The Zaporozhian Sich (Polish: Sicz Zaporoska, Ukrainian: Запорозька Січ, Zaporozka Sich; also Ukrainian: Вольностi Вiйська Запорозького Низового, Volnosti Viiska Zaporozkoho Nyzovoho; Free lands of the Zaporozhian Host the Lower)[1] was a semi-autonomous polity and proto-state[2] of Cossacks that existed between the 16th to 18th centuries, including as an autonomous stratocratic state within the Cossack Hetmanate for over a hundred years,[3][4][5] centred around the Great Meadow region of modern day Ukraine, spanning the lower Dnieper river.

In 1775, shortly after Russia annexed the territories ceded to it by the Ottoman Empire under the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774), Catherine the Great disbanded the Sich.

The name Zaporizhzhia refers to the military and political organization of the Cossacks and to the location of their autonomous territory 'beyond the rapids' (za porohamy) of the Dnieper River.

[9] The history of Zaporozhian Sich spans six time-periods: The Zaporozhian Sich emerged as a method of defence by Slavic colonists against the frequent and devastating raids of Crimean Tatars, who captured and enslaved hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, Belarusians and Poles to supply the Crimean slave trade in operations called "the harvesting of the steppe".

The Ukrainians created a self-defence force, the Cossacks, fierce enough to stop the Tatar hordes, and built fortified camps (sichi) that were later united to form a central fortress, the Zaporozhian Sich.

After the Treaty of Pereyaslav in 1654, the Zaporozhian Host was split into the Hetmanate, with its capital at Chyhyryn, and the more autonomous region of Zaporizhzhia, which continued to be centred on the Sich.

In May 1775, Russian General Peter Tekeli received orders to occupy and destroy the Zaporozhian Sich from Grigory Potemkin, who had been formally admitted into Cossackdom a few years earlier.

Some of the Cossack officer class, the starshyna, became hereditary Russian nobility and obtained huge lands in spite of their previous attempts to relocate the Sich to either North America or Australia.

Under the guidance of a starshyna named Lyakh, a conspiracy was formed among a group of 50 Cossacks to pretend to go fishing on the river Inhul next to the Southern Buh in the Ottoman provinces, and to obtain 50 passports for the expedition.

Lower level starshynas who remained and went over to the Russian side were given army ranks and all the privileges that accompanied them, and allowed to join Hussar and Dragoon regiments.

Ukrainian writer Adrian Kaschenko (1858–1921)[16] and historian Olena Apanovich[17] note that the abolition of the Zaporozhian Sich had a strong symbolic effect, and memories of the event remained for a long time in local folklore.

Some sources refer to the Zaporozhian Sich as a "Cossack republic",[18] because the highest power in it belonged to the assembly of all its members, and its leaders (starshyna) were elected.

A Cossack military court severely punished violence and stealing among compatriots, the bringing of women to the Sich, the consumption of alcohol in periods of conflict, and other offenses.

The population of the Sich had a cosmopolitan component, including Ukrainians, Moldavians, Tatars, Poles, Lithuanians, Jews, Russians and many other ethnicities.

Their campaigns were targeted at rich settlements on the Black Sea shores of the Ottoman Empire, and several times took them as far as Constantinople[19] and Trabzon (formerly Trebizond).