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Cossacks

Cultural  
  1. A people in southern Russia who became aggressive warriors during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In place of taxes, they supplied the Russian Empire with scouts and mounted soldiers. The Cossacks are also famed for their dances, which feature fast-paced music and seemingly impossible leaps.


Example Sentences

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One of Babel’s “Red Cavalry” stories tells of Lyutov, a Jewish intellectual who rode with the Cossacks, as Babel did, trying to prove himself a man on their terms.

From The Wall Street Journal May 22, 2026

Mr Suny points out that the inhabitants of these lands when they were conquered by Russia were neither Russian nor Ukrainian, but Ottoman, Tatar or Cossacks - Slavic peasants who had fled to the frontiers.

From BBC Feb. 9, 2024

Ukrainians learned that the hard way in the mid-1600s when Ukrainian Cossacks rebelled against their Catholic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth rulers and established an independent state, seeking protection from their Orthodox co-religionists in Muscovy.

From Salon Jul. 29, 2023

The models for the Ukrainian Cossacks in one of his most famous paintings, “Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks,” were friends and academics from the university in St. Petersburg.

From Washington Post Dec. 8, 2022

As we watched the men ride around the arena, Frankie explained that Cossacks formed the military might of the Russian Empire, where they were required to serve for twenty years.

From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros

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