07.27.1657 (09.08). – Hetman Bogdan Mikhailovich Khmelnitsky, leader of the liberation war for the reunification of Little Russia and Great Russia, died.
Bogdan (Zinovy) Mikhailovich Khmelnitsky (c. 1595–27.7.1657), Russian statesman, commander, hetman of Little Russia, who won the liberation war from 1648 to 1654. against Polish domination. The result of the war was the destruction of influence Polish gentry, Catholic clergy and their Jewish tenants, as well as the reunification of Little Russia with Great Russia.
Khmelnitsky Born in Orthodox family Cossack centurion. Primary education received at the Kiev-Brotherly School; then, according to Polish historians, he studied with the Jesuits in Yaroslavl-Galitsky and received a good education for that time. In addition to his native Little Russian language, he spoke Polish and Latin. During the Polish-Turkish War in 1620, he was captured by the Turks; spent two years in , where he studied Turkish language. Upon returning home, he joined the registered Cossack army. He took part in the naval campaigns of the Cossacks against Turkish cities (in 1629, the Cossacks under the command of Khmelnitsky visited Constantinople and returned with rich booty); V popular uprising 1637–1638; held the position of military clerk; after the uprising - the Chigirin centurion.
In the mid-1640s. began preparing an uprising against Polish rule in Little Russia. Entered into secret negotiations with King Vladislav IV (who reigned in Moscow in 1610-1613); outwardly agreeing with his plan to send Cossacks against the Crimean Khan, a vassal of Turkey, Khmelnitsky, under the cover of this plan, began to form a Cossack army to fight against Poland. In 1647, Khmelnytsky was arrested, but fled to the Zaporozhye Sich. In January 1648, an uprising broke out in Sich under the leadership of Khmelnytsky, marking the beginning of the war of liberation. In Zaporozhye, Khmelnytsky was elected hetman. On May 6, 1648, Khmelnitsky defeated the Polish avant-garde near Zheltye Vody, and on May 16, near Korsun, the main Polish forces. These victories served as a signal for a nationwide uprising in Little Russia. Peasants and townspeople abandoned their homes, organized detachments and tried to take revenge on the Poles and Jews for the oppression they suffered from them for long years. By the end of July, the Cossacks drove the Poles out of the Left Bank, and at the end of August, having strengthened themselves, they liberated three right-bank voivodeships: Bratslav, Kiev and Podolsk. At the same time, the master's estates were destroyed, many Polish magnates, Jewish tenants and thousands of Jews in general were killed.
Letter (8.6.1648) from Bogdan Khmelnitsky to the Moscow Tsar with a message about victories over the Polish army and the desire of the Zaporozhye Cossacks to come under the rule of the Russian Tsar
On June 8, 1648, Hetman Khmelnytsky addressed a request for the reunification of Little Russia with Great Russia. At the same time, in military assistance Khmelnitsky did not yet need Moscow: the victories of the Cossack army over the Poles continued.
On September 20-22, 1648, Khmelnitsky defeated a 36,000-strong gentry militia near the town of Pilyava (Podolsk province). In October, he besieged Lviv and approached the Zamosc fortress, which served as the key to Warsaw, but did not go further. I decided to wait for the election of a king for negotiations (since Vladislav IV died in May 1648). The Jesuit and papal cardinal Jan Casimir was elected to the throne. He appeased Khmelnytsky with signs of hetman's dignity and promises of reforms favorable to Orthodoxy, so Khmelnytsky ordered the uprising to end. In January 1649, he was solemnly greeted by the people in Kyiv. Patriarch Paisiy of Jerusalem blessed the hetman to stand strong for the Orthodox Faith.
From Kyiv, Khmelnitsky went to Pereyaslav, where embassies began to arrive one after another - from Turkey, Moldova, Wallachia, Russia with offers of friendship and alliance. At the beginning of 1649, Khmelnitsky again turned to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich with a request for the reunification of Little Russia with Great Russia. But the tsarist government hesitated, because this meant war with Poland.
Profits and Polish ambassadors for peace talks. Khmelnitsky delivered an ultimatum: the complete destruction of the union within all of Rus' and the replacement of all ranks and positions in it by persons of exclusively Orthodox confession; granting the Kyiv Metropolitan a seat in the Senate; subordination of the hetman directly to the king himself. The Poles considered the ultimatum unacceptable and decided to continue the war.
Numerous volunteers continued to flock to Khmelnitsky. In the spring of 1649, the Cossack army, accompanied by the Tatars under the leadership of the Crimean Khan Islam Girey, moved west, besieging the Polish army near Zbarazh (on the Gniezna River in Galicia) in July. On August 5, the battle began, but the next day, when the defeat of the Poles and the capture of the king was approaching, Khmelnitsky, in the midst of the battle, gave the order to stop the attack (not wanting the Christian king to be captured by the Tatars). The Treaty of Zboriv was concluded on following conditions: Poland actually recognized its Little Russian Ukraine as an autonomy - the Hetmanate, where the deployment of Polish troops was prohibited, administrative positions had to be provided to Orthodox Christians, the only ruler was recognized as the elected Hetman, and supreme body- General Cossack Rada. The number of registered Cossacks was set at 40 thousand; Jesuits could not live in Kyiv and lost influence on Russian schools; Kyiv Metropolitan won a seat in the Senate; An amnesty was declared to all participants in the uprising. This was a victory for the uprising.
However, the Poles did not want to implement the Zboriv Treaty. Metropolitan Joasaph of Corinth, who came from Greece, encouraged the hetman to war and girded him with the sword sacred at the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. The Patriarch of Constantinople also sent a letter, blessing him for the war against the enemies of Orthodoxy. Athonite monks also encouraged the Cossacks to fight. In the spring of 1651, Khmelnytsky’s army again moved to the West. Near Zbarazh, he waited for the arrival of his ally, the Crimean Khan, and moved to Berestechko (Volyn province). Here, on June 20, another battle with the Poles began, which lasted almost two weeks. But the khan betrayed and retreated, capturing Khmelnitsky, and the Cossacks fought off the Poles for 10 days, but were defeated.
A month later, the freed hetman appeared among the Cossacks and inspired them to continue the fight; New rebels rose up, but the Poles had already approached Kyiv. New negotiations took place near Bila Tserkva, and on September 17 peace was concluded for less favorable conditions: instead of 4 voivodeships, the Cossacks were given one Kiev voivodeship, their number was reduced to 20 thousand, the peasants returned to their previous state under the rule of Polish landowners, etc. Therefore, the Belotserkov Peace Treaty entailed a number of new clashes between peasants and Cossacks and the Poles. Mass migrations to the east began. Khmelnitsky's army also decreased due to the people's dissatisfaction with the alliance with the Tatars, without whom the Hetman could not do. In the spring of 1653, a Polish detachment under the command of Charnetsky began to devastate Podolia, and soon the Tatars, with royal permission, began to plunder Little Russia. The only hope left was for Moscow's help.
In August 1653, “Hetman of the glorious army of Zaporozhye and everything on both sides of the Dnieper of the existing Ukraine [outskirts] of Little Russia,” Bogdan Khmelnitsky once again wrote to the Tsar through the ambassador: “We don’t want to serve another unfaithful Tsar; We strike only you, the great Orthodox Sovereign, with our brow, so that your royal greatness does not leave us. The King of Poland with all the power of Latvia is coming at us, they want to destroy the Orthodox faith, the holy churches, the Orthodox Christian people from Little Russia” (Acts of Southern and Western Russia, vol. XIII).
October 1, 1653 Zemsky Sobor in Moscow, after some discussions, he decided to reunite Little Russia with Russia and declare war on Poland. The decision to reunite was unanimously approved on January 8, 1654.
Khmelnytsky died on July 27, 1657 from apoplexy. He was buried in the village of Subbotovo (now Chigirinsky district), in a stone church that he built himself, which still exists to this day.
Bogdan Khmelnitsky was an Orthodox nobleman of Russian origin. In the 30-40s of the 17th century he served in the Polish border army. Like any other nobleman he had his own farm and several workers. The local Catholic elder Chaplitsky disliked Khmelnitsky. During his absence, in the spring of 1647 he and his people attacked the farm, plundered it, and captured his family.
The elder hated the Orthodox Bogdan so much that he ordered his 10-year-old son to be flogged at the market. The boy was whipped to such a state that he died two days later. Soon his wife Anna Semyonovna also died. Thus, Khmelnitsky was left without a wife and property.
It was useless to go to court, since the same Catholics as Chaplitsky sat there. Therefore, the nobleman, who had lost everything, went straight to Warsaw to see King Vladislav. Things were going hard for the king. The Sejm was controlled by the Polish lords. They didn't give any money defensive war with the Turks, nor for military operations against Muscovy.
Vladislav received the nobleman, listened to him and threw up his hands in helplessness. He could not do anything against the lords and their henchmen on the ground. Having failed to obtain justice from the king, Bogdan went to Zaporozhye.
Zaporozhye in the 17th century
In the 17th century, Zaporozhye, located on the border of Poland and the Wild Field, was an exceptional phenomenon. It was a dense network settlements, in which a wide variety of crafts developed: carpentry, blacksmithing, plumbing, shoemaking and others. Individual settlements of the “kureni” lived completely independently. All this formed a special stereotype of behavior that gave birth to a new ethnic group called Zaporizhian Cossacks. The Poles treated the Cossacks extremely unkindly and warily.
Zaporizhian Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish Sultan
The attitude of the Polish magnates towards registered Cossacks. Registered Cossacks were called Cossacks who served the Polish crown. To repel Tatar raids, a great number of them gathered under the banner of the hetman. But at the end of hostilities, the army was disbanded, and the Cossacks returned home. On a permanent basis military service, that is, there were only 6 thousand warriors left in the register. They enjoyed the privileges of the gentry, and the rest of the people worked for the lords and paid land rent, hunting grounds and churches.
At that time, 200 thousand Cossacks lived in Zaporozhye. It was huge military force. And the Poles hated this whole mass of people, although they did not encroach on the foundations of the state. On the contrary, they served the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a reliable defense against Tatar raids. Without them, the Tatar chambuls (chambul - Tatar cavalry detachment) would mercilessly plunder the country and destroy cities.
Bogdan Khmelnitsky against Poland
In December 1647, Bogdan Khmelnytsky arrived in Zaporozhye. He gathered representatives of the Cossacks on the island of Tomakovka and said: “We’ve had enough of tolerating the arbitrariness of the Poles. Let’s gather a council and defend the Orthodox Church and our land.” Such a call was welcome and understandable to the residents of Zaporozhye.
But initially the Cossacks did not put their political purpose separation from the Kingdom of Poland. They only wanted to ensure strict compliance with the laws. Therefore, their demands were short and clear.
Firstly, to provide all Cossacks, as a military class, with gentry privileges. Secondly, prohibit propaganda of the Catholic Union in Ukraine. Remove all Uniate priests and return the churches captured by Catholics to the Orthodox. Thirdly, allow each person to practice his faith. This political program reflected the aspirations of the entire oppressed population of Zaporozhye.
The Cossacks chose Khmelnytsky as their hetman, and he received enormous power. After all, the Cossacks, with complete anarchy in Peaceful time During the campaigns, iron discipline and unquestioning obedience to superior officers were observed.
From Zaporozhye the hetman went to Crimea, where he enlisted the support of the Crimean Khan. After that, he set out on a campaign with a detachment of 5 thousand people. These forces, naturally, were insignificant compared to the enemy forces. The Poles at that time could field an army of 150 thousand people. But the kingdom was unable to mobilize such a mass of people. Complete confusion reigned in it, and the lords, as always, refused the king money for the gentry’s militia.
Therefore, Bogdan Khmelnytsky, despite his small forces, won three major victories in 1648. The first of them is the Battle of Yellow Waters. Stefan Potocki, the son of the Polish Hetman Potocki, died in it. Then came the victory at Korsun. Two Polish hetmans were captured - Potocki and Kalinovsky. And finally, the third victory at Pilyavtsy. Here the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (gentry militia) began to flee from the Cossacks in panic.
But the victories of the Cossacks did not force the Poles to come to an agreement and recognize the political demands of the Cossacks. To be honest, the Polish gentlemen had no time for this. In the same 1648, King Vladislav died. And the magnates forgot about the rebellious Cossacks. At the diets they discussed the candidacies of the future king.
Hetman Khmelnytsky with his army enters Kyiv
This respite turned out to be very useful for Khmelnitsky. His army occupied Kyiv and fortified itself on both banks of the Dnieper. The hetman actually became an independent ruler in Ukraine, and the region under his authority began to be called Hetmanate.
But finally, the gentry chose a new king. It was Jan-Kazimir. Immediately after this, preparations began for military action against the Cossacks. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was assembled, German artillerymen and infantrymen were hired. Ambassadors secretly went to the Crimean Khan to win him over to their side.
In June 1651 it took place major battle near Berestechko. The Tatars acted as allies of the Cossacks, but suddenly left their camp and went to the steppe. Khmelnitsky had no choice but to catch up with them. However former allies They grabbed him and took him with them to Crimea. Cossack army was left without a commander, and was pressed by the Poles to the swamp.
Cossack Colonel Ivan Bohun took command in this difficult situation. He tried to lead people through the swamp and ordered the road to be paved. But the Poles managed to bring up artillery. Gat was destroyed by cannonballs, and most of the Cossacks died.
After this, a radical change in military operations occurred. Polish troops captured Ukrainian lands, where until recently the Cossacks were the masters. However, the Polish lords made minor concessions. They agreed to increase the number of registered Cossacks to 20 thousand people. But this meant that the remaining 180 thousand continued to remain without rights. That is, it turned out that the uprising ended in nothing, and the human sacrifices were in vain.
Pereyaslavskaya Rada
By this time, Bogdan Khmelnitsky had returned from Crimean captivity and found himself with nothing. He had no army, and the alliance with the Tatars no longer existed. Ukraine found itself caught between Crimean Khanate and Poland. She had no rear, and it was impossible to defend herself.
Having assessed the situation, the hetman came to the conclusion that he needed a new strong ally. It could only be Orthodox Moscow. Negotiations with her began in 1651. But Moscow, as usual, responded slowly. Only in October 1653 was a historic decision made to annex Ukraine to the Muscovite kingdom.
All this time, the hetman did not sit idly by and wait for news from the eastern lands. He managed to rally the Cossacks again and make them believe in themselves. But it got to the point that even the second wife cheated on Bogdan with her lover. The hetman ordered both her and her lover to be hanged. Thus, he showed everyone his will and character.
Cossack Rada
Khmelnytsky's troops defeated the Polish lords at the Battle of Batoga in 1652 and at the Battle of Zhvanets in 1653. The second victory coincided with the good news. Moscow gave the go-ahead for reunification with Ukraine. On January 8, 1654, the Rada gathered in Pereyaslavl (Pereyaslavl-Khmelnitsky) (went down in history as Pereyaslavskaya Rada). She supported the policy of joining Moscow. This was expressed in the words: “We will follow the Tsar of Moscow, the Orthodox.”
However, the Cossacks in this historical moment remained true to their behavior pattern. They agreed to take an oath of allegiance to the Moscow Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, but at the same time demanded that he give them an oath to preserve Cossack liberties.
Boyarin Buturlin, who represented Moscow kingdom, I was already choked with indignation when I heard this. He stated: “In Rus' it is not customary for kings to take an oath to their subjects. And the Sovereign will observe your liberties in any case.” Since the situation was hopeless, the Cossacks, shaking their long forelocks, agreed. That was the end of the matter.
Conclusion
Russian people have always lived by the principle: “They harness for a long time, but drive quickly.” They were in no hurry to accept Ukraine into the state, but having taken this step, they began to act energetically and swiftly. In 1654, Russian troops took Smolensk. In 1655 it was the turn of Vilno, Kovno and Grodno. Poland suffered defeats on all fronts.
A weakening power always attracts the attention of other states. In 1655, the Swedish king Charles X invaded Poland. He expelled Jan Casimir, and part of the gentry recognized him as their king. Now the interests of Russia and Sweden collide in Lithuania. erupted Russian-Swedish war(1655-1659). But neither side won decisive victory. Subsequently, the Poles recovered from the defeat and even recaptured occupied Lithuania from Russia.
Bogdan Khmelnytsky died in the summer of 1657 from a stroke. This man went down in history as the initiator of the reunification of Ukraine and Russia. Two peoples united in single state. And although there were many disagreements in the future, the alliance remained unbreakable until the end of the 20th century. Only the collapse of the USSR led to the formation of 2 states, but on personal and family ties It didn't affect people at all.
KHMELNITSKY Bogdan (Zinovy; 1595, the village of Subotov near the city of Chigirin, now Cherkasy region, Ukraine, - 1657, Chigirin), leader of the uprising in Ukraine 1648–56, hetman of the Zaporozhye army. The name of Khmelnitsky is associated with one of the most tragic pages in the history of Jewry in Eastern Europe.
His father, a nobleman (gentry), according to Khmelnitsky himself, was a Chigirin under-elder; There is information that my father held the more modest position of county clerk. (The assertion that Khmelnitsky’s father is a baptized Jew from the town of Khmelnik first appeared in the work of the Polish historian of the early 20th century. F. Ravita-Gavronsky and is in no way confirmed by earlier sources.) In September 1620, as part of a detachment of “registered” (then there are Cossacks officially registered in the Polish army) Khmelnitsky, together with his father, took part in the battle of the Poles with the Turkish-Tatar army. The Poles were defeated, Khmelnitsky's father was killed in the battle, and Khmelnitsky himself ended up in Turkish captivity. Two years later he returned from captivity and was reinstated as a registered Cossack, got married, and made career. In December 1637, Khmelnytsky was listed as “clerk of the Zaporozhian Army” in an agreement signed between troops loyal to Poland and defeated rebels of Pavel But (Pavlyuk). A year later, Khmelnitsky was a centurion of the Chigirinsky regiment (which was one of the highest positions for an Orthodox registered Cossack), in January-February 1639 he participated in negotiations between the Cossacks and King Vladislav IV in Vilna (see Vilnius), in the fall of the same year he was part of Cossack delegation at the Sejm of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in Warsaw. In April 1646, Khmelnitsky again took part in Cossack negotiations with the king in Warsaw.
In the same 1646, Khmelnitsky entered into acute conflict with the nominal “elder” of Chigirin, Alexander Konetspolsky, and the actual ruler of the area, “sub-elder” Daniel Czapliński. The reason was Chapliński’s claims to a plot that had long belonged to the Khmelnytskys; to that various sources add romantic motives, as well as competition from the Subotovsky (owned by Khmelnitsky) and Chigirinsky taverns, which brought significant income to the owners. According to the Jewish chronicler N.H. of Annover, the Chigirin tavern was owned by the tenant (see rent) of the “starostvo”, the Jew Zakharya Sobilenko; According to documents coming from Khmelnytsky himself, Jews were definitely involved in the conflict. Thus, in one of the complaints to the highest Polish official in the Dnieper Ukraine, crown hetman Nikolai Pototsky, Khmelnytsky wrote: “Even from the Jews we experienced unbearable insults and humiliation” ( the last word can also be translated as “damage”), in a complaint to the king: “Even the Jews, hoping for the support of the elders, also cause us great damage.” Similar claims against Jews are repeated in the surviving personal letters of Khmelnitsky, addressed to A. Kazanovsky and V. Zaslavsky (both - 1648). In 1646, a certain Polish soldier (probably sent by D. Chaplinsky) made an attempt on Khmelnitsky's life, and in 1647 Khmelnitsky's wife Anna died or was killed. In March–April 1647, the Subotov estate was seized by Chaplinsky, and the Khmelnytsky family was expelled from their home. The victim's complaints only led to his arrest on charges (apparently false) of trying to smuggle weapons to the Sich. In December 1647, Khmelnytsky was released from arrest under the guarantee of one of his former Polish commanders, and in January 1648, together with a group of close Cossacks and his eldest son Timosh, he fled to the Zaporozhye Sich.
Khmelnitsky managed to become the leader of those who were dissatisfied with the authorities. Relying on peasants and townsfolk who fled oppression; Cossacks removed from the lists of “registered” and deprived of earnings, Khmelnytsky achieved election as hetman of the Zaporozhye Army. Khmelnitsky managed from the very beginning of the uprising to come to an agreement with strong enemy Rzeczpospolita - Crimean Khan, and this changed the balance of power in the confrontation between the Cossacks and the metropolis.
Beginning in 1648, documents signed by Khmelnytsky appeared (see above). These documents mention isolated incidents of harassment Orthodox Church. Contemporaries of the events and, in particular, N. Hannover, also talked about Khmelnitsky’s manifestos, which called for the extermination of Poles and Jews; The manifestos allegedly made detailed accusations against Jews. Not only social confrontation and religious strife, but also the personal scores of Khmelnitsky, who stood at the head of the great uprising, tragically affected the fate of Ukrainian Jewry, which was subjected to mass extermination (see Ukraine. Jews of Ukraine under the rule of Lithuania and Poland). The uprising led by Khmelnytsky was accompanied by sophisticated cruelties towards the inhabitants of the captured cities. The rebels especially hated Catholic priests, monks and Jews, who were usually exterminated en masse; often the same fate awaited the Polish townspeople. During the war, the extermination of the Jews of Nemirov and Tulchin (June 1648) caused a special resonance in the Jewish world.
The Peace of Zborov, concluded between Khmelnitsky and the Polish king John II Casimir in August 1649, for the first time led to the formation of a Ukrainian autonomous “hetmanate” in the Chernihiv, Kiev and Bratslav voivodeships, which was actually the beginning of Ukrainian statehood. The seventh paragraph of the peace treaty is specifically dedicated to the Jews: “The Jews (at that time - an ethnonym for designating Jews) should not be holders (that is, managers), tenants, and not meshkans (residents) in the Ukrainian places where the Cossacks set up their regiments” - which meant complete absence Jews on the territory of Ukrainian autonomy.
In September 1650, Khmelnitsky's army made a campaign in Moldavia, accompanied by robbery and massacre Jewish population. In June 1651, Khmelnitsky's army was defeated by the Poles near the city of Berestechko (Volyn). According to the terms of the Belotserkov Peace Treaty concluded in September of the same year between the king and Khmelnitsky, the Jews, at the strict insistence of the Polish side, were allowed to return to the boundaries of the Ukrainian autonomy: “The Jews, in the estates (estates) of His royal favors and in the gentry, as they were residents and tax farmers, they still have to be.” However, the renewed outbreak of hostilities did not give the Jews the opportunity to realize this right.
In 1653, Khmelnytsky’s son Timosh committed with a Cossack detachment new trip to Moldavia, at the same time there was a terrible massacre of Jews in Iasi, described in the diary of the Syrian Christian author, Paul of Aleppo.
In 1654, Khmelnitsky made a turn in Ukrainian politics, moving, after attempts to come under Turkish rule, to submit to the co-religionist Moscow Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (Pereyaslav Rada). Ukraine's broad autonomy was initially maintained. Collaboration The Moscow army and a small Cossack army against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth took place mainly on the territory of Belarus and Lithuania, where numerous old Jewish communities of Vitebsk, Polotsk, Mogilev, Old Bykhov, Vilna (see Vilnius) and other cities suffered. The invasion of the Swedish army into Central and Western Poland in 1655 and events Northern War also caused heavy losses Jews, including refugees from the southeast (present-day Ukraine and Belarus).
At the same time, troops reporting directly to Khmelnytsky fought with with varying success fighting directly on Ukrainian territory, as well as in Galicia, besieged Kamenets-Podolsky, Lviv and other cities. When at the end of October 1656 Moscow state declared a truce in the war with Poland, Khmelnitsky did not agree with this and, behind the back of the Moscow sovereign, sent Cossacks to help Prince Gyorgy II Rakoczi of Transylvania to continue the war with the Poles. This action began the confrontation between Ukrainian autonomy and Moscow, which was continued by some of Khmelnitsky's successors as hetman.
The events of the war unleashed by the Khmelnitsky uprising, as well as its long-term results, led to tragic consequences for the population - not only the Jewish one - of Ukraine, Poland and Belarus. At the same time - at the behest of Khmelnytsky or independently of him - they served as the basis for the formation of Ukrainian national mythology, much later formulated ideologically in the “History of the Rus” by an unknown author (late 18th century; first published in 1846). The personality of the merciless ruler, successful diplomat and commander Khmelnitsky left its mark on the content of the myth; it is possible that the anti-Jewish component of the myth goes back to Khmelnitsky himself. At the same time, it is doubtful that Khmelnitsky set the goal of the total extermination of Jews even on the territory of Ukraine. The fate of the inhabitants of any town captured by the rebels depended on the arbitrariness of the local commander who owned absolute freedom actions. There are known cases when Jews took an “oath” to the Cossacks (that is, they were baptized according to the Orthodox rite) and remained alive. It is characteristic that in Western Ukraine and southeastern Poland, when the army was under the direct command of Khmelnytsky, the Cossacks sometimes preferred not to storm, but took a ransom and left if the besieged agreed to pay (Lvov, Zholkiev /see Zholkva /, Zamosc, Dubno).
In the Jewish popular consciousness, the events of the “Khmelnytsia”, in particular, 1648, when the losses of the Jews were especially great and unexpected, were imprinted as “ gzerot tah"(`The Lord's Punishments 5408` /1648/) - an era of brutal cruelty and misfortune. Jewish historians of the 19th century. (and after them others) literally accepted the statement about the number of exterminated Jews recorded by the witness of the uprising of N. Hanover; According to him, hundreds of thousands of people were killed. In the 20th century clarifications related to demographic estimates began. Historians S. Ettinger and B. Weinrib (1900–82), having familiarized themselves with a wide corpus of available sources, determined more accurately the number of Jewish victims of the Khmelnytsky massacre. Thus, according to B. Weinrib, throughout the entire territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, engulfed in uprisings and wars, in 1648–67. forty to fifty thousand Jews died, as well as died from epidemics and famine, which amounted to 20–25% of the country’s Jewish population according to maximum marks; another five to ten thousand escaped (or did not return from captivity). The extermination of about a quarter of the Jewish population of the country in which the largest and most educated community of world Jewry was concentrated had a profound impact on Jewish world. The rabbis saw in the events of Khmelnytsia signs of the imminent coming of the Messiah. In Jewish folklore, literature and historiography, "Hop the Villain" is one of the most odious and sinister figures. Events of the era gzerot tah A number of works of Jewish literature are dedicated to them, including the drama in verse by N. Minsky “The Siege of Tulchin” (1888), the novel by Sh. Asch “Kiddush ha-Shem” (“For the Glory of God”, 1919), the ballad “Bat ha-Shem” Rav" ("The Rabbi's Daughter", 1924) by S. Chernikhovsky, the novel "Der Knecht" ("The Slave", 1960) by I. Bashevis-Singer. In turn, some time after the events of the uprising led by Khmelnytsky, works of the epic genre (“dumas”) appeared in Ukrainian folklore, demonizing the role of Jews in social life the previous era. These works feature, for example, a Jew forcibly driving a Cossack into a tavern or charging Orthodox Christians a fee for performing rituals in a church, which did not correspond to real life. The outstanding Ukrainian historian M. Grushevsky, as well as the writer and philologist I. Franko, attributed the emergence of “thoughts” to the 18th century. However, the ideologists of the Ukrainian national movement, in the works of a number of Ukrainian writers and historians (including N. Gogol, N. Kostomarov and T. Shevchenko) these folklore motives received the meaning of indisputable realities.
The mythologized legacy of the Khmelnytsky period provoked a number of brutal massacres of Jews in the history of Ukraine (see also Haydamaky; S. Petliura; Pogroms; Uman) and darkened relations between Ukrainians and Jews for centuries. Only with the proclamation of the State of Israel (1948) and Ukraine gaining independence (1991) did relations between the two peoples enter a period of normalization.
KEE, volume: 9.
Col.: 852–855.
Published: 1999.
Voice your opinion!
Bogdan Khmelnytsky – hetman, who became a hero for some, and a traitor to Ukraine for others
Khmelnitsky Bogdan Mikhailovich was born on January 6, 1596 in the village. Subotov, Cherkasy region, died at the age of 61 on August 6, 1657 in Chigirin. Hetman of the Zaporozhye Army,
What are the exploits and mistakes or betrayal of Bohdan Khmelnitsky? Why did fate punish his family so cruelly, which disappeared without a trace in the same 17th century, along with the grave of the hetman himself, which no one can find? Why was the end of his reign the 30-year-old “Troubles” (1657-1687) and more than ten (!) hetmans of Ukraine (Pyotr Doroshenko, Ivan Mazepa, Philip Orlik, etc.) unsuccessfully tried to break the agreement concluded with Moscow at the Pereyaslav Rada in 1654 ?
The exploits of Bogdan Khmelnitsky.
He is a brave warrior of the noble family, a talented military leader and commander who won a number of victories. major victories who went down in history
Khmelnytsky fled to the Sich in December 1647, where he convinced the registered Cossacks to take his side. The Polish army moved against the Cossacks in punitive expedition, but the registered Cossacks who were part of this army went over to Khmelnytsky’s side, and on May 8, 1648, near Zheltye Vody, the Poles were defeated, and their leader, the son of Hetman Potocki, was killed. A week later, the Polish punitive expedition was defeated again, this time near Korsun. These first easy victories seriously affected the morale of both the Zaporozhye Cossacks and local population Ukrainian lands. The uprising that had begun began to rapidly turn into a nationwide war of national liberation. At this time, the Polish king Vladislav IV unexpectedly died, but Bogdan Khmelnitsky did not take advantage of such a favorable situation and, instead of a rapid march to Warsaw, for some reason began negotiations that led nowhere.
For the third time Khmelnitsky defeated Polish army in September 1648, his Cossacks besieged Lviv and came to Zamosc, from where a direct route to Warsaw opened. But Khmelnitsky lost time waiting for the election of a new king. King Jan Casimir invited Khmelnytsky to return to Kyiv and wait for the Polish commissioners with honorable peace terms. The king's ambassadors brought Bohdan a letter of hetmanship, a mace, a seal and a banner, but this was not enough for Khmelnytsky. He stated that his goal is the liberation of the entire Ukrainian people from Polish bondage and the unification of Ukrainian lands into an independent state.
In the spring of 1649, Khmelnitsky, in alliance with the Tatar Khan Islam-Girey, again began fighting, quickly surrounded and completely defeated the Polish army near the city of Zbarazh, capturing the newest king of Poland. But, again, Bogdan did not take advantage of the circumstances, and began to negotiate, putting forward the conditions for recognizing himself as hetman as the head of all Ukrainian lands, and increasing the number of registered Cossacks to 40,000 sabers.
Union of Khmelnitsky with Moscow. He planned to use the alliance with the Kremlin, as earlier with the Tatars, by writing a letter to the Moscow Tsar that the Poles threw their army into Ukraine to violate Orthodox faith, A Turkish Sultan invites the Cossacks to transfer to Turkish citizenship. In these conditions, Ukraine has only one way out to preserve the faith and customs of the people - an alliance with Muscovy. On October 1, 1653, the Zemsky Sobor granted the hetman's request for a connection with Moscow. On January 8, 1654, the Pereyaslav Rada accepted the annexation of Ukraine to Muscovy on the following conditions:
Moscow Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich kept the first part of his promise and declared war on Poland in the spring of 1654. Russian troops captured Mogilev, Polotsk, Vitebsk, Smolensk, Minsk, Kovel and Vilna. At the same time, the Swedish king Charles X began a war with Poland and captured Poznan, Warsaw and Krakow. Khmelnitsky entered Galicia and Volyn.
The failed alliance of Bohdan Khmelnytsky with Sweden. In 1657 Khmelnytsky made last try to rectify the situation: he concluded a secret agreement with the Swedish king Charles X and the Semigrad prince Rakochy on the redistribution of Poland. If successful, Ukraine would be recognized as a sovereign state independent of Poland. But the Poles learned about this alliance and reported it to the Moscow Tsar, who demanded that Khmelnitsky immediately abandon it.
Khmelnitsky died of a stroke, the army refused to go to the aid of the Swedish king, choosing a “bird in the hand” in the form of a stable income in the ranks of the registered Cossacks under the rule of Moscow.
What is Bohdan Khmelnitsky accused of?
1. In indecisive actions during the years liberation war , which he could have won himself if he had not constantly tried to “agree” with the old and the new Polish kings, who began to negotiate with Khmelnitsky after each of their defeats, thanks to which they gained time by preparing a new punitive expedition to Ukraine.
2. In concluding an alliance with Moscow, which helped the Ukrainians win their 6-year war with Poland, but in the end became nothing for the Ukrainians better than Poland. By concluding an agreement, the hetman was obliged to see not only the tactical benefits, but also the strategic loss of the “embrace” of Moscow, which, forgetting about the confederation, began to consider the Ukrainian lands “its own,” imposing its own governors and its own orders, appointing its own hetmans. As a result, Bohdan Khmelnitsky can be considered the direct culprit of the 30-year “Ruins” (1657-1687), which began after his death on Ukrainian lands. After his death, 10 hetmans tried to get rid of the power of Moscow, and most of them died without correcting main mistake Bohdan Khmelnytsky.
The great Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko gave a double image of Bogdan Khmelnytsky calling him
From the Bogdanov Church.
It was there that I prayed,
Let the Muscovite do good and bad
Sharing with a Cossack.Peace to your soul, Bogdan!
It's not like that;
Muscovites, who are late,
Then everyone went crazy.
Khmelnitsky receives frank condemnation in the poem “If only you, Bogdan were drunk”, that was for a long time prohibited from printing:
