Defenders of the Crown: Foot Dragoons and the Road Cross #1 (With Fire and Sword ) (Anno Domini 1666)

on June 12, 2021

I warmly welcome!

The first post devoted to my new project, With Fire and Sword today, about the Polish-Cossack conflict in the "Wild Fields".

The first fire is two Dragoons, who can successfully pretend to be bandits, and a self-made roadside cross. Only Christ is original, which I painted and aged a bit.

Everything will be Grim and Dark, as it was in the conflict in the Wildlands...
Exactly, will start the story with the meaning of the name of the land of this bloody conflict.

Wild Fields

lat. Loca Deserta, Russian. Дикое поле; Ukr. Дике Поле, is the historical name of Zaporizhia.
It was a historical land in the period from the 15th to the 18th century, located on the lower Dnieper, south of the Kudak castle, below the so-called Porohów, in the then Kiev Province, east of the Dniester River.
The boundaries of the Wild Fields in the east and south were marked by the Don River and the Black Sea coast with the Ochakiv Castle.

At the time of the union of Lithuania and Poland (1569), Ukrainian Ruthenia represented a steppe devoid of settled, agricultural population. These were the areas the possession of which was to be decided by their population and development.
The starosts of the royal castles - Kiev, Biała Cerkiew, Kaniv, Cherkas, etc., welcomed tramps of various origins, both peasants and nobility, placed them in the steppes and used them to fight the Tatar invasions.

Later settlers fell victim to the invasions of many armies whose route fell this way (Tatars, Turks, etc.).
They owe their common name to numerous refugees who came here from the populated lands of the Commonwealth and the Russian Empire, as well as other regions and countries.
Among them were many peasants fleeing from the aggravation of serfdom and other burdens on behalf of noble landowners, and slave people fleeing persecution, as well as common criminals.

The reason they came here was because they practically lacked any power or control in the Wildlands.
It was from them that Kossacks land developed.