The Wild Fields ( uk, Дике Поле, translit=Dyke Pole, russian: Дикое Поле, translit=Dikoye Polye, pl, Dzikie pola, lt, Dykra, la, Loca deserta or , also translated as "the wilderness") is a historical term used in the Polish–Lithuanian documents of the 16th to 18th centuries to refer to the

Pontic steppe Pontic, from the Greek ''pontos'' (, ), or "sea", may refer to: The Black Sea Places * The Pontic colonies, on its northern shores * Pontus (region), a region on its southern shores * The Pontic–Caspian steppe, steppelands stretching from no ...

in the territory of present-day Eastern and Southern

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

and Western Russia, north of the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...

and Azov Sea. According to Ukrainian historian Vitaliy Shcherbak the term appeared sometime in the 15th century for territory between the

Dniester The Dniester, ; rus, Дне́стр, links=1, Dnéstr, ˈdⁿʲestr; ro, Nistru; grc, Τύρᾱς, Tyrās, ; la, Tyrās, la, Danaster, label=none, ) ( ,) is a transboundary river in Eastern Europe. It runs first through Ukraine and th ...

and mid-

Volga The Volga (; russian: Во́лга, a=Ru-Волга.ogg, p=ˈvoɫɡə) is the longest river in Europe. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchm ...

when colonization of the region by

Zaporozhian Cossacks The Zaporozhian Cossacks, Zaporozhian Cossack Army, Zaporozhian Host, (, or uk, Військо Запорізьке, translit=Viisko Zaporizke, translit-std=ungegn, label=none) or simply Zaporozhians ( uk, Запорожці, translit=Zaporoz ...

started.Shcherbak, V.
Wild Field (ДИКЕ ПОЛЕ)
'. Encyclopedia of History of Ukraine. 2004 Shcherbak notes that the term's contemporaries, such as Michalo Lituanus,

Blaise de Vigenère Blaise de Vigenère (5 April 1523 – 19 February 1596) () was a French diplomat, cryptographer, translator and alchemist. Biography Vigenère was born into a respectable family in the village of Saint-Pourçain. His mother, Jean, arrang ...

, and

Józef Wereszczyński Józef Wereszczyński (born 1530 in Zbaraż, died 1598) was a Polish political writer, polemicist, moralist, preacher, and bishop of Kiev. He was probably born in Zbaraż, in 1530, as the son of Andrzej of Ruthenian origin, and Anna née Jaroski ...

,Sas, P.
Duchy of the Zaporizhian Host, the project of Józef Wereszczyński (КНЯЗІВСТВО ВІЙСЬКО ЗАПОРОЗЬКЕ, ПРОЕКТ ЙОСИПА ВЕРЕЩИНСЬКОГО)
'. Encyclopedia of History of Ukraine wrote about the great natural riches of the steppes and the Dnieper basin. For centuries, the region was only sparsely populated by various nomadic groups such as

Scythians The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern * : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Centra ...

Alans The Alans (Latin: ''Alani'') were an ancient and medieval Iranian nomadic pastoral people of the North Caucasus – generally regarded as part of the Sarmatians, and possibly related to the Massagetae. Modern historians have connected the A ...

Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part ...

, Bulgars,

Pechenegs The Pechenegs () or Patzinaks tr, Peçenek(ler), Middle Turkic: , ro, Pecenegi, russian: Печенег(и), uk, Печеніг(и), hu, Besenyő(k), gr, Πατζινάκοι, Πετσενέγοι, Πατζινακίται, ka, პა� ...

, Kipchaks,

Turco-Mongols The Turco-Mongol or Turko-Mongol tradition was an ethnocultural synthesis that arose in Asia during the 14th century, among the ruling elites of the Golden Horde and the Chagatai Khanate. The ruling Mongol elites of these Khanates eventually a ...

Tatars The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different

and

Nogais The Nogais ( Nogai: Ногай, , Ногайлар, ) are a Turkic ethnic group who live in the North Caucasus region. Most are found in Northern Dagestan and Stavropol Krai, as well as in Karachay-Cherkessia and Astrakhan Oblast; some als ...

. After the

Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus' The Mongol Empire invaded and conquered Kievan Rus' in the 13th century, destroying numerous southern cities, including the largest cities, Kiev (50,000 inhabitants) and Chernihiv (30,000 inhabitants), with the only major cities escaping de ...

, the territory was ruled by the

Golden Horde The Golden Horde, self-designated as Ulug Ulus, 'Great State' in Turkic, was originally a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate established in the 13th century and originating as the northwestern sector of the Mongol Empire. With the fragme ...

until the Battle of Blue Waters (1362), which allowed Algirdas to claim it for the

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state that existed from the 13th century to 1795, when the territory was partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Habsburg Empire of Austria. The state was founded by Lit ...

. As a result of the

Battle of the Vorskla River The Battle of the Vorskla River was a great battle in the medieval history of Eastern Europe. It was fought on August 12, 1399, between the Tatars, under Edigu and Temür Qutlugh, and the armies of Tokhtamysh and Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania. ...

in 1399, his successor

Vytautas Vytautas (c. 135027 October 1430), also known as Vytautas the Great ( Lithuanian: ', be, Вітаўт, ''Vitaŭt'', pl, Witold Kiejstutowicz, ''Witold Aleksander'' or ''Witold Wielki'' Ruthenian: ''Vitovt'', Latin: ''Alexander Vitoldus'', O ...

lost the territory to

Temür Qutlugh Temür Qutlugh or Tīmūr Qutluq ( 1370 – 1399) was a Khan of Golden Horde in 1397–1399. Ancestry According to the detailed genealogies of the ''Muʿizz al-ansāb'' and the ''Tawārīḫ-i guzīdah-i nuṣrat-nāmah'', Tīmūr Qutluq was th ...

, the khan of the Golden Horde. In 1441, the western section of the Wild Fields,

Yedisan Yedisan (also ''Jedisan'' or ''Edisan''; tr, Yedisan; uk, Єдисан; ro, Edisan; russian: Едисан) was a conditional name for Özi așaSancağı (Ochakiv Sanjak) of Silistra Eyalet, a territory located in today's Southern Ukraine b ...

, came to be dominated by the

Crimean Khanate The Crimean Khanate ( crh, , or ), officially the Great Horde and Desht-i Kipchak () and in old European historiography and geography known as Little Tartary ( la, Tartaria Minor), was a Crimean Tatar state existing from 1441 to 1783, the long ...

, a political entity controlled by the expanding

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

from the 16th century onward. The Wild Fields were also partly inhabited by the

Zaporizhian Cossacks The Zaporozhian Cossacks, Zaporozhian Cossack Army, Zaporozhian Host, (, or uk, Військо Запорізьке, translit=Viisko Zaporizke, translit-std=ungegn, label=none) or simply Zaporozhians ( uk, Запорожці, translit=Zaporoz ...

, as reflected in works of the Polish theologian and Catholic bishop of Kyiv Józef Wereszczyński, who settled there under the condition that they would fight off expansion by the

Nogai Horde The Nogai Horde was a confederation founded by the Nogais that occupied the Pontic–Caspian steppe from about 1500 until they were pushed west by the Kalmyks and south by the Russians in the 17th century. The Mongol tribe called the Manghuds co ...

. The Wild Fields were traversed by the

Muravsky Trail Muravsky Trail or Murava Route (russian: Муравский шлях, uk, Муравський шлях) was an important trade route and an invasion route of the Crimean Nogays during the Russo-Crimean Wars of the 16th and early 17th centuries. ...

and

Izyumsky Trail Izyum Trail or Izyum Warpath ( uk, Ізюмський шлях, Russian: Изюмский шлях) is a historic route used by the Crimean Nogays in the 16th and 17th centuries to penetrate into Sloboda Ukraine and then invade Muscovite Russia. ...

, important warpaths used by the Crimean Tatars to invade and pillage the Grand Duchy of Moscow. The Crimean-Nogai Raids, a long period of raids and fighting between the Crimean Tatars and Nogai Horde on one side and the

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 the

Dnieper } The Dnieper () or Dnipro (); , ; . is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine and ...

in dugouts from their base at

Khortytsia Khortytsia ( uk, Хортиця, Hortycja, translit-std=ISO, ) is the largest island in the Dnieper river, and is long and up to wide. The island forms part of the Khortytsia National Park. This historic site is located within the city limi ...

and raided the coast of the Black Sea. The Turks built several fortress towns to defend the littoral, including Kara Kerman and

Khadjibey Khadjibey ( tr, Hacıbey) was a fortress and a haven by the Gulf of Odesa, in the location of the modern city of Odesa, Ukraine. Other known spellings include Khadzhibey, Khadjibei, Hajibey, Khacdjibei, Hacıbey, Hocabey, Gadzhibei, Chadžibėju ...

. By the 17th century, the east part of the Wild Fields had been settled by runaway peasants and serfs who made up the core of the Cossackdom. During the Bohdan Khmelnytsky Uprising the north part of this area was settled by Cossacks from the Dnieper basin and came to be known as

Sloboda Ukraine Sloboda Ukraine (literally: Borderland of free frontier guards; uk, Слобідська Україна, Slobidska Ukraina), or Slobozhanshchyna ( uk, Слобожанщина, Slobozhanshchyna, ), is a historical region, now located in Northeas ...

. After a series of Russo-Turkish wars waged by Catherine the Great, the area formerly controlled by the Ottomans and the Crimean Tatars was incorporated into the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

in the 1780s. The Russian Empire built many of the cities in the Wild Fields, including Odessa,

Sevastopol Sevastopol (; uk, Севасто́поль, Sevastópolʹ, ; gkm, Σεβαστούπολις, Sevastoúpolis, ; crh, Акъя́р, Aqyár, ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea, and a major port on the Black Sea ...

Yekaterinoslav Dnipro, previously called Dnipropetrovsk from 1926 until May 2016, is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper Rive ...

, and

Mykolaiv Mykolaiv ( uk, Миколаїв, ) is a city and municipality in Southern Ukraine, the administrative center of the Mykolaiv Oblast. Mykolaiv city, which provides Ukraine with access to the Black Sea, is the location of the most downriver brid ...

. Most of Kyiv was also built during this time. The area was filled with Russian and Ukrainian settlers and the name "Wild Fields" became outdated; it was instead referred as New Russia (

Novorossiya Novorossiya, literally "New Russia", is a historical name, used during the era of the Russian Empire for an administrative area that would later become the southern mainland of Ukraine: the region immediately north of the Black Sea and Crimea. ...

). According to the ''Historical 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." In the 20th century, after the collapse of the USSR, the region was divided among Ukraine,

Moldova Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised state of Transnistr ...

, and

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

References

External links

Cossack eraThe Zaphorozian Cossacks
{{Coord missing, Russia Historical regions Historical regions in Ukraine Geographic history of Ukraine Donbas Cossack Hetmanate Zaporozhian Host History of Kherson Oblast Marches (country subdivision) Zaporizhzhia (region)

See also

References

External links