Sich

Administrative and military centre of the Zaporizhian Cossacks

Reconstructed Zaporozhian Sich complex on the Khortytsia Island.

A sich (Ukrainian: січ),^[1] was an administrative and military centre of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. The word sich derives from the Ukrainian verb сікти siktý, "to chop" – with the implication of clearing a forest for an encampment or of building a fortification with the trees that have been chopped down.^[2]

The Zaporozhian Sich was the fortified capital of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, located on the Dnieper, in the 16th–18th centuries in the area of what is now Ukraine. The Sich Rada was the highest organ of government in the Zaporozhian Host, or army of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. The Danubian Sich was the fortified settlement of those Zaporozhian Cossacks who later settled in the Danube Delta.

Other transcriptions

• Sietch^[3]
• Jeremiah Curtin (1898) — Saitch
• Samuel Binion (1898) - Sich
• Beatrice Baskerville (1907) - Setch
• Isabel Hepgood (1915) - Syech
• Harold Lamb (1917) - Siech
• William Cresson (1919) - Sitch^[4]

References

1. Subtelny, Orest (1989). Ukraine. A History. CUP Archive. p. 72. Retrieved 15 August 2018.
2. Dmytro Yavornytsky (1892), L. L. Kiriyenko (ed.), Історія Запорізьких Козаків, у трьох томах [History of the Zaporizhian Cossacks, in three volumes] (in Ukrainian), vol. 1, translated by Ivan Svarnyk, Lviv: Видавництво "Світ" ["Svit" Publishing House], ISBN 978-5-11-000647-0.
3. ""sietch" -herbert -dune cossack - Google Search". www.google.com. Retrieved 2021-09-26.
4. "Козак Хлит: український переклад". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2021-09-26.