The Sich Council
/ref> () was the highest branch of government of the

Zaporozhian Cossacks The Zaporozhian Cossacks (in Latin ''Cossacorum Zaporoviensis''), also known as the Zaporozhian Cossack Army or the Zaporozhian Host (), were Cossacks who lived beyond (that is, downstream from) the Dnieper Rapids. Along with Registered Cossa ...

, and based at their center, the

Zaporizhian Sich The Zaporozhian Sich (, , ; also ) was a semi-autonomous polity and proto-state of Zaporozhian Cossacks that existed between the 16th to 18th centuries, for the latter part of that period as an autonomous stratocratic state within the Cossa ...

. It was also called . The

Rada The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, also known by its abbreviation RADA (), is a drama school in London, England, which provides vocational conservatoire training for theatre, film, television, and radio. It is based in Bloomsbury, Central Lond ...

, a type of governing

committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly or other form of organization. A committee may not itself be considered to be a form of assembly or a decision-making body. Usually, an assembly o ...

but with participation from the cossack members, was involved in legislative, executive and judicial matters.Magocsi, P. (1996) ''A history of Ukraine'', University of Toronto Press
, The Rada met irregularly on the central square of the Zaporozhian Sich; later, in the 18th century, it met twice a year. Measures were adopted by a majority vote, which was estimated visually with no exact count of hands.

Functions

As an institution, the Sich Rada was a form of

direct democracy Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the Election#Electorate, electorate directly decides on policy initiatives, without legislator, elected representatives as proxies, as opposed to the representative democracy m ...

where rights of individual

cossacks The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic languages, East Slavic Eastern Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Cossacks played an important role in defending the southern borde ...

were preserved through participation in the Rada. It was able to decide when to go to war and when to conclude a peace treaty. It elected the officer staff (

starshyna ( rus, Старшина, p=stərʂɨˈna, a=Ru-старшина.ogg or ) is a senior military rank or designation in the military forces of some Slavic states, and a historical military designation. Depending on a country, it had different mean ...

), with the

Kosh otaman Kosh may refer to: Ukrainian culture * Kosh otaman (16–18th centuries), an officer of the Zaporozhian Host * Kosh or Kish, a military society of Zaporozhian Cossacks The Zaporozhian Cossacks (in Latin ''Cossacorum Zaporoviensis''), also kn ...

at its head. It received foreign

diplomat A diplomat (from ; romanization, romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state (polity), state, International organization, intergovernmental, or Non-governmental organization, nongovernmental institution to conduct diplomacy with one ...

s and determined the course of

diplomatic relations Diplomacy is the communication by representatives of state, intergovernmental, or non-governmental institutions intended to influence events in the international system.Ronald Peter Barston, ''Modern Diplomacy'', Pearson Education, 2006, p. ...

. The Sich Rada also fulfilled certain economic functions, such as the distribution of the communal agricultural and fishing districts among the kurins of the Sich.'Sich Council (Sichova Rada)' in ''Encyclopedia of Ukraine'', vol. 4 (1993)
/ref>

Notes and references

Cossack Rada Zaporizhian Sich {{Ukraine-hist-stub