Cossacks

The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic, Eastern Orthodox Christian people, originating from the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Cossacks played an important role in defending the southern borders of Ukraine and Russia, countering the Crimean–Nogai raids, alongside economically developing steppe regions north of the Black Sea and around the Azov Sea. Historically, they were a semi-nomadic and semi-militarized people, who were allowed a great degree of self-governance in exchange for military service under the nominal suzerainty of various Eastern European states. Although numerous ethnic, linguistic and religious groups came together to form the Cossacks, the East Slavs predominated, with other groups gradually coalesced and Slavicized, thereby adopting E...