Wild Fields
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Wild Fields (Russian: Дикое Поле, Ukrainian: Дике Поле, Polish: Dzikie Pola) is a term used in the documents of the 16th and 17th centuries to refer to the sparsely inhabited steppes between the Don River on the east, the Upper Principalities on the north, and the left tributaries of the Dnieper and Desna on the west. The region to the west of the Wild Fields was known as Dykra.
The Wild Fields were traversed by the Muravsky Trail, a warpath used by the Crimean Tatars to make war against and pillage Muscovy. The region was gradually settled by runaway peasants and kholops who made up the core of the Cossackdom. As soon as a process of colonization was afoot, the term "Wild Fields" gave way to more specific designations, such as Zaporizhia, Sloboda Ukraine, and (later still) Novorossiya.
