The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic Orthodox Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of Ukraine and southern Russia. Historically, they were a semi-nomadic and semi-militarized people, who, while under the nominal suzerainty of various Eastern European states at the time, were allowed a great degree of self-governance in exchange for military service. Although numerous linguistic and religious groups came together to form the Cossacks, most of them coalesced and became East Slavic-speaking Orthodox Christians. The Cossacks were particularly noted for holding democratic traditions. The rulers of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russian Empire endowed Cossacks with certain special privileges in return for the military duty to serve in the irregular troops (mostly cavalry). The various Cossack groups were organized along military lines, with large autonomous groups called hosts. Each host had a territory consisting of affiliated villages called stanitsas.
They inhabited sparsely populated areas in the Dnieper, Don, Terek, and Ural river basins, and played an important role in the historical and cultural development of both Russia and Ukraine.
The Cossack way of life persisted into the twentieth century, though the sweeping societal changes of the Russian Revolution disrupted Cossack society as much as any other part of Russia; many Cossacks migrated to other parts of Europe following the establishment of the Soviet Union, while others remained and assimilated into the Communist state. Cohesive Cossack-based units were organized and many fought for both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II.
After World War II, the Soviet Union disbanded the Cossack units in the Soviet Army, and many of the Cossack traditions were suppressed during the years of rule under Joseph Stalin and his successors. During the Perestroika era in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, descendants of Cossacks moved to revive their national traditions.
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The Russian Empire, also known as Imperial Russia, was the final period of the Russian monarchy from its proclamation in November 1721, until its dissolution in late 1917. It consisted of most of northern Eurasia. The Empire succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad. The rise of the Russian Empire coincided with the decline of neighbouring rival powers: the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Qajar Iran, the Ottoman Empire, and Qing China.
Yakutsk (Якутск; Дьокуускай, ɟokuːskaj) is the capital city of Sakha, Russia, located about south of the Arctic Circle. Fueled by the mining industry, Yakutsk has become one of Russia's most rapidly growing regional cities, with a population of 355,443 at the 2021 Census. Yakutsk has an average annual temperature of , winter high temperatures consistently well below , and a record low of . As a result, Yakutsk is the coldest city in the world. Yakutsk is also the largest city located in continuous permafrost; the only other large city is Norilsk, also in Siberia.
The Russians (russkiye) are an East Slavic ethnic group indigenous to Eastern Europe, who share a common Russian ancestry, culture, and history. Russian, the most spoken Slavic language, is the shared mother tongue of the Russians; Orthodox Christianity has been their majority religion since the formation of a Russian identity in the Middle Ages. They are the largest Slavic nation and the largest European nation. The Russians were formed from East Slavic tribes, and their cultural ancestry is based in Kievan Rus'.