Zaporizhian Sich
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Zaporizhian Sich or Zaporozhian Sech (#redirect ,Zaporoz'ka Sich) original Slavonic name "Zaporizhska Sich'" was the center of the Cossacks of Zaporizhzhia. The term has also been metonymically used as an informal reference to the whole Zaporizhzhia or to Zaporozhian Host.
Initially Zaporizhian Sich was a fortified military camp the foundation for which was laid out on the Isle of Khortytsia (Mala Khortytsia, Khortytsia Minor) in 1556 by D.I. Vyshnevetsky. But only in 1618 Hetman Petro Konashevych Sagaidachny ordered his Cossacks to build the earthen perimeter with the log walls on top of it. The log fort was surrounded with the massive abatis made from entire trees. Hence the term "Sich": it is a noun derived from the verb "to cut" and denotes the abatis way of fortification: by cutting the forest.
The Sich was a center of a Cossack state, Zaporozhian Host, governed by the Sichova Rada and sometimes the term Zaporizhian Sich is applied to the whole Cossack state. After the Treaty of Pereyaslav (1654), the Host split into two, the Hetmanate with its capital at Chyhyryn, and the more autonomous region of Zaporizhzhia which continued to be based at the Sich (although the Sich changed location several times).
The period after 1654, before it sided with Mazepa and was disbanded in 1709, soon after the Baturyn was razed, is sometimes referred to as the Old Sich (Stara Sich). From 1734 to 1775 the New Sich (Nova Sich) existed, disbanded after the failure of the Pugachev Uprising.
See also
- Dmytro Yavornytsky, historian of the Zaporozhian Cossacks who mapped the locations of the various Siches.
- Zaporozhets - a Soviet/Ukrainian car, whose name means Zaporizhia's citizen (like New Yorker in New York).
External link
- [Zaporizhia] - Encyclopedia of Ukraine
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