This made many Ruthenians flee to the scarcely populated lands, Dzikie Pola ( Wild Fields ), the Polish name of the Zaporizhian Sich, where they formed a large part of the Cossacks.

It repeatedly suffered from raids of Zaporizhian Cossacks.

The main target of the inhabitants of Zaporizhian Sich who called themselves " Cossacks " were rich settlements at the Black Sea shores of Ottoman Empire and Crimean Khanate.

At the end of the sixteenth century, the commanders of the Zaporizhian Cossacks were called Koshovyi Otaman or Hetmans ( for example: Christof Kosynsky-first zaporizhian hetman ).

The Treaty of Pereyaslav ( Pereiaslav ) was concluded in 1654 in the Ukrainian city of Pereyaslav ( Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi nowadays ), at a meeting between the Cossacks of the Zaporizhian Host and Tsar Alexey I of Tsardom of Russia, during the Khmelnytsky rebellion.

* Bohdan Khmelnytsky – a hetman of the Zaporizhian Cossacks

The Sich Cossacks paid dearly for their support of Mazepa, as Peter I ordered the Sich to be razed in 1709 and a decree was issued to execute any active Zaporizhian Cossack.

On January 25, 1648, Khmelnytsky brought a contingent of 300-500 Cossacks to the Zaporizhian Sich and quickly killed the guards assigned by the Commonwealth to protect the entrance.

In 1580 the Sejm in Warsaw passed the Order in Ukraine ( Porządek ze strony Niżowców i Ukrainy ) Act, in which the Registered Cossacks were banned from raids to the Zaporizhian Sich, taking captives and pillaging.

Historical map of Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate and territory of Zaporizhian Cossacks under rule of Russian Empire ( 1751 ).

Russia's government needs no more service of the Zaporizhian Cossacks for protection of the borders in that area.

* Zaporizhian Cossacks

* Danubian Sich, formed by some of the escapees of the Zaporizhian Cossacks in the delta of Danube, under the protectorate of the Ottoman Empire.

* Dmytro Yavornytsky, historian of the Zaporizhian Cossacks who mapped the locations of the various Siches.

The Sich Rada (, Sichova Rada ) was the highest branch of government of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, and based at their center, the Zaporizhian Sich.

A sich () is the administrative and military centre for Cossacks and especially the Zaporizhian Cossacks.

The Zaporizhian Sich was the fortified capital of the Zaporizhian Cossacks in the 16th to 18th century area of Ukraine and was located on the Dnieper River.

The Sich Rada was the highest branch of government in the Zaporizhian Host or army of the Zaporizhian Cossacks.

The first naval activities in the area now known as Ukraine date back to the late Middle Ages, when Zaporizhian Host Cossacks conducted raids in the Lower Dnieper, Southern Buh rivers and the Black Sea against Ottoman Empire.

The Zaporizhian Sich served as a refuge for Cossacks fleeing the Hetmanate as it had been prior to Khmelnytsky's uprising.

* Mass excursions ( 1990 )-festivities near Nikopol and Zaporizhia to celebrate the 500 Anniversary of the Zaporizhian Cossacks from September 7 through 12.

A little closer to modern democracy were the Cossack republics of Ukraine in the 16th – 17th centuries: Cossack Hetmanate and Zaporizhian Sich.

One example of a pirate republic in Europe from the 16th through the 18th century was Zaporizhian Sich.

In 1648 the Zaporizhian Host ( the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth subject ) elected the Hetman of their own ( Bohdan Khmelnytsky ) igniting the Ukrainian struggle for independence.

Meanwhile, Rakoczi had already been negotiating with Bohdan Khmelnytsky, and on September 7, 1656, Transilvania and Zaporizhian Sich signed a peace treaty, which obliged both sides to help each other in war.

From the 15th century to the 18th century, the northern parts of the province belonged to the Zaporizhian Sich – a self-governed military republic of the Ukrainian Kozaks.

Further consequences included the disbandment of the Zaporizhian Host and reinstating serfdom in Ukraine.

The name Zaporozhets means a Cossack of the Zaporizhian Sich.

The Zaporizhian Sich grew rapidly in the 15th century from serfs fleeing the more controlled parts of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth establishing itself as a well-respected political entity with a parliamentary system of government.

However, in early September 1990 the People's Movement of Ukraine organized a festival in the region to recognize the 500th Anniversary of the Zaporizhian Cossackdom.

* The Zaporizhian Sich was recognized as a condominium of both states.

The region of Zaporizhian Sich, Siverian lands, cities of Chernihiv, Starodub, Smolensk and its outskirts were also ceded to Russia, while Poland retained Right-bank Ukraine.

Surprisingly, the only significant support which he gathered came from the Zaporizhian Sich, which, though at odds with the Hetman in the past, considered him and the nobility he represented a lesser evil compared with the Tsar.

Under the Russian rule, the left-bank Ukraine initially enjoyed a degree of autonomy within the Tsardom ( from 1721, Imperial Russia ) as the Cossack Hetmanate, which was slowly withdrawn throughout the eighteenth century when the Zaporizhian Host was destroyed.

The Crimean Khanate also made alliances with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Zaporizhian Sich and Muscovy.

For practical purposes, the Prydniprovye lands remained a self-governing border area until the destruction of the Zaporizhian Sich in 1775.

In 1798 – 1800 after the liquidation of Zaporizhian Host, the rank of osaul was equated with the ranks of rittmeister in cavalry and captain in infantry.

At that time the villages of Romankovo and Kamianske, which make the modern city, were a part of the Nova ( New ) Sich of the Zaporizhian cossacks.

The bulava was part of the Cossack Kleinody that were awarded by Poland's King Stefan Batory to the Zaporizhian Host.

It is known that Don Cossacks, in 1380, gave the icon of the Virgin Mary to the Dmitry Donskoy.

Potemkin -- as King Stanislas knew, and presently informed Littlepage -- looked on the Cossacks as geopolitical tools.

To Serenissimus such tribes as the Cossacks of the Don or those ex-bandits the Zaporogian Cossacks ( in whose islands along the lower Dnieper the Polish novelist Sienkiewicz would one day place With Fire And Sword ) were just elements for enforced resettlement in, say, Bessarabia, where, as `` the faithful of the Black Sea borders '', he could use their presence as bargaining points in the Czarina's territorial claims against Turkey.

Suvorov played parent not just to his Cossacks but to all his troops.

The Battle of Berestechko (; ) was fought between the Ukrainian Cossacks, led by Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, aided by their Crimean Tatar allies, and a Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth army under King John II Casimir.

The Cossacks are thought to have numbered as much 100, 000 men, most of them low-grade foot troops, plus 40, 000 allied Crimean Tatar cavalry and a few thousand Turks and Vlachs.

Initially, the Cossacks were commanded by Colonel Filon Dzhalalii, but after a few days he was replaced by Ivan Bohun.

On July 10, the Cossacks fell into a panic, believing that their commanders had run off in the night, leaving them to their fate.

The Polish forces attacked the panicked Cossacks and the battle turned into a slaughter.

As the battle ended, King John Casimir made the error of not pressing even harder the pursuit of the fleeing Cossacks.

John Casimir's heart was not in the fight, and agreed to a truce, the Treaty of Bila Tserkva, with Khmelnytsky, on favourable terms to the Cossacks.

The Russian Terek Cossack Host was secretly established in Chechnya in 1577 by free Cossacks resettled from the Volga to the Terek River.

Xiongnu, Tujue, Avars, Kipchaks, Mongols, Don Cossacks and the various Turkic peoples are also examples of the horse-mounted groups that managed to gain substantial successes in military conflicts with settled agrarian and urban societies, due to their strategic and tactical mobility.

There were cavalry variations for individual nations as well: France had the chasseurs à cheval ; Germany had the Jäger zu Pferd ; Bavaria had the Chevaulegers ; and Russia had Cossacks.

Other factors favouring the retention of mounted forces included the high quality of Russian Cossacks and other horse cavalry ; and the relative lack of roads suitable for wheeled vehicles in many parts of the Eastern Front.

These included the British Indian cavalry, the Russian Cossacks or the French Chasseurs d ' Afrique.

Between 1881 and 1910 all Russian cavalry ( other than Cossacks and Imperial Guard regiments ) were designated as dragoons ; reflecting an emphasis on dismounted action in their training and a growing acceptance of the impracticality of employing historical cavalry tactics against modern firepower.

But in 1648 beginning of the Khmelnytsky Uprising in Ukraine, at this time in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which continues until 1654, and results is concluded in the city of Pereyaslav during the meeting between the Cossacks of the Zaporozhian Host and Tsar Alexey I of Russia the Treaty of Pereyaslav.

On the march back his army was harassed by Cossacks, and suffered disease and starvation.

Warfare with the Cossacks and Russia left Ukraine divided, with the eastern part, lost by the Commonwealth, becoming the Tsardom's dependency.

* Cossack host, was the administrative subdivision of Cossacks in Imperial Russia based on their location.

File: Repin Cossacks. jpg | Ilya Repin, Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, 1880-1891, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg