Wild Fields

The Wild Fields^[a] is a historical term used in the Polish–Lithuanian documents of the 16th to 18th centuries^[1] to refer to the Pontic steppe in the territory of present-day Eastern and Southern Ukraine and Western Russia, north of the Black Sea and Azov Sea. It was the traditional name for the Black Sea steppes in the 16th and 17th centuries.^[2] In a narrow sense, it is the historical name for the demarcated and sparsely populated Black Sea steppes between the middle and lower reaches of the Dniester in the west, the lower reaches of the Don and the Siverskyi Donets in the east, from the left tributary of the Dnipro — Samara, and the upper reaches of the Southern Bug — Syniukha and Ingul in the north, to the Black and Azov Seas and Crimea in the south.

In a broad sense, it is the name of the entire Great Eurasian Steppe, which was also called Great Scythia in ancient times or Great Tartary in the Middle Ages in European sources and Desht-i-Kipchak in Eastern (mainly Persian) sources.

According to Ukrainian historian Vitaliy Shcherbak, the term appeared sometime in the 15th century for territory between the Dniester and mid-Volga when colonization of the region by Zaporozhian Cossacks started.^[3] Shcherbak notes that the term's contemporaries, such as Michalo Lituanus,^[4][5] Blaise de Vigenère, and Józef Wereszczyński,^[6] wrote about the great natural riches of the steppes and the Dnieper basin.^[3]

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