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Cossack
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Zaporozhian Cossacks Close-up of the Bohdan Khmelnytsky statue in Kiev, Ukraine, showing the figure in traditional attire with a feathered hat, looking sternly into the distance. Yermak Timofeyevich Yemelyan Pugachov Mazepa, Ivan Illustration of Russian Cossack soldiers on horseback charging through a snowy Korean village, with fleeing villagers and startled animals, during the Russo-Japanese War.
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Zaporozhian Cossacks
Zaporozhian Cossacks Zaporozhian Cossacks, oil painting by Ilya Repin, 1891; in the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

Cossack

Russian and Ukrainian people
Also known as: Kazak
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Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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•History

Cossack, (from Turkic kazak, “adventurer” or “free man”), member of a people dwelling in the northern hinterlands of the Black and Caspian seas. They had a tradition of independence and finally received privileges from the Russian government in return for military services. Originally (in the 15th century) the term referred to semi-independent Tatar groups, which formed in the Dnieper region. The term was also applied (by the end of the 15th century) to peasants who...

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