Don Cossacks - Etymology and Origins

Etymology and Origins

The Don Cossack Host (Russian: Всевеликое Войско Донское, Vsevelikoye Voysko Donskoye) was a frontier military organization from the end of the 16th until the early 20th century.

The name Cossack (казак, козак) was widely used to describe "free people" as opposed to others with different standing in a feudal society (i.e., peasants, nobles, clergy, etc..). The word 'cossack' was also applied to migrants, free-booters and bandits.

The exact origins of Cossacks are unknown. In the Soviet historical school as a part of Soviet ideology view on Cossacks was focused only as on a peasants fleeing the bonds of serfdom as a part of class war based on Karl Marx theories and may be partly true in case of NonRegistered Cossacks of Zaporozhian host in the 16th and 17th centuries. So the necessity of defending their lifestyle (piracy, unregulated fishing and hunting) and protecting their settlements from the attacks of Tatars, Mongols and other nomadic tribes that lived in the Eurasian steppe, forced these bands of escapees to organize into a military society.

In modern view Cossacks on Don River are descendants of medieval Russians who have come from Novgorod Republic and Principality of Ryazan and several local tribes of Goths-Alans origin in West part of North Caucasus as a minority groups.