Cossacks
Part of a series on
Cossacks
Cossack hosts
Azov · Black Sea · Bug · Caucasus · Danube
Don · Ural · Terek · Kuban
Orenburg · Astrakhan · Siberian
Baikal · Amur · Semirechye
Ussuri · Zaporozhia
Other groups
Danube (Sich) · Tatar Cossacks · Nekrasov
Turkey · Jewish Cossacks
History
Colonisation of Siberia
Khmelnytsky Uprising
Treaty of Hadiach
Hetmanate · Bulavin Rebellion
Pugachev’s Rebellion
1st Cavalry Army
Decossackization · Betrayal
XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps
1st Cossack Division
Famous Cossacks
Bohdan Khmelnytsky · Petro Sahaidachny ·
Ivan Mazepa · Ivan Sirko ·
Yemelyan Pugachev · Stenka Razin
Andrei Shkuro · Pyotr Krasnov ·
Yermak Timofeyevich
Cossack terms
Ataman · Hetman · Kontusz · Papakha
Plastun · Szabla · Shashka · Stanitsa
Yesaul
The term Cossacks
(Ukrainian: Козаки́,
Kozaki; Russian: Каза́ки́, Kazaki; Polish: Koz-
acy) is applied to specific militaristic com-
munities of various ethnicities living in the
steppe regions of Ukraine and also southern
Russia.
Towards the end of the 14th century,
Ukrainian migrants from Lithuania had es-
tablished a "host" in the Steppes of Ukraine.
In the 16th century, the Don Cossacks estab-
lished another host in southern Russia.
The Dnipro Cossacks of Ukraine formed
the Zaporozhian Sich. Initially a vassal of
Poland-Lithuania, the increasing social and
religious pressure from the Commonwealth
caused them to proclaim a Cossack Hetman-
ate, initiating a rebellion under Bohdan Kh-
melnytsky in the mid-17th century. After-
wards, the Treaty of Pereyaslavl with Russia
signalled the start of the Commonwealth’s
decline but also brought Ukraine under Rus-
sian control for the next three hundred
years.[1]
The Don Cossack Host, allied with the
Tsardom of Russia, began a systematic con-
quest and colonization of lands to secure her
borders on the Volga, the whole of Siberia,
the Ural and the Terek Rivers.
In the 18th century the rising Russian Em-
pire’s expansionist ambitions relied on ensur-
ing the loyalty of Cossacks, which caused ten-
sion with their traditional