Īs the Grand Duchies of Moscow and Lithuania grew in power, new political entities appeared in the region. Some Turkologists, however, argue that Cossacks are descendants of the native Cumans of Ukraine, who had lived there long before the Mongol invasion. Some historians suggest that the Cossack people were of mixed ethnic origin, descending from East Slavs, Turks, Tatars, and others who settled or passed through the vast Steppe. In contrast, Slavic settlements in southern Ukraine started to appear relatively early during Cuman rule, with the earliest, such as Oleshky, dating back to the 11th century.Įarly "Proto-Cossack" groups are generally reported to have come into existence within what is now Ukraine in the 13th century as the influence of Cumans grew weaker, although some have ascribed their origins to as early as the mid-8th century. It is known that new settlers inherited a lifestyle that long pre-dated their presence, including that of the Turkic Cumans and the Circassian Kassaks. Their arrival was probably not before the 13th century, when the Mongols broke the power of the Cumans, who had assimilated the previous population on that territory. It is unclear when people other than the Brodnici and Berladnici (which had a Romanian origin with large Slavic influences) began to settle in the lower reaches of major rivers such as the Don and the Dnieper after the demise of the Khazar state. Map of the Wild Fields in the 17th century
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Cossack organizations operate in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus and the United States.
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Between 3.5 and 5 million people associate themselves with the Cossack cultural identity across the world. In the 2002 Russian census, 140,028 people declared Cossack ethnicity, while 67,573 people identified as Cossack in the 2010 census. During the 1990s, many regional authorities agreed to hand over some local administrative and policing duties to their Cossack hosts. In 1988, the Soviet Union passed a law allowing the re-establishment of former Cossack hosts and the formation of new ones. During the Perestroika era in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, descendants of Cossacks moved to revive their national traditions. Cohesive Cossack-based units were organized and fought for both Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II.Īfter World War II, the Soviet Union disbanded the Cossack units in the Soviet Army, and many of the Cossack traditions were suppressed during the years of rule under Joseph Stalin and his successors. The Cossack way of life persisted into the twentieth century, though the sweeping societal changes of the Russian Revolution disrupted Cossack society as much as any other part of Russia many Cossacks migrated to other parts of Europe following the establishment of the Soviet Union, while others remained and assimilated into the Communist state. Each host had a territory consisting of affiliated villages called stanitsa. The various Cossack groups were organized along military lines, with large autonomous groups called hosts. The rulers of the Russian Empire endowed Cossacks with certain special privileges in return for the military duty to serve in the irregular troops (mostly cavalry). They inhabited sparsely populated areas in the Dnieper, Don, Terek, and Ural river basins, and played an important role in the historical and cultural development of both Ukraine and Russia. The Cossacks were particularly noted for holding democratic traditions. They were a semi-nomadic and semi-militarized people, who, while under the nominal suzerainty of various Eastern European states at the time, were allowed a great degree of self-governance in exchange for military service. The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic Orthodox Christian people group originating in the steppes of Ukraine.