At Hetmans’ Service: Natives of the Balkans and Podunavlje in the Mercenary Regiments of Cossack Hetmanate in the Mid-Seventeenth through Early-Eighteenth Centuries

Abstract

Abstract The Cossack revolution of the mid-seventeenth century gave an impulse to a wave of conflicts over the Cossack lands that involved almost all Eastern European countries. These companies created a huge demand for Balkan and Podunavljean mercenaries—the armies of all participants hired them. The Cossack Hetmanate had a special interest in recruiting new people because its leaders were working on forming an alternative to their current army based on old military elite. These new recruits were mostly Serbs, Wallachians (Vlachs or Volochs), and Moldavians serving in light cavalry. The campaigns they joined stretched in time; therefore, some of the mercenaries got rooted in the Cossack army, their job transformed into a hereditary service, and their leaders proceeded from military to political matters and grew into the new elite of the Hetmanate.