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Hetman Bogdan Mikhailovich Khmelnitsky, the leader of the liberation war for the reunification of Little Russia with Great Russia, has died. "Given by God". How Hetman Bogdan Khmelnytsky united Ukraine and Russia

Bohdan Khmelnytsky

Rarely did an individual person hold the threads of epochal events so firmly in his hands, as did Bohdan Khmelnytsky during the uprising of 1648. No wonder many historians consider him the greatest military and political leader of Ukraine: after all, his personal role in a sharp change in the whole course was not only Ukrainian, but also the entire Eastern European history is difficult to overestimate.

Meanwhile, Khmelnitsky's debut on the historical stage, and even in leading role, took place only at the very end of his life and, moreover, almost by accident.

He was born around 1595 in the family of a small Ukrainian nobleman Mikhail Khmelnitsky, who was in the service of a Polish magnate. Bogdan's father received the Subotov farm for his service. He sent his son to study in Yaroslav, at the Jesuit school, where Bogdan received a good education by the standards of that time, mastered Polish and Latin.

In 1620 tragedy struck. In that battle near Tsetsora, when the Turks inflicted a crushing defeat on the Poles, Bogdan's father died, and he himself was captured by the Turkish. For two years he was a slave. Then he managed to return to Subotov.

Enrolling in the registered Cossacks, Bogdan Khmelnitsky got married and plunged into his own affairs, most of all taking care of expanding his own estate. The uprisings of 1625 and 1638 leave this very wealthy and very cautious Cossack completely indifferent. But in the same 1638, enjoying a good reputation with the government, Khmelnitsky quickly made a career as a clerk of the Zaporizhzhya army. In 1646, as part of the Cossack embassy, he went to King Vladislav IV. 50-year-old centurion of the Chigirinsky Cossack regiment Bogdan Khmelnitsky, it seemed, it was already possible to sum up the results of his life and career. In general, these results were not so bad ...

What made Khmelnitsky drastically change his life, and with it the life of his country? Yes, in general, an ordinary case (ordinary for historians - but not for the future hetman himself) of the boundless arbitrariness that arrogant and hated magnates committed in Ukraine.

The matter was as follows. When in 1646 Bogdan Khmelnitsky, for reasons already known to us, left Subotov, a certain Daniel Chaplinsky, a Polish nobleman who enjoyed the patronage of local magnates, decided to appropriate the Khmelnitsky family estate. He attacked Subotov and killed younger son Chigirinsky centurion. Moreover, there was a woman in Subotovo whom the recently widowed Bogdan was going to marry. Chaplinsky kidnapped her.

At first, the law-abiding Khmelnytsky tried to sue the offender, and he did it more than once - and all to no avail. Finally, the cup overflowed and his patience. And he decides to start an anti-Polish revolt.

However, the transformation of a respectable member of high society into a violent rebel was not as miraculous and sudden as it might seem at first glance. Many of those who looked closely at Khmelnytsky in his later years, who watched him at the height of his fame, noted more than once that the Cossack leader is a man with a double bottom, as it were. This swarthy, squat Cossack, nicknamed "Hmel" by the people, was usually calm and reserved. Polite, at first it even seemed phlegmatic, he suddenly burst into streams of the most violent passion, exploded with powerful invincible energy. In general, he was a typical charismatic leader, with all his irresistible charm and inexplicable influence on the masses. In the highest, culminating moments of his life, it was a different person: his speech fascinated him, his thought simultaneously captured and terrified him, his will was adamant.

Khmelnytsky's hypnotic influence on the masses first manifested itself at the moment when, pursued by the Poles, who learned of his intentions, in January 1648 he arrived at the Sich with a handful of like-minded people. IN the shortest time he achieves the support of the Cossacks, expels the Polish garrison from the Sich - and immediately he is elected hetman. The uprising has begun.

At first, this new uprising was distinguished by all the signs of the previous unsuccessful performances of the Cossacks and peasants, moreover, it seemed to develop according to the same scenario: the Cossack foreman, offended by the magnates, longs for revenge; having arrived in Zaporozhye, he roused the Cossacks to fight for their (and his) rights, etc. But in this case, a new factor came into play from the very beginning. This factor was the exceptional qualities of Khmelnitsky himself - an outstanding organizer, commander and politician.

It turns out that even more than a year before his arrival in the Sich, he not only planned an uprising, but also wove a strong network of a single conspiracy. Realizing that the lack of cavalry would be the weakest point of the Cossacks in the upcoming war with the Poles, Khmelnitsky found a bold way out. He communicated in advance with the longtime enemies of the Commonwealth - the Crimean Tatars, whom he offered to become his allies in the fight against the Poles. Khmelnytsky chose a good moment for this: just at the very time when his people came to the Khan, his relations with Poland reached a critical point. And the Khan sends his prominent commander Tugai Bey at the head of a 4,000-strong cavalry to help Khmelnitsky.

But the Poles, warned of the plans of Khmelnitsky, moved a powerful army south in order to nip the rebellion in the bud.

First victories. In mid-April 1648, near the Zaporozhian Sich, at Zhovti Vody, the 6,000-strong Polish avant-garde met with a united 9,000-strong army of Cossacks and Tatars. On May 6, after a long battle, during which several thousand registered Cossacks sent to help the Poles went over to the side of the rebels, the Polish army was defeated.

Marcin Kalinowski and Mikolaj Potocki, commanders of the 20,000-strong Polish army, were extremely discouraged by the inglorious death of their vanguard. And then there's the captured (in fact, specially sent) Cossack "warned" the Poles that the insurgent army far outnumbered the Polish one. And Kalinovsky and Pototsky make a fatal decision for them: they leave advantageous positions near Korsun, choosing the most bad way retreats over rough terrain (the secret agent of the hetman also turned out to be the guide of the Polish army). So, having not gone too far from Korsun, the exhausted Polish army fell exactly into a Cossack ambush - and the forces of the Cossacks had increased by that time to 15 thousand (not counting the Tatar cavalry). And again the Poles were completely defeated. Both Polish commanders, 80 important nobles, 127 officers, 8520 soldiers and 41 guns were in the hands of Khmelnitsky. On top of the Polish misfortunes, just six days before the battle of Korsun, King Vladislav IV dies. While formidable hordes of rebels hung over the Commonwealth from the south, she suddenly lost her king, her commanders and her army.

The rumor about Khmelnitsky's victories quickly spread throughout the country. The Poles lowered their heads, the Ukrainians cheered up. First, on the right, and then on the left bank of the Dnieper, Cossacks, peasants and townspeople began to equip regiments to help the hetman. Leaders were immediately found in the localities, kindling the centers of small uprisings. A great number of peasants and Cossacks took the opportunity to give vent to their too long accumulated hatred of offenders. The so-called “Chronicle of Self-Seeing” draws a terrible picture of the events that broke out: “where the gentry knew the colony, the servants of the castle, the Jews and the ranks of the city - they all killed, not sparing any women and their children, they robbed the wretchedness, the churches were burned, the walls were slaughtered, and the castles of the nobility and the courts of the Jews were wasteland, not zastavayuchi greedy whole. Ridkіy in that crіvі at that hour did not wash his hands and did not repair that plunder of good things.

Military campaigns of Bogdan Khmelnitsky

In a few months, almost the entire Polish gentry, priests and officials were destroyed or expelled. At the same time, the Jews turned out to be the most numerous and most defenseless representatives of the hated regime - it was they who suffered the heaviest losses. Khmelnytsky region has become another tragic page in the history of the long-suffering people: the events of 1648-1656. tens of thousands of Jews were killed in Ukraine. It is not possible to name the exact number of victims due to the lack of any reliable information (according to S. Ettinger's estimates, 50,000 Jews lived in Ukraine before the uprising).

The Poles, at the slightest opportunity, responded to the massacre with massacres. Yarema Vishnevetsky, the region's richest magnate, was a particularly ardent supporter of the gentry's terror tactics. In his left-bank possessions, he mobilizes his own well-trained 6,000-strong army, takes with him all the frightened gentry, priests and Jews capable of moving in a wagon train, and retreats to the west in a long detour. And wherever Vishnevetsky's detachments passed, they left behind them scorched earth strewn with corpses, sparing neither Cossacks, nor peasants, nor women, nor children. And if Poland applauded the "exploits" of Vyshnevetsky, then the Ukrainians now do not even hear about any negotiations, vowing to fight Vyshnevetsky and other magnates not for life, but for death.

In the meantime, Khmelnitsky stood at the White Church for the whole summer, putting in order the arriving forces of the rebels. Under the hetman's hand, crowds of rebels are transformed into a disciplined, well-organized army. Its core consisted of 16 regiments tested in battles, loyal to the hetman and their colonels - Filon Dzhedzhaliy, Maxim Nestorenko, Ivan Gira and others. . Not only "native" Cossacks, but also experienced and gifted commanders from the nobility and townspeople received colonel's maces - among the first were Danilo Nechay, Ivan Bohun, Mikhailo Krichevsky, among the second Martin Nebaba and Vasyl Zolotarenko. A large auxiliary detachment of light cavalry was commanded by Maxim Krivonos, one of the most popular rebel leaders, a sworn enemy of Vishnevetsky. As volunteers arrived, new units were formed from them, so that by the end of the summer the number of rebels fluctuated between 80 and 100 thousand, while only 40 thousand of them were regular Cossack regiments.

But the Poles did not waste time either. In order to delay the advance of the rebels, they only entered into negotiations with them to avert their eyes, and they themselves managed to mobilize 32 thousand gentry and 8 thousand German mercenaries. The Polish army was gathering near Lvov. The gentry who were in the army tried, as usual, to outdo each other with magnificent outfits. This gave rise to one contemporary to remark that the Poles were going to fight not with iron, but with gold and silver.

Three magnates were at the head of the new Polish army: the pampered sybarite Dominik Zaslavsky, the educated Latinist Mykolaj Ostrorog, and the 19-year-old Oleksandr Konetspolsky - “feather bed, latina and child,” as the Ukrainian hetman did not fail to taunt. On September 23, the warring armies met near Pilyavtsy. In the midst of the battle, the nerves of the Polish commanders failed and they rushed to their heels. The rumor about this quickly spread around the Polish army, and it followed its commanders. At once the former gloss flew off the Poles, and they became easy prey for the Cossacks and their allies, the Tatars.

The victory at Pilivtsy opened the way for Khmelnytsky to the west. The peasants of Volhynia and Galicia greeted the rebels and joined them along the entire path of their advance into the depths of Western Ukrainian lands. They even heard how in the south of Poland forced "claps" said: "If only God had mercy on us and sent us Khmelnitsky, we would show these gentry how to mock people." In early October, the Cossack-peasant army besieged Lvov and, probably, would have easily taken possession of it if Khmelnitsky, not wanting to doom the handsome city to defeat, did not prefer to take a rich ransom from him. A month later, preparing for the siege of the Polish fortress of Zamosc, Khmelnytsky received news of the election of Jan Casimir to the Polish throne, whose accession the hetman just wanted, having his own views on it. The new king offered the hetman a truce.

To this day, it remains a mystery to historians why Khmelnytsky, at the very moment when he seemed to have enough strength to completely destroy the Commonwealth, agreed to accept the king's offer and return to the banks of the Dnieper. Obviously, he still hoped to somehow accommodate political system Commonwealth to the needs of the Cossacks. In addition, the famine and plague that struck Ukraine had already affected the troops of the hetman. His Tatar allies were eager to return home. Apparently, in such conditions it seemed impossible for Khmelnitsky to conduct a winter campaign. And in early January 1649 he returned to Kyiv at the head of a victorious army. A noisy crowd of citizens greeted the hetman, and the Orthodox clergy proclaimed him "the new Moses, who saved his people from Polish captivity."

Growing complications. But no matter how impressive Khmelnytsky's victories, they actually did not clarify the relationship between Ukrainians and Poles.

Although the hetman did not want to completely cut off all ties with the Commonwealth, he knew one thing for sure: those who followed him would under no circumstances return to the life that was before 1648. The Poles, agreeing to small concessions to the Cossacks, insisted that the whole of Ukraine must certainly return under the rule of the gentry. It seemed that the situation was hopeless, and both opponents were doomed from year to year to fight each other and, unable to defeat each other, forever alternate bloody wars with negotiations, where, in fact, no one benefited agreements. And before the Khmelnytsky region, all this dragged on for half a century - and after each such agreement, the leaders returned home with the sole purpose of preparing for a new war ...

This time, in the spring of 1649, the Poles went on the offensive. From Volhynia, the main 25,000-strong army was led by King Jan Casimir himself. At the same time, the 15,000-strong army of the notorious Yarema Vishnevetsky was approaching from Galicia. But Khmelnitsky and his ally Khan Islam Giray, using their usual tactical advantages - speed and deceptive maneuver, cut off the path of Vishnevetsky with an army of 80,000, locking him in the Zbarazh fortress. The king hurried to the rescue of Vishnevetsky. Then Khmelnitsky unexpectedly attacked the army of Jan Casimir and surrounded it near Zborov. But when the victory at both Zbarazh and Zborov seemed to be close, the Tatar Khan betrayed the hetman. Apparently, Islam Giray had long been afraid of the growing strength of the Ukrainian army and easily agreed to the persuasion and promises of the Poles. He withdrew his troops and demanded that Khmelnitsky enter into negotiations with the king. In these circumstances, the hetman had no choice but to agree.

On August 18, 1649, the Peace of Zborov was signed on the following terms. The register expanded to 40 thousand. The Polish army and Jews were forbidden to stay within the Kiev region, Bratslav region and Chernihiv region. All administrative positions in this region were to be occupied only by representatives of the Cossack elders and the Orthodox gentry. The Metropolitan of Kiev was promised a seat in the Polish Senate. All the rebels were granted an amnesty, but most of the peasants had to return to serfdom, and the Polish landowners - to get their possessions back.

It must be assumed that if it were not for the pressure of the Tatars, Khmelnytsky would never have agreed to such a peace with the Poles, which among the Ukrainian masses could not cause anything but indignation. At the same time, the Poles were sure that they had given up too much, and the Cossacks were convinced that they had received too little. As a result, neither one nor the other was even going to fulfill the terms of the agreements.

On the other hand, the Zboriv Treaty highlighted those internal and external problems that Bogdan Khmelnitsky had to take into account more clearly. It was no coincidence that in Zborov the interests of the peasantry were actually ignored. Perhaps Khmelnitsky, many of his colonels and registered Cossacks really wanted to improve the share of the peasantry, but they did not even have in their thoughts the complete abolition of serfdom. For the Cossack elite, not excluding the hetman, any encroachment on the institution of serfdom meant undermining the system in which they themselves occupied a very advantageous and honorable place. So already in Zborov a conflict was revealed between the foreman and the rabble. And this crack will eventually become fatal for the Cossack way of life in Ukraine as a whole.

Another difficult problem was relations with the Tatars. Khmelnitsky understood that it was to the Tatars that he owed much of his recent, and possibly future, victories, and he wanted to preserve this alliance at all costs. However, the hetman's friendship with the Tatars by no means aroused delight among the Ukrainian masses, who, in fact, had to pay off their allies with yasyr. While the hetman hoped that the Tatars would be satisfied with the captured Poles, they drove to the slave markets everyone who came under their arm, including thousands of Ukrainian peasants. In addition, the long-term political interest of the Tatars was to prevent the strengthening of any Christian country: for this reason they supported the struggle of Khmelnitsky with the Poles, nevertheless not wishing the hetman a complete victory in this struggle. Using Khmelnitsky to weaken Poland, the Crimean Khan hoped to involve the Cossacks in his raids on Muscovy. But Khmelnitsky, relying on Moscow's help, refused to go there with the Tatars and offered to replace it with Moldavia - rich and, moreover, much more vulnerable than Moscow.

So in 1650 Khmelnitsky took up Moldavian affairs. He even had the hope of placing his son Timosh on the throne there and thus establishing a close alliance between Moldova and Ukraine. But the death of Timosh in 1653 during the defense of Suceava put an end to an unsuccessful and costly campaign.

Meanwhile, in 1651, a new stage of the Polish-Ukrainian war began. And again the Poles started the war, and again the king himself was at their head, and again the armies of the Poles and Cossacks converged for the decisive battle in Volhynia, this time at Berestechko. In terms of the scale of that time, these armies were truly huge: 150 thousand from the Polish side (including 20 thousand tested German mercenaries) and 100 thousand from the Ukrainian plus 50 thousand Tatar cavalry. The almost two-week battle began on June 18 and ended with a crushing defeat for Khmelnitsky's troops. He was again let down by the Tatars, who left the battlefield at the most decisive moment. Worse, they stole Khmelnitsky himself, who had come to persuade them to return, and released him only after the battle was lost. True, the resolute Colonel Filon Dzhedzhaliy tried to save part of the Ukrainian troops from encirclement, but the Poles, taking advantage of the panic in the camp of the Cossacks, slaughtered about 30 thousand people. However, this victory was not easy for the Poles - and they offered the rebels negotiations, which soon began near Belaya Tserkov.

As expected, the Treaty of Belotserkovsky, signed on September 28, 1651, was much less beneficial for the Cossacks than Zborovsky. The Cossack register was reduced to 20 thousand, the power of the hetman was limited to the Kiev province, and he was forbidden to enter into any external relations, especially with the Tatars. Now, when confusion reigned among the Cossacks and Khmelnitsky himself was not ready to fight back, it seemed that the terms of the agreement would be fulfilled. And the Polish gentry began to return to Ukraine in the convoy of the royal army. And the peasants and Cossacks (with the exception of a handful of registered ones) were to return to serfdom. To avoid such a fate, thousands of them went beyond the border of the Commonwealth with Muscovy, where they were not only accepted, but also allowed to live in free Cossack settlements. These previously sparsely populated lands began to be called Sloboda Ukraine (its territory roughly coincides with the current Kharkov region).

But one had to know the Ukrainian hetman poorly in order to believe that he would indeed go to the fulfillment of the White Church conditions that were humiliating for him. At a secret meeting of the Cossack foreman at the hetman's headquarters in Chyhyryn, it was decided to gather the army again and lead it against the Poles. Just a few weeks later, Khmelnytsky's troops attacked the 30,000-strong Polish army, located in Podolia near Batoga, near the Moldovan border. On May 1, the Poles were defeated. Revenging for the defeat near Berestechko, the Cossacks killed all the captured Poles.

As soon as the news of the victory spread, the uprising against the gentry broke out with renewed vigor, and soon the Cossacks occupied all the territory that was subject to them up to Berestechko. But the years of terrible bloodshed and devastation took their toll. Neither the Poles nor the Ukrainians were eager to fight as they were at the beginning of the uprising. Just as exhausted boxers, languidly trying to strike, think only about not falling in the ring, so two warring armies exhausted each other in endless skirmishes, unable to deliver a decisive blow.

Foreign policy. Khmelnytsky understood that outside support was needed for the success of the uprising, and therefore he turned more and more attention to foreign policy.

As we remember, the hetman's first diplomatic success was an alliance with the Crimean Tatars. However, this alliance proved unreliable. Yes, he did not solve the main problem, which was to clarify Ukraine's relations with the Commonwealth in one direction or another.

At first, the hetman was not ready for a complete break with the Poles. In his relations with the royal power, represented by its local representative Adam Kisel (and it must be said that this richest Orthodox magnate was also a subtle politician), the hetman at first sought one thing - the autonomy of the Ukrainian Cossacks, which, according to his plan, should have been become a separate and equal estate of the Commonwealth. But this goal turned out to be unattainable due to the stubborn unwillingness of the gentry to recognize as equals those whom they used to consider immeasurably lower, doomed to obey, and not dictate their terms.

In our modern consciousness, the question easily arises: why did Khmelnitsky not proclaim Ukraine independent? We are accustomed to think in such seemingly eternal categories as "nation", "national sovereignty" (although all of them became widespread not earlier than after the French Revolution of 1789). During the time of the Khmelnytsky region, such ideas and feelings could manifest themselves (and did) only in their most original form - for example, in the form of rumors that the hetman wants to restore the "Old Russian" principality or establish a "Cossack" one. But even if such ideas were seriously discussed by someone, it was still not possible to bring them to life in those conditions. As the continuous wars showed, the Cossacks could successfully fight the Poles, inflicting heavy defeats on them, but they could not once and for all defend Ukraine from the claims of the gentry. To ensure any lasting victory over the Poles, Khmelnitsky needed the constant and reliable support of a powerful external force. And in order to receive such support from outside, at that time only one thing was required: to recognize oneself as a vassal of the ruler who provided this support.

For the mass consciousness of the Ukrainians of that time, the main problems that pushed them to continuous riots were problems of a socio-economic nature. They had to be solved at all costs. And the second question is whether they will be resolved under “our own” or under a “foreign” ruler. Finally, in Eastern Europe 17th century sovereignty was identified not with the people, but with the sovereign, with the "legitimate", i.e., universally recognized monarch. Bogdan Khmelnytsky had both power and popularity, but there was not one thing - this very royal legitimacy. And the most that he could do for his country, which was no longer satisfied with its current legitimate rulers, was to find for it such a legitimate ruler who would suit her. The problem of Ukrainian self-government, in fact, did not arise: the Ukrainians just achieved it and managed to defend it. Now they only needed to find a monarch who would give their newly formed autonomous society a legal form and provide it with constant and reliable protection.

Khmelnitsky seemed a suitable candidate for this role. Turkish sultan. The ruler of the Ottoman Empire was powerful enough to drive the Poles away from Ukraine, and far enough away not to be willing and able to interfere in internal Ukrainian affairs. Without thinking twice, Khmelnitsky exchanged embassies with the sultan, and in 1651 the Ottoman Porte officially declared the hetman with his Zaporizhzhya army to be its vassals - approximately on the same terms on which such vassals as the Crimea, Moldavia and Wallachia enjoyed the patronage of the Porte. However, this idea of Ottoman patronage, brilliantly conceived by the hetman, remained unfulfilled. The first reason for this was the widespread hostility in Ukraine towards the "busurmans", the second - internal changes in the Ottoman Empire itself.

A much more popular candidate for the role of patron of Ukraine was the Orthodox Tsar of Moscow. From the very beginning of the uprising, Khmelnitsky begged him to come to the aid in the name of the common Orthodox faith. But Moscow answered evasively and with extreme caution: the memory of the terrible losses in the wars with Poland was still too fresh. The Muscovites preferred to wait until the Poles and Cossacks exhausted each other, and then see what could be done. But in 1653 the Ukrainians threatened that they would seriously give preference to the "Turkish option". There was nowhere else to go. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich convened the Zemsky Sobor, which decided that in the name of the Orthodox faith and the holy church of God, the tsar must accept the Ukrainians "under his high hand." By making this decision, Moscow also hoped to take away some of the Russian lands lost in the last war from the Poles, to use Ukraine as a buffer zone in the inevitable clashes with the Ottomans - and thus expand its international influence.

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Bogdan Khmelnitsky was born on December 27, 1595 in Subotiv. His father Mikhail Khmelnitsky served as a centurion in the Chigirinsky regiment and came from an ancient Moldavian family of the Lublin Voivodeship with the Abdank coat of arms. Khmelnytsky began his studies at the Kiev fraternal school (as can be seen from his cursive writing), and after graduating, perhaps with the patronage of his father, he entered the Jesuit Collegium in Yaroslav, and then, consequently, in Lvov. It is characteristic that, having mastered the art of rhetoric and composition, and also, in perfection Polish and Latin, Khmelnytsky did not convert to Catholicism, but remained faithful to his father's faith (that is, Orthodoxy). Later Khmelnitsky visited many European countries.

Service to the king

Returning to his homeland, Khmelnitsky participates in the Polish-Turkish war of 1620-1621, during which, in the battle of Tsetsora, his father dies, and he himself is captured. Two years of hard slavery (according to one version - in a Turkish galley, according to another - at the admiral himself) were not in vain for Khmelnitsky: having learned Turkish and Tatar languages perfectly, he decides to escape. Returning to Subotov, he enrolled in the Registered Cossacks.

Since 1625, he began to actively conduct the Cossacks' sea campaigns against Turkish cities (the culmination of this period was 1629, when the Cossacks managed to capture the outskirts of Constantinople). After long stay Khmelnytsky returned to Zaporozhye in Chigirin, married Anna Somkovna (Ganna Somko) and received the rank of centurion of Chigirinsky. In the history of the subsequent uprisings of the Cossacks against Poland between and 1638, the name Khmelnitsky does not occur. His only mention in connection with the uprising - the agreement on the surrender of the rebels was written by his hand (he was the general clerk of the rebel Cossacks) and signed by him and the Cossack foreman. After the defeat, he was again reduced to the rank of centurion.

When Vladislav IV ascended the Polish throne and the war between the Commonwealth and Russia began, Khmelnytsky fought against Russian troops and in 1635 received a golden saber from the king for bravery. In the war between France and Spain (1644-1646), he took part in the siege of Dunkirk with more than two thousand Cossacks for a good pay of the French government. Even then, Ambassador de Bregy wrote to Cardinal Mazarin that the Cossacks had a very capable commander - Khmelnitsky.

B. Khmelnitsky enjoyed respect at the court of the Polish king Vladislav IV. In 1638 he received the post of clerk of the Zaporizhzhya army, then became a centurion of the Chigirinsky Cossack regiment. When in 1645 the king conceived, without the consent of the Sejm, to start a war with the Ottoman Empire, he entrusted his plan, among other things, to Bogdan Khmelnitsky. More than once he was a member of the deputations to submit complaints to the Sejm and the king about the violence that the Cossacks were subjected to.

Khmelnytsky moved to Korsun, where the Polish army was stationed, under the command of the full and great crown hetmans Kalinovsky and Nikolai Potocki. On May 15, Khmelnitsky approached Korsun almost at the same time that the Polish commanders received the news of the defeat of the Poles at Zhovti Vody and did not yet know what to do. Khmelnytsky sent Cossack Mikita Galagan to the Poles, who, having given himself up as a prisoner, offered himself to the Poles as guides, led them into the thicket and gave Khmelnitsky the opportunity to easily exterminate the Polish detachment. The entire crown (quartz) army of Poland in peacetime died - more than 20 thousand people. Pototsky and Kalinovsky were taken prisoner and given, in the form of a reward, to Tugai Bey. According to legend, the captured Polish hetmans asked Khmelnitsky how he would pay off the "gentry knights", referring to the Tatars and hinting that they would have to give part of Ukraine for plunder, to which Khmelnitsky replied: "I will cry with you." Immediately after these victories, the main forces of the Crimean Tatars, led by Khan Islyam III Girey, arrived in Ukraine. Since there was no longer anyone to fight with (the khan had to help Khmelnitsky near Korsun), a joint parade was held in Belaya Tserkov, and the horde returned to the Crimea.

Popular movement. Massacres against Jews and Poles

Khmelnytsky's victories at Zhovti Vody and near Korsun caused a general uprising of the Cherkasy against the Poles. Peasants and townspeople abandoned their homes, organized detachments and tried with all cruelty to take revenge on the Poles and Jews for the oppression they had suffered from them in the previous time.

At a time when the entire army of Khmelnitsky stood at the White Church, the struggle did not stop on the periphery. After active operations against the rebels by Jeremiah Vishnevetsky, he was sent a 10,000th detachment under the command of Maxim Krivonos, who helped the rebels and allegedly acted not on behalf of Khmelnitsky. This detachment was supposed to, after clearing Ukraine of the Poles, take the crossing over the Sluch near Starokonstantinov, which was done.

Taking revenge on the Poles and the Jews they hired to collect taxes, the Cossacks, at times, dealt with them extremely cruelly and mercilessly. Knowing about the pogroms of the Jewish population and the monstrous scale of bloodshed, Khmelnytsky tried to resist the destruction, at the same time realizing that he was powerless to stop the tragedy that was being played out. A significant number of captured Jews and Poles were sold in the slave markets in Istanbul shortly after the uprising. The exact number of victims is unknown and, most likely, will never be reliably established. Nevertheless, almost all sources agree with the fact of the total disappearance of Jewish communities in the territory covered by the uprising. . It should also be noted that within twenty years after the uprising, the Polish kingdom was subjected to two more devastating wars, which led to a large number Jewish victims: the War with the Swedes ("Flood") and the Russian-Polish war of 1654-1667; the losses of the Jewish population during this period are estimated according to various sources from 16,000 to 100,000 people.

The Jewish chronicler Nathan Hannover testified: “The Cossacks skinned some of them alive, and threw the body to the dogs; others were severely wounded, but not finished off, but thrown into the street to slowly die; many were buried alive. Infants were slaughtered in their mothers' arms, and many were cut into pieces like fish. Pregnant women had their bellies torn open, the fetus taken out and lashed across their mother's face, and for others, a live cat was sewn into the open belly and the unfortunate hands were cut off so that they could not pull out the cat. Other children were pierced with a pike, roasted on a fire and brought to their mothers so that they could taste their meat. Sometimes they dumped heaps of Jewish children and made river crossings out of them ... ”Modern historians question some aspects of the chronicle of Hanover, like any chronicle of that era; however, the reality of these events raises no objections.

The Jews used to say about Bogdan Khmelnytsky, “Hop is a villain, may his name be erased!”

Modern methods of demographic statistics are based on data from the Treasury of the Polish Kingdom. The total Jewish population in the Polish kingdom in -1717 was between 200,000 and 500,000. A significant part of the Jews lived in places not affected by the uprising, and the then Jewish population of Ukraine proper is estimated by some researchers at approximately 50,000-60,000. .

Jewish and Polish chronicles of the era of the uprising tend to emphasize the large number of victims. In the historical literature of the late 20th century, both estimates of 100,000 dead Jews and more and more, as well as figures in the range from 40 to 100 thousand, are common. Besides:

Negotiations with the Poles

Meanwhile, Khmelnytsky began negotiations with the Poles to distance himself from the ensuing general popular uprising, which was increasingly out of control. When a letter arrived from Adam Kisel, who promised his mediation to reconcile the Cossacks with the Polish state, Khmelnitsky gathered a council, which, they say, was about 70 thousand people, and received its consent to invite Kisel for negotiations; but the truce was not concluded due to the hostile mood of the Cossack masses towards the Poles. To the cruelty of the Cossack leaders, who acted quite independently of one another and of Khmelnitsky, the Poles responded with the same cruelties; in this respect, the Polish prince Jeremiah (Yarema) Korybut-Vishnevetsky (father of King Mikhail Vishnevetsky) was especially distinguished. Having sent ambassadors to Warsaw, Khmelnytsky slowly moved forward, went through the White Church, and although he was convinced that nothing would come of negotiations with the Poles, he still did not take an active part in the popular uprising. At this time, he played his wedding with the 18-year-old beauty Chaplinsky (the hetman's wife, who had once been stolen from him from Subotov, died immediately after the wedding with the underage Chaplinsky). Meanwhile, the Diet decided to prepare for war with the Cossacks. True, commissioners were sent to the Cossacks for negotiations, but they had to make such demands that the Cossacks would never agree to (issuance of weapons taken from the Poles, the issuance of the leaders of the Cossack detachments, the removal of the Tatars). The Rada, at which these conditions were read, was greatly irritated against Bogdan Khmelnitsky for his slowness and for negotiations. Yielding to the Rada, Khmelnitsky began to move forward to Volhynia, reached Sluch, heading for Starokonstantinov.

The leaders of the Polish militia - the princes Zaslavsky, Konetspolsky and Ostrorog were neither talented nor energetic. Khmelnytsky nicknamed Zaslavsky for his effeminacy and love for luxury "a feather bed", Konetspolsky for his youth - "a child", and Ostrorog for learning - "Latin". They approached Pilyavtsy (near Starokonstantinov), where Khmelnitsky stood, but did not take any decisive measures, although the energetic Jeremiah Vishnevetsky insisted on this. According to estimates even by such pragmatic scientists as V. Smoliy and V. Stepankov, the number of Polish troops reached 80,000 people with 100 guns. The army also had a huge number (from 50,000 to 70,000) of wagons with provisions, fodder and ammunition. The Polish oligarchs and aristocracy got out on a campaign, as if at a feast. They wore a gold belt worth 100,000 zlotys and a diamond feryaz worth 70,000. In the camp there were also 5,000 women generous with sexual pleasures, ready at any moment to satisfy the traveling desires of the pampered aristocracy. This made it possible for Bogdan Khmelnitsky to strengthen himself; the leaders of individual detachments began to converge on him. The Polish army did not interfere with them. Until September 20, Khmelnitsky did nothing, waiting for the arrival of the Tatar detachment. At this time, the Don Cossacks, on the orders of the king, attacked the Crimea and the horde was unable to come to the aid of the Cossack army. Khmelnitsky, having learned about this even before the start of the battle, sent messengers to the Budzhatsky horde (on the territory of the modern Odessa region), which was not involved in the defense of the Crimea and came to his aid. 4,000 people came. Bogdan Khmelnitsky sent an Orthodox priest to the Poles, who, when he was taken prisoner, told the Poles that 40,000 Crimeans had come, and this brought panic fear to the Poles. Before that, the Poles were so sure of victory that they did not even build fortifications to defend their camp. In choosing the place of the battle, Khmelnitsky's military talent was manifested: it was almost impossible to fortify on the side of the Poles due to the rugged terrain. On September 21, the battle began, the Poles could not resist and ran. The next morning, the Cossacks found an empty camp and seized rich booty. The enemy was not pursued. Khmelnitsky occupied Starokonstantinov, then Zbarazh.

Attack on Lvov and Zamostye

In October 1648, Bogdan Khmelnytsky laid siege to Lvov. As his actions show, he was not going to occupy the city, limiting himself to taking strongholds on its outskirts: the fortified monasteries of St. Lazarus, St. Magdalena, St. George's Cathedral. However, Khmelnytsky allowed detachments of rebellious peasants and Cossack nakedness, led by the seriously wounded Maxim Krivonos, to storm the High Castle. The rebels captured the previously impregnable Polish castle, and the townspeople agreed to pay Khmelnitsky a ransom for his retreat from the walls of Lvov.

hetmanship

In early January 1649, Khmelnitsky left for Kyiv, where he was greeted solemnly. From Kyiv Khmelnitsky went to Pereyaslav. His fame spread far beyond Ukraine. Ambassadors came to him from the Crimean Khan, the Turkish Sultan, the Moldavian ruler, the Prince of Seven Grads (English) and from the Moscow Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich with an offer of friendship. The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Paisius came to Khmelnitsky, who persuaded him to create a separate Orthodox Russian principality, to abolish the union of the church. Ambassadors came from the Poles, with Adam Kisel at the head, and brought Khmelnitsky a royal charter for hetmanship. Khmelnytsky convened a council in Pereyaslavl, accepted the hetman's "dignity" and thanked the king. This caused great displeasure among the foreman, followed by ordinary Cossacks, who loudly expressed their hatred for Poland. In view of this mood, Khmelnitsky behaved rather evasively and indecisively in his negotiations with the commissars. The commissars left without having worked out any conditions for reconciliation. The war, however, did not stop even after the retreat of Khmelnytsky from Zamosc, especially in Volhynia, where individual Cossack detachments (pens) continued the uninterrupted partisan struggle against the Poles. The Sejm, which met in Krakow in January 1649, even before the return of the commissars from Pereyaslav, decided to assemble the militia.

The second trip to Volhynia. Siege of Zbarazh and Battle of Zborov

In the spring, Polish troops began to gather in Volhynia. Khmelnytsky sent generalists around Ukraine, calling on everyone to defend their homeland. The chronicle of the Samovidets, a contemporary of these events, quite picturesquely depicts how everyone, old and young, townspeople and villagers, abandoned their homes and occupations, armed themselves with anything, shaved their beards and went to the Cossacks. 24 regiments were formed. The army was arranged according to a new, regimental system developed by the Cossacks during campaigns in the Zaporozhian Sich. Khmelnitsky set out from Chigirin, but moved forward extremely slowly, waiting for the arrival of the Crimean Khan Islyam III Giray, with whom he joined on the Black Way, behind Zhivotov. After that, Khmelnitsky with the Tatars approached Zbarazh, where he laid siege to the Polish army. The siege lasted more than a month (in July 1649). In the Polish camp began famine and epidemic diseases. King Jan Casimir himself came to the aid of the besieged at the head of a twenty-thousandth detachment. The Pope sent the banner and sword consecrated on the throne of St. Peter in Rome to the king to exterminate the schismatics, that is, the Orthodox. On August 5, a battle took place near Zbrov, which on the first day remained unresolved. The Poles retreated and dug in a moat. The next day, a terrible massacre began. The Cossacks were already breaking into the camp. The captivity of the king seemed to be inevitable, but Khmelnytsky stopped the battle, and the king was thus saved. The eyewitness explains this act of Khmelnitsky by the fact that he did not want the Christian king to be captured by the infidels.

The Zborow Treaty and the Failed Peace Attempt

When the battle subsided, the Cossacks and Tatars retreated; Khan Islyam III Gerai was the first to enter into negotiations with the king, and then Khmelnitsky followed his example, making a big mistake by allowing the khan to be the first to conclude an agreement with the Poles. Now the Khan had already ceased to be an ally of the Cossacks and, as an ally of Poland, demanded obedience from the Cossacks to the Polish government. By this, he seemed to take revenge on Khmelnitsky for not letting him capture Jan Casimir. Khmelnytsky was forced to make huge concessions, and the Treaty of Zborov (XII, 352) was nothing more than a statement of the former, ancient rights of the Ukrainian Cossacks. In fact, it was extremely difficult to implement it. When Khmelnytsky began compiling the Cossack register in the autumn of 1649, it turned out that the number of his troops exceeded the 40,000 established by the agreement. The rest were to return to their original position, that is, to become peasants again. This caused great discontent among the people. The unrest intensified when the Polish lords began to return to their estates and demand from the peasants the former obligatory relations. The peasants rebelled against the pans and drove them out. Khmelnytsky, determined to adhere firmly to the Zborov treaty, sent out universals, demanding obedience from the peasants to the landowners, threatening the disobedient with execution. Pans with crowds of armed servants sought out and brutally punished the instigators of the rebellion. This caused the peasants to new cruelties. Khmelnytsky hung, impaled the guilty, according to the complaints of the landowners, and generally tried not to violate the main articles of the contract. Meanwhile, the Poles did not at all attach any serious importance to the Zborov treaty. When Metropolitan of Kyiv Sylvester Kossov went to Warsaw to take part in the meetings of the Sejm, the Catholic clergy began to protest against this and the metropolitan was forced to leave Warsaw. The Polish commanders, without hesitation, crossed the line beyond which the Cossack land began. Pototsky, for example, who had recently freed himself from Tatar captivity, settled down in Podolia and engaged in the extermination of peasant gangs (the so-called "leventsy"), and struck with all his cruelty. When Cossack ambassadors arrived in Warsaw in November 1650 and demanded the abolition of the union in all Russian regions and the prohibition of the lords to commit violence against the peasants, these demands caused a storm in the Sejm. Despite the king's best efforts, the Treaty of Zborowski was not approved; It was decided to resume the war with the Cossacks.

Third war. Defeat near Berestechko

Hostile actions began on both sides in February 1651 in Podolia. Metropolitan Sylvester Kossov of Kyiv, who came from the nobility, was against the war, but Metropolitan Joasaph of Corinth, who came from Greece, urged the hetman to war and girded him with a sword consecrated on the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. The patriarch of Constantinople also sent a letter, approving the war against the enemies of Orthodoxy. Athos monks, who walked around Ukraine, contributed a lot to the uprising of the Cossacks. Khmelnitsky's position was rather difficult. His popularity has dropped significantly. The people were dissatisfied with the union of the hetman with the Tatars, as they did not trust the latter and suffered a lot from self-will. Meanwhile, Khmelnitsky did not consider it possible to do without the help of the Tatars. He sent Colonel Zhdanovich to Constantinople and won over the Sultan, who ordered the Crimean Khan to help Khmelnitsky as a vassal of the Turkish Empire with all his might. The Tatars obeyed, but this help, if not voluntary, could not be lasting. In the spring of 1651, Khmelnitsky moved to Zbarazh and stood there for a long time, waiting for the Crimean Khan and thus giving the Poles the opportunity to gather strength. Only on June 8 did the khan join the Cossacks. The Polish army at that time was camped on a vast field near Berestechko (a town in the present Dubensky district of the Volyn province). Khmelnitsky also went there, who at that very time had to endure a difficult family drama . His wife was convicted of adultery, and the hetman ordered that she be hanged along with her lover. Sources say that after this brutal reprisal, the hetman fell into anguish. On June 19, 1651, the Cossack army met with the Polish one near Berestechko. The next day, the Poles began the battle. The days of the fighting coincided with the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, so the big losses among the Tatars (a permanent ally and brother of Khmelnitsky Tugai Bey died) were perceived by the Tatars as God's punishment. On the third day of fighting, in the midst of the battle, the horde suddenly took to flight. Khmelnitsky rushed after the khan to convince him to return. Khan not only did not return, but also detained Khmelnitsky - despite the opinions of historians about the betrayal of the Khan, there is evidence that he himself did not command the fleeing horde (the Tatars left the wounded and killed on the battlefield, which was not in the tradition of Muslims). In place of Khmelnitsky, Colonel Dzhedzhaliy was appointed chief, who for a long time refused this title, knowing how Bogdan Khmelnitsky did not like it when someone instead of him took over the authorities. Dzhedzhaliy fought off the Poles for some time, but, seeing the army in extreme difficulty, he decided to enter into negotiations for a truce. The king demanded the extradition of B. Khmelnitsky and I. Vyhovsky and the issuance of artillery, to which the Cossacks, according to legend, replied: “Khmelnitsky and Vigovsky are good to see, but we can’t see the harm and it’s worth it to die with them.” The negotiations were unsuccessful. The dissatisfied army replaced Dzhedzhaliy and handed over the leadership to the Vinnitsa colonel Ivan Bohun. They began to suspect Khmelnitsky of treason; Metropolitan Joasaph of Corinth found it difficult to convince the Cossacks that Khmelnitsky left for their own good and would return soon. The Cossack camp at that time was located near the Plyashova River; on three sides it was fortified with trenches, and on the fourth it was adjoined by an impenetrable swamp. The Cossacks withstood the siege here for ten days and courageously fought back from the Poles. To get out of the encirclement, dams began to be built across the swamp. On the night of June 29, Bohun began crossing the swamp with his army, but first he transferred Cossack units and artillery through the swamp, leaving the mob and a cover detachment in the camp. When the next morning the mob learned that not a single colonel was left in the camp, a terrible confusion arose. The mob, distraught with fear, despite all the calls of Metropolitan Joasaph to order, rushed in disorder to the dams; they could not stand it and many people died in the quagmire. Realizing what was the matter, the Poles rushed to the Cossack camp and began to exterminate those who did not have time to escape and did not drown in the swamp. The Polish army moved to Ukraine, devastating everything in its path and giving full rein to the feeling of revenge. By this time, at the end of July, Khmelnitsky, having spent about a month in captivity at the Crimean Khan, arrived in the town of Pavoloch. Colonels began to converge here with the remnants of their detachments. Everyone was disheartened. The people treated Khmelnitsky with extreme distrust and blamed all the blame for the Berestech defeat on him.

Continuation of the war

Khmelnitsky gathered a council on Maslovy Brod on the Rosava River (now the town of Maslovka) and so managed to influence the Cossacks with his calm, cheerful mood that distrust of him disappeared and the Cossacks again began to converge under his command. At this time, Khmelnitsky married Anna, the sister of Zolotarenko, who was later appointed a Korsun colonel. A brutal guerrilla war with the Poles began: the inhabitants burned their own houses, destroyed supplies, spoiled roads to make it impossible for the Poles to move deeper into Ukraine. The Cossacks and peasants treated the captured Poles with extreme cruelty. In addition to the main Polish army, the Lithuanian hetman Radzivil also moved to Ukraine. He defeated the Chernigov colonel Nebaba, took Lyubech, Chernigov and approached Kiev. The inhabitants themselves burned the city, as they thought they would cause confusion in the Lithuanian army. This did not help: on August 6, Radziwill entered Kyiv, and then the Polish-Lithuanian leaders converged near the White Church. Khmelnytsky decided to enter into peace negotiations, which proceeded slowly, until they were accelerated by pestilence. On September 17, 1651, the so-called Bila Tserkva Treaty (V, 239), which was very unfavorable for the Cossacks, was concluded. The people reproached Khmelnitsky for caring only about his own interests and the interests of the foreman, but did not think about the people at all. Resettlements within the Russian state took on the character of a mass movement. Khmelnitsky tried to detain him, but to no avail. The Belotserkovsky treaty was soon violated by the Poles. In the spring of 1652 Khmelnitsky's son Timothy went with an army to Moldavia to marry the daughter of the Moldavian ruler. The Polish hetman Kalinovsky blocked his way. Near the town of Ladyzhina, near the tract Batoge, on May 22, a major battle took place, in which the 20,000th Polish army died, and Kalinovsky was killed. This served as a signal for the widespread expulsion of Polish zholners and landowners from Ukraine. However, things did not come to an open war, since the Sejm refused the king to convene the Commonwealth collapse, nevertheless, the territory of Ukraine along the river. The case was cleared of the Poles.

Negotiations with Russia. Pereyaslav Rada

Khmelnytsky had long ago become convinced that the Hetmanate could not fight on its own alone. He opened diplomatic relations with Sweden, Ottoman Empire and Russia. Another February 19, 1651 Zemsky Sobor in Moscow he discussed the question of what answer to give to Khmelnitsky, who then already asked the tsar to take him under his power; but the Council does not appear to have come to a definite decision. Only the opinion of the clergy has come down to us, which left the final decision to the will of the king. The tsar sent the boyar Repnin-Obolensky to Poland, promising to forget some violations by the Poles of the peace treaty if Poland made peace with Bogdan Khmelnitsky on the basis of the Zborovsky treaty. The embassy was not successful. In the spring of 1653, a Polish detachment under the command of Czarniecki began to devastate Podolia. Khmelnitsky, in alliance with the Tatars, moved against him and met with him near the town of Zhvanets, on the banks of the Dniester River. The position of the Poles, due to the cold and the lack of food, was difficult; they were forced to conclude a rather humiliating peace with the Crimean Khan, in order only to break his alliance with Khmelnitsky. After that, the Tatars, with royal permission, began to devastate Ukraine. Under such circumstances, Khmelnitsky again turned to Moscow and began to persistently ask the tsar to accept him as a citizen. On October 1, 1653, a Zemsky Sobor was convened, at which the issue of accepting Bogdan Khmelnitsky with the Zaporizhian army into Russian citizenship was resolved in the affirmative. On January 8, a council was assembled in Pereyaslavl, at which, after a speech by Khmelnitsky, indicating the need for Ukraine to choose one of the four sovereigns: the Sultan of Turkey, the Khan of Crimea, the King of Poland or the Tsar of Russia and surrender to his citizenship, the people shouted: “ we will (that is, we wish) under the Russian tsar!

The collapse of Khmelnitsky's plans. Hetman's death

Following the accession of the Hetmanate, the war between Russia and Poland began. In the spring, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich moved to Lithuania; Swedish king Charles X opened military operations against Poland from the north. Poland seemed to be on the brink of destruction. King Jan Casimir resumed relations with Khmelnitsky, but the latter did not agree to any negotiations until the complete independence of all Little Russian regions was recognized by Poland. Then Jan Casimir turned to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, who in 1656, without an agreement with Khmelnitsky, made peace with the Poles. Khmelnytsky's plans to win the full independence of the Hetmanate collapsed. For some time, he still did not give up hope of carrying them out, and at the beginning of 1657 he concluded an alliance treaty with the Swedish king Charles X and Prince Yuri Rakocha of Semigrad for this purpose. According to this agreement, Khmelnitsky sent 12 thousand Cossacks to help the allies against Poland. The Poles informed Moscow of this, from where ambassadors were sent to the hetman. They found Khmelnitsky already ill, but they managed to get a meeting and attacked him with reproaches. Khmelnytsky did not listen to the ambassadors, but nevertheless, the detachment sent to help the allies, having learned that the hetman was dying, retreated back - after that the allies were defeated and this was the last blow for the sick Khmelnytsky. Two months later, Khmelnitsky ordered a council to be convened in Chyhyryn to choose a successor to him. To please the old hetman, the Rada elected his minor son Yuri.

The determination of the day of Khmelnytsky's death was a matter of controversy for a long time. It has now been established that he died on July 27 from apoplexy, and was buried in the village of Subotovo, in a stone church built by him, which still exists today. Feeling some relief, the hetman called for his relatives. “I am dying,” he whispered to them, “bury me in Subotovo, which I acquired through bloody labors and which is close to my heart.” In 1664, the Polish voivode Czarniecki burned Subotovo and ordered the ashes of Khmelnitsky and his son Timosh to be dug up and the bodies to be thrown out of the grave for "disgrace".

Memory of Khmelnytsky

During the Soviet era, the cult of Bohdan Khmelnytsky as a national hero was maintained, despite the fact that nationalist circles considered him a traitor to the interests of Ukraine already in the middle of the 19th century (for example, the poetry of Taras Shevchenko contains sharp criticism of Khmelnytsky). In Kyiv, Lvov and other Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian cities, many streets are named after Khmelnytsky. He also erected numerous monuments throughout Ukraine. During the Great Patriotic War, the Order of Bohdan Khmelnitsky was established. In Ukraine, the cities of Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky (formerly Pereyaslav) and Khmelnitsky (formerly Proskurov) bear his name.

The following works of art are dedicated to the life of Bohdan Khmelnytsky:

Bogdan Khmelnitsky - drama by Alexander Korneychuk 1938
Bogdan Khmelnitsky - Soviet black and white film of 1941
Bogdan Khmelnitsky - 1951 Soviet opera by Konstantin Dankevich
Bogdan Zinoviy Khmelnitsky - 2007 Ukrainian film
With Fire and Sword - a novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz and a film based on it

Voice your opinion!

Bohdan Khmelnytsky is a hetman who became a hero for some, a traitor to Ukraine for others

Khmelnitsky Bogdan Mikhailovich was born on January 6, 1596 in the village. Subotov, Cherkasy region, died at the age of 61 on August 6, 1657 in Chigirin. Hetman of the Zaporozhian Army,

raised the Ukrainian lands to the War of Liberation against Poland in 1648-1654, won a number of brilliant victories, thanks to which in the USSR his military talent was equated with Alexander Suvorov, Mikhail Kutuzov and Alexander Nevsky (only 4 military orders were established in the USSR: Suvorov, Kutuzov, Alexander Nevsky and Bogdan Khmelnitsky);

in independent Ukraine, a military order was named after him (for some reason, neither Petro Sahaydachny, nor Ivan Sirko, nor Ivan Bohun was awarded such an honor), regional and district centers, films were made about him, an opera and a symphony were written, his photo is on the banknote of 5 hryvnias , Bohdan Khmelnitsky has dozens of monuments (including in Donetsk and Simferopol) and at the same time the search query "Khmelnitsky is a traitor to Ukraine" is one of the most popular in Yandex and Google.

What are the exploits and mistakes or betrayal of Bogdan Khmelnitsky? Why did fate so severely punish his family, which disappeared without a trace in the same 17th century, along with the grave of the hetman himself, which no one can find? Why did the 30-year-old "Trouble" (1657-1687) become the end of his reign and more than ten (!) Hetmans of Ukraine (Peter Doroshenko, Ivan Mazepa, Philip Orlyk, etc.) unsuccessfully tried to break the agreement with Moscow concluded at the Pereyaslav Rada in 1654 ?

The exploits of Bogdan Khmelnitsky.

He is a brave warrior of the noble family, a talented military leader and commander, who won a number of major victories that went down in history.

in the Polish-Turkish war of 1620-1621 in the battle of Tsetsora, 25-year-old Bogdan Khmelnitsky loses his father, and he himself is captured by Turkish slavery for 2 years (according to one of the versions on the galleys), where he learned Turkish and Tatar languages. He was bought out of slavery by his relatives and returned to the family estate in Subotov, was enrolled in the registered Cossacks.

in 1634, on the side of Poland, he fought against Moscow and was awarded a golden saber for bravery during the siege of Smolensk, and the next year he saved the king of Poland, Vladislav IV, from the inevitable Russian captivity near Moscow;

he became a mortal enemy of Poland and the king he had previously saved due to a personal tragedy: in 1647, his farm Subotov near Chigirin was devastated by the Polish underage Chaplinsky, his wife Helena was kidnapped, and his 10-year-old son Ostap was beaten to death with whips. Neither appeal to the court, nor personally to the king did not give a single result. The king even joked about the Cossacks, who "have sabers" and cannot defend themselves. This was the reason for the war.

Khmelnitsky fled in December 1647 to the Sich, where he convinced the registered Cossacks to take their side. The Polish army moved against the Cossacks on a punitive expedition, but the registered Cossacks, who were part of this army, went over to the side of Khmelnitsky, and on May 8, 1648, the Poles were defeated near Zhovti Vody, and their leader, the son of Hetman Potocki, was killed. A week later, the Polish punitive expedition was defeated again, now near Korsun. These first easy victories seriously affected the morale of both the Zaporozhye Cossacks and the local population of the Ukrainian lands. The outbreak of the uprising began to rapidly turn into a nationwide national liberation war. At this time, the Polish king Vladislav IV unexpectedly died, but Bogdan Khmelnitsky did not take advantage of such a favorable situation and, instead of a swift march on Warsaw, for some reason began negotiations that did not lead to anything.

The third time Khmelnytsky defeated the Polish army in September 1648, his Cossacks besieged Lvov and came to Zamostye, from where a direct route to Warsaw opened. But Khmelnytsky lost time, waiting for the election of a new king. King Jan Casimir invited Khmelnitsky to return to Kyiv and wait for the Polish commissars with honorable peace terms. The king's ambassadors brought Bohdan a charter for hetmanship, a mace, a seal and a banner, but this was not enough for Khmelnitsky. He stated that his goal is the liberation of the entire Ukrainian people from Polish captivity and the unification of Ukrainian lands into an independent state.

In the spring of 1649, Khmelnitsky, in alliance with the Tatar Khan Islam Giray, again began hostilities, quickly surrounded and completely defeated the Polish army near the city of Zbarazh, capturing the newest king of Poland. But, again, Bogdan did not use the circumstances, and began to negotiate, putting forward the conditions for recognizing himself as the hetman as the head of all Ukrainian lands, and increasing the number of registered Cossacks to 40,000 sabers.

Union of Khmelnytsky with Moscow. He planned to use the alliance with the Kremlin, as earlier with the Tatars, by writing a letter to the Moscow Tsar that the Poles had thrown their army into Ukraine to desecrate the Orthodox faith, and the Turkish sultan was offering the Cossacks to become Turkish citizenship. Under these conditions, Ukraine has only one way out to preserve the faith and customs of the people - an alliance with Muscovy. On October 1, 1653, the Zemsky Sobor granted the hetman's request for a connection with Moscow. On January 8, 1654, the Pereyaslav Rada accepted the accession of Ukraine to Muscovy on the following conditions:

Ukraine retains all its former Cossack orders and self-government;

the hetman retains the full right to any international relations;

the number of registered (paid) Cossacks increases to an unprecedented 60,000, paid by Moscow for the protection of the southern borders;

all Ukrainian lands retain their old rights and liberties;

the hetman undertook to pay taxes to Moscow, and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich guaranteed the protection of Ukrainian lands from possible Polish expansion.

Moscow Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich kept the first part of his promise and declared war on Poland in the spring of 1654. Russian troops captured Mogilev, Polotsk, Vitebsk, Smolensk, Minsk, Kovel and Vilna. At the same time, the Swedish king Charles X began a war with Poland and captured Poznan, Warsaw and Krakow. Khmelnitsky entered Galicia and Volhynia.

Failed alliance of Bogdan Khmelnytsky with Sweden. In 1657, Khmelnytsky made a last attempt to rectify the situation: he concluded a secret agreement with the Swedish king Charles X and Prince Rakochi of Semigrad on the redistribution of Poland. If successful, Ukraine would be recognized as a sovereign state independent of Poland. But the Poles found out about this alliance and informed the Muscovite tsar about it, who demanded that Khmelnitsky immediately renounce it.

Khmelnytsky died of a stroke, the army refused to go to the aid of the Swedish king, choosing "a tit in their hands" in the form of a stable income in the ranks of the registered Cossacks under the rule of Moscow.

What is Bogdan Khmelnitsky accused of?

1. Indecisive actions during the years of the War of Independence, which he could have won himself if he had not constantly tried to "negotiate" with the old and new Polish kings, who began to negotiate with Khmelnitsky after each defeat, thanks to which they gained time by preparing a new punitive expedition to Ukraine.

2. In conclusion of an alliance with Moscow, which helped the Ukrainians win their 6-year war with Poland, but in the end became no better for the Ukrainians than Poland. Concluding the agreement, the hetman was obliged to see not only tactical benefits, but also the strategic loss of the “embraces” of Moscow, which, forgetting about the confederation, began to consider the Ukrainian lands “its own”, imposing its governors and its own rules, appointing its hetmans. As a result, Bohdan Khmelnytsky can be considered the direct culprit of the 30-year-old "Ruins" (1657-1687), which began after his death on Ukrainian lands. After his death, 10 hetmans tried to get rid of the power of Moscow, and most of them died without correcting major mistake Bohdan Khmelnytsky.

The great Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko gave a double image of Bohdan Khmelnitsky calling him

on the one hand, "glorious", "noble", "righteous hetman", "smart Cossack father";

on the other hand, they brought "famously" to the Ukrainian lands with their alliance with Moscow:

From the Church of Bogdanov.
There I prayed,
Sob Muscovite good and dashing
I shared with the Cossack.
The peace of your soul, Bogdane!
It didn't get so bad;
Muscovites who zazdril,
They all freaked out.

Khmelnitsky receives frank condemnation in the poem "If you, Bogdan are drunk", which was banned from print for a long time:

In 1655, by order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, the tops of the Church of the Archangel Michael the Golden-Domed Monastery in Kyiv were covered with copper and gilded;

after the bodies of Khmelnytsky and his son were thrown out of the family tomb, there is no exact data on what happened to them. Nevertheless, there are two versions of events: Ukrainian and Polish. According to the Ukrainian version, the body of Bogdan Khmelnytsky was reburied by his old friend Lavrin Kapusta in order to prevent him from being abused again. The place where the body was reburied was known only to a limited circle of people who eventually died in the war. According to Ukrainian scientists, the alleged burial place of Bohdan Khmelnytsky may be "Semidubovay Gora" in the village. Ivkovtsy, not far from Subotov. However, there is no documentary evidence for this. And according to the Polish version of the development of events, the Russian voivode Czarniecki attacked Subotov in 1664, dug up the coffin with the body of the hetman, burned it and fired the ashes from a cannon;

the hetman family of Khmelnytsky ceased to exist a few decades after the death of the hetman at the end of the same 17th century;

Bogdan Khmelnitsky had three sons and four daughters. If the fate of the daughters still somehow developed (with the exception of Stepania, who, along with her husband, was captured and was presumably exiled to Siberia. Then the sons of Khmelnitsky never died a natural death. The youngest of them was beaten with whips by order of the Chigirinsky elder. The eldest son Timothy died on September 15, 1653, because he was mortally wounded during the siege of the Moldavian fortress of Suceava, which he defended with his Cossack army.And Yuri, the middle son of Khmelnitsky, became his successor, died in 1679 in the battle of Kizikermen;

Bogdan Khmelnitsky died of apoplexy on August 6, 1657 in Chyhyryn. Bogdan Khmelnitsky was buried on Saturday, in the Elias Church, which he built himself. It was supposed to become the ancestral tomb of the Khmelnitskys;

1664 - Subotov was devastated, the bodies of Bogdan Khmelnitsky and his son Timothy were thrown out of the family tomb.

Bogdan Khmelnitsky and social networks.

Perpetuation of the memory of Bogdan Khmelnitsky.

1943 - the city of Pereyaslav was renamed Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky;

1954 - the city of Proskurov was renamed Khmelnitsky;

monument in Kyiv;

bust in Simferopol;

monument in Dnepropetrovsk;

in Krivoy Rog, two monuments to Khmelnitsky were installed at once:

on Vatutina street;

on Ugritskaya street:

a monument to Bogdan Khmelnitsky in Nikopol was erected on the site of the Nikitinskaya Sich, where in 1648 he was elected hetman;

monument to Bogdan Khmelnitsky in the village. Yellow installed in 1954;

a monument to Bohdan Khmelnitsky in Donetsk was erected in 1954 to mark the 300th anniversary of the Pereyaslav Rada in the park near the Yubileyny Palace of Culture on Bolshaya Magistralnaya Street;

at the exit from the village of Drahovoe, a monument to Bogdan Khmelnitsky (Transcarpathian region) was erected;

1995, Zaporozhye;

on about. Khortytsya;

in Melitopol.

(real name - Zinovy)

(1595-1657) Ukrainian military and statesman

In his life, Bogdan Mikhailovich Khmelnitsky often faced a choice - to make a brilliant military career or remain in the shadows, but acquire the glory of a people's protector. He invariably preferred the latter, believing that military glory would come to him on its own.

Bogdan Khmelnitsky was born on the family farm of Subotov, which was located near the Ukrainian city of Chyhyryn. His father was a centurion in the registered Cossack army of the Commonwealth, as Poland was then called.

The boy grew up in a wealthy family. He was taught to read and write by a priest from a neighboring village, and only then his father took Bogdan to Lvov and gave him to the Jesuit College. There the boy studied rhetoric, history, foreign languages and was among the first disciples. Thanks to his phenomenal memory, he mastered the Latin, Polish and Turkish languages and subsequently amazed his opponents more than once with his knowledge of history and philosophy.

After completing the course, Bogdan Khmelnitsky returns home and soon goes to the Zaporizhzhya Sich together with his father. There he mastered military affairs and soon became his father's assistant.

Together with his father, Bogdan several times participated in raids on the Turkish coast of the Black Sea. In 1620, he became a participant in the battle with the Turks near Tsetsora. Then the Zaporozhye army was defeated by the Turks, Mikhail Khmelnitsky died, and Bogdan was captured. Together with the rest of the Cossacks, he was sent as a rower to the galley.

The captain of the ship noticed a young man who spoke Turkish fluently and made him his interpreter. A change in fate helped Khmelnitsky avoid a slow death from constant overwork. Bogdan stayed in the retinue of the Turkish Kapudan Pasha for two whole years, but he was not going to stay here forever. Taking advantage of the freedom of movement, he escaped and returned to the Zaporozhian Sich, where he soon became one of the commanders of the Cossack army.

In the early thirties, Bogdan Khmelnitsky several times made daring attacks on Turkish garrisons, returning to the Sich with freed prisoners and rich booty. He began to be considered the savior of the Cossacks.

In 1637, Bogdan Mikhailovich Khmelnitsky became a military clerk, that is, he occupied one of the highest positions in the leadership of the Cossack troops. Officially, he was in the service of the Polish king, but in fact he devoted all his strength to the fight against hated enemies.

During the anti-Polish uprising of the Cossacks in 1638, Bogdan Khmelnitsky led the Cossacks. After the defeat of the uprising, he was deprived of his post and transferred to the Chigirinsky centurions with a large demotion. For some time he could not even leave his farm. However, Khmelnytsky's authority among the Cossacks was so high that the Poles were not only afraid to subject him to repression, but even offered him to go to their military service.

Such a proposal promised Bogdan Khmelnitsky brilliant career. But he refused it and continued to live in his farm. He knew that the time had not yet come for a decisive offensive. His farm became a kind of headquarters, where Cossack foremen gathered to prepare for a new uprising against the Poles.

Khmelnytsky managed to hide his plans for a long time, the Poles only in the mid-forties realized that he had become the recognized leader of the Zaporozhye Cossacks. Several times hired assassins were sent to him, and then, on the advice of friends, he began to wear chain mail under his outer clothing, and an iron helmet under a Cossack hat.

In 1647, the Poles finally decided to arrest Bohdan Khmelnitsky, a military detachment under the command of Chaplinsky was sent to the farm, but they did not find Khmelnitsky there: they managed to warn him. Then the detachment, as a warning to everyone else, burned his farm.

Since that time, Bogdan Khmelnitsky had to hide in the Zaporizhzhya Sich, which began a war of liberation with Poland. In the spring of 1648, he led the Cossack troops and defeated the six thousandth vanguard of the Polish troops, commanded by the son of Hetman S. Potocki. And ten days later, near the city of Korsun, he defeated the main Polish troops and captured Potocki.

Serious defeats of the gentry troops inspired the Cossacks, and the Cossack uprising grew into a real one. people's war. Detachments of peasants and residents of small towns began to join the army of Bohdan Khmelnitsky. Fate favored Khmelnitsky, he won one victory after another.

In September, Bogdan Mikhailovich Khmelnitsky utterly defeated the new Polish army near Pilyavtsy. The battle continued for several days and ended in victory thanks to the skillful maneuver of Bogdan Khmelnitsky. The Cossacks managed to capture the entire Polish convoy.

Having passed through the Right-Bank Ukraine, Khmelnitsky, at the head of an eighty-thousandth army, entered Kyiv, where the hetman was greeted as a liberator from foreign oppression. The position of hetman he held meant recognition of him as commander-in-chief of all troops.

At the same time, the commander understood that in order to successfully end the war with Poland, it was necessary to achieve the support of Russia. Having settled in Kyiv, he immediately sent an embassy to Moscow to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. In a special letter, Bogdan Khmelnitsky asked to accept the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks under the royal hand.

However, the Moscow government did not dare to accept Khmelnitsky's proposal for a long time. An alliance with Ukraine meant the immediate start of a war with Poland, but Russia could not then wage it.

Bohdan Khmelnytsky also understood that a small respite was needed to prepare for new performances. Using his strength, he concludes a temporary agreement with the Poles and sends ambassadors south to the Crimean Khan Islam Giray. Although he was bound by an agreement with the Polish king, he was afraid of the power of the Cossacks and concluded an agreement with them on a military alliance.

In 1649, the Crimean and Cossack troops defeated the Poles in the battle of Zboriv. The cavalry of Ukrainians and Tatars unexpectedly attacked the Poles during the crossing and put them to flight. It seemed that a new defeat of the Poles was inevitable. But the Crimean Khan was afraid of such a development of events and suddenly withdrew his troops from the battle, concluding a secret agreement with the Polish king Jan Casimir.

The continuation of the struggle could cause huge human casualties, so Khmelnitsky enters into negotiations with the Poles and achieves the signing of the Zborovsky peace treaty, which is beneficial for himself. According to him, the Zaporizhzhya army was recognized as an independent military force, the Right-Bank Ukraine was at his disposal. The Cossacks also achieved an increase in the registered number of troops from six to forty thousand people.

Outwardly, the agreement was beneficial to the Cossacks, but Bogdan Mikhailovich Khmelnitsky understood that the raids would continue anyway. Both the Poles and the Cossacks continued to prepare for new fights.

In February 1651, the Poles were the first to break the truce, defeating the detachment of Colonel Danila Nechay in the town of Krasnoye. The death of Nechay in battle turned him into a folk hero.

Already in July 1650, Ukrainian and Polish troops met in a decisive battle near Berestechko. Now at the disposal of Bohdan Khmelnitsky was a huge force: his army numbered 150 thousand people. True, 50 thousand of them were Tatars, commanded by Islam Giray. At the first opportunity, he again fled from the battlefield, after which the advantage passed to the Poles. Khmelnytsky's troops were defeated, the hetman himself was taken prisoner.

However, the Poles were afraid to execute him, and after a while he managed to escape. True, he paid a high price for his freedom. In September 1651, the hetman was forced to sign new treaty with the Poles, along which all the lands conquered by the Cossacks passed to them.

In the struggle of the Cossacks with the Poles came a critical moment. Bogdan Khmelnitsky develops a stormy diplomatic and military activity. He sends a new embassy to Moscow and at the same time organizes military campaigns against the Poles. A sober politician, he understood that only constant military activity could convince the Moscow government that the Cossacks represented a real political force.

On October 1, 1653, the Zemsky Sobor in Moscow finally decided to recognize the Zaporizhzhya army and take it into the citizenship of Alexei Mikhailovich. At the same time, Russia started a war with the Poles.

At the beginning of 1654, a delegation was sent to Ukraine, consisting of the boyar Buturlin, the roundabout Alferyev and the duma clerk Lopukhin. And in January of the same year, the Secret Rada (meeting) of Cossack foremen took place in the city of Pereyaslav.

The Cossacks confirmed their intention to transfer to the citizenship of Russia, and at the circle (general meeting of the troops) they approved the decision of the foremen. After that, they were awarded the corresponding letter of commendation. According to it, the Cossacks received wide autonomy, and all of Ukraine was declared part of Russian state. For Russia, this was an important step, since for the first time it received a strong ally on southern borders. An alliance with Russia was also beneficial to Khmelnitsky, since the Cossacks received a strong patron.

Together with the Russian troops, his army began a war with the Poles. After the liberation of Smolensk and a number of Belarusian cities, the united army under the command of Khmelnitsky and V. Sheremetev entered the Ukraine. The campaign ended with a campaign against Lvov.

The Poles were forced to conclude a peace treaty and recognize the independence of the lands conquered by the Cossacks. At the same time, Bogdan Khmelnitsky concluded an agreement with the Crimean Khan, according to which he pledged not to attack the Cossacks and not to fight against them in alliance with other countries.

After the end of military affairs, Bogdan Mikhailovich Khmelnitsky retired to his farm, where he spent the rest of his life. Little is known about the hetman's personal life. But we know that he was married and had two sons. The eldest son Yuriy also became a military leader and for some time was the hetman of Ukraine. But this happened a few years after the death of his father.

The heroic figure of the hetman has repeatedly attracted the attention of writers and filmmakers. The largest work in which his image is recreated is the novel by N. Rybak "Pereyaslavskaya Rada" (1948-1953). In 1999, director Nikolai Zaseev-Rudenko filmed this novel, and he invited the famous artist V. Lanovoy to play the role of Khmelnitsky.

Khmelnitsky Bohdan (Zinoviy) Mykhailovych (circa 1595-1657), Ukrainian statesman and military figure, hetman of the Zaporizhian Sich (1648), leader liberation war Ukrainian people against Poland.

Having been educated in Lviv by the Jesuits (while retaining Orthodoxy), the son of the Chigirinsky elder became a Cossack military clerk and centurion, fled from persecution to the Sich and raised an uprising against the Commonwealth.

At the beginning of 1648, Khmelnytsky defeated the Polish garrison in Zaporozhye and was elected hetman. After the victories on the Zhovti Vody River and near Korsun, the entire Ukraine was in the power of the hetman, the uprisings swept Belarus. In many ways, Khmelnitsky's victories were won thanks to an alliance with the Crimean Khan Islam Giray, a vassal of Turkey: they paid him off with slaves.

The Turks fortified themselves in the lower reaches of the Dnieper and thoroughly prepared to join the struggle for Ukraine. Khmelnytsky hoped to create a powerful army in order to cope with the Commonwealth himself. Cossacks and peasants joined the 8,000 Cossacks who marched with him.

In September 1648, a huge gentry army was defeated in the battle near Pilyavtsy. The Cossacks took Lviv and laid siege to Zamostye, from where the road to Warsaw opened. In the summer of 1649, the Poles suffered terrible defeats in Western Ukraine, near Zbarazh and Zborov. They were forced to recognize Khmelnytsky's authority over three Ukrainian provinces: Kiev, Chernigov and Bratslav. In 1651 the war flared up with renewed vigor. The royal army invaded Ukraine and defeated Khmelnitsky's army near Berestechko. The Polish army took Kyiv and exterminated a lot of its inhabitants.

The following year, with a brilliantly won battle on the Batog field, Khmelnitsky stopped the enemy, and after the victory at Zhvanets (1653), he achieved the expulsion of the Poles from the Right Bank. Since the summer of 1648, at the suggestion of the hetman, the issue of accepting Ukraine into Russian citizenship was discussed. Moscow helped with weapons and ammunition, threatened the Poles with war if they did not stop the massacre of Orthodox subjects.

In January 1654, representatives of the estates of Ukraine at the Pereyaslav Rada decided: “We want an Eastern Orthodox tsar ... so that everyone will be united forever.” Headed by Khmelnitsky, the members of the Rada, and behind them the entire population of the liberated territories, took an oath of eternal allegiance to the Russian Tsar.

In the spring of 1654, the Russian army, led by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, marched west, occupied Smolensk with many border fortresses. The following year, the gates of Minsk, Grodno, Vilna, Kovno (now Vilnius and Kaunas) were opened. The Polish king fled to Germany. However, the truce with Poland had disastrous consequences: for the promise to elect the Muscovite tsar to the Polish throne, Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus were returned to the Poles. The participants in the liberation war were shocked by this treachery.

In 1658, his successor, Hetman Vygovskoy, concluded an agreement with the Poles on the return of Ukraine to the rule of the Commonwealth. The war on the Ukrainian lands went on until 1667 and ended with their division.

A statesman and political figure, he is known as the Zaporozhye hetman and Ukrainian commander. Born around 1596 in the village of Subotovo. Khmelnitsky studied at two colleges, first in Yaroslavl, and then in Lvov.

Bogdan, despite the Catholic upbringing of all students, remained an adherent of the Orthodox faith. Perhaps this influenced his actions in the future.

In 1620-1621, Bogdan Khmelnitsky was a participant in the Polish-Turkish war. His father Mikhail Khmelnitsky was killed at the Battle of Tsetser. Bogdan himself was taken prisoner and sold to work for Turkish ships. He stayed there for two years in agonizing conditions, learned Turkish and Tatar.

Later he was bought by relatives.

Returning to his homeland, Bogdan Khmelnitsky married Anna Sago. Then he began to participate in sea campaigns, received the trust of King Vladislav.

He participated in military campaigns, but after one of the defeats he was demoted to the rank of centurion. Being trusted at the court of the king, Khmelnytsky knew many state secrets, for example, that the king, who was afraid of the Sejm, wanted to start a Polish-Turkish war. Having learned about it, the Diet has expressed the full protest.

Soon, the envious Khmelnitsky Chaplinsky burned the village of Subotovo and married his wife, baptizing her into Catholicism.

Chaplinsky killed the youngest son Bogdan, inflicting severe injuries on him.

Khmelnytsky sought justice for the court, but in return he received only a hundredth of the indemnified damage and the empty groans of the king. From that moment on, the uprising began.

The Cossacks swore allegiance to Khmelnitsky. According to information they were about 3 thousand people. However, Khmelnytsky sought support and persuaded the Crimean Khan Islam Giray the Third. Bogdan convinced the Khan of a possible Polish attack on the Crimean Khanate.

The Crimean ruler did not unleash an official war, he sent his governor with four thousand Cossack troops.

The Battle of Yellow Waters remained with Khmelnitsky.

The Poles were tightly besieged and were not given the opportunity to forward letters. The heads of the Polish army, Stefan Potocki and Mikhail Kalinovsky, were taken prisoner. Polish troops gradually ran over to the side of Khmelnitsky. Crown hetmans Pototsky and Kalinovsky were given to the Crimean Khan as a trophy. According to the information, the hetmans were taken twice.

The first time at Yellow Waters, they were redeemed for a large number of Polish artillery, the second time in the battle of Korsun, which became deplorable for the army of the king.

The army of the king numbered about 40 thousand people.

Army Khmelnytsky 70 thousand people. After that, the army of Cossacks and Tatars successfully won the sieges of Lvov and Zborov. Also between the battles were negotiations with the gentry.

The Polish army was in poor condition and it seemed that only a miracle could help, and it happened, in the battle of Berestechko, the Tatars, following bad superstitions, began to retreat. Bogdan rushed after the khan, the Cossacks took it as a flight, but the clergy persuaded the army.

The Poles took advantage of the absence of Khmelnytsky and the confusion of the new governor Dzhedzhaliya. The results of the victory were insignificant, the Cossacks refused to swear.

After the election of a new king, Jan Kazimir, Khmelnytsky became a folk hero. He gave Ukrainian lands to the Russian Kingdom. With this, Bogdan unleashed a war between Russia and Poland.

The Swedes also went to Poland, so the situation was difficult. Khmelnytsky agreed with the Swedish king Charles the Tenth. Russia and Poland did not try on for a long time due to many conflicts.

Bogdan Khmelnitsky died in 1657 from a stroke.

He was buried in the Elias Church next to his son.

For grade 5

Interesting facts and dates from life

All biographies

Bogdan Zinoviy Khmelnitsky(1595-1657) - hetman of the Zaporizhzhya Army, commander and politician.
Bogdan Khmelnitsky was born on December 27, 1595 on the farm Subotov (now the village of Subotov in the Chernihiv region of Ukraine) in the family of the centurion of the Zaporizhia Army Mikhail Lavrinovich Khmelnitsky and Anastasia Fedorovna.

Little reliable information remains about a very long period of his life. He received his primary education at the Kiev Brotherhood School. Then, he studied with the Jesuits in Yaroslavl Galitsky or Lvov and received a good education for that time.
Returning to his homeland, he participated in the Polish-Turkish war of 1620-1621.

In the battle near Tsetsora, he is captured, and his father dies. In captivity he spent two difficult years of slavery.
Having escaped from captivity, in 1622 he returned to Subotov and was enrolled in the registered Cossacks. From the end of the 1620s, he began to actively participate in the sea campaigns of the Cossacks against Turkish cities. In 1634 he participated in the siege of Smolensk, and in 1635, in one of the battles near Moscow, he saved King Vladislav from captivity, for this and for his courage he was awarded a golden saber.

In 1637 he participated in the uprising of the Cossacks led by Pavlyuk. In 1644-1646 he took part in the French-Spanish war, as part of the Cossack army.
In 1647, Khmelnytsky's enemy Chaplinsky raided the Subotov farm. At the same time, one son of Khmelnitsky, ten-year-old Ostap, and his wife Anna Semyonovna (married since about 1625) die.

Chaplinsky kidnaps and marries Khmelnitsky's ward, Helena. Bogdan Khmelnitsky turns to the king for protection, but ends up in prison on a false charge of preparing a Cossack revolt.

This was the reason for the start of the Cossack uprising, organized by Khmelnitsky in 1648.
In 1648, he signed the Treaty of Bakhchisaray with Islyam Gerai on a military-political alliance between the Zaporizhzhya Army and the Crimean Khanate. Khmelnytsky's first major victory was at the Battle of Zhovti Vody in the spring of 1648.

After that, having won victories in the battles near Korsun and Pilyavtsi, Khmelnitsky besieged Lvov, but having received a ransom, he lifted the siege and headed further west. By this time, negotiations began between the king and the Cossacks.

Without waiting for the end of the negotiations, Khmelnitsky returned to Kyiv in 1649. In 1649, Khmelnitsky married Helena Chaplinsky, having received special permission from the church. Chaplinsky was alive and formally was Helena's husband.
After another victory over the gentry in August 1649, Khmelnytsky agreed to the terms of the Zborovsky peace treaty. At this time, very strong oppression of the Cossacks by the gentry began, and by 1651 hostilities resumed.

At this time, Khmelnitsky is experiencing the death of his wife Helena, who was suspected of being involved in embezzlement of the treasury and adultery, was executed by the son of Khmelnitsky, who dislikes his stepmother, Timosh. But this time Khmelnytsky's army was defeated. On September 17, 1651, the so-called Bila Tserkva Treaty was concluded, which was very unfavorable for the Cossacks. Soon the Poles violated the peace treaty.
On January 8, 1654, a council was assembled in Pereyaslavl, at which they decided to join the Kingdom of Moscow and swear allegiance to the tsar.
At the beginning of 1657, feeling his imminent death, Khmelnitsky convened a council to choose a successor.

To please the hetman, his sixteen-year-old son Yuri was chosen as his successor.
Bogdan Khmelnitsky died on July 27, 1657 from a stroke. He was buried in the village of Subotovo, in a stone church built by him, which still exists today.

Mysteries of history

Bohdan Khmelnytsky

Bogdan Khmelnitsky was an Orthodox gentry of Russian origin.

In the 30-40s of the XVII century he served in the Polish border army. Like any other gentry, he had his own farm and several workers. The local headman, the Catholic Chaplitsky, took a dislike to Khmelnytsky. During his absence, in the spring of 1647, he attacked the farm with his people, plundered it, and captured his family.

The headman hated the Orthodox Bogdan so much that he ordered his 10-year-old son to be flogged at the market.

The boy was lashed with whips to such a state that he died two days later. Soon his wife Anna Semyonovna also died. Thus, Khmelnitsky was left without a wife and property.

It was useless to apply to the court, since the same Catholics as Chaplitsky sat there. Therefore, the gentry who had lost everything went straight to Warsaw to King Vladislav. The king's affairs were difficult. The Sejm was controlled by the Polish lords.

They did not give money either for a defensive war with the Turks, or for military operations against Muscovy.

Vladislav received the gentry, listened to him and threw up his hands in impotence. He could not do anything against the pans and their proteges on the ground.

Not having obtained justice from the king, Bogdan went to Zaporozhye.

Zaporozhye in the 17th century

In the 17th century, Zaporozhye, located on the border of Poland and wild field, was an exceptional occurrence.

It was a dense network settlements, in which a wide variety of crafts developed: carpentry, blacksmithing, plumbing, shoemaking and others. Separate settlements of "kurens" lived absolutely independently.

All this formed a special stereotype of behavior that gave birth to a new ethnic group, called Zaporozhye Cossacks. The Poles treated the Cossacks extremely unfriendly and wary.

Zaporozhye Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish Sultan

Equally hostile was the attitude of the Polish magnates towards registered Cossacks. Cossacks who served the Polish crown were called registered. To repel the Tatar raids, a great number of them gathered under the banner of the hetman. But at the end of hostilities, the army disbanded, and the Cossacks returned home.

Only 6 thousand soldiers remained in permanent military service, that is, in the register. They enjoyed the privileges of the gentry, and the rest of the people worked for the pans and paid for the rent of the land, hunting grounds and churches.

At that time, 200 thousand Cossacks lived in Zaporozhye. It was a huge military force. And the Poles hated all this mass of people, although they did not encroach on the foundations of the state. On the contrary, they served the Commonwealth reliable protection from Tatar raids. Without them, the Tatar Chambuls (Chambul - a Tatar cavalry detachment) would mercilessly rob the country and destroy cities.

Bohdan Khmelnytsky vs. Poland

In December 1647, Bogdan Khmelnitsky arrived in Zaporozhye.

He gathered representatives of the Cossacks on the island of Tomakovka and said: "We will stop tolerating the arbitrariness of the Poles. Let's gather a council and defend the Orthodox Church and our land." Such a call was desired and understood by the inhabitants of Zaporozhye.

But initially the Cossacks did not at all set their political goal as secession from the Polish kingdom.

They only wanted to achieve strict observance of the laws. Therefore, their demands were short and clear.

First, to provide all the Cossacks, as a military estate, gentry privileges. Secondly, to ban the propaganda of the Catholic Union in Ukraine. Remove all Uniate priests and return the churches seized by the Catholics to the Orthodox. Third, allow each person to practice their faith. This political program reflected the aspirations of the entire oppressed population of Zaporozhye.

Cossacks chose Khmelnytsky as their hetman, and he gained great power. After all, the Cossacks, with complete anarchy in Peaceful time, iron discipline and unquestioning obedience to superiors were observed in campaigns.

From Zaporozhye, the hetman went to the Crimea, where he enlisted the support of the Crimean Khan.

After that, he set out on a campaign with a detachment of 5 thousand people. These forces, of course, were insignificant in comparison with the forces of the enemy. The Poles at that time could put up an army of 150 thousand people. But the kingdom could not mobilize such a mass of people. Complete confusion reigned in it, and the pans, as always, refused the king money for the gentry militia.

Therefore, Bogdan Khmelnitsky, despite his small forces, won three major victories in 1648. The first of them is the battle of Zhovti Vody. It killed Stefan Potocki - the son of the Polish hetman Potocki. Then came the victory at Korsun. Two Polish hetmans were captured - Potocki and Kalinovsky.

And, finally, the third victory near Pilyavtsy. Here the commonwealth (gentry militia) in a panic rushed to flee from the Cossacks.

But the victories of the Cossacks did not force the Poles to agree and recognize the political demands of the Cossacks. To be honest, the Polish lords were not up to it. In the same year, 1648, King Vladislav died.

And the magnates forgot about the rebellious Cossacks. At the diets, they discussed the candidacies of the future king.

Hetman Khmelnytsky with his army enters Kyiv

Such a respite turned out to be very useful for Khmelnitsky. His army occupied Kyiv and fortified on both banks of the Dnieper. The hetman actually became an independent ruler in Ukraine, and the region under his rule began to be called Hetmanate.

But, finally, the gentry chose a new king. They became Jan Casimir. Immediately after this, preparations began for military operations against the Cossacks. Commonwealth destruction was collected, German artillerymen and infantrymen were hired. Ambassadors secretly left for the Crimean Khan to win him over to their side.

In June 1651, a major battle took place near Berestechko. The Tatars acted as allies of the Cossacks, but suddenly left their camp and went to the steppe.

Khmelnitsky had no choice but to catch up with them. However, the former allies seized him and took him with them to the Crimea. The Cossack army was left without a commander, and was pressed by the Poles to the swamp.

In this difficult situation, the Cossack colonel Ivan Bohun took command. He tried to lead people through the swamp and ordered to pave the path. But the Poles managed to bring artillery. The gat was destroyed by cannonballs, and most of the Cossacks died.

After that came a radical turning point in hostilities.

Polish troops seized the Ukrainian lands, which until recently were the owners of the Cossacks. However, the Polish lords made minor concessions. They agreed to increase the number of registered Cossacks to 20 thousand people. But this meant that the remaining 180 thousand continued to remain in a powerless position. That is, it turned out that the uprising ended in nothing, and the human sacrifices were in vain.

Pereyaslav Rada

By this time, Bogdan Khmelnitsky returned from the Crimean captivity and found himself with nothing.

He had no army, and the alliance with the Tatars no longer existed.

Ukraine found itself sandwiched between the Crimean Khanate and Poland. She had no rear, and it was impossible to defend herself.

After assessing the situation, the hetman came to the conclusion that he needed a new strong ally. They could only be Orthodox Moscow. Negotiations with her began in 1651.

But Moscow, as usual, responded slowly. It was only in October 1653 that a historic decision was made to annex Ukraine to the Muscovite kingdom.

All this time, the hetman did not sit idly by, and did not wait for news from the eastern lands. He managed to rally the Cossacks again and make them believe in themselves. And then it got to the point that even the second wife cheated on Bogdan with her lover. The hetman ordered that both her and her lover be hanged. Thus, he showed everyone his will and character.

Cossack Rada

Khmelnytsky's troops defeated the Polish lords at the Battle of Batoga in 1652 and at the Battle of Zhvanets in 1653.

The second victory coincided with joyful news. Moscow gave the go-ahead for reunification with Ukraine. On January 8, 1654, a council gathered in Pereyaslavl (Pereyaslavl-Khmelnitsky) (it went down in history as Pereyaslav Rada).

She supported the policy of joining Moscow. This was expressed in the words: "Let's go under the Tsar of Moscow, the Orthodox."

However, the Cossacks at this historical moment remained true to their stereotype of behavior. They agreed to take an oath of allegiance to the Moscow Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, but at the same time demanded that he give them an oath to preserve the Cossack liberties.

Boyarin Buturlin, who represented the Moscow kingdom, already choked with indignation upon hearing such a thing. He stated: "In Russia, it is not customary for tsars to take an oath to their subjects. And the Sovereign will observe your liberties in any case."

Since the situation was hopeless, the Cossacks, shaking their long forelocks, agreed. That is how the matter ended.

Conclusion

Russian people have always lived by the principle: "They harness for a long time, but they drive fast." They were in no hurry to accept Ukraine as part of the state, but, having taken this step, they began to act energetically and swiftly. In 1654 Russian troops took Smolensk. In 1655 it was the turn of Vilna, Kovno and Grodno. Poland suffered defeats on all fronts.

A weakening power always attracts the attention of other states. In 1655, the Swedish king Charles X invaded Poland. He expelled Jan Casimir, and part of the gentry recognized him as their king. Now the interests of Russia and Sweden clashed in Lithuania.

The Russo-Swedish War broke out (1655-1659). But neither side won a decisive victory. Subsequently, the Poles recovered from the defeat and even recaptured occupied Lithuania from Russia.

Bogdan Khmelnitsky died in the summer of 1657 from a stroke.. This man went down in history as the initiator of the reunification of Ukraine and Russia. The two peoples united into a single state. And although there were many disagreements in the future, the union remained inviolably preserved until the end of the 20th century.

Only the collapse of the USSR led to the formation of 2 states, but this did not affect the personal and family ties of people.

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