Don Cossacks

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Cossacks
Part of a series of articles on
Cossack hosts
Don · Ural · Terek · Kuban · Orenburg ·Astrakhan · Siberian · Baikal · Amur · Semirechye · Ussuri
Other groups
Azov · Black Sea · Bug · Caucasus Line · Danube· Hetmanate · Nekrasov · Persia · Turkey · Zaporozhia
History of the Cossacks
Treaty of Hadiach · Bulavin Rebellion · Betrayal of the Cossacks · XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps · 1st Cossack Division
Famous Cossacks
Semyon Budyonny · Pyotr Krasnov · Bohdan Khmelnytsky · Ivan Mazepa · Yemelyan Pugachev . Stenka Razin · Ivan Sirko · Andrei Shkuro
Cossack terms
Ataman · Hetman · Papakhi · Plastun · Shashka · Stanitsa
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Don Cossacks (Russian: Донские Казаки) were Cossacks who settled along the lower and middle Don River, Russia. This population was formed in the second half of the sixteenth century, largely by runaway peasants. The Don Cossack Host, (Russian: Всевеликое Войско Донское, Vsevelikoye Voysko Donskoye) was a frontier military organisation since the end of the sixteenth century. Since 1786 the territory was officially called Don Voisko Lands, and was renamed Don Voisko Province (Russian: Oblast’ Voyska Donskogo) in 1870 (presently shared by the Rostov, Volgograd, and Voronezh regions of the Russian Federation as well as Luhansk and region of Ukraine). In 1916 the Don Host enlisted over 1.5 million cossacks. It was disbanded on Russian soil in 1918, after the Russian Revolution, but the Don Cossacks in the White Army and those who emigrated abroad continued to preserve traditions of their host.

During World War II the Don Cossacks mustered the largest single concentration of Cossacks within the German Army, the XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps. A great part of the Cossacks were former Soviet citizens who elected to fight not so much for Germany as against Joseph Stalin. The XVth Cossack Cavalry Corps included the 1st Cossack Division and the 2nd Cossack Division.