THE DON COSSACKS. 



431 



Inhabitants. — The Don Cossacks. 



In the region draining to the Sea of Azov the most noteworthy race, politically, 

 socially, and historically, are the Don Cossacks, descended mostly from Great 

 Russian refugees, though with a certain admixture of Krim- Tatar elements. The 

 first Don Cossack chief, mentioned in 1549, even bears the Tatar name of 

 Sariazman, nor was their first church erected till 1653, over a century thereafter. 

 Till the eighteenth century also the marriage ceremony consisted of a simple 



Fig. 227. — Races of the Don Basin. 

 According to Rittich. Scale 1 : 4,400,00C. 



li-Ue Kussiaas. Great Russians. German». Greeks. Bulg'ari.ms Armenians. I'oles. WLite RussLins. 



__^_-_^^__ 50 Miles. 



declaration before the Cossack assembly. The peasantry and townsfolk, oppressed 

 by nobles or voivodes, and often threatened with wholesale extermination, and 

 later on the persecuted Raskolniks, all found a refuge in the steppes. Escaping 

 from their oppressors, they here established themselves in the remote ravines or 

 sheltered low-lying tracts, ever on their guard, ever ready again to take flight 

 or hold their ground according to the strength of their Moslem or Christian 

 assailants. Thus was gradually peopled all the region between the Don and 

 Medveditza confluence and the Sea of Azov, a region which till 1521 had 

 remained uninhabited. During the second half of the sixteenth century the 



