Zaporizhian Sich

Zaporizhian Sich (Ukrainian: Запорізька Січ, Zaporiz'ka Sich) was a historical territory that existed between the 16th and 18th centuries, center of which was located in the region around the today's Kakhovka Reservoir. The region stretches across the lower Dnieper river. At one point the area was a condominium of both the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Russian Empire. Soon after the colonization of Sich by the Russian Empire with South Slavs and Moldavians (see New Serbia), the Sich was liquidated. With the liquidation the area became part of the Novorossia.

It is considered that they started from a fortress built on the Khortytsia island in the middle of the Dnieper River in what is now the Zaporizhia region of Ukraine. The term has also been metonymically used as an informal reference to the whole military-administrative organisation of the Zaporizhian Cossack Host.

The history of the Zaporizhian Sich has six periods of time:

• the appearance of the Sich (1471—1583).
• the struggle with Rzeczpospolita for religious, national independence of Southern Rus' (1583–1657)).
• the struggle with Rzeczpospolita, Ottoman Empire, and Crimea Khanate for the religious and national independence of Ukrainian part of Rzechpospolita (1657—1686).
• the struggle with Crimea, Ottoman Empire, and Russian Empire for the unique identity of Cossacks (1686—1709).
• the creation of the Danubian Sich outside the Russian Empire and finding ways to return home (1709–1734)
• the standoff to the Russian government for its attempts to cancel self-governing of the Sich and its fall (1734—1775).