Origins
It is not clear when the first Cossack communities on the Lower Dnipro began to form. 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. It is not certain, but there are signs and stories of similar people living in the steppes as early as the 12th century AD. At that time they were not called Cossacks, since cossack is a Turkish word meaning a "free men."(Cossack has the same Turkic root as Kazak. It later became known as a Russian word for "free booter.") During the early 1100s, other Asiatic tribes occupied the steppes of modern southern Ukraine, in such places as Polovci, Pechenihu, Kasahu and others. Yet there were also groups of people who fled into these wild steppes from the cultivated lands of Kyivan Rus in order to escape oppression or criminal pursuit. Their lifestyle largely resembled that of the people we now call Cossacks. They would mainly survive from hunting and fishing and raiding the Asiatic tribes for horses and food. In the 1500s a great organizer, Dmytro "Bayda" Vushneveckiy, a Ukrainian noble, organized these different groups into a strong military organization. Cossacks were mostly made up of Ukrainian serfs who preferred the dangerous freedom of the Wild Steppes, rather than life under the rule of Polish aristocrats. However, many serfs from Poland and Muscovy and even Tatars from Crimea could become part of the Cossack host. There were certain tests they had to pass, including accepting Orthodoxy as their religion, crossing themselves and reciting the Creed and other prayers.
Read more about this topic: Zaporozhian Cossacks
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