Wild Field

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The Wild Field or the Wilderness (lat.

Lat.

Lat. or lat. is an abbreviation for:*Latin*latitude*Mohammad Nor Khalid or Lat, a Malaysian cartoonist...

 Loca deserta, sive campi deserti inhabitati; , ) is a historical term used in the Polish–Lithuanian documents of the 16th and 18th centuries referring to forest steppe

Forest steppe

A forest steppe is a temperate-climate ecotone and habitat type composed of grassland interspersed with areas of woodland or forest.-Locations:...

s and steppe

Steppe

In physical geography, steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes...

s of the Black sea

Black Sea

The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...

 and Azov sea regions. The location of this geographic reference is somewhat ambiguous and usually defined between the Don River

Don River (Russia)

The Don River is one of the major rivers of Russia. It rises in the town of Novomoskovsk 60 kilometres southeast from Tula, southeast of Moscow, and flows for a distance of about 1,950 kilometres to the Sea of Azov....

 on the east, Kiev

Kiev

Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....

 on the north, and the left tributaries of the Dniester

Dniester

The Dniester is a river in Eastern Europe. It runs through Ukraine and Moldova and separates most of Moldova's territory from the breakaway de facto state of Transnistria.-Names:...

 on the west. The western part of the Wild Field was known as Dykra

Dykra

Dykra was the southern territory of the medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuania near the Black Sea, presently shared between Ukraine and Moldova....

.

The region acquired this name after a long period of raids and fighting (between Tatars

Tatars

Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...

, Ruthenians

Ruthenians

The name Ruthenian |Rus']]) is a culturally loaded term and has different meanings according to the context in which it is used. Initially, it was the ethnonym used for the East Slavic peoples who lived in Rus'. Later it was used predominantly for Ukrainians...

, Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Grand Duchy of Lithuania

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state from the 12th /13th century until 1569 and then as a constituent part of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1791 when Constitution of May 3, 1791 abolished it in favor of unitary state. It was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the polytheistic...

, the Nogai

Nogai

The term Nogai can refer to more than one thing:* Nogai Khan was a de facto ruler of the Golden Horde.* Nogai Horde was a Turkic state which split from the Golden Horde in late 15th century.* The Nogais are a Turkic people....

, and the Crimean Khanate

Crimean Khanate

Crimean Khanate, or Khanate of Crimea , was a state ruled by Crimean Tatars from 1441 to 1783. Its native name was . Its khans were the patrilineal descendants of Toqa Temür, the thirteenth son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan...

) that brought considerable devastation and depopulation to this area prior to the rise of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. The Wild Field was traversed by the Muravsky Trail

Muravsky Trail

Muravsky Trail or Murava Route was an important trade route and according to the Russian historiography a favourite invasion route of the Crimean Tatars during the Russo-Crimean Wars of the 16th and early 17th centuries. It was also used somewhat for peaceful trade...

, an important trade route and also a warpath used by the Crimean Tatars

Crimean Khanate

Crimean Khanate, or Khanate of Crimea , was a state ruled by Crimean Tatars from 1441 to 1783. Its native name was . Its khans were the patrilineal descendants of Toqa Temür, the thirteenth son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan...

 to make war against and pillage Muscovy.

The region was gradually settled by runaway peasants and serf

SERF

A spin exchange relaxation-free magnetometer is a type of magnetometer developed at Princeton University in the early 2000s. SERF magnetometers measure magnetic fields by using lasers to detect the interaction between alkali metal atoms in a vapor and the magnetic field.The name for the technique...

s who made up the core of the Cossack

Cossack

Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...

dom. As soon as a process of colonization was afoot, the term "Wild Fields" gave way to more specific designations, such as Zaporizhia

Zaporizhia (region)

Zaporizhia , Russian: Запоро́жье, Zaporozhye) is a historical region which is situated about the Dnieper River, below the Dnieper rapids , , hence the name, translated as "territory beyond the rapids"...

, Sloboda Ukraine

Sloboda Ukraine

Sloboda Ukraine was a historical region which developed and flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries on the southwestern frontier of the Tsardom of Russia....

, and (later still) Novorossiya

Novorossiya

Novorossiya is a historic area of lands which established itself solidly after the annexation of the Crimean Khanate by the Russian Empire, but was introduced with the establishment of Novorossiysk Governorate with the capital in Kremenchuk in the mid 18th century. Until that time in both Polish...

.

External links

• Cossack era
• The Zaphorozian Cossacks
• Palatinatus Kioviensis Pars. Boristhenem alias Dzikie Pola. http://www.ocrenica.com/340_Maps_of_Dnipro_River.htm.by Joannis Janssonii. Amsterdam
  Amsterdam
  Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
  
  . 1663.

Russia°N date=June 2009°W