WHETHER the political condition of the early Cossack settlements of the Ukraine — the wide debatable frontier region lying between Poland, Russia and the Mussulman states to the south and west — ever entitled the "Free People" to be considered a separate state or nationality has been a subject of long and fruitless controversy. Matchless frontiersmen, the Cossacks could neither defend nor define the vague boundaries of their own "Free Steppes." At every crisis their undisciplined ways and hatred of a central authority led to internal diWsions — and these in turn to \ ine\'itable subjection by one of the stronger nations \ surrounding them. *'
During the reign of Ivan the Terrible the majority of the Don Cossacks of their own will became subjects cf the Russian Tsar while claiming privileges and immunities which have differentiated them from the Russian moujik to the present day. The Eastern branch of the Cossack race thus became part of the gi*eat Musco\'ite empire (although they appear to have continued to use the title of "republic" among themselves until a recent date.)
During the first half of the sixteenth century the Cossacks inhabiting the shores of the Dnieper, found themselves inevitably drawn into more or less close "alliance" with the Poles against the raids of the Turks and Tartars. While resisting to the utmost the claims of the Polish magnates, whose vague feudal rights extended over a great part of the lands tilled and defended by the Cossacks, the border stanitzi or settlements remained generally subject to the Polish crown.
The kings of Poland soon sought to direct to their own advantage the courage and warlike capacity which their Cossack neighbors had developed through generations of warfare against the common enemy. Under King Sigismond a Cossack hetman (called by the Polish chroniclers Ostaphseus) proposed to the Polish Senate that his countrymen be formed into a border guard or militia to defend the frontiers of the kingdom against the Tartars.
His plan contemplated the building of a flotilla on the Dnieper below the cataracts, capable of transporting two thousand men and four hundred horses to any threatened point on the long line of river frontier "which it was necessary to hold against these invaders." He assured the Polish king that even this small force disciplined in Cossack fashion could effectually stop the hordes of the Ghirai Khans of the Crimea, who "were everywhere forced to cross the broad stream by swim-
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ming their horses and could thus be taken at a disadvantage."
Under a successor of Ostaphaus, the Hetman Ruchinskov, the Cossacks of the Dneiper in return for a promised subsidy of lands and money from the Polish crown, adopted a method of frontier defense, which later formed the basis of the celebrated military organization of the "Zaporogians." The general plan of this military system in many ways recalls the conditions of modem Cossack military service. To the older men, the weaklings and to the veterans of several campaigns was reserved the privilege of family life in the Cossack settlements or stanitzi, scattered along the shores of the upper Dnieper, near Kiev. Here they cultivated the soil and tended the flocks which formed the principal riches of the community.
Meanwhile, the younger men gathered in armed camps and outposts on the islands below the cataracts, ready for any martial adventure that might present itself. These mihtary gatherings, or musters, were especially frequented during the summer months or at any time when hostile raids might be expected. If no foray of the Turks or Tartars threatened the Cossacks' settlements — or the lands of the Polish repubUc they were paid to defend — expeditions were organized against the Turkish colonies on the shores of the Black Sea. Long Cossack boats, mamied by chosen warriors, would then shoot the rapids of the Dnieper, falling with the suddenness of a thunderbolt upon some distant point of the Turkish, littoral, even before rumours of their approach could reach the outposts of the enemy.
In winter only the more strategic or threatened points among the islands were fortified and left in charge of a tried garrison consisting of a few thousand men. These chosen troops (called by the Poles Prcesidenti) were the bands which became famous at a later day under the local name of Za Porogi — or men from "beyond the rapids." The principal camp of the Zaporogians protected by outposts and a rude fortress was known as the sitch.