There is still a halo of mystery, mysticism and magic around these people. Characteristic Cossacks excite our imagination with their amazing abilities and skills. Who were they really? What was their incredible ability based on?
A characterist is one who has a strong will, character. They were talked about in Ukraine: "A Cossack can circle the devil himself." In their battle against “unchristianity, ” they used secret knowledge that allowed them to become almost invincible.
Experienced warriors selected among the infants the most gifted boys, to whom they then passed on their knowledge for many years. The boy, who is being trained by the Cossack, was called "decura", i.e. servant. And there was something to learn. According to legend, a typical Cossack could throw a thunderstorm, disperse clouds, pass through water and not burn in a fire. Warriors-magicians had the ability to “look away”, send a hassle and instantly transferred from one place to another.
It was even believed that they had werewolf talents, turning into wolves (in Ukrainian “sirco” or “hort”). This skill is attributed to one of the most famous Cossacks, the chieftain Ivan Sirk, who, having spent 50 military campaigns, did not have a single defeat.
Faced with clearly superior enemy forces, the Cossacks managed to disappear in the middle of a steppe as flat as a plate. They quickly stuck peaks around themselves and mystically made the Janissaries think that there were trees in front of them. Tainted enemies passed by. One of them wrote that Cossack characterists are “just shaitans” who catch cannonballs with a caftan, suddenly disappear, and then arise behind them.
But the worst thing is that some of these “shaitans” were able to make the Janissaries see enemies in each other. And they simply began to kill their own. True, the characterists themselves were afraid of such magicians. The named abilities, it was believed, possessed the famous koshovy Ivan Bogun.
What is only worth the information that these amazing warriors went on reconnaissance, without masking, on horses! And nobody saw them, did not notice.
Bogdan Khmelnitsky had at his disposal a detachment, which included characteristic Cossacks. They, stripped to the waist, with sabers in each hand, cut through the whole "clearing" in the enemy hordes, while remaining unharmed. Yavornytsky in his work “History of Zaporizhzhya Cossacks” says that when the court tried to chop off the head of the Cossack Matvievts, the ax only bounced off the prisoner's neck, as if it were made of stone.
Many characteristic Cossacks were excellent healers. They possessed knowledge in special, military medicine. This was done by the so-called field-planners (from “I heal”), which were unusually revered and highly paid people. Knowing the many conspiracies and slander, they could heal what is called “at the cellular level”. Even the famous Cossack cradles (tubes) were filled primarily with medicinal herbs.
And although the incredible skills of the Cossacks originate in the Vedic culture, and they themselves were direct descendants of the ancient magi and warrior guards of pagan temples, they were God-fearing and sincerely religious people. Many Cossack characterists at the end of their life went to the monastery, to shed away the sins associated with witchcraft. True, only a few, monasteries built on the money of the Sich, took them to their novices.
