The story of how Bohdan Khmelnitsky tried to "integrate" more tightly into the Rzeczpospolita with the help of the Crimean Khan and the Turkish Sultan, and as a result he became a subject of the Russian Tsar and defeated the Poles with the Russian army.
Ivasyuk N. I. "Entry of Bogdan Khmelnitsky to Kiev"
The uprising led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky was one of the largest anti-government protests in the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Starting in 1648, it quickly took the form of a full-fledged war: with opposing armies of many thousands and bloody battles. At first, military happiness was indifferent to the forces of the crown, and already in 1649, the opposing sides signed the Zboriv armistice, which formally stopped the conflict, but in fact turned out to be nothing more than a respite.
The hostilities soon resumed, and the next comma in the war of the Hetmanate against the Commonwealth became the Belotserkovsky treaty, which was much more beneficial for the latter. However, among the Polish crown and the surrounding gentry, the idea of the existence of any autonomous entity on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth caused acute attacks of rejection. So, decisive actions to restore order in the territory controlled by Hetman Khmelnitsky were only a matter of a very short time. Perfectly aware of the limited resources of his own, the leader of the rebels began to seek support from the Russian tsar. However, with the practicality inherent in Bogdan, he was looking for support in all directions at once.
Second-class citizens
Rzeczpospolita, despite its marginal position in Europe, least of all resembled a quiet province. Inside it, the fuses were burning with an inextinguishable flame at once near several internal political barrels of gunpowder, the explosion of each of which could lead to the collapse of an impressive part of the state structure. Despite the privileged position of the Catholic Church, most of the population of the eastern regions still professed Orthodoxy. Both the king and the Diet neglected such an annoying fact, and if they paid attention to it, it was only in the form of new restrictions on the rights of those who profess Christianity of the Eastern rite.
The Cossacks were another never-ending source of problems. By the middle of the 17th century, it was divided into the actual Zaporozhye freemen and registered Cossacks. The appearance of the latter was an attempt by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to create a new type of armed forces from the chubaty lads. In a special decree issued in June 1572 by Sigismund II Augustus, the steppe freelancer was asked to do something useful from the point of view of power, namely to enter her service. Initially, it was about no more than three hundred Cossacks.
Registered Cossacks
In 1578, King Stefan Batory ordered the selection of six hundred people. The Cossacks, in turn, had to obey the officers appointed by the royal power and, of course, not organize unauthorized raids on the territory of the Crimean Khanate. Cossacks, who entered the royal service, were entered into a special list - the "register" and were now considered not a bandit formation, but being in the service. They swore an oath of allegiance to the king, were exempted from taxes and duties.
The Commonwealth was by no means a peaceful foreign policy and needed good soldiers. The register was gradually increasing: by 1589 it already numbered more than 3 thousand people. Gradually, the registered Cossacks began to play a prominent role in the Polish wars and campaigns. It was widely used during the years of intervention in the Russian state, during the wars with the Ottoman Empire. A great contribution to the victory over Osman II was made by the registered Cossacks in the famous battle of Khotin in 1621.
It was profitable to serve in the registry - it was considered a great success to get there. The Polish authorities were well aware that by raising a watchdog for themselves, they risked actually feeding the monster. Therefore, the number of the coveted register was limited at the slightest danger of unrest. After the aforementioned Battle of Khotin, an attempt by the Poles once again to reduce the ranks of their combat-ready, but violent "foreign legion" provoked a major uprising, which was suppressed with difficulty in 1625.
The register was limited to 6 thousand Cossacks, who now comprised 6 regiments stationed on the territory of Little Russia. Their main task was to prevent the incessant Tatar raids and, of course, to maintain order. In 1632, King Sigismund III died, and the Commonwealth was faced with the need to conduct an election campaign - the monarchy in this state, to the horror of some neighbors, the irony of others and the bewilderment of others, was elective.
Full of the purest and loftiest thoughts, walkers from unregistered Cossacks arrived in the electoral diet, preoccupied with the difficult task of electing a new monarch. They expressed a wish, formalized as a demand. Since the Cossacks are also subjects of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, it means that they have the right to vote and must also take part in the elections. Well, and the rights of the Orthodox, too, would be very nice to take into account and expand - after all, they are not pagans. Angered by such impudence, the lords of the Sejm reproachfully and edifyingly replied that the Cossacks were undoubtedly part of the Polish state. However, this part is most similar, if we draw an analogy with the human body, like nails and hair: when they become long, they are cut. And in general, Cossacks are useful only in small numbers. And with such an insignificant question, how the observance of the rights of the Orthodox will be dealt with by the new king. So the inhabitants of Little Russia were unequivocally pointed out their place in the social hierarchy of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The already short wicks of the powder barrels placed under the building of the Polish state became even shorter, and the smoldering fire flared up brighter and angrier.
Bogdan makes porridge
A whole novel can be written about the motives that prompted Bohdan Khmelnytsky to draw his saber against the Polish crown. There were also personal motives: the Chigirin nobleman Chaplinsky ruined in 1645 the Subotov farm, which belonged to the centurion Khmelnitsky. The willfulness, complete impunity and unceasing excesses of local magnates crossed all borders. With their own pocket-sized "territorial battalions" of the 17th century model, they turned the already flimsy and very conditional royal law in the direction they needed, regularly organizing small-town civil wars among themselves. Seeking intercession at the king's court was a thankless and practically useless occupation - often the monarch simply did not have leverage over his raging lords.
The religious question remained unresolved. Catholicism continued to bend its line, devoid of compromise and religious tolerance. It is also impossible in any case to forget that the sergeant major dreamed of getting into the "club of the elite", that is, equating in rights with the Polish gentry. The problem of the number of the registered Cossacks was very painful - everyone who at least considered themselves a Cossack wanted to get into the register. The situation in the Little Russian lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was heated to the highest rates - the uprising followed the uprising. They were suppressed with increasing cruelty, and there was no room for compromise and mercy, and an attempt to negotiate would be regarded by the panes as a dangerous form of obsession. Therefore, when in April 1648 Khmelnitsky, who was on the run from the authorities, appeared in the Zaporizhzhya Sich and announced that he was starting a war against the Polish king, there were more than enough people who wanted to stand under his banner.
The presence of representatives of the Crimean Khan Islam-Girey II turned out to be a minor nuance against the background of the rising general enthusiasm to show the whole curvature of the pedigree on the part of the mother to King Vladislav. The Crimean Khanate, with all its desire, was difficult to classify as guardians of the rights of registered or unregistered Cossacks and the fate of the Orthodox population. Bogdan Khmelnitsky decided to play it safe and concluded the Treaty of Bakhchisarai with the eternal enemy not only of the Cossacks, but also of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In exchange for the military assistance of the Tatars and a promise not to attack the Little Russian lands, the Khan was promised the supply of provisions and fodder and a substantial share in the war booty. Both contracting parties knew that the most valuable booty were prisoners, who were then easily converted into gold in the markets of Kafa. And no one will carefully figure out who will go away bound by a strong rope for Perekop: a Polish nobleman or a Little Russian peasant.
At the end of April 1648 Bohdan Khmelnytsky left the Sich. Neither the local community of various calibers, nor the king at first perceived this event as something serious - another Cossack riot, which happened in these restless regions with enviable regularity. However, it soon became clear that everything is not so simple.
Purposeful multi-vector
The first clashes with Polish troops near Zheltye Vody and Korsun bring victories to the rebels, and a growing migraine to the noble population. After the second battle, the main army of the Crimean Tatars, led by the Khan Islam-Girey himself, approached the Khmelnitsky army - before that, only an expeditionary detachment under the command of Tugai-bey operated together with the rebels. The trophies taken were simply huge, the crown hetmans Martin Kalinovsky and Nikolai Pototsky were captured by the Cossacks. The allied army occupied the White Church.
Inspired by his successes, Khmelnytsky, nevertheless, did not lose his head, but began to take, at first glance, strange, contradictory - multi-vector - steps. Having sent back to the Crimea with a rich booty satisfied Islam-Girey (slave markets were waiting for an unprecedented revival), the hetman began to write letters and publish generalists. First, he declared his never-ending devotion to His Majesty King Vladislav. Secondly, Bogdan declared the local tycoons to be guilty of everything that was happening: they say, they do what they want, not listening to His Royal Majesty and not even looking in his direction.
At the same time, Khmelnitsky loudly declared at every corner his frantic stubbornness in the struggle for Cossack liberties, and so that the Poles did not build unnecessary illusions, he unequivocally hinted at all kinds of troubles with a sad end: if you do not give us Cossacks privileges and liberties, we will burn everything to the ground. It should be emphasized that the hetman did not say a word about any "Ukrainian Cossack power", necessarily independent. It was generally about expanding paid jobs for the steppe freemen within the much-desired register to a size slightly inferior to the size of the troops of Attila or Temuchin.
The cunning hetman, for all his warlike rhetoric, did not want to quarrel with the king, who, after his predecessors, was distinguished by a rather patient attitude towards the Cossacks. The ink in Khmelnitsky's letters did not have time to dry, as in May 1648, at the age of 52, Vladislav IV died. A wonderful time has come for the priesthood: one monarch has been buried, and the other has not yet been chosen. However, there was no order in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth even under the king. After all, the more magnificent the mustache and the longer the pedigree, the easier it was to pull the saber out of the scabbard.
The uprising, which smoothly spilled over into a full-scale war, now had every chance to continue, and with an unpredictable end - the gentry, after receiving painful blows, quickly came to their senses and saddled their horses. Fortunately for the Poles, the Thirty Years War, which had tormented Europe for a long time, was coming to an end and ended in October of the same, 1648, with the signing of the Peace of Westphalia. Among the numerous mercenaries of the opposing camps, unemployment rose rapidly, and they could easily find employment under the banner of the Polish crown.
After thinking a little, Khmelnitsky wrote another letter to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Realizing that the Tatars are very tentatively fit under the category of "reliable ally", and alone, you can taste the fury of the Polish cavalry attacking at full gallop and feel the fierce Pan's anger on your own skin in the literal sense of the word. In a letter to the Russian tsar, the hetman assured him of his best intentions, friendship, and clearly hinted at a desire to go under his protection.
Moscow responded with concentrated silence. The Russian government was well aware of the situation in the eastern regions of the Commonwealth, where popular uprisings broke out with enviable regularity and were brutally suppressed. Neither Mikhail Fedorovich nor Alexei Mikhailovich interfered in the internal affairs of a neighbor, preferring to adhere to neutrality. There were several good reasons for this. Poland, despite its internal instability, remained a fairly serious adversary. For a long time the Russian kingdom experienced the consequences of the Troubles. An attempt to recapture Smolensk and other lands lost at the beginning of the 17th century led to the unsuccessful war of 1632-1634.
With the coming to power of the second tsar from the Romanov dynasty, some reforms began in the state, including the military, and the Russian army met the beginning of a new reign at the stage of reformatting. However, all this time, thousands of people who fled here both from the tyranny of the pans and from the regular Tatar raids found themselves shelter on the territory of the Moscow state. Attempts by the ambassadors of the Commonwealth to demand the extradition of the fugitives were met with a polite but firm refusal. When the border governors in the spring of 1648 reported to Moscow that something was happening again in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, they received an order not to interfere.
How Moscow's silence can end
In the fall of 1648, the Poles gathered with their forces concentrated their army at Lvov. According to various estimates, there were about 30-32 thousand of the crown troops themselves, reinforced by 8 thousand experienced German mercenaries. The mood of those present was fighting and uplifted - confidence in their strength was reinforced not only by numerous artillery, but also by an equally solid wagon train with a fair amount of alcoholic beverages. At the head of the gallant army were three leaders - they were the noble magnates Konetspolsky, Ostorog and Zaslavsky, whose total commander's genius approached zero, round as a buckler.
Among the Polish nobility, there were enough educated characters who could not help but know that for the complete destruction of the army, if something happened, two generals would be enough, as it happened in ancient times at Cannes. The result was not slow to manifest itself in all its tragic greatness for the Poles. At the village of Pilyavtsy, on September 21, 1648, the Polish army, driven by the three-headed command, met the Cossack-Tatar army of Khmelnitsky. The three-day confrontation ended with an unprecedented defeat and panic flight of the crown army. The winners got trophies in such volumes and quantities that the booty taken after the Battle of Korsun now seemed like a heap of simple belongings. About a hundred guns were taken, the entire wagon train along with drinks and girls, large reserves of gunpowder, weapons and other military equipment. The total value of the property acquired by the allies was estimated at up to 10 million kroons - a colossal amount for those difficult times.
Jan Matejko "Bogdan Khmelnytsky with Tugai-Bey near Lviv"
To celebrate, Bohdan Khmelnitsky and Islam-Girey approached Lviv. After the first battles with the intimidated garrison, concerned about their own fate and the safety of their property, the residents preferred to buy off. Having received 220 thousand zlotys from Lviv residents, Khmelnytsky again turned to pen and paper. To begin with, he wrote a letter to the Polish Diet, pointing out that in all the troubles that befell the Rzeczpospolita, only magnates who imagined themselves to be micromonarchs were to blame, and he himself, Khmelnytsky, was loyal to the Polish crown.
A letter in response came to the hetman when his army was besieging (however, without undue enthusiasm) the Zamoć fortress. The accumulated production and rainy autumn contributed to the development of a melancholy state of tired Cossacks. Their Tatar ally Islam-Girey, taking his share, migrated to the Crimea for the winter. Khmelnitsky's message informed that now in the Commonwealth there is a new king Jan Kazimir, who orders the hetman (if he is, of course, a loyal servant, as he claims, a servant of His Majesty) to retreat from Zamosc. The letter diplomatically admitted that all the troubles were not from the Zaporozhye army and the registered Cossacks who joined it, but from the magnates who had lost all semblance of conscience.
Now everything will be in a new way, the message stated. The Zaporozhye army will report directly to the king. It is only necessary to completely get rid of the Tatars (10 thousand soldiers of Tugai-bey still accompanied the army of Khmelnitsky) and influence the numerous peasant detachments, acting on their own, so that they disperse to their homes. The fact is that the dislike for the Polish masters was truly popular, and when the uprising began, the hated gentry began to slaughter all and sundry, mercilessly ruining their estates. Now these hordes of rebels were becoming a very inconvenient factor in negotiations between the king and the hetman.
Khmelnitsky quite triumphantly entered Kiev, where he was solemnly greeted by crowds of people. They saw in him not just another hamlet of the farm, but a significant political figure. Delegations flocked to Kiev: from the Moldovan ruler, the Crimean khan and even the Turkish sultan. Only Alexei Mikhailovich continued to pretend that he was not interested in what was happening, but at the same time he concentratedly looked after the situation. Observant people noted the appearance of the Don Cossack detachments in the Khmelnytsky army, who arrived here, of course, solely out of a sense of solidarity. In general, the Moscow boyars angrily rejected all hints of interference in the war on the territory of the Commonwealth.
Emboldened by his own successes and international support, Khmelnitsky practically in an ultimatum demanded an agreement from the Poles: the abolition of the union, the preservation and expansion of Cossack liberties, the subordination of the hetman only to the king, and so on. When the stunned representative of the Commonwealth, Adam Kisel, was finally able to squeeze out something articulate about the number of the register, he received a short answer: "How much we enter, so much will be." Not surprisingly, the end of this not entirely "constructive" dialogue required the spring-summer campaign of 1649 and the Battle of Zborov.
Banner of Bohdan Khmelnitsky
Finding himself in a critical situation, King Jan Kazimir, who was with the army, did not lose his head, but turned through the right people to Khmelnitsky's ally Islam-Giray. The Khan was promised a substantial bonus if he slightly corrected his foreign policy and reduced his role in the war waged by the rebellious hetman. Having calculated all the benefits, the Crimean ruler began to persuade Khmelnytsky to calm down his ardor and conclude peace with the Poles, of course, in order to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. The Tatar contingent made up a solid part of the army, and his refusal to continue the hostilities confused the hetman with all the cards.
Having bowed in every way to the insidious ally (not aloud, of course, it was undesirable to quarrel with Islam-Giray), Khmelnitsky on August 8 signed an armistice with the Commonwealth. Within this state, a new territorial autonomous unit was now emerging - the Hetmanate, the head of which, the Hetman, was personally subordinate to the king. The roster list was now presented in the form of a compromise 40 thousand people. Khmelnitsky tried to fulfill the terms of the agreement as much as possible: the Cossacks who were not included in the register were dismissed, much to their displeasure, to their homes; peasants from numerous insurgent groups were practically forced to return to the landlords.
The Polish side, unlike its recent opponents, was not so scrupulous. The magnates with their troops still violated the formal boundaries of the Hetmanate, and the king's attempt to persuade the Diet to legitimize the treaty did not lead to success. The gentry demanded revenge - the resumption of the conflict was only a matter of time.
Alexei Mikhailovich was expressively silent, continuing to vigorously reform and modernize his considerable army. In addition to the existing ones, new regiments were created - soldiers and reitars, equipped with modern weapons, for which the treasury was not spared. The Thirty Years' War that ended made it possible to widely recruit experienced military professionals who were left out of work. The Russian army improved quantitatively and qualitatively, but of course, all interested persons understood that these military preparations had absolutely nothing to do with the events in Little Russia. At the Zemsky Sobor held in Moscow in the spring of 1651, no agreement was reached on the issue of accepting the Zaporozhian Army into citizenship, although the clergy persistently advocated the adoption, for example. However, an embassy was sent to the Rzeczpospolita under the leadership of the boyar Repnin-Obolensky, who tried to persuade the Poles to come to an agreement with the Cossacks on the basis of the Zborov agreements. This mission was not crowned with success - the gentry wanted war.
Alexey Mikhailovich comes into play
Fighting between the Polish crown and Khmelnytsky's forces resumed as early as 1651. Once again, the Tatars, who were not distinguished by their reliability, had to be attracted to fight the Rzeczpospolita. Two huge armies by those standards met, in the end, near the town of Berestechko in Volhynia in June 1651. A bloody and many-day battle, burdened for the Cossacks by the fact that Islam-Girey had fled with his subjects, led to their defeat.
With great difficulty, much later Khmelnytsky managed to gather into a weak fist what until recently was an army that terrified the Commonwealth. His diplomatic efforts are impressive. The hetman tirelessly scribbles messages to several addressees at once: the Swedish king, the Turkish sultan, and, of course, Alexei Mikhailovich, since the situation in which Khmelnitsky found himself contributed to inspiration. Former ally Islam-Girey went to Crimea and no longer showed enthusiasm in the war against the Poles. Russia responded in a streamlined and evasive manner to ever more insistent requests for protectorate. The Turkish Sultan Mehmed IV showed greater interest and expressed a desire to take the Hetmanate as a vassal, like the Crimean Khanate.
The moment was good. In September 1651, the Belotserkovsky peace was concluded between the warring parties on terms worse than those of Zborovsky. One of the points of the agreement, among other things, was the prohibition of Khmelnytsky to conduct his own foreign policy. Gradually, a party advocating for the expansion of the state gained the upper hand in Moscow. First, contradictions with the Poles grew - with an unrelenting desire to return the territories lost during the Time of Troubles. Secondly, Khmelnitsky, who entered into negotiations with the Sultan, perhaps not without intent, aroused the concern of the Russian government about the threat of another Turkish vassal appearing on the southern borders, who could easily become as hostile as Crimea. Thirdly, the clergy have long been advocating for reunification with the people professing Orthodoxy.
Meanwhile, fighting resumed on the outskirts. The campaign of 1652 was not easy for the Cossacks. The next year, 1653, the Poles agreed to conclude a separate treaty with the Tatar Khan, who broke his already fragile alliance with Khmelnytsky and began to devastate the Ukrainian lands without any restrictions. Requests for citizenship to Alexei Mikhailovich became even more insistent. On October 1, 1653, the Zemsky Sobor finally decided to grant the request for the annexation of the Zaporozhian Army. In January 1654, at the Rada held in Pereyaslav, Khmelnitsky and the Cossack foreman took an oath of allegiance to Alexei Mikhailovich. Disputes over these circumstances and their legal interpretation have not subsided to this day - this concerns, first of all, Ukrainian historians of "Canadian manufacture".
The acceptance of the Zaporozhye Sich into citizenship automatically meant a war with the Commonwealth, for which Russia had been preparing for several years. Back in the fall of 1653, before all the decrees and historical decisions, a special embassy was sent to Holland to purchase weapons and military supplies. About 20 thousand muskets were also purchased from Sweden. All these preparations indicated that the strategic decision on the Little Russian issue had been made in advance. In February 1654, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich set out at the head of the army from Moscow. Thus began a long, with a break for an armistice, war between the Russian state and the Commonwealth.
The campaign of 1654 was successful. A number of cities and fortresses were occupied by Russian troops, and the culmination was the long-awaited surrender of Smolensk in September. The next year, 1655, the Poles made a persistent attempt to launch a counteroffensive, for which they began to concentrate their forces under the command of Hetman Stanislav Potocki, who soon, however, was exhausted. According to the campaign plan, the northern army under the command of the governor Sheremetev and the central one, led by the governor Trubetskoy, were supposed to attack the territory of the Commonwealth. Directly in Little Russia, the "expeditionary corps" of boyar Andrei Vasilyevich Buturlin and Prince Grigory Romodanovsky, who was subordinate to him, were to operate. Their task was to unite with the army of Bohdan Khmelnitsky and then advance on Galicia.
In May, Buturlin set out in the direction of the White Church to unite with the hetman. The active phase of the operation began in July 1655 - Polish fortresses and towns surrendered without much resistance. In early September, Lvov was within the reach of horse patrols. Stanislav Pototsky did not dare to give a battle on the outskirts of the city and retreated. This was a common technique of that time: to leave a garrison in a fortress under threat of siege and withdraw, threatening the enemy with the main forces.
On September 18, the main forces of the Russian army were under the walls of Lvov, but Pototsky, who was hanging around nearby, did not give rest to Khmelnitsky and Buturlin. A significant detachment was separated from the main army under the command of Prince Romodanovsky and Colonel Grigory Lesnitsky of Mirgorod. Pototsky was very close - his camp was 5 miles from Lviv, near a place called Gorodok. The direct path to the Polish positions was blocked by a deep lake, the flanks were covered with forests and swampy terrain.
I had to improvise on the spot. On a moonlit night on September 20, 1655, the Cossacks and warriors dismantled nearby buildings into logs and made dams on the streams from this material. At first, hunters secretly moved through them, carving out the Polish guards, and then the main forces of the Russian troops. Pototsky, to his misfortune, took what was happening for a petty sabotage of the enemy and sent a small detachment of cavalry to the scene, which was destroyed. When the Poles realized the tragedy of what had happened, it was too late.
Zholnery Potocki, guarding the coastal fortifications, abandoning everything, ran to the city, as they feared to be cut off from Gorodok, where the main forces of the Polish army were located. Romodanovsky threw in pursuit the cavalry, which burst into the city on the shoulders of the fleeing. Soon fires began in it, and the crown hetman was forced to hastily withdraw his army to the open area for a field battle. Both armies met in the field.
The battle went on with varying degrees of success for almost three hours. Russian troops withstood a series of massive enemy attacks, horse and foot. Concentrating his cavalry on the flanks, Romodanovsky began to threaten the enemy's flanks. The Poles, putting up strong resistance, slowly began to retreat. In the midst of the battle, a rumor spread among them about a new army approaching the place of battle. Fully confident that these were the main forces under the command of Khmelnitsky and Buturlin, the Poles panicked and fled.
The Russians got huge trophies, artillery, wagon train and bunchuk of the crown hetman. The irony is that the army, which frightened the Poles, was the reinforcement that Pototsky had been waiting for, in the form of a "spilled crumbling" from Przemysl. Khmelnitsky did not take advantage of the fruits of this victory - he entered into negotiations with the Lviv people, out of old memory, demanding surrender and indemnity. In the midst of the auction, news came that the Crimean Khan had invaded the territory of Little Russia. The siege was hastily lifted and the army left Galicia. The war of Russia against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth lasted for many years, and the Battle of Gorodok became its significant, but little-known episode.
