Information from the early history of the Dnieper Cossacks is fragmentary, fragmentary and contradictory, but at the same time very eloquent. The earliest mention of the existence of the Dnieper Brodniks (ancestors of the Cossacks) is associated with the legend of the founding of Kiev by Prince Kiy. Any proverb, as you know, is a concentrated clot of philosophy of the past. So the old Cossack saying “like war - so brothers, like the world - so sons of bitches” did not appear yesterday or even the day before yesterday, but it looks like at the creation of the world. For people have always fought and in each tribe, if it wanted to survive, there were special fighters and field commanders for military purposes, capable of organizing a crowd of tribal militias, inspiring, building into battle formations and turning them into a combat-ready army. Different peoples called these military defenders of the clans differently, among the Türks beks (bei, run), among the Russian boyars (derived from the word battle). The relationship between the boyars and princes (as the military leaders of the tribes were called) with the secular and religious authorities of the tribes have never been cloudless, especially during periods of prolonged peace, because while the war is going on, the military is urgently needed. But as soon as a more or less prolonged pacification occurs, violent, drunk, reckless, frostbitten, wayward and not cheap in keeping the army begins to irritate and strain the peaceful life of ordinary inhabitants of the tribe, part of the power and, especially, the liberal-pacifist part of the servants, courtiers and retinue of this power itself. For them, due to their historical myopia, in this peace they see the coming of an era of universal peace, prosperity and happiness for eternal times and an itchy state of getting rid of all defense appears. Neighborhood and distant neighbors, as well as other geopolitical rivals immediately begin to support and sponsor this naive-pacifist part of society and, taking into account their falling passion for any freebies, easily turn them into their “fifth column”. And even if the victorious princes and boyars swung and encroached on the supreme power of the tribal elders and sorcerers, there was no mercy for them, despite any past merits. So it was, is and will always be, sometimes unfortunately, sometimes fortunately. So it was in Porosie. While Prince Kiy with his brothers and his retinue bravely, skillfully and reliably defended the dew tribe (the Proto-Slavs who lived in the Ros river basin) from the encroachments of neighboring tribes and nomads, bravely, skillfully and reliably in a hard time, they had honor, praise and glory, and their vociferous button accordions sang a "song to the madness of the brave" … But then the dashing neighbors bowed their heads before the winners' bunchuk and a long peace came. The victorious prince and his fighters (boyars) demanded a fair share of power for the victory, but the elders and sorcerers (priests) did not want to share it, aroused the people against the rebels and expelled the heroes from the tribe. Then, according to legend, Kiy, together with his family and the closest soldiers, lived for a long time on the Dnieper ferry Samvatas, became ataman of the Brodniks and founded a town in 430. The town gradually turned into the "city of Kiya", which later became the capital of Rus, and now independent Ukraine.
The early history of Zaporozhye is also no less turbulent, rich and deep than the history of the Volga-Don Perevoloka. Nature created in this place on the Dnieper a natural barrier to navigation in the form of rapids. No one could cross the rapids without dragging the ships ashore to haul them around the rapids. Nature itself ordered to have an outpost here, spotting, whipping (whatever you call it) for the protection, defense of the Zaporizhzhya pass and the Black Sea steppe from the dashing northern rook army, which constantly sought to raid along the Dnieper to the deep rear of the nomads and the Black Sea coast. This notch on the islands at the rapids has probably always existed, because there has always been a portage to bypass the rapids. And there is evidence about this in history. Here is one of the loudest. The mention of the existence of Zaporozhye fortifications and garrisons is found in the description of the death of Prince Svyatoslav. In 971, Prince Svyatoslav was returning to Kiev from his second and unsuccessful campaign in Bulgaria. After the conclusion of peace with the Byzantines, Svyatoslav with the remnants of the army left Bulgaria and safely reached the mouth of the Danube. Voivode Sveneld told him: "Go around the prince's rapids on horseback, for they are standing at the thresholds of the Pechenegs." But the prince wished to go on boats along the Dnieper to Kiev. Due to this disagreement, the Russian squad is divided into two parts. One, led by Sveneld, goes through the lands of Russian tributaries, uliches and Tivertsy. And the other part, led by Svyatoslav, returns by sea and is ambushed by the Pechenegs. The first attempt of Svyatoslav in the fall of 971 to climb the Dnieper failed, he had to spend the winter at the mouth of the Dnieper, and in the spring of 972 he repeated the attempt. However, the Pechenegs were still guarding the rapids. “When spring came, Svyatoslav went to the rapids. And smoking attacked him, the prince of Pechenezh, and they killed Svyatoslav, and took his head, and made a cup from the skull, bound him, and drank from it. Sveneld came to Kiev to see Yaropolk. " So the dashing Zaporozhye Pechenegs, led by their khan (according to other sources, ataman) Kurey outplayed the famous voivode, defeated, killed and beheaded Svyatoslav, and Kurya ordered to make a cup from his head.
Fig. 1 The last battle of Svyatoslav
At the same time, the great warrior, prince (kagan of the Rus) Svyatoslav Igorevich can rightfully be considered one of the founding fathers of the Dnieper Cossacks. Earlier in 965, he, together with the Pechenegs and other steppe peoples, defeated the Khazar Khaganate and conquered the Black Sea steppe. I act in the best traditions of the steppe kagans, part of the Alans and Cherkas, Kasogs or Kaisaks, he, to protect Kiev from the raids of the steppe inhabitants from the south, moved from the North Caucasus to the Dnieper and in Porosye. This decision was facilitated by an unexpected and treacherous raid on Kiev by his former allies, the Pechenegs, in 969, when he himself was in the Balkans. On the Dnieper, together with the other Turkic-Scythian tribes who lived earlier and later arrived, mixing with the rovers and the local Slavic population, having mastered their language, the settlers formed a special nationality, giving it their ethnic name Cherkasy. Until today, this region of Ukraine is called Cherkassy, and the regional center is Cherkasy. By about the middle of the 12th century, according to chronicles around 1146, on the basis of these Cherkas from different steppe peoples, an alliance called black hoods was gradually formed. Later, already under the Horde, a special Slavic people was formed from these Cherkas (black hoods) and then the Dnieper Cossacks were created from Kiev to Zaporozhye. Svyatoslav himself fell in love with the appearance and prowess of the North Caucasian Cherkas and Kaisaks. Brought up by the Varangians from early childhood, nevertheless, under the influence of the Cherkas and Kaisaks, he willingly changed his appearance, and most of the later Byzantine chronicles describe him with a long mustache, shaved head and a donkey forelock. More details about the early history of the Cossacks are described in the article "Ancient Cossack Ancestors".
Some historians also call the predecessor of the Zaporizhzhya Sich the Edisan Horde. This is both so and not so at the same time. Indeed, in the Horde, for protection from Lithuania, there was a spot at the Dnieper rapids with a powerful Cossack garrison. Organizationally, this fortified area was part of the ulus with the name of the Edisan Horde. But the Lithuanian prince Olgerd defeated it and included it in his possessions. The role of Olgerd in the history of the Dnieper Cossacks is also difficult to overestimate. When the Horde collapsed, its fragments were in constant enmity with each other, as well as with Lithuania and the Moscow state. Even before the final disintegration of the Horde, during the internal Horde strife, the Muscovites and Litvins put part of the Horde lands under their control. The rulelessness and turmoil in the Horde were especially remarkably used by the Lithuanian prince Olgerd. Where by force, where by intelligence and cunning, where in the 14th century he included many Russian principalities in his possessions, including the territory of the Dnieper Cossacks (former black hoods), and set himself broad goals: to end Moscow and the Golden Horde. The Dnieper Cossacks made up the armed forces of up to four themes (tumens) or 40,000 well-trained and trained troops and proved to be a significant support for the policy of Prince Olgerd and from the 14th century they begin to play an important role in the history of Lithuania, and as Lithuania unites with Poland, in the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The son and heir of Olgerd, the Lithuanian prince Jagiello, having become the Polish king, founded a new Polish dynasty and made the first attempt through personal union to unite these two states. There were several more such attempts later and, in the end, the united kingdom of the Commonwealth was successively created. At this time, the Don and Dnieper Cossacks were under the influence of the same reasons associated with the history of the Horde, but there were also peculiarities and their fate took different paths. The territories of the Dnieper Cossacks made up the outskirts of the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom, the Cossacks were replenished with the inhabitants of these countries and inevitably gradually "became heavily pollinated and littered." In addition, the suburban population, peasantry and townspeople have long lived on their territory. The Dnieper divided the territory of the Cossacks into the right-bank and left-bank parts. The Sloboda population also occupied the territories of the former Kiev principality, Chervonnaya Rus' with Lvov, Belarus and Polotsk Territory, adjacent to the Dnieper Cossacks, which, at the end of the Horde, fell under the rule of Lithuania, and then Poland. The character of the ruling elite of the Dnieper Cossacks was formed under the influence of the Polish "gentry", who did not recognize the supreme power over themselves. The gentry was an open class of warring masters, who opposed themselves to the commoners. A true nobleman was ready to starve to death, but not disgrace himself with physical labor. Representatives of the gentry were distinguished by disobedience, inconstancy, arrogance, arrogance, "ambition" (honor and self-esteem, from the Latin honor "honor") and personal courage. Among the gentry, the idea of universal equality within the estate ("pany-brothers") was preserved, and even the king was perceived as an equal. In case of disagreement with the authorities, the gentry reserved the right to mutiny (rokosh). The above noble manners turned out to be very attractive and infectious for the ruling elite of the entire Rzeczpospolita, and until now relapses of this phenomenon are a serious problem for stable statehood in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, but especially in Ukraine. This "super freedom" became a distinctive feature of the ruling elite of the Dnieper Cossacks. They waged an open war against the king, under whose authority they were; in case of failure, they passed under the authority of the Moscow prince or the king, the Crimean khan or the Turkish sultan, whom they also did not want to obey. Their inconstancy caused distrust from all sides, which led to tragic consequences in the future. Don Cossacks in their relations with Moscow also often had strained relations, but rarely crossed the line of reason. They never had a desire for treason and, defending their rights and "liberties", they regularly carried out their duties and service in relation to Moscow. As a result of this service in the 15-19 centuries, following the model of the Don Host, the Russian government formed eight new Cossack regions, settled on the borders with Asia. And this difficult process of transferring the Don Host to Moscow service is described in the articles "Seniority (education) and the formation of the Don Host in Moscow service" and "Azov sitting and the transition of the Don Host to Moscow service."
Rice. 2 Honor of the Ukrainian Cossack gentry
Despite the difficult relations with the Cossacks, in 1506 the Polish king Sigismund I legally secured for the Cossack community all the lands occupied by the Cossacks under the Horde's rule in the lower reaches of the Dnieper and along the right bank of the river. Formally, the free Dnieper Cossacks were under the jurisdiction of the royal official, the elders of Kanevsky and Cherkassky, but in reality they depended on very few and conducted their policy, and built relations with neighbors solely from the balance of forces and the nature of personal relationships with neighboring rulers. So in 1521, numerous Dnieper Cossacks, led by hetman Dashkevich, together with the Crimean Tatars went on a campaign against Moscow, and in 1525 the same Dashkevich, who was also the head of Cherkassky and Kanevsky, in response to the treacherous betrayal of the Crimean Khan, devastated Crimea with the Cossacks. Hetman Dashkevich had extensive plans to strengthen the statehood of the Hetmanate (Dnieper Cossackia), including a plan to recreate the Zaporozhye Zaseki as a forward outpost in the struggle of the Polish-Lithuanian state with the Crimea, but he failed to implement this plan then.
Again the Zaporozhye notch in the post-Horde history in 1556 was recreated by the Cossack hetman, Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Vishnevetsky. This year, part of the Dnieper Cossacks, who did not want to submit to Lithuania and Poland, formed on the Dnieper on the island of Khortytsia a society of single free Cossacks called "Zaporizhzhya Sich". Prince Vishnevetsky came from the Gediminovich family and was a supporter of the Russian-Lithuanian rapprochement. For this he was repressed by King Sigismund II and fled to Turkey. Returning after disgrace from Turkey, with the permission of the king, he became the headman of the ancient Cossack cities of Kanev and Cherkassy. Later, he sent ambassadors to Moscow and Tsar Ivan the Terrible took him to the service with "kazatstvo", issued a certificate of protection and sent a salary. Khortytsya was a convenient base for controlling navigation along the Dnieper and raids on the Crimea, Turkey, the Carpathian region and the Danube principalities. Since the Sich was closest to all the Dnieper Cossack settlements to the Tatar possessions, the Turks and Tatars immediately tried to drive the Cossacks out of Khortitsa. In 1557 the Sich withstood the Turkish and Tatar sieges, but having fought off the Cossacks still went back to Kanev and Cherkassy. In 1558, 5 thousand idle Dnieper Cossacks again occupied the Dnieper Islands under the very noses of the Tatars and Turks. Thus, in the constant struggle for the border lands, a community of the most courageous Dnieper Cossacks was formed. The island they occupied became the advanced military camp of the Dnieper Cossacks, where only single, most desperate Cossacks lived permanently. Hetman Vishnevetsky himself was an unreliable ally of Moscow. By order of Ivan the Terrible, he raided the Caucasus to help the allied Muscovy Kabardians against the Turks and Nogais. However, after a campaign in Kabarda, he went to the mouth of the Dnieper, got in touch with the Polish king and re-entered his service. Vishnevetsky's adventure ended tragically for him. By order of the king, he undertook a campaign in Moldova in order to take the place of the Moldavian ruler, but was treacherously captured and sent to Turkey. There he was sentenced to death and thrown from the fortress tower onto iron hooks, on which he died in agony, cursing Sultan Suleiman I, whose person is now widely known to our public thanks to the popular Turkish TV series "The Magnificent Century". The next hetman, Prince Ruzhinsky, again entered into relations with the Moscow Tsar and continued raids on the Crimea and Turkey until his death in 1575.
Rice. 3 Formidable Zaporozhye infantry
Since 1559, Lithuania, as part of the Livonian coalition, waged a difficult war with Muscovy for the Baltic states. The protracted Livonian War drained and bled Lithuania and she weakened in the struggle with Moscow to such an extent that, avoiding a military-political collapse, she was forced to fully recognize the Union with Poland at the Lublin Seim in 1569, effectively losing a significant part of her sovereignty and losing Ukraine. The new state was named Rzeczpospolita (a republic of both peoples) and was headed by an elected Polish king and the Seim. At the same time, Lithuania had to give up its exclusive rights to its Ukraine. Previously, Lithuania did not allow any immigrants from Poland to come here. Now the Poles are eagerly getting down to the business of colonizing the newly acquired land. The voivodeships of Kiev and Bratslav were founded, where, first of all, crowds of serving Polish nobility (gentry) flooded with their leaders - dignitaries. By order of the Seimas, "the deserts lying on the Dnieper" were to be settled in the shortest possible time. The king was authorized to distribute land to honored nobles for rent or for use according to office. Polish hetmans, governors, elders and other bureaucratic magnates immediately became here life-long owners of large estates, although deserted, but equal in size to the appanage principalities. They, in turn, profitably distributed them on lease in parts to the smaller gentry. Emissaries of the new landowners at fairs in Poland, Kholmshchina, Polesie, Galicia and Volhynia announced appeals to the new land. They promised to help with resettlement, protection from Tatar raids, an abundance of black earth lands and exemption from any taxes for a period of 20 to 30 first years. Crowds of East European peasants of different tribes began to flock to the fat lands of Ukraine, willingly leaving their homes, especially because at that time they began to turn from free plowmen into the position of "involuntary servants". Over the next half century, dozens of new cities and hundreds of settlements appeared here. New peasant settlements also grew like mushrooms on the indigenous lands of the Dnieper Cossacks, where, according to the khan's orders and royal decrees, the Cossacks had already settled earlier. Under the Lithuanian government in Lubny, Poltava, Mirgorod, Kanev, Cherkassy, Chigirin, Belaya Tserkov, only Cossacks were the masters, only the elected atamans possessed power. Now Polish elders were planted everywhere, who behaved like conquerors, regardless of any customs of the Cossack communities. Therefore, between the Cossacks and representatives of the new government, all sorts of troubles immediately began to arise: over the right to use land, over the desire of the elders to convert the entire unserviceable part of the Cossack population into a tax and draft estate, and most of all on the basis of violation of old rights and offended national pride of free people … However, the kings themselves supported the old Lithuanian order. The tradition of the elected chieftains and the hetman, who was directly subordinate to the king, was not violated. But the tycoons here felt like "krulevyat", "krulik" and in no way limited the gentry subordinate to them. The Cossacks were interpreted not by the citizens of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but by the "subjects" of the new lords, as "schismatic rabble", claps, a conquered people, the fragments of the Horde behind which from Tatar times were drawn unfinished scores and grievances for the attacks on Poland. But the Cossacks felt the natural right of the local indigenous people, did not want to obey the newcomers, were indignant at the illegal violations of royal decrees and the contemptuous attitude of the gentry. The crowds of new settlers of different tribes, who flooded their lands along with the Poles, did not evoke warm feelings in them either. The Cossacks kept themselves apart from the peasants who came to Ukraine. As a military people and free according to ancient traditions, they recognized as equal to themselves only free people, accustomed to using weapons. The peasants, under all conditions, remained "subjects" of their lords, dependent and almost disenfranchised working people, "cattle". The Cossacks differed from the newcomers in their speech. At that time, it had not yet merged with Ukrainian and differed little from the language of the lower Donets. If some people of a different kind, Ukrainians, Poles, Lithuanians (Belarusians), were admitted to the Cossack communities, then these were isolated cases, which were the result of especially cordial relations with local Cossacks or as a result of mixed marriages. New people came to Ukraine voluntarily and "stole" plots for themselves in the regions that, according to historical tradition and royal decrees, belonged to the Cossacks. True, they fulfilled the will of others, but the Cossacks did not take this into account. They had to make room and watch as their land more and more passes into the wrong hands. Reason enough to feel dislike for all aliens. Leading a life apart from the newcomers, in the second half of the 16th century, the Cossacks began to be divided into four household groups.
The first is the Nizovtsy or the Cossacks. They did not recognize any other authority than the ataman, no outside pressure on their will, no interference in their affairs. An exclusively military people, often celibate, they served as the first cadres of the continuously growing Cossack population of the Zaporozhye Niz.
The second is the Hetmanate, in the former Lithuanian Ukraine. The closest group to the first in spirit here was the layer of Cossack farmers and cattle breeders. They had already become attached to the land and to their kind of activity, but in the new conditions they sometimes knew how to speak the language of rebellion and at some moments left in droves "to their old-time place, to the Zaporozhi."
A third layer stood out from them - the courtyard Cossacks and the Registries. They and their families were endowed with special rights, which gave them reason to consider themselves equal with the Polish gentry, although every seedy Polish nobleman looked down on them.
The fourth group of the social order was the full-fledged gentry, created by royal privileges from the Cossack sergeant major. Decades of joint campaigns with the Poles and Litvin have shown many Cossacks worthy of the highest praise and reward. They received from the royal hands "privileges" for the gentry rank, along with small estates on the outskirts of the land. After that, on the basis of "brotherhood" with fellow comrades-in-arms, they acquired Polish surnames and coats of arms. Hetmans with the title "Hetman of His Royal Majesty of the Army of Zaporizhia and both sides of the Dnieper" were selected from this gentry. Zaporizhzhya Niz never obeyed them, although sometimes they acted together. All these events influenced the stratification of the Cossacks who lived along the Dnieper. Some did not recognize the power of the Polish king and defended their independence on the Dnieper rapids, adopting the name "Zaporozhye Grassroots Host". Part of the Cossacks turned into a free sedentary population, engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding. Another part entered the service of the Polish-Lithuanian state.
Rice. 4 Dnieper Cossacks
In 1575, after the death of King Sigismund II, the Jagiellonian dynasty was interrupted on the Polish throne. The warlike Transylvanian prince Istvan Bathory, better known in our and Polish history as Stefan Bathory, was elected king. Having ascended the throne, he set about reorganizing the army. At the expense of mercenaries, he raised its combat effectiveness and decided to use the Dnieper Cossacks as well. Previously, under Hetman Ruzhinsky, the Dnieper Cossacks were in the service of the Moscow Tsar and defended the borders of the Moscow state. So in one of the raids, the Crimean Khan captured up to 11 thousand of the Russian population. Ruzhinsky with the Cossacks attacked the Tatars on the way and freed the whole population. Ruzhinsky made sudden raids not only on the Crimea, but also on the southern coast of Anatolia. Once he landed at Trebizond, then occupied and destroyed Sinop, then approached Constantinople. From this campaign he returned with great fame and booty. But in 1575 hetman Ruzhinsky died during the siege of the Aslam fortress.
Stefan Batory decided to attract the Dnieper Cossacks to his service, promising them independence and privileges in the internal organization. In 1576 he published the Universal, in which a register of 6,000 people was established for the Cossacks. Registered Cossacks were consolidated into 6 regiments, divided into hundreds, outskirts and companies. A foreman was placed at the head of the regiments, he was given a banner, a bunchuk, a seal and a coat of arms. A baggage train was appointed, two judges, a clerk, two captains, a cornet and a bunchuzhny army, colonels, regimental foremen, centurions and chieftains. From among the Cossack elite, the commander's foreman stood out, who was equal in rights with the Polish gentry. The grassroots Zaporozhye army did not obey the foreman, they chose their chieftains. Cossacks not included in the register turned into a taxable estate of the Commonwealth and were deprived of their Cossack position. Some of these Cossacks did not obey the Universal and went to the Zaporozhye Sich. Later, a Cossack chief, the hetman of His Royal Majesty the Zaporozhye Army and both sides of the Dnieper, began to be elected at the head of the registered regiments. The king appointed Chigirin, the ancient capital of the Chigs (Jigs), one of the Black Klobuk tribes, as the main city of the registered Cossacks. A salary was appointed, with the regiments there was land property, which was given by rank or rank. For the Cossacks, the king established the Koshevoy ataman.
Having made the reforms of the armed forces, Stefan Batory in 1578 resumed hostilities against Moscow. To protect himself from the Crimea and Turkey, Batory forbade the Dnieper Cossacks to attack their lands, showing them the path of raids - the Moscow lands. In this war between Poland and Russia, the Dnieper and Zaporozhye Cossacks were on the side of Poland, were part of the Polish troops, raided and carried out destruction and pogroms no less cruel than the Crimean Tatars. Bathory was very pleased with their activities and praised them for the raids. At the time of the resumption of hostilities with Poland, Russian troops controlled the Baltic coast from Narva to Riga. In the war with Bathory, the Moscow troops began to suffer great setbacks and abandon the occupied territories. There were several reasons for the failure:
- the depletion of the military resources of a country that has been at war for more than 20 years.
- the need to divert large resources to maintain order in the recently conquered regions of Kazan and Astrakhan, the Volga peoples constantly rebelled.
- constant military tension towards the south due to the threat from the Crimea, Turkey and nomadic hordes.
- continuous and merciless struggle of the tsar with the princes, boyars and internal treason.
- great dignity and talent of Stefan Batory as an effective military and political figure of that time.
- Great moral and material assistance to the anti-Russian coalition from Western Europe.
A long-term war depleted the forces of both sides, and in 1682 the Yam-Zapolsky peace was concluded. With the end of the Livonian War, the Dnieper and Zaporozhye Cossacks began to make attacks on the Crimea and Turkish possessions. This created a threat of war between Poland and Turkey. But Poland, no less than Muscovy, was exhausted by the Livonian War and did not want a new war. King Stefan Batory openly fought the Cossacks when they attacked the Tatars and Turks in violation of royal decrees. Such he ordered "to grab and forge."
And the next king Sigismund III took even more decisive measures against the Cossacks, which allowed him to conclude "eternal peace" with Turkey. But this completely contradicted the main vector of the then European policy directed against Turkey. At this time, the Austrian emperor created another union to expel the Turks from Europe, and Muscovy was also invited to this union. For this, he promised Russia Crimea and even Constantinople, and asked for 8-9 thousand Cossacks "hardy in hunger, useful for capturing prey, for devastating an enemy country and for sudden raids …". Seeking support in the fight against the Polish king, Turks and Tatars, the grassroots Cossacks often turned to the Russian Tsar and formally recognized themselves as his subjects. So, in 1594, when the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation hired the Zaporozhians for his service, they asked permission from the Russian tsar. The tsarist government tried to maintain appropriate relations with the Cossacks, especially with those who lived in the upper Donets and protected the Russian lands from the Tatars. But there was no great hope for the Cossacks, and the Russian ambassadors always "visited" whether these "subjects" would be direct to the sovereign.
After the death of Stefan Batory in 1586, through the efforts of the gentry, King Sigismund III of the Swedish dynasty was elevated to the Polish throne. The magnates were his opponents and fought for the Austrian dynasty. The country began "rokosh", but Chancellor Zamoyski defeated the troops of the Austrian challenger and his supporters. Sigismund was entrenched on the throne. But the royal power in Poland, through the efforts of the gentry, was reduced to complete dependence on the decisions of general meetings, where each pan had the right to veto. Sigismund was a supporter of absolute monarchy and an ardent Catholic. By this, he placed himself in hostile relations with the Orthodox magnates and the population, as well as with the gentry - supporters of democratic privileges. A new "rokosh" began, but Sigismund coped with it. The magnates and the gentry, fearing the king's revenge, moved to neighboring countries, primarily to the then restless Muscovy. The activities of these Polish-Lithuanian insurgents in the Moscow possessions had no special national and state goals, except for plunder and profit. These vicissitudes of the Time of Troubles and the participation of the Cossacks and gentry in it were described in the article "Cossacks in the Time of Troubles". During the rokosh, along with the Polish opponents of the king, Russian insurgents acted, opponents of the course of militant Catholicism adopted by Sigismund. And Pan Sapega even called on the Russian militia to join the Polish rokosh and overthrow Sigismund, but negotiations on this topic did not lead to positive results.
And on the distant outskirts of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in Ukraine, the Polish magnates and their entourage did little to reckon with the rights of even the privileged strata of the Cossack society. Land seizures, repressions, rudeness and disdain for the indigenous inhabitants of the region, frequent violence by newcomers and the administration irritated all the Cossacks. Anger grew every day. The aggravation of relations between the Dnieper Cossacks and the central government took place in 1590, when Chancellor Zamoysky subordinated the Cossacks to the Crown Hetman. This violated the ancient right of the Cossack hetmans to address directly the first person, king, tsar or khan. One of the main reasons for the hostile attitude of the Dnieper Cossacks to Poland was the beginning of the religious struggle of Catholics against the Orthodox Russian population, but especially since 1596, after the Brest Church Union, i.e. another attempt to merge the Catholic and Eastern churches, as a result of which part of the Eastern Church recognized the authority of the Pope and the Vatican. The population that did not recognize the Union was deprived of the right to hold office in the Polish kingdom. The Russian Orthodox population was faced with a choice: either to accept Catholicism or to start a struggle to defend their religious rights. The Cossacks became the center of the outbreak of the struggle. With the strengthening of Poland, the Cossacks were also subjected to the interference of the kings and the Diet in their internal affairs. But the forcible transformation of the Russian population into Uniates turned out to be not easy for Poland. Constant persecution of the Orthodox faith and Sigismund's measures against the Cossacks led to the fact that in 1591 the Cossacks revolted against Poland. The first hetman to revolt against Poland was Krishtof Kosinski. Significant Polish forces were sent against the insurgent Cossacks. The Cossacks were defeated, and Kosinsky was captured and executed in 1593. After that Nalivaiko became hetman. But he also fought not only with the Crimea and Moldova, but also with Poland, and in 1595, when returning from a raid on Poland, his troops were surrounded by Hetman Zolkiewski and defeated. Further relations between the Cossacks and the Polish-Lithuanian state took on the character of a protracted religious war. But for almost half a century, protests did not grow into the element of a general uprising and were expressed only in isolated explosions. The Cossacks were busy with campaigns and wars. In the early years of the 17th century, they took an active part "in the restoration of the rights" of the alleged Tsarevich Dimitri to the Moscow throne. In 1614, with Hetman Konashevich Sagaidachny, the Cossacks reached the shores of Asia Minor and turned the city of Sinop to ashes, in 1615 they burned Trebizond, visited the outskirts of Istanbul, burned and sank many Turkish warships in the Danube arms and near Ochakov. In 1618, with the prince Vladislav, they went to Moscow and helped Poland to acquire Smolensk, Chernigov and Novgorod Seversky. And then the Dnieper Cossacks provided generous military assistance and service to the Polish-Lithuanian state. After the Turks defeated the Poles near Tsetsera in November 1620, and Hetman Zolkiewski was killed, the Seim appealed to the Cossacks, urging them to march against the Turks. The Cossacks did not have to beg for a long time, they went to sea and by attacks on the Turkish shores delayed the advance of the Sultan's army. Then, together with the Poles, 47 thousand Dnieper Cossacks took part in the defense of the camp near Khotin. This was a significant help, because against 300 thousand Turks and Tatars, Poland had only 65 thousand soldiers. Having met stubborn resistance, the Turks agreed to negotiations and lifted the siege, but the Cossacks lost Sagaidachny, who died of wounds on April 10, 1622. After such help, the Cossacks considered themselves entitled to receive the promised salary with a special surcharge for Khotin. But the commission appointed to consider their claims, instead of a surcharge, decided to reduce the register again, and the Polish magnates intensified the repression. A significant part of the demobilized after the reduction of the register of "discharges" went to Zaporozhye. The hetmans chosen by them did not obey anyone and made raids on the Crimea, Turkey, the Danubian principalities and Poland. But in November 1625 they were defeated at Krylov and were forced to accept the hetman appointed by the king. Registered were left in the ranks of 6000, the Cossack farmers had to either reconcile with the panshchina, or leave their plots, leaving them in the possession of the new owners. Only people of proven loyalty were selected for the new roster. What about the rest? The freedom-loving ones went with their families to Zaporozhye, while the passive ones resigned themselves and began to mix with the gray mass of alien colonists.
Fig. 5 The rebellious spirit of the Maidan
At this time, the Cossacks intervened in the Crimean-Turkish relations. Khan Shagin Girey wanted to leave Turkey and asked for the assistance of the Cossacks. In the spring of 1628 the Cossacks went to the Crimea with the ataman Ivan Kulaga. They were joined by a part of the Cossacks from Ukraine, led by Hetman Mikhail Doroshenko. Having pounded the Turks and their supporter Janibek Girey near Bakhchisarai, they moved to Kafa. But at this time, their ally Shagin Girey made peace with the enemy and the Cossacks had to hastily retreat from the Crimea, and Hetman Doroshenko fell near Bakhchisarai. Instead, the king appointed the obedient Grigory Chorny as hetman. This one unquestioningly fulfilled all the requirements of the magnates, oppressed the lower brethren of the Cossacks, did not prevent them from being subordinated to the elders and masters. The Cossacks left the Ukraine in droves for Niz, and therefore the population of the Sichev lands in his time greatly increased. Under Hetman Chorn, the gap between the Hetmanate and the growing Niz began to mature especially, since The bottom turned to an independent republic, and the Cossack Ukraine was getting closer and closer to the Commonwealth. The royal henchman did not appeal to the popular masses. The Zaporozhye Cossacks moved north from the rapids, captured Chorny, tried him for venality and a penchant for union, and condemned him to death. Soon after this, the Nizovtsy, under the command of Koshevoy Ataman Taras Shake, attacked the Polish camp near the Alta River, occupied it and destroyed the troops stationed there. The uprising of 1630 began, which attracted many Registrians to its side. It ended with the battle of Pereyaslav, which, according to the Polish chronicler Pyasetsky, "cost the Poles more victims than the Prussian war." They had to make concessions: the register was allowed to increase to eight thousand, and the Cossacks from Ukraine were guaranteed impunity for participating in the uprising, but these decisions were not carried out by the magnates and the gentry. Since then, Niz has been growing more and more at the expense of the Cossack farmers. Some of the elders also leave for Sich, but on the other hand, many take the whole system of life from the Polish gentry and turn into loyal Polish nobles. In 1632, the Polish king Sigismund III died. His long reign passed under the sign of the forced expansion of the influence of the Catholic Church, with the support of supporters of church union. His son Vladislav IV came to the throne. In 1633-34, 5-6 thousand registered Cossacks took part in the campaigns against Moscow. For several years after this, a particularly intensive resettlement of peasants from the west to Ukraine continued. By 1638, it had grown to a thousand new settlements, planned by the French engineer Beauplan. He also supervised the construction of the Polish fortress Kudak at the first Dnieper threshold and on the site of the old Cossack settlement of the same name. Although in August 1635 the Grassroots Cossacks with the ataman Sulima or Suleiman took Kudak from a raid and destroyed a garrison of foreign mercenaries in it, but after two months they had to give it to the registrians loyal to the king. In 1637, the Zaporozhye Niz tried to take over the protection of the Cossack population of Ukraine, constrained by new settlers. The Cossacks went "to the volosts" led by atamans Pavlyuk, Skidan and Dmitry Gunei. They were joined by local Cossacks from Kanev, Stebliev and Korsun, who were and were not in the register. There were about ten thousand of them, but after the defeat at Kumeyki and Moshni, they had to retreat to the lands of Sichi. Just as soon the Poles suppressed the Cossack movement on the Left Bank, begun the following year by Ostryanin and Gunia. Judging by the small number of participants (8-10 thousand people), the Cossack performances were conducted by the Zaporozhye Cossacks alone. The harmony of their movements and the organization of defense in the camps speaks of the same. The old and new Ukrainian population of the steppe at that time was busy with the establishment of hundreds of new settlements under the supervision of the troops of the crown hetman S. Konetspolsky. And in general, in those years, attempts at military cooperation with the Ukrainians ended for the Zaporozhye Cossacks with strife and quarrels, reaching the point of mutual murders. But the lower republic willingly accepted the fugitive peasants. They could engage in free and peaceful labor on the plots of land allocated to them. Of these, a layer of "subjects of the Zaporozhye Lower Army" gradually formed, replenishing the ranks of farmers and servants. Some Ukrainian peasants, who wished to continue the armed struggle, congregated on the banks of the Southern Bug. On the Teshlyk river, they founded their own separate Teshlytskaya Sich. Cossacks called them "karatays".
After the defeats of 1638, the rebels returned to Niz, and in Ukraine, instead of the departed Registries, new ones were recruited from local Cossacks. Now the register consisted of six regiments (Pereyaslavsky, Kanevsky, Cherkassky, Belotserkovsky, Korsunsky, Chigirinky), a thousand people each. The regimental commanders were appointed from the noble gentry, and the rest of the ranks: regimental esauls, centurions and below them in office were elected. The hetman's post was abolished and his post was replaced by the appointed commissar Pyotr Komarovsky. The Cossacks had to swear allegiance to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, promise obedience to the local Polish authorities, not go to Sich and not take part in the sea campaigns of the Nizovites. Those who were not included in the register and living in Ukraine remained "subjects" of local lords. The resolutions of the "Final Commission with the Cossacks" were also signed by representatives of the Cossacks. Among others, there was the signature of the Military Clerk Bohdan Khmelnitsky. In ten years he will lead a new struggle of the Cossacks against Poland and his name will thunder all over the world.
Fig. 6 Polish gentry and shell Cossack
The situation was aggravated by the fact that some of the Ukrainian magnates and gentry not only adopted Catholicism, but also began to demand this from their subjects in various ways. So many pans confiscated local churches and leased them to local Jews - artisans, inns, shinkers, winners and distillers, and they began to charge a fee from the villagers and Cossacks for the right to pray. These and other Jesuit measures were overwhelming. In response, the Cossacks of the Hetmanate united with the Cossacks of the Zaporozhye Grassroots Army and a general uprising began. The struggle lasted more than a decade and ended with the annexation of the Hetmanate to Russia in 1654 at the Pereyaslav Rada. But this is a completely different and very confusing story.
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A. A. Gordeev History of the Cossacks
Istorija.o.kazakakh.zaporozhskikh.kak.onye.izdrevle.zachalisja.1851.
Letopisnoe.povestvovanie.o. Malojj. Rossii.i.ejo.narode.i.kazakakh.voobshhe. 1847. A. Rigelman
