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The Welcome back to a History of Europe Key Battles podcast.

Today's episode is the first of four on the Battle of Hottin 1621.

One of the most fascinating groups of people in European history are the Cossacks.

Today a romantic image to a persists in Western

Europe of horsemen in fur hats, armed of sabres, galloping over the Russian steps. In other parts

of Europe and Asia, they are less favourably seen, notorious for their brutality and lordlessness.

In the pre-modern age, the Cossacks inhabited a no-man's land in

south-eastern Europe between the Christian states of Poland, Lithuania, and Muscovy to the north,

and the Ottoman Turks and their vassals to the south-east. There were not so much a distinct race,

but a way of life, a military caste whose service

the not always loyalty was brought for concessions of land and limited independence.

The Cossack phenomenon, without doubt, occupies a central place in the history of Ukraine,

and is important for the whole of southeastern Europe.

Their political role changed over the centuries, from when they were first formed in the 15th century to the modern day.

By the beginning of the 19th century, the Cossacks had formed a close relationship with the rulers of Russia.

Then, in the Russian Revolution of 1917, while many Cossacks had formed a close relationship with the rulers of Russia. Then, in the Russian

revelation of 1917, while many Cossack regiments joined the Red Army of the Bolsheviks,

others remained loyal to the old Tsarist regime and joined the White Army to try and reverse

the revelation. Stalin saw Cossacks as a potential threat and purged them in the 1930s, but after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the surviving Cossacks made a return to their homelands, and many took an active part in post-Soviet conflicts.

Today they remain a distinct group. In Russia's 2002 population census, more than 140,000 people reported their ethnicity as Cossacks.

Today's podcast covers the Battle of Khatine, also known as the Battle of Chokim, which took place between the 2nd of

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