Cossacks
It is difficult to find a topic in the history of Ukraine with so many publications, studies, monographs than the topic of the history of the Cossacks. Experts still do not agree on where the word "Cossack" came from, although in ancient epics it was called the Russian hero Ilya Muromets. Cossacks are free people. They came from the lords, from oppression in the wild steppes of the Dnieper, gathering in flocks on the Dnieper rapids. Hence the name - the Cossacks.
The Cossacks played one of the leading roles in the historical process of Ukraine during the XV-XX centuries. The Cossacks are a military-political structure that had taken under its protection the Orthodox population of Ukrainian lands from the attacks of the Crimean Tatar and Turkish hordes and feudal pressure of Poland and Lithuania states. From the end of the XV century in the Ukrainian lands and border with these states spread the name "Cossack". Zaporozhye Cossacks were formed from different categories of the population of Ukrainian lands that "did not fit" into the feudal structure of the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and later the Commonwealth: peasants, burghers, petty gentry and others.
Theories of the ethnic origins of the Cossacks, no doubt, expand ideas about the prehistory of the Cossacks, however, guided only by them, it is difficult to explain the reason for its appearance in connection with the course of the history of the Ukrainian people. It is also not possible to reduce the genesis of the Cossacks only to the flight of peasants from feudal oppression, and vice versa - to underestimate this pan-European process.
The fortified camp became the center of the Zaporozhian Cossacks on one of the islands beyond the Dnieper - the Zaporozhye Sich. The Zaporozhian Cossacks elected a commander - the hetman of the Zaporozhian Sich. After 1648 this was Bohdan Khmelnytsky, laying down the foundations of Ukrainian statehood, who came to be called the "Hetman of Ukraine". Zaporizhzhya Sich - military and administrative center of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, which existed on the banks of the Dnieper since the middle of the 16th century. until 1775. The formation of the Zaporozhian Sich is connected with the process of formation of the Ukrainian Cossacks and their development of the Ukrainian lands between the Dnieper and the Southern Bug previously devastated by the Tatars.
The very word "Sich" meant the capital of all the Zaporozhian Cossacks, the center of activity and management of all military affairs, the residence of all the chief officers who headed the grassroots Cossacks. During its more than two hundred years of existence the Zaporozhian Cossacks successively changed eight Sich: Khortytska, Bazavlutska, Tomakivska, Mykytynska, Chortomlytska, Oleshkivska, Kamyanska, and Nova, or Pidpilnenska. The reasons for moving the Sich from one place to another were partly greater conveniences for living in one area compared to another, partly strategic considerations, partly purely random phenomena, such as: lack of water, small area, epidemics and more.
Zaporizhzhya Sich is a kind of military-political entity that emerged in the southern lands of Ukraine, and continued to be the most characteristic manifestation of the military culture of the Ukrainian nation. Such elements of chivalry as the family principle of organization, brotherhood, equality, and democracy were combined with the Western world of the Cossacks; moral and ethical code of conduct of a Sich soldier - courage, bravery, loyalty, honor, goodwill, the struggle against the enemies of the faith, the defense of the fatherland; specific attitude towards women, asceticism, religiosity, etc. The Cossacks were self-aware of being free people, whose way of life was determined by military craft and belonging to the military community.
In the late XVI - early XVII centuries the Cossacks come into the political arena, loudly declaring Cossack wars. Their consequence was awareness of Cossacks themselves as a separate layer in the Ukrainian society; the role and significance it played in destinythe Ukrainian people; their strength to be weighed as subjects of international politics at that time. In this regard, recall the participation of the Cossacks in the so-called Russian Troubles of the early XVII century, Thirty Years' War (1618-1648 years.) in Europe, the Polish-Turkish wars of the 1620s. The Cossacks made a series of land and sea campaignsin the Moldavian principality, the Crimean Khanate, and the Ottoman Empire.
The Cossacks never knew serfdom. They were a were free people, whose only duty was to protect the southern borders. The need for them for the empire disappeared when Russia came to the shores of the Black Sea and the "nest of arbitrariness", as the Zaporozhian Cossacks were called Empress Catherine II, by her order, was destroyed in late May 1775.
The revival of the Cossacks began in the late 90's of the twentieth century: in Zaporozhye, almost simultaneously, such organizations as the "Cossack Brotherhood", "Cossack Freedom", "Cossack Kish". In December 1991, the First United Council adopted a resolution on the establishment of the society "Zaporozhye Sich", the main directions of which were the spiritual revival, propaganda of the Cossack idea, Cossack traditions.
In 1994, the Zaporizhzhya Lowland Army separated from the society. The Cossacks set the following goals: military and patriotic education of youth, targeted training for military service, protection of public order, development of the Cossack economy, propaganda of the Cossack idea and way of life. Jury schools (ie young Cossacks) have been working in this way for a long time. Over time, in 1996, on the basis of the Zaporizhzhya Lowland Army, the Union of Cossacks of Ukraine was formed, which already includes representatives of 16 regions of Ukraine.
In addition, in Ukraine on the Day of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary - October 14 - the Day of the Ukrainian Cossacks is celebrated. October 14 is a special day for Ukrainians. It combines three important reasons to consider it festive: religious, state, ideological. Thus, October 14 is the Day of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary , who has long been the patron saint of the Ukrainian Cossacks and all Ukrainian armed groups. This day marks the Day of the Ukrainian Cossacks and the anniversary of the UPA, and it is also the Day of the Defender of Ukraine.
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