Download The Cossacks: The History and Legacy of the Legendary Slavic Warriors AudioBook Free

"Had I simply 10,000 Cossacks, I would have conquered the whole world." (Napoleon Bonaparte) "Save us Lord, from Cossacks." (Sir Wilson, reporting the prayers of conquered Germans, 1813) The modern myth of the Cossack presents striking images of your stern warrior attached to horseback, with a long woolen cover, papakha (distinctive large fur cap ) and fur-lined cloak, with bandoliers keeping large-caliber bullets crisscrossing his breasts. The warrior is equipped with a mixture of rifle, lance, daggers and pistols, but he always has his personal weaponry: the shashka (a single-edged, guard-less, slightly curved saber actually created by the Circassian foes) and the nagyka (short, solid whip of braided leather with a heavy weight worked in to the end originally made for fighting off wolves but more commonly used in old age against opponents of the state in the streets of Moscow or Odessa). As opponents conjured up the Cossack as semi-tamed steppe barbarian, a dog of the state, and the fist of the Czar, it's no surprise they were terrified. Even while the origins of the ferocious fighters remain murky and obscure, the Cossacks have continued their growing international appearance with the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in 2014. The conflict on the Crimea and the southeastern Donbass region has had thoroughly Cossack overtones; on the main one side, the Ukrainian Nationalists view themselves as the descendants of the independence minded Cossack Republics and on the other side, Russia has leaned greatly after Cossack "volunteers" to staff its informal militias in the Donbass and seize and police Crimea.

Category: Classics