Registered Cossacks

Registered Cossacks (, ) comprised special Cossack units of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth army in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Registered Cossacks became a military formation of the Commonwealth army beginning in 1572Registered Cassacks at the Handbook of the History of Ukraine
/ref> soon after the Union of Lublin (1569), when most of the territory of modern Ukraine passed to the Crown of Poland. Registered Cossack formations were based on the Zaporozhian Cossacks who already lived on the lower reaches of the Dnieper River amidst the Pontic steppes as well as on self-defense formations within settlements in the region of modern Central and Southern Ukraine.

History

Origins

In 1524, King Sigismund I commissioned Semen Połozowicz and Krzysztof Kmitycz to organize permanent Cossack units to defend the lower Dnieper; however, the plan was not implemented due to a lack of funds. The starosta of Cherkasy, Ostap Dashkevych, revived the idea at the 1533 Polish Sejm in Piotrków Trybunalski. Dashkevych tried to show that in order to protect the borders beyond the Dnieper River it would be necessary to maintain an army of 2,000 soldiers and several hundred cavalrymen. He pointed out the importance of establishing forts on the river's islands to keep Tatar raids in check. Although the plans to establish permanent Cossack units were not realized at that time, Polish and Lithuanian border starosts frequently made use of Cossack troops in fights against the Tatars, both for defensive purposes and in retaliatory raids.

In 1568 Sigismund II Augustus sent a proposition to the Zaporizhian Cossacks to join his royal service in exchange of payment. In 1570 Great Crown Hetman Jerzy Jazłowiecki formed first 300-men Cossack unit, under the command of , which was although disbanded after their death in 1575.

Batory reforms

Elected King of Poland in 1575, the Prince of Transylvania, Stephen Báthory, undertook a comprehensive effort to bring order to the Ukrainian borderlands, where the Cossack element had grown into a significant force and was launching independent raids against the Ottoman Empire and its vassals, Moldavia and the Crimean Khanate.

In the course of negotiations with Cossack representatives, he established a permanent 500-man Cossack unit, whose members were registered and received regular pay. The king granted them a banner, a seal, and a mace, and designated the town of Trakhtemyriv as their official residence. Prince Michał Wiśniowiecki was appointed as the supreme commander of the host, with as its military leader and Jancza Beger as the scribe. In return, the Cossacks were forbidden from conducting independent raids.

The unit took part in the war against Muscovy. Later registers recorded varying numbers of Cossacks officially enlisted—up to 600 in 1583 and 1,000 in 1590. Although payments were often irregular, the very existence of the register, along with royal edicts confirming their autonomy from local administration, fostered among the Cossacks a sense of estate-based distinctiveness. The register also failed to put an end to Cossack raids, in which registered Cossacks often participated.

In 1590 the Sejm issued a new declaration re-creating the Cossack units. A royal edict issued on July 25, 1590, envisaged registering 1,000 Cossacks for policing duty in order to prevent unauthorized raids into neighboring countries. The registered Cossacks were paid from 5 to 12 zlotys each quarter, and the Zaporizhian Sich was selected as their headquarters. As the Polish interests aimed in securing the Swedish crown, however, the Cossack movement was allowed to grow out of control, leading to a series of local rebellions by polkovnyk Krzysztof Kosiński and Severyn Nalyvaiko, with assistance from kosh otaman of the Zaporozhian Cossacks Hryhoriy Loboda.

Organization

Registered Cossacks formed an elite among the Cossacks, serving in the military under officers ('' starshyna''), colonels ('' polkovnyk'') and generals ('' hetman''), under the Grand Crown Hetman (the highest Commonwealth military commander). A substantial minority of Cossacks formed skilled light cavalry units ('' choragiew''), excellent skirmishers trained in mounted archery (and later using firearms), making lightning raids, harassing heavier, slower formations and disengaging. Those units were often used as support for heavy elite Commonwealth cavalry, the husaria, and were much cheaper to form than a hussar unit. The main Cossack units were the infantry, known for their tabor formation.

Registered Cossacks had many privileges, including personal freedom, exemption from many taxes and duties, and the right to receive wages, although the Commonwealth military's fiscal problems, led to delayed payments, often via items like clothing or weapons instead of coin.

Many Cossacks were skilled warriors and their major income source came from raids on the southern neighbors of the Commonwealth: the (Ottoman Empire and its vassals). However, only a small number were actually 'registered Cossacks'; the exact number was from few hundred to few thousand and varied over time, usually increasing during wartime. This led to many social and political tensions, especially as szlachta (Polish and Ukrainian gentry) continually attempted to force the Cossacks into submission as peasants, while the Cossacks demanded significant expansions of the Cossack register. Furthermore, the Cossack-szlachta conflict was aggravated as Cossacks often supported Commonwealth monarchs like Wladyslaw IV Waza who were at odds with Polish szlachta who wished to further limit the monarch's powers. The tensions between the Cossacks and szlachta grew from the late 16th century and resulted in several uprisings with the registered Cossacks often forced to choose sides between supporting their own people or the szlachta-backed Commonwealth forces. Eventually the king's refusal to expand the registry led to the Khmelnytsky uprising of 1648.

Cossack Hetmanate

According to the Treaty of Zboriv, signed on August 17, 1649, the number of Registered Cossacks increased up to forty thousand.

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Liquidation

A Russian-Polish alliance was formed against Bohdan Khmelnitsky, with his Cossacks being declared rebels against all order. Don Cossack raids on Crimea left Khmelnitsky without the aid of his usual Tatar allies . The rebellion ended with the 1654 Treaty of Pereyaslav in which Khmelnitsky's Cossacks, so as to destroy the Russian-Polish alliance against them, pledged their loyalty to the Russian Tsar, who guaranteed their protection, the recognition of their starshyna (officer-nobility) and their property and autonomy under his rule, freeing the Cossacks from the Polish sphere of influence in favor of Russian hegemony. Despite this, individual Cossacks continued to settle in regions of Right-bank Ukraine, which remained part of the Commonwealth under the Treaty of Andrusovo (1667). As a result, Registered Cossacks remained an official unit of the Polish–Lithuanian army until the liquidation of Cossacks as a separate class in the Commonwealth with the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699.

See also

* Elected Cossacks - Ukrainian Cossacks officially recognized under Russian imperial rule.

Citations

Bibliography

*
* {{Cite book , last=Yakovenko , first=Natalia , author-link=Natalia Yakovenko , title=Historia Ukrainy do 1795 roku , date=2011 , location=Warsaw , language=pl , trans-title=History of Ukraine until 1795

External links

Registered Cossacks
at Encyclopedia of Ukraine.

1572 establishments in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
Cossacks
Military history of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
Military history of Ukraine
Military units and formations established in 1572
Military units and formations of Ukraine
Zaporozhian Host