Cossack in the context of "The Ruin (Ukrainian history)"

Light cavalry comprised lightly armed and armored cavalry troops mounted on fast horses, as opposed to heavy cavalry, where the mounted riders (and sometimes the warhorses) were heavily armored. The purpose of light cavalry was primarily raiding, reconnaissance, screening, skirmishing, patrolling, and tactical communications. Prior to the 17th century they were usually armed with swords, spears, javelins, or bows, and later on with sabres, pistols, shotguns, or carbines.

Light cavalry was used infrequently by Ancient Greeks (who used hippeis such as prodromoi or sarissophoroi) and Ancient Romans (who used auxiliaries such as equites Numidarum or equites Maurorum), but were more common among the armies of Eastern Europe, North Africa, West Asia, Central Asia, and East Asia. The Arabs, Cossacks, Hungarians, Huns, Kalmycks, Mongols, Turks, Parthians, and Persians were all proficient horse archers.

The history of Russia begins with the histories of the East Slavs. The traditional start date of specifically Russian history is the establishment of the Rus' state in the north in the year 862, ruled by Varangians. In 882, Prince Oleg of Novgorod seized Kiev, uniting the northern and southern lands of the Eastern Slavs under one authority, moving the governance center to Kiev by the end of the 10th century, and maintaining northern and southern parts with significant autonomy from each other. The state adopted Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine, Slavic and Scandinavian cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Kievan Rus' ultimately disintegrated as a state due to the Mongol invasions in 1237–1240. After the 13th century, Moscow emerged as a significant political and cultural force, driving the unification of Russian territories. By the end of the 15th century, many of the petty principalities around Moscow had been united with the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which took full control of its own sovereignty under Ivan the Great.

Ivan the Terrible transformed the Grand Duchy into the Tsardom of Russia in 1547. However, the death of Ivan's son Feodor I without issue in 1598 created a succession crisis and led Russia into a period of chaos and civil war known as the Time of Troubles, ending with the coronation of Michael Romanov as the first Tsar of the Romanov dynasty in 1613. During the rest of the seventeenth century, Russia completed the exploration and conquest of Siberia, claiming lands as far as the Pacific Ocean by the end of the century. Domestically, Russia faced numerous uprisings of the various ethnic groups under their control, as exemplified by the Cossack leader Stenka Razin, who led a revolt in 1670–1671. In 1721, in the wake of the Great Northern War, Tsar Peter the Great renamed the state as the Russian Empire; he is also noted for establishing St. Petersburg as the new capital of his Empire, and for his introducing Western European culture to Russia. In 1762, Russia came under the control of Catherine the Great, who continued the westernizing policies of Peter the Great, and ushered in the era of the Russian Enlightenment. Catherine's grandson, Alexander I, repulsed an invasion by the French Emperor Napoleon, leading Russia into the status of one of the great powers.

Zaporizhzhia (Ukrainian: Запоріжжя, pronounced [zɐpoˈr⁽ʲ⁾iʒːɐ] ) or Zaporozhzhia (Ukrainian: Запорожжя) is a historical region in central east Ukraine below the Dnieper rapids (Ukrainian: Дніпрові пороги, romanized: Dniprovi porohy), hence the name, lit. "[territory] beyond the rapids".

From the 16th to the 18th centuries the Zaporizhzhia region functioned as semi-independent quasi-republican Cossack territory centred on the Zaporozhian Sich. Sometimes the region is referred to as Zaporozhian Sich as well. Zaporizhzhia corresponds to modern Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, major parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kirovohrad Oblasts, as well as parts of Kherson and Donetsk Oblasts of Ukraine.

The Transnistrian War (Romanian: Războiul din Transnistria; Russian: Война в Приднестровье, romanized: Voyna v Pridnestrovye) was an armed conflict that broke out on 2 November 1990 in Dubăsari between pro-Transnistria (Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, PMR) forces, including the Transnistrian Republican Guard, militia and neo-Cossack units, which were supported by elements of the Russian 14th Army, and pro-Moldovan forces, including Moldovan troops and police.

Fighting intensified on 1 March 1992 and, alternating with ad hoc ceasefires, lasted throughout the spring and early summer of 1992 until a ceasefire was declared on 21 July 1992, which has held. The conflict is sometimes known as the Moldovan–Russian war (Romanian: Războiul moldo-rus) in Moldova and Romania.

The War in Abkhazia was fought between Georgian government and paramilitary forces, and a coalition of Abkhaz separatist forces and North Caucasian militants between 1992 and 1993. Ethnic Georgians who lived in Abkhazia fought largely on the side of Georgian government forces. Ethnic Armenians, who formed the Bagramyan Battalion and Russians within Abkhazia's population largely supported the Abkhazians and many fought on their side. The separatists received support from thousands of North Caucasus and Cossack militants and from the Russian Federation military forces stationed in and near Abkhazia.

The conflict overlapped in time with civil strife in Georgia proper (between the supporters of the ousted Georgian president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia – in office 1991–1992 – and the post-coup government headed by Eduard Shevardnadze).

In tsarist Russia, the term serf (Russian: крепостной крестьянин, romanized: krepostnoy krest'yanin, lit. 'bonded peasant') meant an unfree peasant who, unlike a slave, originally could be sold only together with the land to which they were "attached". However, this had stopped being a requirement by the 19th century, and serfs were by then practically indistinguishable from slaves. Contemporary legal documents, such as Russkaya Pravda (12th century onwards), distinguished several degrees of feudal dependency of peasants. While another form of slavery in Russia, kholopstvo, was ended by Peter I in 1723, serfdom (Russian: крепостное право, romanized: krepostnoye pravo) was abolished only by Alexander II's emancipation reform of 1861; nevertheless, in times past, the state allowed peasants to sue for release from serfdom under certain conditions, and also took measures against abuses of landlord power.

Serfdom became the dominant form of relation between Russian peasants and nobility in the 17th century. Serfdom most commonly existed in the central and southern areas of the Tsardom of Russia and, from 1721, of the subsequent Russian Empire. Serfdom was rare in Little Russia (parts of today's central Ukraine), other Cossack lands, the Urals and Siberia until the reign of Catherine the Great (r. 1762–1796), when it spread to Ukraine; noblemen began to send their serfs into Cossack lands in an attempt to harvest their extensive untapped natural resources.

A Cossack host, sometimes translated as Cossack army, was an administrative subdivision of Cossacks in the Russian Empire. Earlier the term voysko (host, in a sense as a doublet of guest) referred to Cossack organizations in their historical territories, most notable being the Zaporozhian Host of Zaporozhian Cossacks.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

A stanitsa or stanitza (/stəˈniːtsə/ stə-NEET-sə; Russian: станица [stɐˈnʲitsə] ), also spelled stanycia (Ukrainian: станиця [stɐˈnɪtsʲɐ]) or stanica (Belarusian: станіца [staˈnʲitsa]), was a historical administrative unit of a Cossack host, a type of Cossack polity that existed in the Russian Empire.