Ukraine in its history has suffered more than once in the throes of political self-determination. In the middle of the 17th century, like today, she rushed between West and East, constantly changing the vector of development. It would be nice to remind what this policy cost the state and people of Ukraine. So, Ukraine, XVII century.
Why did Khmelnitsky need an alliance with Moscow?
In 1648, Bohdan Khmelnitsky defeated the Polish troops sent against him three times: under Zheltye Vody, near Korsun and near Piliavtsy. As the war flared up and military victories became more and more significant, the ultimate goal of the struggle also changed. Having started the war by demanding limited Cossack autonomy in the Naddniprovschina, Khmelnytsky had already fought for the liberation of the entire Ukrainian people from Polish captivity, and the dreams of creating an independent Ukrainian state on the territory liberated from the Poles no longer seemed like something unrealizable.
The defeat at Berestechko in 1651 sobered Khmelnytsky a little. He realized that Ukraine is still weak, and alone in the war with Poland, he may not resist. The hetman began to look for an ally, or rather, a patron. The choice of Moscow as the "elder brother" was not at all predetermined. Khmelnytsky, together with the foremen, seriously considered options to become an ally of the Crimean Khan, a vassal of the Turkish Sultan, or return to the Commonwealth as a confederative component of the common state. The choice, as we already know, was made in favor of the Moscow Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.
Did Moscow need Ukraine?
Unlike the current situation, Moscow did not at all seek to lure Ukraine into its arms. Adopting Ukrainian separatists into citizenship meant an automatic declaration of war on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. And Poland of the 17th century is a large European state by those standards, which included huge territories that are now part of the Baltic republics, Belarus and Ukraine. Poland exerted influence on European politics: less than 50 years later, its zholneers took Moscow and placed their protege on the throne in the Kremlin.
And the Muscovy of the 17th century is not the Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century. The Baltic States, Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia are still foreign territories, and in the annexed Siberia there was not even a horse lying around. People are still alive who remember the nightmare of the Time of Troubles, when the very existence of Russia as an independent state was at stake. In general, the war promised to be long, with an unclear outcome.
In addition, Moscow fought with Sweden for access to the Baltic and relied on Poland as a future ally. In short, apart from a headache, taking Ukraine under one’s hand did not promise the Moscow tsar absolutely nothing. Khmelnitsky sent the first letter with a request to accept Ukraine into citizenship to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in 1648, but for 6 years the tsar and boyars refused all letters of the Ukrainian hetman. The Zemsky Sobor, convened in 1651 to make a decision, spoke out, as they would say today, for the territorial integrity of the Polish state.
The situation is changing
After the victory at Berestechko, the Poles launched a punitive campaign against Ukraine. The Crimeans took the side of the Polish crown. The villages were burning, the Poles executed the participants of the recent battles, the Tatars collected full for sale. In the devastated Ukraine, famine began. The Moscow tsar canceled customs duties on grain exported to Ukraine, but this did not save the situation. The villagers who survived the Polish executions, Tatar raids and famine left in droves to Muscovy and Moldavia. Volyn, Galicia, Bratslavshchina lost up to 40% of their population. Khmelnitsky's ambassadors went to Moscow again with requests for help and protection.
At the hand of the Moscow tsar
In such a situation, on October 1, 1653, the Zemsky Sobor made a fateful decision for Ukraine to grant her citizenship, and on October 23 declared war on Poland. By the end of 1655, by joint efforts, all of Ukraine and Galician Rus were liberated from the Poles (which the Galicians cannot forgive Russia to this day).
Taken under the sovereign's hand, Ukraine was not occupied or simply annexed. The state retained its administrative structure, its independent legal proceedings from Moscow, the election of the hetman, colonels, foremen and city administration, the Ukrainian gentry and laity retained all property, privileges and liberties granted to them by the Polish authorities. In practice, Ukraine was part of the Moscow state as an autonomous entity. A strict ban was introduced only on foreign policy activities.
Parade of ambitions
In 1657, Bohdan Khmelnytsky died, leaving to his successors a state of enormous size with a certain degree of independence, protected from external intervention by the Ukrainian-Moscow treaty. And what did the gentlemen-colonels do? That's right, the division of power. The hetman Ivan Vygovskaya, elected at the Chigirinskaya Rada in 1657, enjoyed support on the right bank, but did not have any support among the population of the left bank. The reason for the dislike was the pro-Western orientation of the newly elected hetman. (Oh, how familiar it is!) An uprising broke out on the left bank, the leaders were the chieftain of the Zaporizhzhya Sich, Yakov Barabash, and the Poltava colonel Martin Pushkar.
Problematic Ukraine
To cope with the opposition, Vygovskaya called for help … from the Crimean Tatars! After the suppression of the rebellion, the Krymchaks began to rush all over Ukraine, collecting prisoners for the slave market in the Cafe (Feodosia). The hetman's rating dropped to zero. The foremen and colonels offended by Vygovsky often visited Moscow in search of the truth, bringing with them news that made the tsar and the boyars dizzy: taxes are not collected, 60,000 gold pieces that Moscow sent to maintain the registered Cossacks disappeared to no one knows where (does it remind you of anything?), the hetman cuts off the heads of obstinate colonels and centurions.
Treason
To restore order, the tsar sent an expeditionary corps to Ukraine under the command of Prince Trubetskoy, which was defeated near Konotop by the united Ukrainian-Tatar army. Together with the news of the defeat, the news of Vygovsky's open betrayal comes to Moscow. The hetman signed an agreement with Poland, according to which Ukraine returns to the fold of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and in return it provides an army for the war with Moscow and strengthening the position of the Ukrainian hetman. (Gadyach Treaty of 1658) The news that Vygovskaya had also sworn allegiance to the Crimean Khan in Moscow did not surprise anyone.
New hetman, new treaty
The agreement concluded by Vyhovsky did not find support among the people (the memory of the Polish order was still fresh), the suppressed rebellion flared up with renewed vigor. The last supporters are leaving the Hetman. Under pressure from the "foreman" (the leading elite), he renounces the mace. To extinguish the flames of the civil war, the son of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, Yuri, is elected hetman, hoping that everyone will follow the son of the national hero. Yuri Khmelnitsky goes to Moscow to ask for help for the bloodless civil war in Ukraine.
In Moscow, the delegation was greeted without enthusiasm. The betrayal of the hetman and the colonels, who had sworn allegiance to the tsar, and the death of the troops, specifically spoiled the atmosphere at the negotiations. Under the terms of the new treaty, the autonomy of Ukraine was curtailed, in order to control the situation in large cities, military garrisons from Moscow archers were deployed.
New treason
In 1660, a detachment under the command of the boyar Sheremetev set out from Kiev. (Russia, having declared war on Poland in 1654, still could not end it.) Yuri Khmelnitsky with his army is in a hurry to help, but in such a hurry that he does not have time to go anywhere. Near Slobodische, he stumbles upon the Polish crown army, from which he suffers a defeat and … concludes a new treaty with the Poles. Ukraine returns to Poland (however, there is no longer any talk of autonomy) and undertakes to send an army for the war with Russia.
Not wishing to lie down under Poland, the left bank chooses its hetman, Yakov Somka, who raises the Cossack regiments for the war against Yuri Khmelnitsky and sends ambassadors to Moscow with requests for help.
Ruina (Ukrainian) - complete collapse, devastation
You can go on and on. But the picture will repeat itself endlessly: more than once colonels will revolt for the right to possess the hetman's mace, and more than once they will run from one camp to another. The right bank and the left bank, choosing their hetmans, will endlessly fight against each other. This period entered the history of Ukraine as "Ruina". (Very eloquent!) When signing new treaties (with Poland, Crimea or Russia), the hetmans each time paid for military support with political, economic and territorial concessions. In the end, only one memory remained of the former "independence".
After the betrayal of Hetman Mazepa, Peter destroyed the last remnants of Ukraine's independence, and the hetmanate itself was abolished in 1781, when the general provision on the provinces was extended to Little Russia. This is how the attempts of the Ukrainian elite to sit on two chairs at the same time (or alternately) ended ingloriously. The chairs moved apart, Ukraine fell and broke into several rank-and-file Russian provinces.
Problem of choice
It is fair to say that for the Ukrainian people the problem of choosing between the West and the East has never existed. Enthusiastically accepting every step of rapprochement with Russia, the villagers and ordinary Cossacks have always sharply negatively met all the attempts of their priests to defect to the camp of her enemies. Neither Vygovskaya, nor Yuri Khmelnitsky, nor Mazepa were able to gather under their banners a truly people's army, like Bohdan Khmelnitsky.
Will history repeat itself?
According to knowledgeable people, history repeats itself all the time, and there is nothing under the sun that did not exist before. The current situation in Ukraine painfully resembles the events of more than three hundred years ago, when the country, like today, faced a difficult choice between the West and the East. To predict how everything could end, it is enough to remember how everything ended 350 years ago. Will the current Ukrainian elite have enough wisdom not to plunge the country, like its predecessors, into chaos and anarchy, followed by a complete loss of independence?
Slipy kazav: "Pobachim".
