What is "stanitsa"

Stanitsa (; , stanytsia) is a village inside a Cossack host (voisko) (, kazachye voysko, sometimes translated as "Cossack Army"). Stanitsas were the primary unit of Cossack hosts.

While the word stanitsa in a modern usage survives, the stanitsa system in its historic context was effectively destroyed in the aftermath of the Russian revolution, when the Civil War and subsequent collectivisation of the land by the state in the Stalinist period and Holodomor destroyed the culture and the economic foundations of stanitsas.