

* sharovary - wide trousers

* zhupan - long tunic with waist-girdle

* Morocco boots

* a silk gay-coloured sash

* red-silk topped cap

That is how the people perpetuated their hero.


It is long ago that the last bloody battle ended and nowadays earth doesn't groan under innumerable hords, cries of slaves don't float over the steppe expanse. And those who saturated this earth with their blood defending it don’t exist anymore. But they stay live in people’s memory. It is in ancient relics, in a drawling song of a bandura player. The Kozaki are the heroes of Ukrainian history.


Sources:

The Cossacks; Longworth, P. New York 1969

The Commonwealth and the Cossacks in the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century, Serczyk, W.; Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 2, no. 1 (1978

History of Ukraine-Rus; Hrushevsky, M. , vols 7 & 8; Edmonton–Toronto 1999–2002


The Cossacks and Religion in Early Modern Ukraine; Plokhy, S. Oxford 2001

Tsars and Cossacks: A Study in Iconography; Plokhy, S.; Cambridge, Mass 2002

http://www.utoronto.ca/cius/bios/hrushevskybio.htm

http://www.infoukes.com

http://www.cossacks.kiev.ua

http://www.brama.com/ukraine/history

http://www.brama.com/ukraine/history/century16.html

http://www.eurofreehost.com/ko/Kozak.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Ukraine#The_Kozak_Era

http://www.ukrweekly.com

http://artiom.home.mindspring.com/cossacks/kazpesni.htm

http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/pages/C/O/Cossacks.htm


© Donald R. Houston, PhD 2007-2011