Let us in the first place examine this word _Cossack_. According to the use in which it was formerly and is still employed, it seems evidently not to belong to a special people, but simply to express the generic character of every nation, having certain distinct manners and customs. Thus in Russia, at this day, the name of Cossacks is given to all those persons who are under military organisation: there are Turcomans, Kalmuks, and Tatars so called in the steppes of the Caspian; and in Bessarabia, some gipsies and a medley of nondescript people constitute the Cossacks of the Dniestr. The Don Cossacks, themselves, attach no historical significance to their designation, which they seem to regard merely as a by-name given to them in former times, and they readily share it with the nomade tribes around them, whose organisation is the same as their own. The only appellation they assume among themselves, is that of true believers.
The existence of the Khirghis Kaissacks of our day, can be traced back to more remote times; but there is certainly no analogy between this Mussulman people and our Cossacks. Furthermore, it seems proved that the Tatars before their invasions of Europe, used to give the appellation of Cossacks to all those individuals of their own race, who, having no property, were obliged to subsist by pillage, or to sell their services to some military leader. _Cossack_ then, according to our apprehension, signifies only a nomade and a vagabond people, and it is likely that the Tatars on their arrival in Europe, gave that name to all the wandering tribes they found in the steppes of Azov and of the Don. What tends still more to confirm this opinion is, that no mention of Cossacks is made by Rubruquis and Du Plan de Carpin, who traversed all the regions of Southern Russia, on their embassy to the grand khan, in the beginning of the thirteenth century.
And now let us ask whence came those nomade people that preceded the modern Cossacks in the steppes of the Don and the Sea of Azov? Here again we must dissent from the views of Dr. Edmund Clarke and Lesur which have been generally adopted in Schnitzler's statistics.
According to the testimony of all historians the Slaves already occupied various parts of Southern Russia, during the first period of the decadence of the Lower Empire: every one knows indeed that the descendants of Rurik often carried their attacks on the emperors of the East up to the very gates of their capital. The annals of Russia also demonstrate the existence of the Slaves at the same period, in all Little Russia, and even in the country of the Don. This region was then called Severa. Its inhabitants, after a long contest with the Petchenegues, emigrated in part, and we now find their name attached to one of the principalities of the Danube, viz., Servia.