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Ukrainian Kozak History
For almost 300+ years the history of the middle and low Dnieper reaches was connected with the history of the Ukrainian Kozaki who came into being at the end of the 14th century in a bloody contest between the East and the West. From the very beginning of their existence they presented a willful force which neither Polish nor Turkish sovereigns were able to subjugate. They were born together with the people which being enslaved seeked to be free and struggled for that. Kozak or Cossack simply means free man.
The land situated near the Dnieper rapids had attracted people for a long time by then. The mighty Dnieper clad in stony rocks, a diverse animal and vegetable kingdom "those were the characters of the land called ....Zaporozhye." In the 15th century Ukrainian cities & villages inhabitants seeking to escape from the yoke of serfdom and feudal oppression began to run to the low reaches of the Dnieper and settle there. The fugitives called themselves kozaki, that is free people. Nothing but an age-long aspiration for being free made them abandon their dwellings and open up new lands, cultivate them by the sweat of their brow and defend them. The Kozaki fought constantly for their right to exist against Turkish & Tartar conquerors on the one hand along with the Polish gentry which had turned Ukraine into a Polish colony on the other. It was the everpresent threat of attack that made the Kozaki build fortifications and defend their dwellings with arms in hand. The fugitives united into a military organization which was named Zaporozhskaya Sech. It united all the Kozaki garding the Zaporozhye land. The vast steppes of the now Dnipropetrovs'k region and partially other Ukrainian regions made up those lands on both Dnieper banks. The Kozaki built their fortifications in the islands and at low bosky places by rivers. "Oh, Mother Sech, Mother Sech And Father Great Meadow," sings an old Dnieper Kozaki's song. The left, gently sloping Dnieper Bank at the place where the Konka flows into the Dnieper often was these brave people's haven. It was called Great Meadow and glorified in songs. Kozaki built there their fortifications too. Some of these fortified camps became fortresses where the Dnieper Kozaki did their military duties & from which they set forth upon their raids of the nomads. Legends & contemporary evidence both mention in detail Kozaki fortifications in Chortitsa, Tomakovka, Bazavluk & Nikitinsky Rog as well as by the rivers Chertomlik & Podpolnaya. The Sech in Chortitsa island is within the bounds of modern Zaporozhye which came into existence as early as 1553-1557 is considered to be the first. And the last Podpolnenskaya or Novaya Sech was demolished by Katerina the Great's order in 1775.
The copyright of the article Rus: Kozaki - Part 1 - Kozaki of The Steppes in Russian Culture is owned by . Permission to republish Rus: Kozaki - Part 1 - Kozaki of The Steppes in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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