Zaporizhian Sich

Zaporizhian Sich showing the fortified walls.

Zaporizhian Sich (Ukrainian: Запорізька Січ, Zaporiz'ka Sich) original Ukrainian name "Zaporizhska Sich'" was the center of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, who were a power in the steppes north of the Black Sea from the 16th century to the 18th century. It was located on an island in the middle of the Dnieper River in what is now the Zaporizhia region of Ukraine. The term has also been metonymically used as an informal reference to the whole military-administrative organisation of the Zaporizhian Cossack Host.

Origins

Initially the Zaporizhian Sich was a fortified military camp, the foundation for which was laid out on the Isle of Khortytsia in 1556 by Dmytro Vyshnevetsky. But only in 1618 did Hetman Petro Konashevych Sahaidachny order his Cossacks to build the earthen perimeter with the log walls on top of it. The log fort was surrounded with а massive abatis made from entire trees. Hence the term "Sich" — a noun derived from the verb in Ukrainian: сікти (sikty) "to chop" or "cut", meaning to clear a forest for an encampment, or to build a fortification with the trees that have been chopped down.^[1]

The remoteness of the location and rapids on the Dnieper River provided effective protection from attack.

Organisation and Government

The Zaporizhian Host was led by a Hetman, aided by a head secretary, head judge, head archivist and the supreme government body called the Sich Rada or council.

Some sources refer to the Zaporizhian Sich as a "cossack republic",^[2] as the highest power in it belonged to the assembly of all its members, and because the leaders (starshyna) were elected. The Cossacks formed a society (hromada) that consisted of "kurens" (each with several hundred cossacks). There was a cossack military court that severely punished violence and stealing among compatriots; the bringing of women to the Sich; the consumption of alcohol in periods of conflict, etc. The administration of the Sich provided Orthodox churches and schools for the religious and secular education of children.

The Sich population had an international component, and included apart from Ukrainians, Moldovans, Tatars, Poles, Lithuanians, Jews and Russians. The social structure was also complex, consisting of: destitute gentry and boyars, merchants and peasants, outlaws of every sort, run-away slaves from Turkish galleys, etc. This initially led to the formation of gangs largely independent of the government whose main occupation was robbery. However by the mid 17th century these formations largely disappeared and were integrated into the Sich society.

Army and Warfare

Cossacks developed a large fleet of light fast light vessels. Their campaigns were targeted at were rich settlements on the Black Sea shores of the Ottoman Empire and several times took them as far as Constantinople. ^[3]

Formation

"Zaporizhian Camp" by Józef Brandt, oil on canvas; 72 × 112 cm. National Museum in Warsaw

The Zaporizhian Sich emerged as a natural method of defense by the Ukrainian people against the frequent and devastating raids of Crimean Tatars, who captured hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, Belarusians and Poles. Such slaving operations were called "the harvesting of the steppe".

Because of the Tatars' constant interference, Ukrainians found it hard to survive, let alone make a living. They created a self-defense force, the Cossacks, fierce enough to stop the Tatar hordes.

Some researchers say that the constant threat from the Crimean Tatars was the impetus for the emergence of cossackdom. During the raids of retribution to the Black Sea shores of the Ottoman Empire and Crimean Khanate, the cossacks not only robbed rich settlements, but liberated their compatriots from slavery.

History

Establishment

Zaporizhian Cossack, 18th century

Zaporizhian Cossacks Prayer, fragment of the icon of Protection of Holy Virgin Mary

In later years the Sich became the center of Cossack life south of the borders of Russian Tsardom. The Zaporizhian Host was governed by the Sich Rada and the term Zaporizhian Sich was applied to the "Cossack state".

After the Treaty of Pereyaslav (1654), the Host was split into two, the Hetmanate with its capital at Chyhyryn, and the more autonomous region of Zaporizhia which continued to be based at the Sich. During this period the Sich changed location several times.

During the reign of the Russian Tsar Peter, cossacks were taken to Russia in channel and fortification lines construction. An estimated 20–30 thousand were sent each year to Northern Russia for construction of channels at Ladoga Lake. Hard labour in cold and unfamiliar climate led to a high level of mortality among the cossacks. Only an estimated 40% returned home.^[4]

After the Battle of Poltava the original Sich was destroyed in 1709, and Mazepa's capital - Baturyn was razed. This is sometimes referred to as the Old Sich (Stara Sich). From 1734 to 1775 a New Sich (Nova Sich) was constructed.

Fear of the independence of the Sich, resulted in the Russian Administration first abolishing the Cossack Hetmanate in 1764 and finally totally destroying the Zaporizhian Sich itself by military force in 1775.

By the late 18th century, the Cossack officer class in Ukraine was incorporated into the Imperial Russian nobility (Dvoryanstvo). The rank and file Cossacks however, including a substantial portion of the old Zaporozhians, were reduced to peasant status. They were able to maintain some freedoms and continued to provide refuge for those fleeing serfdom in Russia and Poland. This aroused the anger of the Russian empress Catherine II. Also tension rose after the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, when the need for a further southern frontier was gone after the annexation of Crimea. With the colonisation of New Russia, tensions were created between the Cossacks, and numerous Serbian colonists. As the excuse for that Catherine II decided to diregard the Pereyaslav Treaty and disband the Sich.

Destruction

In May 1775, General Pyotr Tekeli received orders to occupy the main Zaporizhian fortress, the Sich, and to destroy it. The order was given by Grigory Potemkin, who was formally admitted into Cossackdom a few years earlier. Potemkin was given direct orders from Empress Catherine.

On June 5 1775, General Tekeli surrounded the Sich with artillery and infantry. He postponed the storming, and even allowed visits, whilst the head of the Host, Petro Kalnyshevsky was deciding on how to react to the Russian ultimatum. Under the guidance of a starshyna Lyakh, a conspiracy was formed with a group of 50 Cossacks to go fishing in the river Inhul next to the Southern Buh in the Ottoman provinces. The pretext was enough to allow the Russians to let the Cossacks out of the siege, who were joined by numerous others. The fleeing Cossacks travelled to the Danube Delta where they formed a new Danube Sich, under the protectorate of the Ottoman Empire.

When Tekeli realised the escape, there was little left for the remaining Cossacks. The Sich was razed to the ground. Petro Kalnyshevsky was arrested and exiled to the Solovetsky Islands (where he reputedly lived to the age of 112 in the Solovetsky Monastery). All high level starshynas were repressed or exiled.Lower level starshynas who remained and went over to the Russian side were given Army ranks and all the privileges that accompanied them, and allowed to join Husar and Dragoon regiments. Most of ordinary cossacks were made state peasants and serfs.^[5] The Ukrainian writer Adrian Kaschenko (1858-1921) ^[6], historian Olena Apanovich ^[7] note that the final abolishment of the Zaporizhian Sich, the Cossack historic stronghold perceived as the bastion of protection of the Ukrainians and their ways of life, had such a strong symbolic effect that the memories of the event remained for the long time in the local folklore.

See also

• Cossackdom
• History of the Cossacks
• Zaporozhian Cossacks
• Tatar invasions
• Jewish cossacks
• Khmelnytsky Uprising
• Black Sea Cossack Host formed a few years after the destruction of the Zarporozhiya.
• Danubian Sich, formed by some of the escapees of the Zaporozhian Cossacks in the delta of Danube, under the protectorate of the Ottoman Empire.
• Dmytro Yavornytsky, historian of the Zaporozhian Cossacks who mapped the locations of the various Siches.

References

External links

• Cossack raids
• Cossack Navy 16th - 17th Centuries
• Zaporizhia - Encyclopedia of Ukraine
• Story about Zaporizhean Cossaks by A.Kaschenko, Ukrainian language
• Article on Zaporizhian Sich in "Welcome to Ukraine" Magazine