The word “Cossack” (kozak) comes from an ancient Turkic root: “qazaq,” meaning a free person, a wanderer or one who lives beyond control.
It described a decision, not bloodline or nationality. To be a Cossack was to reject servitude, refuse imposed authority and accept danger in exchange for dignity.
That same decision — freedom over safety — lies at the core of my home country, Ukraine, and my new country, the United States.
Separated by geography and history, these two nations were shaped by frontier life, distrust of empire and the conviction that liberty is not bestowed by rulers, but claimed, defended and renewed by ordinary people.
Born on frontiers, not thrones
Ukraine emerged on the open steppe — a borderland where centralized power weakened and self-rule became a necessity. From this landscape arose the Cossacks of the Zaporizhian Sich, which were free warrior communities that elected leaders, governed themselves in open assemblies and rejected serfdom entirely. Authority existed only with consent – and could be withdrawn just as easily.
The United States arose in a different frontier, but from a strikingly similar impulse. Early settlers crossed oceans and later pushed westward – not because it was safe, but because it offered autonomy. They fled rigid hierarchies, inherited privilege and distant rule. Like the Cossacks, these American settlers accepted uncertainty, violence and hardship in exchange for self-determination.
Thomas Paine captured this shared frontier ethos with blunt clarity: “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”
Neither nation was born in comfort. Both were born in risk.
Self-rule as instinct, not theory
The political cultures that grew from frontiers were fundamentally bottom-up.
At the Sichs of Ukraine, leaders were elected and removable. Power was temporary and conditional. Collective assemblies governed major decisions. This stood in sharp contrast to the empires surrounding Ukraine, where authority flowed downward and obedience was a virtue.
Early American governance reflected the same instinct with town halls instead of royal courts, citizen militias instead of standing armies and written limits on power rather than trust in rulers.
James Madison warned against the alternative: “The accumulation of all powers… in the same hands… may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
For Ukrainians and Americans, freedom was not disorder. It was self-chosen order that was rooted in accountability.
The empire’s promise — and its lie
Empires justify themselves by promising stability. They offer protection, prosperity, and peace — in exchange for submission.
Ukraine heard this promise repeatedly under Polish nobility, the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Each time, the result was familiar: Loss of autonomy, cultural suppression, enforced obedience and mass suffering.
The American colonies were offered a similar bargain by Britain. What they experienced instead was rule without consent and taxation without representation.
Benjamin Franklin distilled the lesson into a warning that still resonates: Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Both nations learned the same truth through experience: Order without freedom is simply quiet domination.
Culture as the last line of defense
When political freedom was crushed, memory carried it forward.
In Ukraine, resistance survived through language, folk songs and poetry. No figure embodied this more powerfully than Taras Shevchenko, born a serf and transformed into a national voice of defiance. He said, “Fight — and you will overcome. God helps you in your fight for freedom.”
In the United States, revolutionary memory became civic inheritance that was preserved in founding texts, public ritual and an enduring suspicion of unchecked power.
In both cultures, freedom ceased to be merely political. It became moral — a duty to ancestors and a responsibility to descendants.
Modern tests of an old choice
Today, Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression is not only a struggle for territory. It is a rejection of an imperial worldview that values control over consent. Ukrainians continue to choose resistance, sacrifice and uncertainty rather than submission — echoing the ancient meaning of kozak.
The United States faces a quieter but equally consequential test. Polarization, erosion of trust and pressure on democratic norms raise a familiar question: Will a free people defend liberty when it becomes difficult, imperfect and costly?
John Adams answered long ago: “Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”
Conclusion: A shared burden
Ukraine and the United States are not identical. Their histories diverge, their challenges differ and their cultures are distinct. But they share a civilizational inheritance forged not in palaces, but on frontiers where freedom is chosen rather than assigned. Where authority is questioned rather than revered. And where dignity is valued above comfort.
That inheritance explains why both nations argue, fracture and struggle — and why they endure.
They were never built to be obedient societies. They were built by people who understood a hard truth that safety can be taken away and comfort can be negotiated.
But freedom exists only where people are willing to risk losing it. That choice — made centuries ago — is the one both nations are still being asked to make today.
Dr. Viktoriya Magid, who earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 2008, is a neighborhood therapist with an office in Mount Pleasant. More info: viktoriyamagidphd.com
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