Так по Роберту Говарду, создателю образа Конана. «On the broad steppes between the Sea of Vilayet and the borders of the easternmost Hyborian kingdoms, a new race had sprung up in the past half-century, formed originally of fleeing criminals, broken men, escaped slaves, and deserting soldiers. They were men of many crimes and countries, some born on the steppes, some fleeing from the kingdoms in the west. They were called kozak, which means wastrel. Dwelling on the wild, open steppes, owning no law but their own peculiar code, they had become a people capable even of defying the Grand Monarch. «We must lure Conan away from the kozak», said the counsellor abruptly. «Their war camp is at present pitched somewhere on the lower reaches of the Zaporoska River…» «Who are you?» «I am a Conan, hetman among the kozaks». (Robert E. Howard. The Devil in Iron, p. 18–19, Berkley Publishing Corporation, 1967.)
