If you look at the experience of independent statehood, Ukraine is definitely a particularly young country.
Since the mid-16th century, Russia has ruled most of Ukraine for more than 300 years, and Ukraine has truly existed as an independent sovereign state for only 30 years.
As we all know, Kievan Rus' had the "Sanmao" – of the three ethnic groups of the same lineage, the "Russia" of "Sanmao" Belarus was more pure, while the "Big Mao" Russia was influenced by the Mongols in the east, and the "Ermao" Ukraine was once under the rule of the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom.
Once Poland, it can also be regarded as a decent big country, the hegemony of Eastern Europe
In 1654, in order to get rid of the Poles, Ukraine voluntarily defected to Russia, and Russia and Ukraine signed the Pereyaslav Agreement, and Ukraine officially declared its submission to the Russian Empire, converted to Orthodoxy, and pledged allegiance to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov (who was the father of Peter the Great).
The original version of the Treaty of Pereyaslav is still preserved in the museum
Three centuries later, in 1954, in order to commemorate the signing of the Pereyaslav Agreement, the "300th anniversary of the merger of Russia and Ukraine", proposed by Khrushchev, Crimea was used as a gift to celebrate the "unity of the Kievan Rus' brothers" and transferred from the Soviet republic of Russia to another union republic , Ukraine — which also laid the groundwork for crimea to enter Russia in 2014.
On behalf of Ukraine, the Pereyaslav Agreement was signed by a Cossack chief named Bogdan Khmelnytsky, who successfully led the Ukrainian Cossack Legion and, with the assistance of Tsarist Russia, completely eliminated the Poles and the Roman Catholic Church from most of Ukraine.
There is a city in Ukraine called Khmelnytsky, which commemorates the Cossack leader Khmelnytsky.
Today's Khmelnytsky City
In Ukraine, the cossacks were highly identified, believing that this represented Ukraine's spirit of independence and a courageous national character.
For example, there is a state in Ukraine, called Zaporizhia Oblast, which was once an industrial town in the Soviet era, the aviation industry center of Ukraine, also belongs to the traditional gathering area of ancient Cossacks, and the Cossack revolt in the 17th century began here; in addition, at the end of the 19th century, the famous painting of the Russian painter Repin called Zaporizhian Cossack "Zaporozhian Cossack Reply to the Turkish Sultan", which contains the fearless Zaporozhian Cossacks....
Reply from the Zaporozhyks to the Sultan of Turkey
Embarrassingly, while today's Ukrainians are doing their best to eliminate the Russian elements of their own national culture, the "Cossacks" they are proud of contain two main trunks in themselves – one is the Zaporozhian Cossacks living in Ukraine, and the other is the Russian Don Cossacks.
The "three cents" of Kievan Rus' – Russia, Belarus and Ukraine – share a Cossack culture.
In fact, the Cossacks were not a people, but a warrior class occupation similar to mercenaries, a way of life ~ usually they were engaged in agriculture, or fishing, hunting and nomadic herding, after receiving the "order" of war, they would take up arms and roar into the mountains and forests, fearlessly charging into the battlefield.
These people appeared in the steppes of southern Russia and Eastern Europe around the end of the 14th century, in the "periphery" of the various powers, where some Poles, Rus', Germans, Turks, and Tatars gathered.
Some of them are free people, some are fugitive prisoners or serfs, or even bandits, robbers - honest laborers and people of the three religions and nine streams are mixed. In the eyes of these people, there is no national identity, no religious identity - as long as we have lived together and slashed and killed on the battlefield, we are brothers.
The popular shaved hair of the Ukrainian Cossacks is braided, and the hairstyle is similar to that of the Manchu Qing, and there is also a very vivid depiction of repin's famous painting in the front
The first Cossack tribe to become famous was the "Cossack of Zaporizia" in Repin's painting.
Modern Ukrainian cosplay Zaporozhye cossack traditional costume hairstyle
Cossacks of Zaporozhye in ancient paintings
In the beginning, these people simply used Zaporozhye as a sanctuary, and after several generations of breeding, a Ukrainian Cossack fortress was formed here.
At that time, most of the Cossack tribes were producing and killing and killing at the same time- they were also soldiers and civilians, farming and grazing in peacetime, and only went into battle to kill the enemy when there was war; but zaporozhian Cossacks did not, specially supported a group of professional soldiers, and every adult man of the tribe had to perform military service.
Such a force that comes and goes like the wind and has explosive combat effectiveness naturally belongs to the first choice of mercenaries in neighboring countries. Moreover, at this time, the Zaporozhyan Cossacks did not have any national values, and were only loyal to the employers who "paid on time".
Therefore, if you want to win them over, the key is to give the treatment issue well.
The first trigger of the Cossack Revolt in the 17th century was the "treatment problem".
Cossack equestrian performance
Originally, the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom implemented a policy called "Registered Cossacks" - providing a certain number of "special talents", and those who were included in the list became "registered Cossacks", entered the "system", were officially certified, had many privileges and benefits, not only did not have to pay taxes, but also received a salary.
The Ukrainian Cossacks who "worked" for the Poles at that time did a lot of great things after taking money ~ they fought the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire army to the south, and dealt with the Russians in the east, and their combat effectiveness was quite unambiguous.
However, in the second half of the 16th century, Poland became more and more divided, and there was no money to pay welfare to the "registered Cossacks", and even to impose heavy taxes on them in turn.
The Polish king tried to "draw a big pie" with them ~ what "this is your blessing", "if you are not satisfied, you are not patriotic".
But as I said earlier, the Cossack tribes, they only accept remuneration and treatment, and have no concept of state or nation.
Thus, from the end of the 16th century, the Cossack tribes in Ukraine launched five major uprisings in succession.
In 1954, the Soviet Hairstyle commemorated the 300th anniversary of the Great Ukrainian Cossack Uprising and the Russian-Ukrainian merger
But the declining Kingdom of Poland, the hungry camels were bigger than horses, and all five uprisings were brutally suppressed.
It was not until the middle of the 16th century that the Zaporizhian Cossack chief Khmelnytsky led another uprising, and with the Help of the Pereya Slavic Agreement, this time finally drove the Polish bosses away completely.
Bogdan Khmelnytsky
It was also the beginning of the 13-year-long Russo-Polish War. Since then, the Kingdom of Poland has been in a state of collapse, let alone invading the territory of other families, and even its own territory has become more and more unable to preserve... Until the end of the 18th century, it was completely erased on the map by the three countries of Russia and Austria.
Finally, let's briefly talk about the Don Cossacks in Russia.
From the end of the 15th century, they served the Russians as mercenaries. In 1570, the Don Cossacks accepted the edict of Tsar Ivan the Terrible and officially became a member of the Russian army. The Tsar also began to provide them with various welfare policies and military salaries, similar to the "registered Cossacks" in Poland.
In the later wars of the Tsarist Empire to expand the territory, the Don Cossacks were very powerful, especially the Northern War against Sweden and the several Crimean Wars against the Ottomans, and even played a decisive role in reversing the victory and defeat.
Compared with the Ukrainian Cossacks, the Don Cossacks' clothing and hairstyles are less exaggerated and closer to the wear of some Caucasian peoples. The upper Class Cossacks were also knighted for their military merits, and even given the status of nobility, and their daily life was no different from that of ordinary Russians.
Ukrainian Cossacks
Traditional costumes of the Russian Cossacks
Kadyrov Jr., President of the Chechen Autonomous Republic of the Russian Federation, dressed in the national costume of the Caucasus region
In the Tsarist era, whether it was the Zaporizhian Cossacks or the Don Cossacks, its upper echelons were also nobles and landlords, actively supporting backward serfdom.
Moreover, when they fought wars, they were full of barbarism, and at that time, according to the traditional practice of European countries, after capturing officers in war, they would be given preferential treatment, especially the noble prisoners, and they could also be used to demand ransom and engage in diplomatic games.
But the Cossacks often ignored this set and beheaded them on the spot after being captured, which also labeled them as barbaric and brutal.
By the end of the 18th century, with the many large-scale uprisings of Racine and Pugachev, Tsarist Russia was increasingly worried that these civilian military groups would pose a threat to their rule after they grew large, so they began to implement a policy of pulling and fighting with the Cossacks, secretly restricting them.
For example, in the name of preferential land distribution, the more powerful tribes were relocated to other places, the Cossacks were incorporated into the Russian regular army, and the military culture and institutional education of Tsarist Russia were educated and the concepts of the state and the nation.
Cossacks serving in the Russian army
After that, whether from Ukraine or Russia, there were a large number of formed Cossack legions in the Russian army, fighting for the Tsar. The Cossacks were involved in almost all internal and external wars related to the Russians.
For example, in 1684, during the Battle of Yaksa between China and Russia, the Qing Dynasty captured more than a hundred Russian prisoners, most of whom were Cossacks.
These people expressed their submission to the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, the Kangxi Emperor ordered them to be included in the Seventeenth Leader of the Fourth Staff of Manchuria with the Yellow Banner and placed in the Hujiaquan Hutong in Dongzhimen, Beijing. In order to respect the national beliefs of these people, a piece of land was deliberately allocated around the perimeter for them to build an Orthodox church. This is where the "Church of St. Nicholas" comes from. However, Beijingers are accustomed to calling this kind of building with an "onion head" "Luosha Temple" for hundreds of years.
By the time of the Russian Civil War, the Cossacks had been defined by the Red regime as a "class of rich people in the border areas, small and medium-sized landowners", and some were suppressed. In particular, the Don Cossacks, as described in the novel "Quiet Don", they were busy and busy, but in the end they "stood in the wrong line", the result was very tragic.
In the Soviet era, most Cossacks were united under the red flag to build Soviet socialism, and only during the Great Patriotic War, there were some discordant "puppet army" Cossacks.
The Ukrainian Cossacks, who had defected to the Germans, were formed by the Nazis as the Cossack Cavalry Division of the Waffen-SS
Of course, their mainstream is still not afraid of sacrifice and defends the "red Cossacks" of the motherland.
In May 1945, the Cossack officers and men of the Soviet Red Army in the first Victory Day Red Square parade, military merit badges hung on their chests
Cossack soldiers in the Red Army perform traditional dances
Having said all this, to sum up, the Cossacks, the famous armed tribal group in the history of the "Sanmao" of Kievan Rus' have long been anarchist.
At any time from Tsarist Russia to the Soviet Union to today's Russia, the Cossacks belonged to the important military power of the state.
Cossack square at the Red Square parade
And for today's Ukrainians, although most of them, according to blood, are not descendants of Cossacks, they are willing to regard the free, untamed and particularly capable Cossacks as their ancestors...
This is more of a kind of "spiritual Cossack."
Only now, there will no longer be a wild and dashing Cossack man, drunk on a horse, running across the river bend, to the girl's window and singing affectionately...