A Hetman Builds a Nation

In the ancient heart of Kiev, silhouetted against the medieval white walls of the Cathedral of St. Sophia, a stern faced man of bronze sits astride his horse. His mace, the sign of a Cossack leader, points to the East. The man and the image are burned into the Ukrainian collective consciousness. This is Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the most influential of Ukrainian Cossack leaders, heralded as one of Ukraine’s great nation-builders.

A closer inspection of this statue and its origins, however, speaks of Khmelnytsky’s conflict-ridden legacy. The monument was finished in 1888 under Tsarist rule. The eastward-pointing mace was intentional, for it points toward Moscow, to imply that Ukraine’s destiny lies with Russia, and that it was Khmelnytsky who brought about the fulfillment of that destiny. Thus, the very symbol of Ukrainian nationalism is also a symbol of Russia’s claim to its southwestern neighbor.

Born about 1595, Bohdan Zenovii Khmelnytsky was the son Mykhailo Khmelnytsky, a member of the lesser Ukrainian nobility. At the time, most of modern Ukraine was at least nominally part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, so Bohdan attended Jesuit School and learned Latin and Polish. He did not, however, convert from Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism, as did many other Ukrainian nobles. He did, however, fight alongside his father at the battle of Cecora in 1620 – a disastrous defeat for the Commonwealth. Mykhailo was killed, and Bohdan was taken into Turkish captivity for two years, during which time he learned to speak Turkish and Tatar. In the 1620’s, he joined the Zaporozhian Cossacks and, in the decades that followed, probably took part in some raids against the Turks and Tatars, and was involved in the Cossack uprisings of 1632 and 1637. He further developed his military skills in France, his Cossacks having been invited there in 1645 by Cardinal Mazarin. In fact, he and his Cossacks seem to have played an important role in France’s taking of Dunkirk in 1646. 

Equipped with such military expertise, Khmelnytsky returned to his estate at Chyhyryn. Here, however, a feud developed between Khmelnytsky and Daniel Czaplinski, the Polish bailiff of Chyhyryn. In Khmelnytsky’s absence, Czaplinski raided the estate, and Khmelnytsky’s young son was killed and his mistress was carried off (his wife had died some years earlier). Unable to find satisfaction in court, since the local Polish magnates favored Czaplinski, Khmelnytsky turned to Cossackdom for redress. He went to the Sich, the fortress-capital of the free Cossacks, where he was elected Hetman, the Cossack military and political leader. 

The following years are immortalized in Ukrainian legend. Khmelnytsky’s feud was the spark in a powder keg of social unrest. The local peasantry strained under oppressive landholders. Cossacks were denied military rights and status under the Commonwealth, as Poland (just as in Russia to the east, see page 24) sought to simultaneously control them and use them as a buffer against the Turks and Tatars. Religious tensions also played a key role – the primarily Roman Catholic, Polonized gentry tried to forcibly convert the Orthodox Christian populace. Momentum built as Cossacks and peasants flocked to the Sich. 

One may question how much control Khmelnytsky had over the ensuing movement, but his charisma and military leadership clearly were key to its success. There had been a number of previous Cossack uprisings, none of which had any lasting effect. Khmelnytsky, however, added several important factors. He had established connections throughout Cossackdom, and had his finger on the pulse of the Ukrainian people. In a particularly bold move, he approached Khan Islam-Girey of the Crimean Tatars, one of the Cossacks’ traditional enemies, and proposed an alliance against Poland. The Khan sent aid in the form of thousands of Tatar cavalry.

The Poles, seeing this activity, mobilized, but met defeat after defeat at the hand of the rebels. The initial victories drew more and more Ukrainians into the rebellion with ever-intensifying fervor and a brutality and level of atrocity that was unusual even for those dark times. The nearly-contemporary “Eye-Witness Chronicle” relates that, “wherever they found the Szlachta (Polish Gentry), Royal officials, or Jews, they killed them all, sparing neither women nor children. They pillaged the estates of the Jews and nobles, burned Churches and killed their priests, leaving nothing whole.” Roman Catholic priests and churches were seen as instruments of oppression, and Jews had been used by the Polish nobility as landlords and leaseholders. As such, to the peasants and Cossacks they were the representatives of the oppressive regime. The numbers killed are impossible to accurately determine, but they surely reached into the tens of thousands, and the scar has not left the Jewish community – to this day Khmelnytsky is seen as an early Hitler by many. The flames grew as the Polish magnates responded in kind, massacring peasants and Cossacks with similar indiscretion. 

Finally, just as Khmelnytsky seemed to have the Commonwealth at his mercy, with the Royal Army at a most disadvantageous position, Islam-Girey withdrew his cavalry and made peace with the Poles. Most likely he was both bribed by the Poles and concerned about the implications of having such a large and effective army in the Ukrainian steppes. Khmelnytsky was forced to bargain with Poland. The resulting Treaty of Zboriv allowed most Polish landowners to return to their estates and forced most peasants back into servitude, while granting concessions to the Cossacks and Orthodox clergy. Khmelnytsky also salvaged the alliance with the Tatars. 

Zboriv left both parties unsatisfied; by 1651 hostilities had resumed. The next years were spent in a series of bloody battles that ultimately had no long term effect other than to wear down the belligerents. Khmelnytsky realized that, for the uprising to succeed, it would need strong foreign support. The Tatars had continued to prove unreliable, so negotiations were held with Ottoman Turkey, Moldavia and Walachia. However, most Ukrainians found the idea of being subjects of an Islamic empire too difficult to stomach. There was, however, one other option, one that resonated well with the religiously-motivated movement. Muscovite Russia had survived its Time of Troubles (which included repulsing the Commonwealth) and was becoming a power to be reckoned with. What is more, it shared the Orthodox faith. Letters were sent to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the second Romanov ruler of Russia, to discuss an alliance or union.

The idea must have been immediately appealing to the court at Moscow. The region was dominated by three major powers: the Ottoman Turks, with their Tatar allies, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and Muscovite Russia. The success of the Ukrainian uprising, however, introduced a potential upset, capable of making or breaking one of these major powers. Whether or not Tsar Alexei felt he needed the support of the Cossacks, he certainly did not want to see them allied with the Poles or the Turks. Just as importantly, here was a chance to increase Muscovite control over the Ukrainian region, dramatically increasing its size and influence in the direction of Europe.

In late 1653, Muscovite Ambassador Vasily Buturlin met with the Hetman and the leaders of the Cossack Host at Pereyaslav, near Kiev. Khmelnytsky spoke to the Cossack assembly about the advantages of having an overlord. Moscow, he told them, would honor their traditions and religion and allow them to keep their Cossack government if they swore loyalty to the Tsar. The crowd enthusiastically cheered the idea, and so the delegates went into the church to seal the decision. 

Here Khmelnytsky encountered an unexpected problem. In his past dealings with Poland, oaths at treaties were bilateral, and he expected it in the case of his agreement with Moscow: the Ukrainians would swear loyalty to the Tsar, and the Tsar would in turn swear to protect them and respect their rights. But Buturlin explained that Tsar Alexei, as an absolute ruler, would not take an oath to his subjects. The process came to a halt, as Khmelnytsky refused to accept an agreement on such terms. Buturlin held his ground, however, and Khmelnytsky finally agreed, fearful of losing the opportunity and doubtless feeling the pressure of the eager crowd waiting outside. After the agreement at Pereyaslav, over 100,000 Ukrainians took the oath of loyalty to Tsar Alexei and his successors.

The exact content of the agreement is the subject of some debate, and most likely the parties involved viewed it differently. The original documents have been lost, and the accuracy of surviving copies is debatable. Historians have offered several interpretations, ranging from a temporary and purely military alliance to an unconditional agreement by the Cossacks to incorporate Ukraine into the Muscovite state. In between are those who consider the agreement to have heralded the formation of a commonwealth of two autonomous governments answerable to the same sovereign (the tsar), and those who see it as establishing Ukraine as a vassal state of Muscovy, receiving protection in return for military and monetary tribute.

Centuries later, the Soviet Union offered its own official take on the Pereyaslav Agreement. It was, according to an official statement, the fulfillment of an inherent desire of Ukrainians and Russians to be united. The emphasis was that, because Ukraine and Russia both trace their origins to the medieval Kievan Rus state, they belong together as a single state. Ukrainians and Russians, it was stated, are “brother peoples.” One cannot help but notice, however, that Ukraine was always called the “little brother.” The Ukrainians or “Little Russians” needed “Great Russia,” their “big brother,” to fulfill their own identity. 

The full implication, of course, was that Ukraine could not move forward without the guidance of Moscow. According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, “the reunification of the Ukraine with Russia played a progressive role in the economic, political, and cultural development of the Ukrainian people.” Khmelnytsky, therefore, was applauded for realizing that “the salvation of the Ukrainian people lay only in Unity with the great Russian people.” To further cement this concept into the pages of Soviet ideology, Khmelnytsky was portrayed as the hero in a class-struggle, leading the hard-working peasants of Ukraine against the greedy oligarchs of Poland. This image of course ignored the fact that the interests of the Ukrainian peasants were consistently ignored in every treaty that Khmelnytsky concluded.

With Ukraine as its subject, Muscovite Russia vastly increased its size as well as its proximity to Europe, therefore greatly expanding its economic and strategic influence. As for Ukraine, its future was now bound to that of Russia. Even so, the full implications of the Pereyaslav Agreement were not readily apparent. It seems most likely that Khmelnytsky and other Cossacks viewed it as simply one more in a series of advantageous treaties with the surrounding powerful states, just as Ukraine had previously acknowledged the King of Poland (indeed, Khmelnytsky’s successor as Hetman, Ivan Vyhovsky, signed the short-lived Treaty of Hadiach in 1658, to make Ukraine a third member of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). 

The immediate response was probably close to what the Cossacks had envisioned: Moscow sent an army which, joined with the Ukrainians, pushed the Poles out of much of Byelorussia, as the Poles, allied with the Tatars, decimated southern Ukraine. But in the ensuing years, Cossack interests were ignored as Moscow bargained with Poland to partition Ukraine in the Treaty of Andrusovo in 1667. Over the next century, controls grew tighter and tighter until Empress Catherine II had the Sich destroyed in 1775. Finally, in 1783, she abolished the position of Hetman. 

For Ukrainians, Khmelnytsky and his revolt are integral to a sense of nationhood. For a people without a clear sense of identity and no independent political entity, he carved a sense of independence and laid the foundations of a uniquely Ukrainian government. Yet it could also be argued that, through his decision at Pereyaslav, he undermined Ukraine’s opportunity for nationhood and sabotaged its budding sense of identity. Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine’s most beloved poet, and an ardent nationalist with no love for either Poland or Russia, reserves a special antipathy for the Pereyaslav decision. He clearly believed that the damage done outweighed any good done by Khmelnytsky:

Oh Bohdan, little Bohdan,

If I had only known,

In the cradle I’d have smothered you,

Put you to sleep under my body.

Now my steppes have been sold

To Jews and to Germans.

My sons are in foreign lands,

Doing foreigners’ work.

The Dnepr, my brother, is running dry,

And is now leaving me,

And my dear graves

Are torn apart by the Moskal*

*a derogatory term for a Russian

Nonetheless, Khmelnytsky’s legacy and image still have a strong hold over Ukraine. At the inauguration of Victor Yushchenko as president in January of 2005, a Hetman’s mace and a banner attributed to Khmelnytsky were brought in, so as to connect the new President with the Hetman state. Idealization of that time as Ukraine’s “glorious period of independence” is alive and well. Yushchenko himself made perhaps the boldest connection: “I am convinced that what has been called the Orange Revolution was fought not just by one generation of Ukrainians... it was the design of Bohdan Khmelnytsky.”

The year of the Orange Revolution followed the year of the 350th anniversary of the Pereyaslav Agreement. In 2004, President Kuchma called for observance of the anniversary, while hailing the year as “The Year of Russia in Ukraine,” to celebrate and encourage Russian-Ukrainian relations. President Putin, visiting for the celebrations, stated that, if it weren’t for Khmelnytsky’s decision at Pereyaslav, “today we would not have such a powerful European country as Ukraine.”

National mythologies run deep for both Russia and Ukraine, and modern interpretations of the past effectively hide actual events and motives of the involved. Yet, for better or worse, thanks to the decisions of Bohdan Khmelnytsky and his followers in 1654, the histories of Ukraine and Russia have been linked for three and a half centuries.  RL