COSSACKS (Russ. kozakii, from Turk. kazalc, robber; the same word in Tatar designating a light - armed warrior). A name borne by a people living under a peculiar mili tary organization, who for several centuries have constituted an important element in the popula tion of southern Russia. Their principal homes are the steppes of the Don and of Ciscaucasia and a region at the southern end of the Ural Mountains, on the borders of European Russia and Siberia. They are a mixed race, of Russian, Polish, Tatar. and other elements, with the Russian predominating. In fact, they are distin guished from the other Russians by their unset tled mode of life rather than by any difference of race or fundamental character. The Cos sacks make their appearance in history about the close of the Middle Ages as a frontier peo ple, on the border of Slavdom (Russia and Po land) on the one hand and the Tatar regions to the southeast on the other. A free, wild people.
accustomed to live in the saddle and in constant warfare, they acquired by inheritance the qual ities of courage, endurance, self-reliance, and good horsemanship. which gave them high rank among the irregular cavalry of the world. Long unaccustomed to the restraints of civilized gov ernment, they distinguished themselves by their predatory habits: The Don Cossacks. who at the present time constitute the principal body of the Cossacks, became powerful about the close of the sixteenth century. The town of Teller ):ask became the seat of their government. At the head of their democratic organization was the Ataman (Heiman). in 1773 the Don Cos sacks joined the pretender Pngatcheff against Catharine II., for which they were chastised by being deprived of all of their liberties and their democratic institutions. Yermak Timofeyeff, Don Cosmick, belonging to a lawless hand, the Good Companions of the Don, entered the service of the Stroganoffs, a wealthy fam ily living in the Ural region and hold ing special trading privileges, crossed the Urals with a few hundred followers in 1581, and in a few years conquered and brought into a rude kind of subjection all of western Siberia. From this time the history of the Cossacks is closely connected with that of the Russian progress east ward through Siberia. With wonderful persist ence and endurance, and a spirit of enterprise that would have been impossible in the stolid Russian village peasant, they explored and sub clued this vast addition to Russia's territory. The
Malorussian (Little Russian) Cossacks, or Cos sacks of the Ukraine (Border Land), were or ganized in the second half of the sixteenth cen tury by Stephen Bfithory. King of Poland, into a defensive bulwark on the southeastern fron tiers of the realm. In the middle of the seven teenth century, harassed by Polish oppression, they revolted under the lead of their Ataman, Chmielnicki (q.v.). and placed themselves under the protection of Russia. Under the lead of Mazeppa they joined Charles XII. against Peter the Great, whose victory at Poltava sealed their fate. Their liberties were abolished and they were treated with great harshness. The Zapo rogian Cossacks (Russ. Zaporog, beyond the rapids), on the Dnieper, were one of the most notable of the tribes down to the middle of the seventeenth century. when they submitted to Russia. Their predatory incursions: were not confined to the land. but included naval expedi tions against the Turkish towns of Asia :Minor. Among their peculiar tribal institutions was the celibacy imposed upon the ruling class.
The Cossacks are regarded by the Russian Gov ernment as a military division of the population. They are organized in eleven voiskos or corps (Don, Kuban, Terek, Astrakhan. Orenburg, Ural, Siberia, Semiryetchensk, Transbaikalia, Amur, Usnri). Their military training begins in boy hood: compulsory service in the stanitsa, or Cos sack post, begins at seventeen; field service be gins at twenty. and continues from twenty to twenty-five years. This service is divided into three classes—active, on furlough with awns and horses, and on furlough with arms but without horses. Each roisko equips and clothes its sol diers, and receives an allowance of land from the Crown. The Cossacks wear a distinctive uniform of dark green. Part of them, in addition to other arms, still carry a long lance. The Kuban Toisko enrolls 6 battalions of Cossack infantry, and there are also fifteen batteries (41 on a war footing) of Cossack field artillery. The title of Ataman, or chief of the Cossacks, is now vested in the Imperial family. The Cossacks probably number between 1,500,000 and 2,000, 000.
Consult: Erckert, Der Ursprung der Kosuhen (Berlin, 1832) ; Tettau, Die Kosa•enhcere 1892) ; Wallace, Russia (9th ed., London, 1883) ; Krasinski, The Cossacks of the Ukraine (ib.. 1848) ; Vladimir, Russia on the Pacific 1899). A splendid realistic picture of Cossack life may he found in Gogol's celebrated novel Turas BOW.