Cossacks

Cossacks, Slavic warrior peasants living on the Ukrainian steppe and famed for horsemanship. Self-governing under leaders like Bohdan Chmielnicki (1595–1657), they resisted outside authority, but served the czars as irregular cavalry, pioneered in Siberia, and fought the Bolsheviks from 1918 to 1921. Collectivization broke up their communities in the 1930s, but Cossack cavalry served in World War II.