In former times, when tlie dominant grand duchy of Russia had its centre in Kieff, the whole of Little Russia may have been miited under one sceptre. After the fall of the old duchy, a number of smaller )rincipahties were formed at Halitsh (Gahcia), \lodimir (Lodimira), Tshemigoff, &c. These in time became a prey of the Tartars and Poles, of the latter particularly, who after the decline of the Mongolian empire gradually appropriated the whole of Little Russia. Oppressed by the Poles, numbers of the Little Russians, the unmarried, particularly young men capable of bearing arms (Kasakki) wandered forth, and settled in various pohtical societies in the desert steppes, at the mouths of the Dniester, Don, and Dnieper, where they fought and plundered, partly on their own account, partly in the pay of others — Tartars, Turks, Poles, Great Russians, and others. At the head of each of these Cossack communities was a Hetman, as general or chief of the republic By degrees these Cossack colonies spread themselves over the whole steppe to the south, which they wrenched from the Tartars, as far as the Volga and the Ural, and one Cossack colony, extendmg its excursions still farther, conquered Siberia. The most powerful of these Cossack states w^ere those of the Dnieper, cf the Don, and those of Zaporog. During the flourishing time of their independence, the Cossacks were the terror of all the countries bordering on the Kteppes, and as they were as skilful in guiding their little boats as in managing their horses, they became the pests of the Turkish provinces bordering on the Black Sea. They fell upon and plundered in their piratical expeditions Trebizond, Sinope, Constantinople, and other Turkish cities, sometimes at the instigation of the Poles and Muscovites, and sometimes at their own.
As the empire of the Moscovites developed itself, the Cossacks became united with them, partly by treaty, partly by force and custom, and now all obey the sceptre of the czars, with the exception of a few beyond the Danube, who still serve the Padishah.
Under those czars who drove the Poles further back to the west, many of the Cossacks were formed into regiments and estabUshed on the frontier (u kraind) to defend it against the Poles. It was in the districts Sumi, KharkofF, Akhtyrka, Tsum, and others, that these border militia were
AmonfT the Little Russians, a chief, particularly the chii'f of the whole Ixxly, is called a Hetmau. Attnian is not the same: inany hifcrior oflicials — for exiunplc, the bailiffs of the villagesare called " Attman."
located. The country was then probably thinly peopled by the Malorossians ; but the protection promised by the Great Russians allured otlier settlers. The " Slobodes " of the Cossack grew in time to be considerable to^^^ls, and husbandmen took possession of the surrounding fertile land, and there founded so great a number of villages, that these districts are now among the most populous in Russia. Although the Moscovites soon overstepped these old liniits, still from old custom, they spoke of the Cossack slobodes of the frontier (^Slobody u kraina), and thus the name of Ukraine, or frontier-land, remained to a long narrow strip of Little Russia.