The difference between peasants and cossacks.

Ideas about who the Cossacks were, varied significantly at different times. Old Believers and fugitive serfs who were hiding on the outskirts of the state were called Cossacks. Then the Cossack was endowed with a special romanticism, and began to be perceived exclusively as a "rebel". There was also such an opinion that the Cossacks were all servicemen who made up the cavalry troops of Tsarist Russia, and foreign historians considered all deviators from feudal taxes and duties to be Cossacks. So who are the Cossacks in reality, and what is their main difference from the peasants?

The word " Cossacks" came to us from ancient Iranian languages ​​and is translated as "free man". The earliest mentions of the Cossacks in Russian chronicles date back to the first century of our era. Their habitat is called the Kuban lands and the Azov Sea.

Thus, neither the Old Believers nor the fugitive serfs have anything to do with the origin of the Cossacks. However, the Cossack communities were really replenished with residents of border lands, fugitives from captivity, as well as energetic, active "rebels".

Peasants, as a class, appeared in the Neolithic era, and were originally free tillers. From the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century, they were dependent on the landowner, and were attached to certain land plots.

The name "peasants" appeared in ancient times, when believers moved away from large settlements and organized small villages there. They were farming and called themselves "Christians."

Places of residence

Peasant settlements were located outside the city. The determining factor was the availability of fertile land.

Cossacks settled along rivers such as Don, Dnieper, Danube, etc. Their towns were located in remote places, protected by ravines and swamps, among bushes, on islands. Quite often the Cossacks even mastered impassable, wild territories.

Settlements

Cossack villages were significantly different from peasant settlements. They were much larger, had circular buildings, a deep ditch was dug around, which served as a defensive structure.

Taman. Cossack village

The peasants did not need defensive actions. Their settlements were most often disorderly and stretched out over great distances.

Dwelling

The peasant yard was a complex of the house itself and the adjacent household buildings and fertile lands. The house was usually made of wood. There was a stove in the middle of the house, but there was no pipe. Smoke came out of a small window. Annexes, called rooms, were often attached to the house. Until the 18th century, peasants were subordinate.

  • The main activity of the peasants is agriculture. From an early age, the Cossacks mastered and honed military skills.
  • Peasant houses are much smaller than Cossack houses, mostly wooden, with walls black with soot. The houses of the Cossacks, for the most part, are made of clay, stone, less often brick and wood, and are distinguished by numerous decorative elements of the interior.
  • In the Cossack family, women and youth had more rights than in the peasant family.
  • Children in Cossack families were the successors of the clan, and in peasants - farm laborers.
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