THE COSSACKS OF UKRAINE

Cossack is derived from the Turkic word for free man. They were  defiant, resistant and independent. In the 1600s, the Ukrainian Cossacks were able to establish some of the earliest versions of a Ukrainian state. The Cossacks weren't just some homogenous, heroic group of freedom fighters; they could be quite brutal. They also carried out massacres of Jews in the region in the 17th century. Yet today, for many Ukrainians, the Cossacks represent resistance to outside control.

Cossacks became the symbol of this freedom and liberty because they existed on the edge of the established state, societies and empires and were challenging them, from the Russian empire to the Polish Lithuanian state to the Ottoman Empire. So the symbol of the Cossacks is really something that is really very important for Ukrainian identity, historical identity, cultural identity, the national mythology about the freedom-loving Ukrainians.

This Cossack heritage is very important for Ukrainians and sets them apart, at least in Ukrainian thinking from the Russians. For Ukraine, this is the central part of their early modern history.

There was once a Cossack state. The Cossack Hetmanate, officially known as the Zaporizhian Host was a Ukrainian Cossack state in the region of what is today Central Ukraine between 1648 and 1764 (although its administrative-judicial system persisted until 1782). It was integrated by the Russian empire. The Cossack army was disbanded. The institutions were disbanded. The office of the Hetman, or the ruler of the Cossack state, was gone.

The Cossacks rebelled in 1648 against the Kingdom of Poland, which was part of a larger federation, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. They had a number of battles with the Poles but the war continued. And the Cossacks didn't think, didn't believe that they were strong enough, actually, to maintain their state on their own. They entered into a relationship with the state to the east and to the north of their land, which was called, at that time, the Muscovite state - so the origins of today's Russia. And they entered into an agreement with the Russian czar, who took them under his protection. And that happens in 1654. That's the beginning of the relationship between the Cossack state - Ukrainian Cossack state and what later would become the Russian empire.

They entered in that relationship on the basis of certain agreements and understandings - that the czar would allow them to have their army, to have their liberties, their freedoms. Basically, a protectorate was established, a Russian protectorate, and that was the Cossack state, which was already - at that time was known as Ukraine. But as things moved further in the second half of the 17th century and especially into the 18th century, the empire violated more and more  the conditions of those agreements, limiting those freedoms that the Cossack state had. And as they became more and more successful, they were less and less interested in maintaining those freedoms that they once gave to the Cossacks. And by 1780s, the empire, the successful empire led by Catherine II at that time, abolished the Cossack freedoms and the Cossack statehood. So something that started as a military alliance, something that started as a creation of a protectorate, eventually ended with the full integration of the Cossack state.

Soon after integrating the Cossack state into the Russian empire, Russian language and culture became more dominant in Ukraine. Many historians call this process Russification, and it happened in many parts of the empire. Many Ukrainians resented this process. And along with language came the expansion of Russian serfdom into Ukraine.

Serfdom was the prevailing economic system in medieval Europe. By the 1300s, it had mostly gone away in Western Europe. But the leaders of Russia were strengthening serfdom in their empire, around the same time as American slavery. It was basically a process where peasants were more or less turned into economic slaves by legally tying them to the land they worked. It allowed the Russian elites to extract more wealth from their lands. And many of the peasants wanted to do anything to escape it. One of the places they escaped to were the lands of the defiant Cossacks.

Cossacks are symbol of freedom, and now it's a generic understanding of what freedom is. It's maybe about democracy. It's about independence. But at that time, in the 17th, 18th century, the freedom had a very specific sense, and that was freedom from serfdom, in particular.

Not all Cossacks were former serfs, but significant part of them were runaway serfs. And for them, becoming a Cossack meant personal freedom. The steppe areas, which were very dangerous place to be and conduct any kind of activities, agricultural or any sort of a business because of this competition - they were also the place where the serfs were moving, even after the abolition of the Cossack state in the late 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. So the serfdom really arrived in southern Ukraine, in this area north of the Azov Sea, north of Black Sea, only in the first half of the 19th century, maybe 10 or 20 years before the serfdom as an institution was abandoned in the Russian empire. That means that while in the rest of the Russian empire a good part of the population, at least one-third, were serfs, in Ukraine, the population, the largest part of the population, had no experience of serfdom.

They managed to live from one generation to another either as Cossacks or runaway serfs in this territory north of the Black Sea and north of Azov Sea. It's difficult, really, to overestimate the importance of this tradition, of this mentality, of this attitude toward personal freedoms that comes with really not experiencing much of serfdom in your history, including your family history.

The Ukrainian Cossacks had a complex relationship with the Russian empire that wavered between an alliance and outright rebellion. And when the Ukrainians rebelled, they rebelled against outside control, both political and economic. And that spirit would come back in full force when the Russian empire fell during one of the most important revolutions of the 20th century, a revolution Ukraine played a key part in.

Note

Ukrainian Cossacks came into agreement with the Tsardom of Moscow after the Pereyaslav Council of 1654. There are 3 versions of the agreement between the Ukrainian Cossacks and the Tsar of Russia.

Version 1

The first version of the agreement included 22 articles.

1. Ukraine remains a self governing territory
2. The Hetman is elected on the general meeting of the Cossacks gentry
3. The civil law remains as it was during Commonwealth
4. Ukraine can get in touch with third countries

Version 2

The second version included only 11 articles

1. The demands about self-governing and election of the Hetman were kept.
2. Ukraine could not get in touch on its own with Poland and Ottoman Empire. But could with other countries.
3. The Muscovites had the right to have own troops in Ukraine only in Kyiv. Not in any other city.

Version 3

And finally there is so called March Articles which were allegedly signed in Moscow in March 1654. The March Articles, signed between the two parties, proclaimed the Cossacks subjects to the Tsar in exchange for Moscow's military help against Poland and the Khanate of Crimea. The Tsar was obliged to respect Cossack self-government, allowed Cossacks to lead foreign relations with allied states and provided them with financial help. Cossack army, the Zaporozhian Host, was allowed to employ up to 60000 soldiers