The Cossacks

Back somewhere in the middle distance of European history—when the Ukraine was under Polish rule, though ever harrassed by the devastating raids of Turks and Tartars—there developed bands of guerilla fighters in the wild border-land beyond the rapids of the Dnieper.

Sometimes fighting against the Tartars, sometimes in alliance with them, they became known by the name ‘Kazak,’ a word of uncertain origin.

Fierce banditti they were, many of them serfs who had run away from their Polish masters. But they often developed great military power. At times the Poles succeeded in securing numbers of them as fighters in their army, but when the tyranny of the Polish landlords became intolerable the so-called “Registered Cossacks” would sometimes join with the “Free Cossacks” of the “border land”—which is the meaning of the word “Ukraine,” and exact terrible vengeance on the Poles.

The story of these warlike deeds of the Cossacks has the same significance to the Ukrainian people that the tales of Wallace and Bruce have for Scotchmen.

Cossacks Dictating a Saucy Letter to the Turkish Sultan.

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