Summary
Highlights
Despite a serene sunset on the Dnipro River, the mood is tense for the Zaporozhian Cossacks in 1676. The Treaty of Żurawno has officially ended hostilities between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire, but peace is far from their minds.
The Cossacks, a term meaning "free man," settled in the Wild Fields north of the Black Sea and became a formidable military force. They sought freedom through shifting alliances between Poland and Moscow, which led to the partitioning of their lands and increasing difficulty in maintaining their independence.
In a bid to regain independence, Hetman Petro Doroshenko allied with the Ottoman Empire. This alliance freed the Western Zaporozhian Cossacks from Polish dominion but was met with outrage due to the Ottomans' ravaging of the countryside and the alliance with Muslims against Christians, costing Doroshenko local support. He was eventually deposed and exiled.
With Doroshenko gone, the Cossacks are divided on their next course of action. Stepan, a Cossack warrior, keeps order among his diverse battalion, composed mainly of Orthodox Christians speaking a Slavic language, but also including Greeks, Tatars, and Mongolian Kalmyks, all with differing opinions on recent events and traditions. Many adhere to a strict martial code, while others maintain families outside Cossack lands.
The Cossacks reach the Sich, the center of their military life, known for its organization and value placed on literacy. During a meal, an argument breaks out over a toast to Doroshenko, which Stepan defuses by toasting Ivan Sirko, the new hetman who favors an alliance with Moscow against the Turks. Stepan plans to support Sirko and expects his men to follow suit.
An emergency council meeting, or Rada, is called by Sirko's men. Sirko announces that scouts have located a vulnerable Ottoman camp and rallies the Cossacks to ride against their common enemy the next day, in defense of their autonomy and to unite the Wild Fields. The men cheer, and Stepan is relieved by their renewed sense of brotherhood.
Over the next two centuries, these freedom fighters would face many adversaries. Although they would later become an oppressive arm of the Russian government they once opposed, the 17th-century Cossacks are remembered for their spirit of independence and defiance, embodying a deep commitment to freedom, equality, and fraternity.