I'm going to go. The Welcome to the Russian rulers history podcast, a slop shot edition on the topic of

Kossacks. There's a book called the Encyclopedia of Russian History

edited by James Millar and in it he has a number of articles that's very very

big it's about 1900 pages I've gotten a couple of of to just incorporate the whole thing into the podcast and this is by Bruce Menning is the

author of this topic and Cossacks are very important because they do play a big role in Russian

history especially the time that we're starting to talk

about right now with the dawn of the Romanovs.

So let's get at it, and here's the article.

The word Kossack, known in Russian as Kazakh, is probably Turkic in origin and the term

dates to medieval times when it was used to denote wanderers or freebooters of

varying Slavic and non-Slavic origins, who lived off raids on the Eurasian

step and jealously guarded their independence.

By the 15th century, the term was increasingly applied to a mixture of freemen and fugitives who had fled

the serfdom of Poland, Lithuania, and Muscovy to live in the seams between the encroaching

Slavic settlement and the receding remnants of the golden horde.

From these beginnings two distinct traditions gradually emerged to figure in the evolution

of the various Cossack groupings and later Russian and Ukrainian history.

One tradition witnessed the transformation of these frontiersmen into military servitors who, in exchange for compensation in various rights and privileges,

agreed to discharge mounted military service, usually on the fringes of advancing Slavic colonization.

These servitors came to be called town Cossacks,

and their duties included mounted reconnaissance

and defense against nomadic and tartar incursion.

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