Don Cossacks (Russian: донские казаки) were Cossacks who settled along the middle and lower Don.

The Don Cossack Host (Russian: Всевеликое Войско Донское, Vsevelikoye Voysko Donskoye) was a frontier military organization from the end of the 16th until the early 20th century.

The name Cossack (казак, козак) was widely used to describe "free people" as opposed to others with different standing in a feudal society (i.e., peasants, nobles, clergy, etc..). The word 'cossack' was also applied to migrants, free-booters and bandits.Kazakh (казах) is another example of a derivative of this word used to describe nomads of the Central Asian steppes.

The exact origins of Cossacks are unknown. The necessity of defending their lifestyle (piracy, unregulated fishing and hunting) and protecting their settlements from the attacks of Tatars, Mongols and other nomadic tribes that lived in the steppes of Southern Russia, forced these bands of escapees to organize into a military society. In exchange for protection of the Southern borders of medieval Russia, the Don Cossacks were given the privilege of not paying taxes and the tsar's authority in Cossack lands was not as absolute as in other parts of Russia. They colonized areas previously occupied by nomadic tribes and were first to establish permanent settlements in Don area such as villages (станицы) and towns, which were populated originally by Turkic, Kypchak-speaking peoples, whom the Cossacks may have intermixed with to a degree.

"The Man" is a slang phrase that may refer to the government or to some other authority in a position of power. In addition to this derogatory connotation, it may also serve as a term of respect and praise.

The phrase "the Man is keeping me down" is commonly used to describe oppression. The phrase "stick it to the Man" encourages resistance to authority, and essentially means "fight back" or "resist", either openly or via sabotage.

The earliest recorded use^{[citation needed]} of the term "the Man" in the American sense dates back to a letter written by a young Alexander Hamilton in September 1772, when he was 15. In a letter to his father James Hamilton, published in the Royal Dutch-American Gazette, he described the response of the Dutch governor of St. Croix to a hurricane that raked that island on August 31, 1772. "Our General has issued several very salutary and humane regulations and both in his publick and private measures, has shewn himself the Man." ^{[dubious – discuss]} In the Southern U.S. states, the phrase came to be applied to any man or any group in a position of authority, or to authority in the abstract. From about the 1950s the phrase was also an underworld code word for police, the warden of a prison or other law enforcement or penal authorities.

Serge Alexis Jaroff (Russian: Серге́й Алексе́евич Жа́ров) (April 1 [O.S. March 20] 1896 - 5 October 1985) was the founder, conductor and composer of the Don Cossack Choir Serge Jaroff.

Jaroff was born April 1 [O.S. March 20] 1896 in Makaryev, Kostroma Province, Russia. He trained at the Moscow Synod School for Choral Singing.

He served as a Cossack lieutenant in the Russian Civil War. In 1920, the Don divisions were driven to the Crimea by the Red Army. They evacuated from there to the Turkish internment camp Çilingir, near Constantinopel, (now Istanbul) . In January 1921 Jaroff put together a choir from Russian refugees in the internment camp. Most of the singers who later performed in the Don Cossacks Choir had been members of the Don divisions since the war in 1914. The 3rd^{[clarification needed]} Don division in March 1921 was interned on the Greek island of Lemnos.

Then the troops, including the singers, were shipped to Burgas, Bulgaria. The Russian representative asked Jaroff and his choir to join the church. On 23 June 1923, they performed in the cathedral of Sofia. The choir consisted of 32 professional singers, and the artistic level was very high. The choir had an offer to sing in France but due to lack of money the choir made their official debut in Vienna.