The Zaporozhian Sich was a semi-autonomous polity and proto-state of Cossacks that existed between the 16th to 18th centuries, including as an autonomous stratocratic state within the Cossack Hetmanate for over a hundred years, centred around the region now home to the Kakhovka Reservoir and spanning the lower Dnieper river in Ukraine. In different periods the area came under the sovereignty of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Ottoman Empire, the Tsardom of Russia, and the Russian Empire.
"Rear guard of Zaporozhians" by Józef Brandt (oil on canvas; 72 × 112 cm, National Museum in Warsaw)
Zaporozhian Cossack, 18th century.
Zaporozhian Cossacks Prayer, fragment of the icon of Protection of Holy Virgin Mary.
One of the unique granite columns with which the Cossacks marked their territory
The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic Orthodox Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern 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.
An American Cossack family in the 1950s
Cossacks marching in Red Square at the 2015 Victory Day Parade
Cossack bandurist, 1890
Ottoman Turks in battle against the Cossacks, 1592
