“The whole history of Russia was made by the Cossacks.
It’s not for nothing that the Europeans call us Cossacks.”
Leo Tolstoy
“A happy commander has Cossacks. If I had an army of some Cossacks, I would subdue all of Europe.... We need to give justice to the Cossacks, - it was they who brought the success of Russia in this campaign. Cossacks are the best light troops among all existing ones. If I had them in my army, I would have passed with them the whole world.”
Napoleon
Czarist Russian Cossacks
The Turko-Tartar word from which Cossack is derived means “free adventurer”. Cossacks apparently descended from Tartars, Turks, Russians, Ukrainians and any number of other peoples who passed through or settled the traditional southern invasion route from Asia to Europe. Cossacks were originally groups of Slavic peasants, misfits and adventurers who migrated to the borders to escape the heavy hand of governments, serf owners and tax collectors. It is difficult to generalize about their past, as they have been freemen, oppressive tools of an oppressive czar, gallant warriors, earthy libertines, pioneer adventurers, ruthless conquerors, champions of downtrodden serfs, infamous plunderers, defenders of the faith, leaders of every significant revolt against the czars from 1600 to 1800, light cavalrymen, pirates, fishermen, trappers, herdsmen and farmers.
In the 19th Century, in all Europe, the notion existed that the Cossacks were something like a Deus ex machinâ, emerging from space at the moment requisite to put a stop to the triumphs of Napoleon I, to drive back to their respective homes the motley array of the twenty nations he brought into Russia, to pitch their tents in the Champs Elysées, to put all things right in Paris, and then to vanish once more into space, where, for more than four centuries, Europe had never so much as perceived their existence.
Different classes ran away, not contented and not reconciled with the authorities. They fled to war, to Cossack democracy, artisans, peasants, noblemen, warriors, robbers, thieves, all who waited for Russia in Russia, all who are tired of living in peace, all who had a riot in their blood fled. It was they who replenished the Cossacks. This is true, a significant part of the Cossacks was formed in this way.
The invasion of the Tartars in the middle of the thirteenth century took place when Russia was torn asunder by two kindred and yet hostile branches of the house of Rurick: the younger branch had settled in the northern (at the present time the middle) part of the country; the elder, after many struggles and reverses, had succeeded in regaining its inheritance, the ancient metropolis Kieff, and the whole of the southern principalities. Both branches bore a revengeful remembrance of their mutual feuds, and while the elder viewed with jealousy the gradual rise of the northern princes, the latter envied the firm grasp with which the southern princes clutched their long disputed sway. Hence it came that, when hordes of Tartars overran the northern principalities, the princes of the South lent no ear to the entreaties of their northern brethren for help. Hence, also, the reason of these latter remaining inert and submissive to their recent conquerors, the Tartars, when those conquerors laid waste the fertile territories which extended along the south of Russia.
Soon afterwards, the trans-Carpathian parts of Russia, Red Russia, i.e., Galicia, Lodomeria, &c., ceased to be any longer accounted as forming part of Russia. The marshy tracts of land to the east of Poland, White Russia, formed a new and distinct power, Lithuania, soon destined to merge into Poland. The north of Russia, Great Russia, had yet two centuries more to endure the yoke of the Tartars. At this time Southern or Little Russia, called also Ukraine (i.e., the borders), gave birth to a new people, the Cossacks.
The princes of Southern Russia had forsaken their subjects, and gone into Lithuania to seek for a less disturbed dominion than that over a country exposed to the incessant depredations of the Crimean Tartars, and converted into the battle-field of these Tartars with the Russians and the Poles. Their subjects were thus left behind without anybody to look to for protection, or for guidance, in defence of their homes, and revenge for their country being annually wasted by fire and sword by their Crimean neighbours. Reduced to despair at seeing their homes burnt to ashes, their wives and children carried away by those savage invaders, to suffer all the consequences of their rude slavery, these men, to speak in the words of Gogol, “Left orphans, and seeing their country left like a widow after the loss of a mighty husband, held out their hands to one another to be brothers,” and this brotherhood gave rise to the Cossacks, whose name for a Russian, even to this day, embodies every idea of the utmost freedom [“Free as a Cossack” is a common phrase in Russia.], and who ever since had been ready to fight at the first notice of their country or of their faith being in danger.
At first, they sought a refuge in the wooded islands of the Dnieper, amidst the rapids of this river, and, no doubt, first dwelt under the canopy of heaven amidst the trunks of the trees which they felled for building their huts. This may, perhaps, account for the community assuming the name of Zaporoghian Siecha, a name which has become inseparable from the idea of fight and slaughter, of deeds of valour and of cruelty. Zaporoghian means “ beyond the rapids.” Siecha has two meanings: first, a place in a forest where trees have been cut down; secondly, a slaughter, the thickest of a fight.
Having no means of livelihood, they, of course, resolved to procure them at the expense of those by whom they were brought to this desperate situation. They had learnt from their own experience that a good sabre was more to be depended upon than a plough, and that labour and industry were of no avail at such times when everything at any moment might be taken by him who dealt the heavier blow. As all who have seen the worst of miseries, and have nothing to lose in the world, whose life is one of incessant peril, they knew no fear—for them death had lost its horrors. No women were permitted to dwell amongst them; no tears were shed in memory of those who fell in battle or were led away captive; but their exploits were repeatedly sung in the Cossacks' circles, and excited revenge in the hearts of the older, emulation in the hearts of the younger.
In a community thus formed, no laws could be enforced, no regular partition into regiments, companies, &c., could take place. They chose for their chief some one amongst themselves, whose hand had been seen to deal the heaviest blows in battle, whose hair had blanched amidst warlike exploits, and who had become remarkable for his daring and his cunning in their unsophisticated mode of warfare. To this chief they gave the title of Ataman (a rank preserved amongst the Russian irregular troops and signifying chief) a title quite different from that of hetman, who was the elective prince of Little Russia. The last who bore the title of hetman was the favourite and supposed husband of the Empress Elizabeth, Count Razumoffsky. Count Platoff, who led the Cossacks in the war against Napoleon I is miscalled hetman by foreigners : he was in fact only ataman.
Eventually with the increase in numbers of their community, they divided themselves into koorens, [Kooren is derived from a word signifying "to smoke." It designated the abode of a company whose fires smoked in common, and who had one common store of provisions] each of which chose for itself a koorennoë ataman, subordinate to the Ataman of the Ssiecha, who was called Koschevoï Ataman; to the latter (very often an illiterate man) a writer or secretary, a judge, and some other officers for transacting the public business of the Ssiecha, were appointed. But these dignitaries held their offices only as long as it pleased their electors; at the first summons of any drunken fellow who chose to beat the kettle-drum in the public square of the Ssiecha, and bring a complaint against the Ataman before the Rada (i.e., the whole assembled Ssiecha), the Ataman and his colleagues were sure to be deposed and new ones elected in their stead. Not so during a campaign: then the Koschevoï Ataman assumed dictatorial power, decreed death and granted life at his pleasure, and nobody, under pain of death, might resist his commands or bring a complaint against him till the return to the Siecha.
At the end of the XIV - beginning of the XV century, on the eastern border of the Moscow state, a line of fortified cities was formed, inhabited by the so-called. "City" Cossacks, who constituted a special class of service people who carried out border service. People of all classes were accepted into the Cossacks and, receiving land for their use, were exempted from taxes; sometimes they received a special salary, but were obliged to have a horse and weapons at their own expense. For the first time such Cossacks are mentioned in the Ryazan principality in 1444.
Beginning in the 1400s, Russian-speaking Cossacks appear regularly in the chronicles of the day, normally in connection with border security. With the collapse of the Golden Horde and the decline of other hordes, the southern and southeastern borderlands of Russia and the Ukraine were fortified to prevent Tartar incursions. These fortifications were anchored on the Dnieper, Don and Yaik (Ural) rivers. The vast expanses between the forts were patrolled by mobile Cossack guard detachments.
Under Ivan the Terrible, the Cossacks passed into the department of the Streltsy order and made up a special branch of the army; in 1571, in addition to the "city" Cossacks, who were obliged to defend the cities, there were "sentry" Cossacks, who received a special salary and were controlled by their atamans (sometimes by archery heads), but subordinate to the city governors.
After Yermak, with the help of the "city" Cossacks, the consolidation of Siberia for Moscow was completed. Under Alexei Mikhailovich, there were up to 5 thousand "city" Cossacks; By this time, Little Russian immigrants, called "Cherkasy", were already in the "Ukrainian" service. Gradually, the "urban" Cossacks merged with other service people of the Moscow State - nobles, boyar children, archers, reiters.
By the end of the XVII century, "City" Cossacks remain only in Siberia, but in the former advanced cities - Chuguev, Tor, Mayak, Novokhopersk and in various places in the Volga region. They are gradually being replaced by the "free" Cossacks, formed by the beginning of the 16th century from natives of the Moscow and Polish-Lithuanian states and inhabiting the border steppe spaces, mainly along the waterways to the Black and Caspian Seas - along the rivers Dnieper, Don, Volga, Yaik, Terek and their tributaries.
Cossacks were a mixed blessing for Russia's rulers. They provided a buffer between Russia, the Ukraine and Türkiye and were a source of inexpensive warriors and good light cavalry; however, their lack of discipline and propensity to loot during vital phases of the battle limited their value. Further, during the 17th and 18th centuries, Cossacks led or supported every revolt against the throne. Bogdan Khmel'nitskiy, Stenka Razin, Kondrati Bulavin and Yemelyan Pugachev all led major Cossack-backed revolts that threatened to topple the throne. This persuaded Peter the Great and Catherine the Great to launch campaigns that would eventually bring the Cossacks to heel.
Moscow was not yet strong enough to subjugate the "free" Cossacks, and therefore was forced to condescendingly look at their arbitrariness and disobedience, especially since Moscow itself needed the Cossacks. On the other hand, the Cossacks, not wanting to give up their freedom, nevertheless, were aware of their connection with Russia, considered themselves Russian both by blood and by religion, and therefore only in rare cases turned their weapons against Russia. Usually, however, it honorably accepted the royal ambassadors and the royal salary for services and service, which it never refused, was guided by the instructions and advice of Moscow in matters of fighting the Tatars and Turks. Although the Muscovite state already from the middle of the XVI century. and tried to curb the willfulness of the Cossacks, but only in the 2nd half of the 17th century, with the strengthening of state power in Russia.
When the Siecha had attained this degree of development, the kings of Poland, who, at the instigation of the Jesuits, had endeavoured to enforce upon Little Russia the tenets of Popery under the disguise of the so-called Union, had already, under show of protection, garrisoned the most important cities of this country with Polish troops, and sought (though always unavailingly) to make its elective chief or prince, the hetman, a delegate of their power and a mere tool of their pleasure. Consequently, the jealousy of the Cossacks (for this name had been assumed by the inhabitants of all Ukraine) was already aroused against the Poles, but when they saw the haughty Polish lords treat their religion with contempt, shut up their churches, and give the keys to Jews, who levied taxes on each baptism, marriage, or burial: then was it that the whole of the Little Russians, summoning their brethren of the Zaporoghian Siecha to their help, began those wars with Poland which continued uninterrupted till the middle of the seventeenth century.
The history of those wars, on the part of the Poles, is but a repetition of the horrors perpetrated by the Spaniards in the New World, by the Inquisition in Spain, &c., in a word, by savage fanaticism everywhere when led by the priests of Rome. On the part of the Cossacks the reprisals were not less terrible, although the latter, while exterminating every Pole, male or female,'young or old, put them to immediate death by the sword, fire, or water, and never attained the Popish refinements of torturing their prisoners, of flaying them alive, boiling them in oil, roasting them in brazen oxen, &c.
The Zaporoghians, who had parted from their brethren, when these latter had submitted to the Poles, united themselves again to those brethren, now once more free, now once more Cossacks, and from this time the existence of the Ssiecha as a separate community seems to have ceased; it became incorporated in Little Russia and remained nothing more than a standing encampment of Cossacks, ever ready at the command of the hetman of Little Russia. With Little Russia, it submitted itself to its co-religionary Russian Czar Alexis (1654), and, with Little Russia, it remained true to the Emperor Peter I when on the field of Poltava (1709). Hetman Mazeppa proved traitor to him.
But by degrees, as the civilization of Western Europe spread in Russia, and a more regular mode of administration was enforced in Little Russia, the Zaporoghian Cossacks began to grow disaffected. At last, when Catherine II annexed to her empire the kingdom of Poland, and achieved the conquest of the Crimea and all the north-western part of the sea-board of the Black Sea, the Ssiecha had no longer any reason to prolong its existence, as it lost its position of an outpost against the foes of the country, and became surrounded by Russian possessions. Some of the Zaporoghians were loth to submit to the legislature and administration which the Czarina framed for her empire. Headed by their Ataman Nekrassoff, they fled to Türkiye, and the existence of the Siecha ceased with the sound of their horse hoofs dying away in the distance.
The Zaporoghian Cossacks had nothing in common with the Cossacks of the 19th Century. The latter formed a standing militia, living on their own lands situated on the southern and eastern borders of Russia. They are bound to maintain at their own cost a fixed number of regiments of horse and foot, and are governed by their respective atamans. The principal of these Cossacks are, those of the Don, whose ataman was the renowned Platoff; those of the Black Sea (Czernomortzy); of the Caucasus ; of Astrakhan ; of Orenburg; and of the Ural, one of whom was Poogachoff, the pseudo-Peter III; of Siberia; and a corps of the Trans-Baikalian Cossacks, having the guardianship of the Russian frontier towards China.
In 1671, the Don Cossacks for the first time took the oath of allegiance to the Russian Tsar, and by the end of the reign of Peter I, following the Don and Yaik Cossacks, who in 1721 passed into the department of the military college, the same fate befell the rest of the Cossack communities.
Cossack military colonies were moved to the very edges of the empire, and the loyalty of new Cossack hosts to the throne was assured through a system of watchful army officers and governors empowered to use any means to prevent further uprisings. This changed the fundamental relationship of the Cossacks to the czar. Previously answering only to their elders, Cossacks now were firmly controlled by the czar, becoming his tools and an extension of his might.
They were responsible for military service to the czar, with each Cossack furnishing his own uniforms, mount, saber, horse saddle and other equipment. The government furnished the Cossack with his rifle, but charged the host (army) for half the cost. Each able-bodied male Cossack was liable to military call for up to a 25-year term of service (later reduced to 20 and then 18 years).
Cossack forces and their families served on the far-flung frontiers of the expanding Russian Empire as military colonists, border guards and the first line of defense. In return, they were paid during their time of service and could also receive up to 30 desyatins (81 acres) of land. Cossack forces were used extensively to combat all of Russia's internal and external enemies. The history of Russian Siberia, Russian Central Asia, Russian Caucasia, Russian Crimea and the Russian Far East is basically a history of the Cossacks.
The Cossacks lived in Cossack towns (stanitsa), farms and garrisons. Military service began at age 18, when every able-bodied male enrolled into service. The first three years of service were spent in basic training, the first two years of which were conducted in the Cossack town while the last year was spent in a Cossack garrison training center. The youth's family had to arm and equip the fledgling warrior. Twelve years of active service and five years of reserve service followed this training period; however, of the 12 years of active service, only the first four were actually with the colors. The remaining two four-year periods, the soldier returned home and was called up for seasonal refresher training or emergency service. Thus, service with the colors was usually about five years in total.
Having subjugated the Cossacks to its power, the government begins to use them for the colonization of the newly conquered lands and for the protection of state borders, mainly the southern and eastern ones, forming for this purpose new Cossack troops, in which, due to the lack of natural Cossacks, it begins to include persons of other classes: retired soldiers, local residents, state peasants, exiles, etc. The Cossack population thus formed is gradually moving forward, expanding the state boundaries. In the middle of the XVIII century. Orenburg, Astrakhan and Volga Cossack troops were formed, and at the end of the same century - Yekaterinoslav, Black Sea and others. Throughout the 19th century some Cossack troops were reorganized, others were united and enlarged, others were divided, resettled and abolished.
Cossack forces earned a reputation as fierce irregulars during the Seven Years' War (1756-63); the War of 1812; the Crimean War (1853–56); the Russo-Turkish wars of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries; and World War I. In 1897, there were approximately 3.5 million Cossacks in the Russian Empire. By 1916, the Cossack population stood at 4.4 million and included 11 Cossack hosts— the Don, Kuban, Terek, Ural, Siberian, Amur, Semirecheniye, Astrakhan, Ussuri, Yenisei and forces of the Irkutsk and Yakutsk Cossacks. During the Great War, the hosts fielded 474,000 combatants and held title to 63 million desyatins (1.7 billion acres) of land.
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