Zaporozhian Host
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The Zaporozhian Host (Ukrainian: Запорізька Січ) or Zaporozhian Voisko (Ukrainian: Запорізьке Військо, Zaporizke Viysko, sometimes translated as Zaporozhian Cossack Army), also called Zaporizhian Sich after its fortified capital, was a political, social, and military organization of Ukrainian (Ruthenian) Cossacks, from the 16th to the 18th centuries. It was established in the central Ukrainian territory called Zaporizhzhia, below the rapids of the Dnieper river. Its appearance challenged the authority of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Muscovite Russia, and Ottoman Empire, all of which desired to control its territories and people. It went through a series of conflicts and alliances involving Poland, the Crimean Khanate, and Russia, then came under the protection of the Tsar after the Treaty of Pereyaslav in 1654.
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[edit] Organisation and history
The Zaporozhian Host was led by a hetman and the supreme government body called the Sich Rada. The most famous hetmans were Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Petro Konashevych, Pylyp Orlyk, and Ivan Mazepa. Cossack society was semi-militarized. Their territory was organized into regimental districts (polky), further subdivided into company districts (sotnias) and villages (stanitsas). Senior officers were the starshyna.
After the Treaty of Pereyaslav in 1654, the Host became at least nominally a part of the Russian state (Muscovy and later the Russian Empire), although for a long time it enjoyed nearly complete autonomy. After the death of the great Ukrainian Cossack leader, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, his successor, Ivan Vyhovsky, alarmed by a string of Russian victories against the Poles, initiated a turn towards weakened Poland. The Host was formally recognized as a third constituent part of the Commonwealth (together with Poland and Lithuania) in the Treaty of Hadiach ratified by the Polish Sejm or parliament in 1659. After Russia won the war and Vyhovsky was ousted from office, the treaty was abandoned.
Under Russia, the Host comprised the Cossack Hetmanate of Left-bank Ukraine, and Zaporozhia, centred around the fortress, Zaporizhian Sich. After Bohdan Khmelnitsky's death the Zaporozhians maintained a separate government from Kiev. While the Hetmans ruled in Kiev's autonomous cossack state, the Zaporozhians elected their own leaders, known as koshovi otamany to one-year terms. During this time, there was frequent friction between the cossacks of Kiev and the Zaporozhians.
Cossacks fought for their independence from Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which attempted to turn them into serfs, and later began several uprisings against the Russian Tsar, in fear of their independence. In 1709, for example, the Zaporozhian Host led by Kost Hordiienko allied with Mazepa against tsar Peter the Great,[1] who destroyed the Zaporozhian Sich in retaliation. Mazepa's successor, Pylyp Orlyk, forged an alliance with the Crimean tatars, and in 1711 a joint Zaporozhian/Tatar force attacked Russia, but was ultimately defeated after some early victories.[2] The Zaporozhians built a new sich under Ottoman protection at Oleshky on the lower Dnieper. Although some individual cossacks sought a return to Moscow's protection, their leader Hordiienko was resolute in his anti-Russian attitude and no rapproachment was possible until the popular leader's death in 1733.[1]
[edit] Russian rule
In 1734 as Russia was preparing for a new war against the Ottoman Empire, an agreement was made with the Zaporozhian cossacks. Under the Treaty of Lubni, the Zaporozhian cossacks regained all of their former lands, privileges, laws and customs in exchange for serving under the command of the Russian army stationed in the Hetmante in Kiev. A new sich (Nova Sich) was built to replace the one that had been destroyed by Peter the Great. Concerned about the possibility of Russian interference in Zaporozhia's internal affairs, the cossacks began to settle their lands with Ukrainian peasants fleeing serfdom in Polish and Russian-controlled territory. By 1762, 33,700 Cossacks and over 150,000 peasants populated Zaporozhia.[1]
By the late 18th century, much of the Cossack officer class in Ukraine was incorporated into the Imperial Russian nobility (Dvoryanstvo), but many of the rank and file Cossacks, including a substantial portion of the old Zaporozhians, were reduced to peasant status. They were able to maintain their freedom and continued to provide refuge for those fleeing serfdom in Russia and Poland, including followers of the Russian cossack Yemelyan Pugachev, which aroused the anger of the Russian empress Catherine II. Also tension rose after the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, when the need for a further southern frontier was gone after the annexation of Crimea. However as the colonisation of New Russia began, this created tensions with the Cossacks, and numerous Serbian colonisers were attacked by the Cossacks.
Finally in May 1775, General Pyotr Tekeli received orders to occupy the main Zaporozhian fortress, the Sech, and liquidate it. The order was given by a Zaporozhian Cossack Hrytsko Nechesa, more famously known as Grigory Potemkin), who was admitted into Cossackdom a few years prior. On June 5 1775, General Tekeli surrounded the Sech with artillery and infantry. The lack of southern borders and enemies in the past years had a profound affect on the combat-ability of the Cossacks, who realised the Russian infantry was to destroy them only a after the Sech was besieged. The surprise effect put a devastating blow to the morale of the Cossacks preventing them from any resistance.
Tekeli postponed the storming, and even allowed joint visits, whilst the head of the Host, Petro Kalnyshevsky was deciding on how to approach the Empress's ultimatum. Under the guidance of a starshyna Lyakh, behind Kalnyshevky's back a conspiracy was formed with a group of 50 Cossacks to go fishing in the river Ingul next to the Southern Buh in Ottaman provinces. The pretext was enough to allow the Russians to let the Cossacks out of the siege, who were joined by numerous others. The fleeing Cossacks did go to the Danube Delta where they formed the new Danube Sich, under the protectorate of the Ottoman Empire.
When Tekeli realised of the escape, there was little left for the remaining Cossacks. The Sich was razed to the ground. However, the operation was bloodless, and even though Petro Kalnyshevsky was arrested and exiled to the Solovki (where he lived to 112 years of age to his death despite a latter pardon from Emperor Alexander), most of the Cossacks were spared from sanctions or repressions. High ranking starshynas were given Army ranks and all the privledges that accompany them. Poorer level ones were allowed to join Husar and Dragoon regiments.
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| Semyon Budyonny · Pyotr Krasnov · Bohdan Khmelnytsky · Ivan Mazepa · Yemelyan Pugachev . Stenka Razin · Ivan Sirko · Andrei Shkuro |
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In order to counteract the cossacks living in the Danube on Ottoman-controlled territory, in 1784 the Russian government settled the remaining Zaporozhians between the Southern Buh and Dniester rivers. These were allowed to retain their Cossack status and formed the Buh Host and, later, the Black Sea Host. After a portion of the runaway Cossacks returned to Russia they were used by the Russian army to form new military bodies that also incorporated Greek Albanians and Crimean Tatars. In the 1790s the host was moved to colonise the Kuban region of Russia.
The fate of the Danube Cossacks is such that after the Russo-Turkish War, 1787-1792, the Russian authorities gave amnesty to those wishing to return and allowed with some elements of the Black Sea Cossack Host to form between Berdyansk and Mariupol the Azov Cossack Host. In 1828 the Danube Sich ceased to exist when it was pardoned by Emperor Nicholas I and resetlled with the Azov Cossacks, who in 1832 left the Azov shores for the North Caucasus to form the Caucasus Line Cossack Host. In 1864 this was merged with the Black Sea Host to create the Kuban Cossack Host, whose descendants are now undergoing active regeneration both culturally and militarily. The 30,000 descendants of those cossacks who refused to return to Russia in 1828 still live in the Danube delta region of Romania, where they pursue the traditional Cossack lifestyle of hunting and fishing and are known as Rusnaks.[3]
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