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Registered Cossacks

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Registered Cossacks (reiestrovi kozaky). Cossacks who were accepted into the special Cossack
units of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth army and were enrolled in a special register
(hence the term). The first effort to secure the Cossacks' military services was made in 1524 by
King Sigismund I the Old, who assigned S. Polozovych and K. Kmytych the task of setting up
a Cossack unit in the royal army. Because the crown lacked sufficient funds to pay the
Cossacks for their services, the plan was not realized, and similar efforts by Ostafii
Dashkevych, the starosta of Cherkasy, in 1533 and again by Sigismund in 1541 also failed.
Whereas the starostas in Ukraine wanted to organize Cossack units primarily for more
effective defense of the Commonwealth's frontier against Tatar attacks, the kings wanted
them for the purpose of controlling the Zaporozhian Cossacks and restraining their anti-
Crimean and anti-Turkish campaigns and raids.

The creation of a registered Cossack force was first decreed on 2 June 1572 by King
Sigismund II Augustus, who ordered the grand hetman of the army, J. Jazłowiecki, to hire
and register 300 of the wealthiest Cossacks. Thenceforth nonregistered Cossacks were
accorded a semilegal status. The registered Cossacks were officially outside the jurisdiction of
the local authorities and were placed under the command of a government-appointed elder
(starshyi), the first of whom was the Polish noble J. Badowski. In 1578 King Stephen Báthory
allowed the register to be increased to 600 Cossacks, and appointed Prince Mykhailo
Vyshnevetsky as their starosta. The registered Cossacks were exempted from taxation and
granted the right to own land and the privilege of self-government under an appointed
member of the Cossack starshyna. They had their own standards, kettledrums, and other
insignia; were paid in cash and clothing; and were given ownership of the town of
Trakhtemyriv and the Trakhtemyriv Monastery to house their winter quarters, arsenal, and
hospital. The Commonwealth government officially named the registered Cossacks the
Zaporozhian Army to underscore the fact that it considered the actual Zaporozhian Host a
legal nonentity. The registered Cossacks were obligated to serve in central Ukraine and, when
ordered to do so by the government, set up garrisons beyond the Dnieper Rapids.

The efforts of Stephen Báthory and his successors to control the growth of Cossack society
through registration proved futile. From the late 16th century on, its consolidation occurred

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Registered Cossacks

in two centers, the Zaporozhian Sich and Trakhtemyriv. The Zaporozhian Sich became the
hearth of revolutionary independence, and Trakhtemyriv was the headquarters of the
privileged, conservative, registered Cossack elite. After the Cossack rebellions of the 1580s in
Ukraine, the Commonwealth government decreed an increase in the register to 1,000 on 25
June 1590 and turned over the Kremenchuk fortress to the registered Cossacks. During the
Commonwealth's wars with Muscovy and the Ottoman Empire the register was increased to
10,000, in 1618. The 1619 Rostavytsia Treaty reduced it to 3,000, but in 1620 it was again
increased, that time to 20,000.

The 1625 Treaty of Kurukove set the register at 6,000 and granted the registered Cossacks the
right to elect their own hetman, subject to approval by the king. Under the provisions of the
Pereiaslav Treaty of 1630 the register was expanded to 8,000. In 1638, after the suppression of
the rebellions led by Pavlo Pavliuk and Karpo Skydan, in which registered Cossacks had
joined the rebel side, the register was reduced to 6,000 and then 5,000, the registered Cossacks
lost the right to elect their own starshyna and have their own court system, the hetman was
replaced by an appointed commissioner subordinated to the Polish grand hetman, and
Cossacks excluded from the register were enserfed. After the outbreak of the Cossack-Polish
War in 1648, the registered Cossacks mostly sided with Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky and
played an instrumental role in subsequent Polish defeats. Under Khmelnytsky the Cossack
register was replaced by the komput, and the former registered Cossacks were designated
town Cossacks. The Poles' attempts at reducing the register to 40,000 in the 1649 Treaty of
Zboriv and then 20,000 in the 1651 Treaty of Bila Tserkva proved unenforceable, and
Khmelnytsky increased it to 50,000 and then 60,000 in 1654. The term ‘registered Cossacks’
was not used after 1660.

Prominent leaders of the registered Cossacks included Samiilo Kishka, Kryshtof Kosynsky,
Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny, Yatsko Borodavka (Nerodych), Mykhailo Doroshenko,
Hryhorii Chorny, and Illiash Karaimovych. In 1875 Osyp Bodiansky published the detailed
register of the entire Zaporozhian Host compiled after the Treaty of Zboriv.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Iakovliv, A. ‘Z istoriï reiestratsiï ukraïns’kykh kozakiv,’ Ukraïna, 1 (1907)
Kryp'iakevych, I. ‘Kozachchyna i Batoriievi vil’nosti,’ Zherela do istoriï Ukraïny-Rusy, vol 8
(Lviv 1908)
Golobutskii, V. Zaporozhskoe kazachestvo (Kyiv 1957)
Vynar, Liubomyr. ‘Pochatky ukraïns’koho reiestrovoho kozatstva,’ UI, no. 2–3 (1964)

Lubomyr Wynar

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]

List of related links from Encyclopedia of Ukraine pointing to Registered Cossacks entry:

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Registered Cossacks

1 Bila Tserkva regiment

2 Bila Tserkva, Treaty of
3 Borodavka (Nerodych), Yatsko

4 Bratslav regiment
5 Cherkasy regiment
6 Chernihiv regiment
7 Chyhyryn regiment

8 Company
9 Cossack-Polish War
10 Cossacks
11 Doroshenko, Mykhailo
12 Dzhalalii, Filon

13 Hadiach, Treaty of
14 Hetman state
15 History of Ukraine
16 Hlukhiv Articles
17 Hutsuls

18 Kaniv regiment
19 Khmelnytsky, Bohdan
20 Khortytsia Island

+ 20 Records >>

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