THE COSSACKS. 



243 



in" with the other races, the Cossacks of Russian 

 origin, being the more numerous, retained, and 

 imposed upon the others, their language and re- 

 ligion. This view is corroborated by the state- 

 ment of another writer, that Russian is the ground- 

 work of their dialect : " In military matters there 

 is an infusion of Turkish words," the speech of 

 their earliest enemies ; " in legal, of Polish," that 

 of their early rulers. 



The Circassian element in the composition of 

 the Cossacks must have been of importance, 

 though not equal in degree to that of the Rus- 

 sian. Chazackia, or Cazackia, we learn from 

 Clarke, is a part of Circassia ; and, from another 

 authority, that the Cossacks " were long known 

 by the appellation of Tscherkassi, and to this 

 day they call their capital Tscherkask." Their 

 early history is as fragmentary as their real ori- 

 gin seems to be obscure. The first mention of 

 them represents them as taking an important 

 part in the proceedings of the peoples of South- 

 eastern Europe. There is little doubt that they 

 existed as a sufficiently organized body to make 

 their presence felt wherever they presented them- 

 selves some centuries before the time usually as- 

 signed to their first appearance. Before the 

 middle of the tenth century they had already 

 been heard of on the frontiers of Poland as it 

 then was. Their numbers received a consider- 

 able accession in the many Polish wanderers who 

 came among them. Their first notable arma- 

 ment was in the year 94S, " when the Greek em- 

 peror employed them in his war against the 

 Turks." For their services on this occasion, we 

 have the authority of Clarke that he sent them 

 " recommendatory letters to the Polish sover- 

 eign, requesting that in future their appellation 

 might be Cossacks." 



The term was probably applied in subsequent 

 times to people whose mode of life resembled 

 that of the original Cossacks, though there was 

 between them no other connection. Mr. Mac- 

 kenzie Wallace tells us that to protect the agri- 

 cultural population of the steppe upon their 

 borders from the annoyances of their nomad 

 neighbors, the kings of Poland and the czars of 

 Muscovy built forts and palisades, and kept up 

 a regular military cordon. " The troops com- 

 posing this cordon were called Cossacks, but 

 they were not the Cossacks best known to his- 

 tory and romance." These, the free Cossacks, 

 lived beyond the frontiers. " Though," says Mr. 

 Wallace, " Russian by origin, language, and sym- 

 pathy, the- habit of kidnapping Tartar women 

 introduced among them a certain admixture of 



Tartar blood." Originally they might have been 

 divided into two distinct divisions, of which one 

 looked to the czars of Muscovy as in some re- 

 spect their superiors, and the others to the kings 

 of Poland. Migrations, revolts, the extension of 

 the Russian Empire, and other causes, have end- 

 ed in making the czar alone the lord paramount 

 of all the Cossack communities. 



Sir Archibald Alison, whose literary touch is 

 not often of the lightest, has drawn a somewhat 

 fanciful parallel between the origin of these 

 strange people and that of the Venetians. The 

 rise of the " Cossack nation " he fixes in the 

 midst of the misery and devastation caused by 

 the Tartar inroads, which lasted for two centu- 

 ries. Crowds of fugitives fled before the invad- 

 ing hordes. " Two corners of land, overlooked 

 in the great streams of conquest to the south- 

 west, remained as places of refuge — one beyond 

 the Don toward the sea of Azov, and the other 

 beyond the islands of the Dnieper toward the 

 Black Sea. They formed the cradle of this sin- 

 gular people." On these islands of the Dnieper, 

 as on the islands of the Adriatic, arose a free 

 and powerful community. At the time of the 

 first general invasion of the Tartars, and again 

 during the Lithuanian wars, many fled to them 

 for shelter ; and there flowed in also adventurers 

 guided by necessity or the love of change, de- 

 serters from Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, and 

 Wallachia, fugitives from Tartar bondage, and 

 serfs flying from their Muscovite masters. 



So many authorities place the origin of the 

 Cossack people at or near the period of the Tar- 

 tar domination in Russia, in spite of the evidence 

 in favor of its greater antiquity, that we may ac- 

 cept their statements as proof of the date they 

 assign being really that when the Cossacks came 

 to be regarded as a power in Southeastern Eu- 

 rope and on the confines of Asia. The destruc- 

 tion of Kiev, in 1415, undoubtedly added enor- 

 mously to the strength of the Cossacks of the 

 Ukraine, and enabled them to make head against 

 the Tartar oppressors of the different parts of 

 Russia. About the time that the Tartar domin 

 ion was overthrown the number of refugees from 

 its oppression had been so great that the country 

 from the Bug to the Dniester became compara- 

 tively populous, and on it many towns and vil- 

 lages were built. Of these the inhabitants all 

 claimed to be Cossacks, and waged almost con- 

 tinuous wars with the Tartars and the Turks. 

 Their appearance as a powerful military con- 

 federacy was so unexpected that they seemed to 

 be a new people who had suddenly sprung up on 



