
They became famous as ferocious warriors, their fighting skills developed in their religious wars against the Tartars, Turks, Poles, and Russians. The Ukrainian Cossacks, often compared in historical literature to the pirates of the Mediterranean and the frontiersmen of the American West, constituted one of the largest Cossack hosts in the European steppe borderland. Their acceptance of the Muscovite protectorate in 1654 was als.

By and large the Cossacks were Orthodox Christians, and quite early in their history they adopted a religious ideology in their struggle against those of other faiths.

