266 



COSSACKS. 



Coracles, tion at last degenerated into oppression ; and was fol- 

 s — -Y""""' lowed by a rebellion of the Cossacks, who, after a te- 

 dious war, threw off their allegiance to Poland, and for- 

 mally submitted themselves to the Tzar of Russia in 

 1654, about three hundred years after their first insti- 

 tution as a distinct government. Since that time, how- 

 ever, the form of their government has been greatly 

 changed, and they now scarcely retain any vestiges of 

 their ancient freedom. They are very numerous, but 

 great numbers of them are registered only as Reserve 

 Cossacks ; and 30,000 only are kept in constant ser- 

 vice and pay, and wear the hussar uniform and arms. 

 From their manners and way of life, however, the Ma- 

 lo-Russians are still considered as a distinct people. In 

 their features, in their amusements, in their love of 

 mirth and drinking, and in the dress of their females, 

 they resemble the Don Cossacks ; but they are far su- 

 perior to them in industry. They have converted ma- 

 ny of their desolate steppes into rich fields of corn ; 

 and they rear an immense number of fat cattle, which 

 are sent to Breslau, Petersburgh, &c. The overplus of 

 their grain they partly export, and partly distil into 

 brandy, of which they have always a prodigious quan- 

 tity, both for sale and for their own consumption. 

 " They are a more noble race," says Dr Clarke, " stout- 

 er, and better looking than the Russians, and superior 

 to them in every thing that can exalt one class of men 

 above another. They are cleaner, more industrious, 

 more honest, more generous, more polite, more coura- 

 geous, more hospitable, more truly pious, and, of course, 

 less superstitious." 

 CVsacksof The Tchernomorski, or Cossacks of the Black Sea, 

 the black inhabit the peninsula of Taman, and the eountry be- 

 Sea * tween the Kuban and the sea of Azof, as far as the ri- 



vers Ae and Laba, comprehending an extent of territo- 

 ry of above a thousand square miles. They are a 

 branch of the Malo- Russian Cossacks, and their history 

 is rather curious. Their original appellation was Za- 

 porogztsi, from the place of their former residence, im- 

 plying beyond the cataracts of the Dnieper ; and they 

 at first consisted only of a band of martial Malo-Rus- 

 sian youths, who were placed on the southern borders 

 of that river, as a frontier defence against the inroads 

 of the Tartars. Being all unmarried, and pleased with 

 the freedom which they enjoyed, they continued in 

 their dangerous posts, and were never desirous of be- 

 ing recalled. War and plunder were their habitual em- 

 ployment ; and they were soon joined by others, who 

 either wished to engage in military exercises, or sought 

 a shelter among them from Polish oppression. Their 

 numbers thus gradually increased, and at last became 

 so considerable, that about the beginning of the seven- 

 teenth century, they separated from the parental stock, 

 and erected a military state of their own. Their con- 

 stitution was purely democratic. All were equally eli- 

 gible to the sovereign dignity of Ataman, who was an- 

 nually chosen by a plurality of voices, and who, upon 

 the expiration of his office, was again numbered among 

 the common Cossacks, and received no greater respect 

 than the rest of his brethren. Their setscha, or chief 

 residence, was at first situated on an island of the 

 Dnieper, below the cataracts ; but it was afterwards 

 occasionally removed from one place to another. It 

 consisted of a collection of huts, surrounded by a wood- 

 en fortification, and had a kind of fortress, which con- 

 tained their artillery, arms, ammunition, and warlike 

 stores. It was divided into 38 quarters, each of which 



had an ataman and other officers, who were, however, Cossacks. 

 all subject to the chief ataman. In the market-place c ~7 v T7^ f 

 were exposed to sale provisions, clothes, and all kinds th ° e S a lac s ^ 

 of necessaries, which were brought hither by foreign Sca> 

 merchants, who took up their quarters in the suburbs. 

 No women were admitted into the setscha upon any 

 account whatever, and celibacy was most strictly en- 

 joined upon every member of their society. But in 

 order to keep up their numbers, they carried off chil- 

 dren wherever they could find them ; and welcomed 

 and adopted fugitives from every nation, who were 

 willing to conform themselves to their discipline and 

 regulations. None were detained contrary to their in- 

 clinations. Every individual was at full liberty to de- 

 part when he pleased ; and to be a Cossack was, in 

 their opinion, too great an honour, to be forcibly con- 

 ferred upon any one who was dissatisfied with their go- 

 vernment, or way of life. The greater number of them 

 lived in the setscha, but many of them dwelt also in 

 a suburb adjoining it, or inhabited the small villages 

 that were situated within their territories ; and, in or- 

 der to gratify the instincts of nature, they frequently 

 carried off women from the Tartars and Poles, or got 

 loose females from Little Russia, with whom they lived 

 without any forms of marriage, but were obliged to 

 keep them at a distance from the setscha. Though 

 they subsisted almost entirely by rapine, yet, in pro- 

 portion as bounds were set to their depredations, many 

 of them engaged in traffic and the common trades, and 

 others employed themselves in agriculture or graziery. 

 But whatever were their occupations, nothing was al- 

 lowed to prevent them from fulfilling the regulations 

 of the setscha. These Cossacks were all of the Greek 

 church ; and the first fruits of their robbery were ge- 

 nerally given to the church and its ministers. With 

 the rest they bought handsome arms and clothes, or 

 spent it in drinking, and in treating their comrades ; 

 and though they were active and temperate on their ex- 

 peditions, they were lazy and gluttonous when at home. 

 The Zaporogztsi could at times muster about 40,000 

 effective men. They were nominally under the sove- 

 reignty of Russia, and their bravery was often most 

 successfully displayed in the campaigns of that power 

 with the Tartars and Turks. Their services, however, 

 were not always to be depended upon, as they some- 

 times changed sides when it suited their own interests 

 or inclinations. One while they were with Poland, 

 at another time with Russia, and even at times sided 

 with the Tartars or the Porte. Peter the Great destroy- 

 ed their setscha for joining in the rebellion of the Ukrai- 

 nian Ataman Mazeppa ; but they afterwards assembled 

 under the protection of the Khan of the Crimea, and in 

 1737 were again admitted as Russian vassals. They 

 still, however, lived in the same manner, and though 

 formidable to their enemies, they were almost equally 

 dreaded by their allies. They plundered the Russian 

 merchants who passed through their territories, and in- 

 terrupted, by continual piracies, the navigation of the 

 Dnieper. These outrages, with their almost total ne- 

 glect of agriculture in so fertile a country, and their 

 constant resistance to every reformation in their govern- 

 ment, determined the Empress Catherine II. to dissolve 

 their confederacy ; and in 1 774 their setscha, which 

 then stood at the junction of the Bouzoulook and the 

 Dnieper, was surrounded, and destroyed by General 

 Balmain, their arms were taken from them, and by an 

 imperial manifesto they were allowed either to settle as 



