Shlyakhtich
Modern sources often write that Pyotr Dorofeevich Doroshenko was born in a Cossack family. This is a little different, his father was the order hetman of the registered Cossacks, that is, in fact, a nobleman.
For understanding: in Little Russia-Ukraine, the Cossacks were different, in fact, there were three of them. The first is Zaporozhye, these are pure anarchists who live on the frontier between Russia and the Steppe, and pay the Tatars and Turks with the same coin that they paid with us. Second - the peasants who turned out to be during the uprisings and riots, the Rzeczpospolita crushed the riots, and the Cossacks were partially killed, partially driven back into the peasant class. And the third - the Cossacks, entered in the register and had a completely legal status, did not pay taxes and were de facto part of the Polish armed forces. They differed from the gentry only in that they did not participate in the elections and the work of the Seimas, as deputies.
Doroshenko comes from a family of just such a half-polish, with an appropriate worldview, education and value system. Not bad, I must say, educated, not like Mazepa or Orlik, but the Kiev-Mohyla Collegium, which for some reason is stubbornly called the Academy, is also strong at that time. At the age of 21, he joined Bohdan Khmelnitsky and participated in his uprising, which, in general, is also typical and normal, the yaks of Little Russians were not considered people, from the word at all.
In Soviet times, it was believed that the poor followed Khmelnitsky, and this is true, but not all. The top and the closest circle are the Orthodox gentry and the registered foreman. Actually, Bogdan himself came from this particular stratum, it could not be otherwise, the army and the state really need soldiers, but commanders and administrators are even more needed, but the plans of the lower and upper ranks were slightly different. The lower classes wanted - further from the Poles and to live in an Orthodox country, and the upper classes of the Commonwealth were satisfied, they were not satisfied with their own place in it. They wanted autonomy, the Russian principality under the scepter of the Polish king and to be a gentry.
This largely determined both the life of Doroshenko and his goals. In the meantime, he is fighting, or rather, how he is fighting: the personal hundred of Bohdan Khmelnitsky is still not an advanced one, but the diplomatic mission in Sweden is not a dashing cavalry cabin. But be that as it may, Doroshenko entered the elite of the newborn Hetmanate. And in the Hetmanate itself, meanwhile, after the death of Khmelnytsky, the devil was happening. The lower ranks, that the results of the war, that the autonomy within Russia suited - the land was divided, the Poles were expelled, the country is Orthodox, what else is needed? But the tops …
First, Vyhovsky goes over to the side of the Commonwealth, but bit, fled to Poland, where he died in obscurity, however, as a gentry. Then Yuri Khmelnitsky is incited to a revolt in favor of the Poles, and autonomy begins to be limited already from Moscow, having come to considerable amazement at the creativity of the locals, and then, thanks to the desire of the under-servants from the sergeant-major to become just a gentry, the Hetmanate becomes two - the Right Bank under the Poles and the Left Bank, in which The victory was won by completely pro-Russian forces, descendants from the lower classes, never wanting to go to Poland. The Andrusov Peace Treaty of 1667 consolidated this case.
And our hero, meanwhile …
Doroshenko supported Vyhovsky, supported Yuri Khmelnitsky, supported the hetman of the Right Bank Pavel Teterya, and rose from colonel to general chieftain, and in 1665 to hetman of the Polish part of Little Russia. Along the way, he successfully married - his second wife was the niece of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, whose name was then almost a saint. All this time, in fact, he served the Poles and served well, but he wanted something more, and Doroshenko begins a struggle … for the unification of the Hetmanate into one state.
The prerequisites were - the division of Little Russia did not suit anyone: neither on the right bank, nor on the left, indignation widened, and Doroshenko began negotiations with Bryukhovetsky, the hetman of the Left Bank. He promised him, in exchange for a revolt against Russia, the mace of the united Hetmanate and support of the Ottoman Empire.
Three times traitor
Support, by the way, was - Doroshenko signed a vassal agreement with the Ottomans, betraying for the third time in his life. The first time he changed his oath to the Polish king, which is understandable, there was a war. The second - to the Moscow tsar for the sake of the Polish king. And again - to the Poles for the sake of the Turkish Sultan.
Further - everything is according to the classics.
Moscow thinks that the Tatar horde invades Little Russia-Ukraine, at the instigation of Doroshenko Bryukhovetsky, his comrades-in-arms in treason are killed, and our hero becomes the hetman of the united Hetmanate. But not for long, for unknown reasons, he returned to the Right Bank, appointing Demyan Mnogogreshny as temporary (order) hetman to the left bank. And he, being the same pragmatist, reached an agreement with Moscow and preferred the Left Bank - in his pocket, than the role of deputy Doroshenko.
Ukrainian historians call the reason for Doroshenko's departure - his wife's betrayal. Do you really believe that?
A stern forty-year-old man, who watered a lot of blood, changed overlords like gloves, carved out his kingdom (the Turks promised him the transfer of power by inheritance), abandoned the goal of life for the sake of a woman?
By the way, he was married three times, and does not look like a fool with romantic twists.
Everything was simpler and sadder - on the Right Bank there was a war between Tatars and Poles and, along the way, plundering of the local population by Tatars and Poles, with theft into slavery and the slaughter of villages. From there, both the haste and the choice of the left-bank foreman - she did not want to transform her well-groomed farms into the battlefield (following the example of her right-bank colleagues), and Russia is the world.
Doroshenko himself takes Turkish citizenship in 1669, and a huge Ottoman army invades the Right Bank, starting a war with Poland on its territory.
Those who survived all these cunning maneuvers of the hetman no longer respect him - they curse him, and the population is fleeing en masse to Russia. Poland is defeated and abandoned the Right Bank in favor of Istanbul, but the hetman of the Left Bank Samoilovich invades the right bank: both local Cossacks and ordinary residents greeted him with enthusiasm. In response, Doroshenko again calls for the Turks, the Russian-Cossack army retreats, and collaborators, together with the Ottomans, cut out entire cities, for there is nothing. In fact, by 1685, the hetman had become an ordinary Turkish pasha, who punishes his fellow tribesmen, because he betrayed, and they did not.
True, the pasha is not without ambition - secretly Pyotr Dorofeevich appeals … to Moscow, promising to stab the Turks in the back, in exchange for retaining his title. They did not even answer from Moscow, but they began a new campaign against the hetman capital - Chigirin.
Doroshenko surrenders without remorse, betraying the Turkish sultan, and swears allegiance to the king. They did not leave him at home, they were afraid, and Pyotr Dorofeevich went to the city of Khlynov as a voivode, and later he got a village altogether, married a local noblewoman and lived out warm and full. Buried there.
His great-great-granddaughter will become Pushkin's wife.
Meanwhile, the storm he had raised raged on. Russia defended the Left Bank, but the Right Bank was gone - along the Dnieper an exclusion zone was formed, where it was directly forbidden to settle.
Mountains of corpses, a devastated land with demolished settlements, the loss of half of the country, such is the price of the ambitions of the underdogs and their desire to carve out a state for themselves under the scepter of anyone, if only not Moscow, where there is order. Ruin, in a word - that's what historians call this period.
Now in Ukraine, Doroshenko is considered a hero, and for some reason I am not surprised by this. Looking over his deeds, Mazepa will not seem the worst ruler and almost an honest person.
