The Cossacks were ethnically heterogeneous people, living, inter alia, in the south-eastern borderlands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, although they were dominated by Orthodox Ruthenians. The largest number of their seats were located behind the floodplain on the Dnieper, hence in the Polish-Lithuanian state they were often referred to as Zaporozhets. The first mentions of Cossacks appear at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries. It is worth adding that the Cossacks organized themselves on the model of military units, and earned their living mainly (but not only!) From plundering expeditions to Ottoman Turkey. They were great soldiers, and their combat qualities were already appreciated by Stefan Batory, ruling in the years 1576-1586. They created mobile light cavalry units, but were known primarily as great walkers, very good with firearms. They also repeatedly stood against the Commonwealth in a series of uprisings in the 16th and 17th centuries, the biggest of which was the Chmielnicki Uprising, which broke out in 1648. As a result of this uprising and the subsequent Polish-Russian war, Ukraine was divided between the two countries, and the Cossacks under the tsar's rule began to lose their autonomy and independence.
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