In the 2002 Russian census, 140,028 people declared Cossack ethnicity, while 67,573 people identified as Cossack in the 2010 census. During the 1990s, many regional authorities agreed to hand over some local administrative and policing duties to their Cossack hosts.
In 1988, the Soviet Union passed a law allowing the re-establishment of former Cossack hosts and the formation of new ones. During the Perestroika era in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, descendants of Cossacks moved to revive their national traditions. Cohesive Cossack-based units were organized and fought for both Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II.Īfter World War II, the Soviet Union disbanded the Cossack units in the Soviet Army, and many of the Cossack traditions were suppressed during the years of rule under Joseph Stalin and his successors. The Cossack way of life persisted into the twentieth century, though the sweeping societal changes of the Russian Revolution disrupted Cossack society as much as any other part of Russia many Cossacks migrated to other parts of Europe following the establishment of the Soviet Union, while others remained and assimilated into the Communist state. Each host had a territory consisting of affiliated villages called stanitsa. The various Cossack groups were organized along military lines, with large autonomous groups called hosts. The rulers of the Russian Empire endowed Cossacks with certain special privileges in return for the military duty to serve in the irregular troops (mostly cavalry). They inhabited sparsely populated areas in the Dnieper, Don, Terek, and Ural river basins, and played an important role in the historical and cultural development of both Ukraine and Russia. The Cossacks were particularly noted for holding democratic traditions. They were a semi-nomadic and semi-militarized people, who, while under the nominal suzerainty of various Eastern European states at the time, were allowed a great degree of self-governance in exchange for military service. The game system is arranged to reduce per-unit control and resource micromanagement, and to turn to global goals of powerful economy formation, science development, the capturing of new lands, and defending borders.The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic Orthodox Christian people group originating in the steppes of Ukraine. One can carry out lingering city sieges, wage guerilla wars, capture commanding heights and arrange ambushes, deploy landing forces on enemy shores, and conduct sea battles. Thus, England is the mightiest sea power, Austria has powerful light and heavy cavalry, and Cossacks are the pride of the Ukrainian army.īattles of up to 8,000 units may be conducted on single or network game maps. Each has its own original graphics, economic and technical development peculiarities, military advantages and drawbacks, and unique units and technologies, providing vast choices of tactics and strategy in war against any enemy. There are 16 nations or regions in Cossacks: Algeria, Austria, England, France, the Netherlands, Piemonte, Poland, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, Saxony, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, and Venice. Cossacks: European Wars is a historical real-time strategy based on events of the 16th through the 18th centuries in Europe, when nations and states were created and demolished, and wars shed seas of blood.