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History of the Cossacks

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History of the Cossacks
Ilya Repin · Public domain

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Early history

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 (Dnieper 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.

Cossacks were mainly East Slavs. In the 15th century, the term originally described semi-independent Tatar groups which lived on the Dnieper River, which flows through Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus.

Some historians suggest that the Cossack people had mixed ethnic origins, descending from Russians, Khazars, Ukrainians, Tatars, and others who settled or passed through the boundless Pontic–Caspian steppeland that stretches from central Asia to southeastern Europe.

Some Turkologists argue that Cumania's Cossacks descend from Kipchaks, who partly originated near the northern Chinese borders and soon moved to Western Siberia. Afterwards they migrated further west into the trans-Volga region (present-day western Kazakhstan). In the 11th century they finally arrived in the steppe area north of the Black Sea in southern Russia and eastern Ukraine. They are closely related to modern Kazakhs.

Genetic studies conducted on Zaporozhian, Don and Kuban Cossack groups showed low levels to absence of Caucasian and Asian component. Y-chromosomal genetic makeup of these groups forms southern fragment of East Slavic population.

Early Russian military greatly admired Cossacks for their equestrian skills. Many were hired as cavalry by Russian and Ukrainian warlords, in much the same way that they hired Black Klobuks as personal guards.

After 1400, the Cossacks emerge as an established and identifiable group in historical accounts. Rulers of the Grand Duchy of Moscow and of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth employed Cossacks as mobile guards against Tatar raids from the south in the territories of present-day southern Russia and eastern Ukraine. Judging by the records of their names, these early Cossacks seem to have included a significant number of Tatar descendants. From the mid-15th century, Cossacks are mostly mentioned with Slavic names.

All historical records of that period describe Cossack society as a loose federation of independent communities, often merging into larger units of a military character, entirely separate from, and mostly independent of other nations (such as Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, or the Tatars).

In the 16th century, Cossack societies created two relatively independent territorial organisations:

  • Zaporizhia, on the lower bends of the river Dnieper in Ukraine, between Russia, Poland, and the Tatars of the Crimea, with their centre as the Zaporozhian Sich
  • the Don Cossack State, on the river Don, separated from the Russian state by rebel Nogai and Tatar tribes.

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