TheWild Fields[a] is a historical term used in thePolish–Lithuanian documents of the 16th to 18th centuries[1] to refer to thePontic steppe in the territory of present-day Eastern and SouthernUkraine and Western Russia, north of theBlack Sea andAzov Sea. It was the traditional name for the Black Sea steppes in the 16th and 17th centuries.[2] In a narrow sense, it is the historical name for the demarcated and sparsely populated Black Sea steppes between the middle and lower reaches of theDniester in the west, the lower reaches of theDon and theSiverskyi Donets in the east, from the left tributary of theDnipro–Samara, and the upper reaches of theSouthern Bug–Syniukha andIngul in the north, to theBlack andAzov Seas andCrimea in the south.
In a broad sense, it is the name of the entireGreat Eurasian Steppe, which was also calledGreat Scythia in ancient times orGreat Tartary in the Middle Ages in European sources andDesht-i-Kipchak in Eastern (mainly Persian) sources.
According to Ukrainian historian Vitaliy Shcherbak, the term appeared sometime in the 15th century for territory between theDniester and mid-Volga when colonization of the region byZaporozhian Cossacks started.[3] Shcherbak notes that the term's contemporaries, such asMichalo Lituanus,[4][5]Blaise de Vigenère, andJózef Wereszczyński,[6] wrote about the great natural riches of the steppes and theDnieper basin.[3]
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From the Neolithic Era and intermittently until the middle of the second millennium AD, the area served as a borderland and area of intense struggle between agriculture-practicing settled peoples to the west and the nomads of the Eurasian Steppe. Nomadism prevailed in the Wild Fields since antiquity, andsettled life (civilization) was established with great difficulty. For centuries, the region was sparsely populated by various nomadic groups such asScythians,Sarmatians,Alans,Huns,Cumans,Khazars,Bulgars,Pechenegs,Kipchaks,Turco-Mongols,Tatars andNogais.[7] There werePontic Greekcolonies on the Pontic steppes of the Wild Fields —Tanais,Olbia,Borysthenes,Nikonion,Tyras.
The rule ofGreat Khazaria on these lands was won byKievan Rus, then Kievan Rus was replaced by theMongol Empire. The steppes of the Wild Fields were suitable for the development of agriculture, animal husbandry,horse breeding and crafts, which led to their colonization as early as the Kievan state. These attempts to settle the land was hindered by aggressive raids from the steppe nomads that ranged across those lands in waves. After theMongol invasion of Kievan Rus', the territory was ruled by theGolden Horde until theBattle of Blue Waters (1362), which allowedAlgirdas to claim it for theGrand Duchy of Lithuania. As a result of theBattle of the Vorskla River in 1399, the successorVytautas lost the territory toTemür Qutlugh, the khan of the Golden Horde.
After the pillaging and devastation of the agriculturally based villages and people on these lands by theTatar-Mongols, the Black Sea steppes became more officially known as the Wild Fields (wilderness) on boundary maps and for governance. In 1441, the western section of the Wild Fields,Yedisan, came to be dominated by theCrimean Khanate, a political entity controlled by the expandingOttoman Empire from the 16th century onward. The 14th and 15th centuries were particularly favorable forUkrainians to settle the Wild Fields, when these lands became part of theGrand Duchy of Lithuania. Thus, the Wild Fields were partly inhabited by theZaporizhian Cossacks, as reflected in works of the Polish theologian and Catholic bishop of Kiev Józef Wereszczyński, who settled there in the 15th century under the condition that he would fight off expansion by theNogai Horde and the growing danger from attacks by theCrimean Khanate.[6][3] And in 1552 the first Ukrainianproto-stateZaporozhian Sich was established.
The Wild Fields region was traversed by the horse nomads using theMuravsky Trail andIzyumsky Trail, important warpaths used by the Crimean Tatars to invade and pillage theGrand Duchy of Moscow.[8] TheCrimean-Nogai Raids, a long period of raids and fighting between the Crimean Tatars and Nogai Horde on one side and theGrand Duchy of Lithuania and the Grand Duchy of Moscow on the other side, caused considerable devastation and depopulation in the area before the rise of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, who periodically sailed down theDnieper indugouts from their base atKhortytsia andraided the coast of the Black Sea. The Turks built several fortress towns to defend the littoral, includingKara Kerman andKhadjibey.
What made the "wild field" so forbidding were the Tatars. Year after year, their swift raiding parties swept down on the towns and villages to pillage, kill the old and frail, and drive away thousands of captives to besold as slaves in the Crimean port ofKaffa, a city often referred to by Russians as "the vampire that drinks the blood of Rus" ... For example, from 1450 to 1586, eighty-six raids were recorded, and from 1600 to 1647, seventy. Although estimates of the number of captives taken in a single raid reached as high as 30,000, the average figure was closer to 3000 .... InPodilia alone, about one-third of all the villages were devastated or abandoned between 1578 and 1583.[9]
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the government of thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth considered the Ukrainian lands to the east and south ofBila Tserkva to be the Wild Fields, and distributed them to magnates and nobility as private property as uninhabited, although Ukrainians lived there.
By the 17th century, the east part of the Wild Fields had been settled by runaway peasants andserfs, who made up the core of theCossackdom.[10] During theBohdan Khmelnytsky Uprising (from 1648 to 1657) the north part of this area was settled by Cossacks from the Dnieper basin and came to be known asSloboda Ukraine. After a successful uprising ofBohdan Khmelnytsky, in which he allied withCrimean Tatars, a new state ofCossack Hetmanate was established on the territory of the Wild Fields. Hetman Khmelnytsky made a triumphant entry intoKiev on Christmas 1648, where he was hailed as a liberator of the people from Polish captivity. As ruler of the Hetmanate, Khmelnytsky engaged in state-building across multiple spheres: military, administration, finance, economics, and culture. He invested theZaporozhian Host under the leadership of its Hetman with supreme power in the newRuthenian state, and he unified all the spheres of Ukrainian society under his authority. This involved building a government system and a developed military and civilian administration out of Cossack officers and Ruthenian nobles, as well as the establishment of an elite within the Cossack Hetman state. After theCrimean Tatars betrayed the Cossacks for the third time in 1653, Khmelnytsky realized he could no longer rely onOttoman support against Poland, and he was forced to turn toTsardom of Russia for help. Final attempts to negotiate took place in January 1654 in the town ofPereiaslav between Khmelnytsky with Cossack leaders and the Tsar's ambassador,Vasiliy Buturlin, in which thePereiaslav agreement was signed. As a result of the treaty, theZaporozhian Host became an autonomous Hetmanate within theTsardom of Russia.
The period of Hetmanate history known as "The Ruin", lasting from 1657 to 1687, was marked by constant civil wars throughout the state. The newly re-installedYurii Khmelnytsky signed the newly composedPereyaslav Articles that were increasingly unfavorable for the Hetmanate and later led to introduction ofserfdom rights. In 1667, the Russo-Polish war ended with theTreaty of Andrusovo, which split the Cossack Hetmanate along the Dnieper River:Left-bank Ukraine enjoyed a degree of autonomy within the Tsardom of Russia, whileRight-bank Ukraine remained part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and was temporarily occupied by the Ottoman Empire in the period of 1672-1699. After the defeat of the Ottomans at theBattle of Vienna in 1683, Poland managed to recover Right-bank Ukraine by 1690, except for the city ofKiev, and reincorporated it into their respectivevoivodeships of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, while all the Hetmanate administration was abolished between 1699 and 1704.
The period of the Ruin effectively ended whenIvan Mazepa was elected hetman, serving from 1687 to 1708. He brought stability to the Hetmanate, which was again united under a single hetman. During his reign, theGreat Northern War broke out betweenRussia andSweden. Mazepa and some Zaporozhian Cossacks allied themselves with the Swedes on October 28, 1708. The decisivebattle of Poltava (in 1709) was won by Russia, putting an end to Mazepa's goal of independence, promised in an earlier treaty with Sweden. TheLiquidation of the autonomy of the Cossack Hetmanate has begun.
During the reign ofCatherine II of Russia, the Cossack Hetmanate's autonomy was progressively destroyed. After several earlier attempts, the office of hetman was finally abolished by the Russian government in 1764, and his functions were assumed by the Little Russian Collegium, thus fully incorporating the Hetmanate into theRussian Empire. On May 7, 1775, Empress Catherine II issueda direct order that the Zaporozhian Sich was to be destroyed. On June 5, 1775, Russian artillery and infantry surrounded theSich and razed it to the ground. The Russian troops disarmed the Cossacks, and the treasury archives were confiscated. This marked the end of theZaporozhian Cossacks.
After a series of Russo-Turkish wars waged byCatherine the Great, the area formerly controlled by the Ottomans and the Crimean Tatars was incorporated into theRussian Empire in the 1780s, during which nomadic life in these territories ceased to exist in its ancient version. The Russian Empire started active colonization and built many of the cities in the Wild Fields, includingOdessa,Yekaterinoslav, andNikolaev. The definition of Wild Fields does not include theCrimean Peninsula. The area was filled with Russian and Ukrainian settlers, and the name "Wild Fields" became outdated; it was instead referred to as New Russia (Novorossiya).[11] At the end of the 18th century, the name "Wild Fields" ceased to be used. According to theHistorical Dictionary of Ukraine, "The population consisted of military colonists from hussar and lancer regiments, Ukrainian and Russian peasants, Cossacks, Serbs, Montenegrins, Hungarians, and other foreigners who received land subsidies for settling in the area."[12]
In the 20th century, after the collapse of the USSR, the region was divided among Ukraine,Moldova, andRussia.[citation needed]
In 1917, the world's firstanarchist state was formed on the territory of Wild Fields —Makhnovia.
The territory of Wild Fields is located in the modernDnipro,Donetsk,Zaporizhzhia,Kirovohrad,Luhansk,Mykolaiv,Odesa,Poltava,Kharkiv andKherson oblasts ofUkraine.
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