The road to Pereyaslav
Three hundred and sixty years ago, the relations between Ukraine and Russia were as confusing as they are today. On the one hand, undoubted mutual sympathy. On the other - distrust of each other and the tragic inability to find a common language. If we had a time machine and transported on it in November 1652 of the year, then the reality that opened up to our eyes would say absolutely nothing that in less than fourteen months Pereyaslavska Rada and Bogdan Khmelnitsky will take the oath of all Russia with the whole army of Zaporizhzhya . After all, it was at this time that Ukraine was burning with revolts against the great hetman Bogdan, because he “sold out” to the Poles, and the hetman himself shot Cossack colonels who disagreed with his “pro-European” course. Lord, how can this be? But it was! Just this episode did not get into the canonical myth about Bogdan, having remained boring pages in special monographs and collections of documents.
After all, instead of living faces, we are often shoved, in modern terms, “images”. And the situation turns out to be as funny as in Vladimir Vinnichenko’s story “Umirkovany and Ishchiry”, where two Ukrainian pan-Ukrainophiles drive past the monument to Bogdan Khmelnitsky in Kiev at the time of Nicholas II and ask the cabman: “Who is this horse?”.
- It? - show zvychik puzhalnom on Bogdan.
- Hege Well.
- And the atoms are some kind of hahlatsky general.
- What is hahlatsky?
“If we were ours, he would have sat straight, but this one, how it fell on its side.” Trifty general "...
If the Pereyaslav Rada did not take place, Khmelnitsky would have remained in stories “Trivial general”, in spite of all his exploits, was one of the innumerable rebels who the Ukraine of that time generated in abundance. His position at that time was very confusing - both the Polish king, and the Turkish sultan, and the Crimean Khan simultaneously considered Bogdan to be their subjects and argued for his head. Only the Moscow Tsar was still on the sidelines.
The starting point of the unpredictable state, in which Khmelnitsky turned out to be that gloomy autumn, was the battle of Berestechko, lost in 1651 year. Poland and the Cossacks concluded forced insincere world. In Moscow, in the Posolsky order, they learned about this from the words of the boyar’s son, Ivan Yudinkov: “On Wednesday, September on 17 day, the treaty was settled on the Poles and Cherkasy for peace, and on Thursday, on both sides, they kissed the cross. On the royal sides, Pototskaya, Kalinovskaya, and Radivil, and Smolensk voivode Smolensk, and Adam Kisel, kissed the cross, and the hetman and the colonels kissed the cross on the Cherkasy side. And on Friday, de and separated: the Poles went to Poland, and Lithuania to Lithuania, and the Tatars went to the Crimea on Saturday, and the Cherkasy went all their wagons to their cities on Sunday, September on 21 day. And in his days, Ivan, the hetman let go of himself ... And hetman de Bogdan Khmelnitsky ordered him, Ivan, verbally, and told him to tell the boyar and commander Prince Semen Vasilyevich Prozorovsky in Putivl with the goods: although they are now from Poles and reconciled only they de Pole do not believe. And the de sovereign will come, orders them to take a high hand as a citizen under his sovereign, and they de him, sovereign, will immediately kiss the cross and serve him, sovereign, for the sake of ”.
After losing to Poland under Berestechko, Bogdan Khmelnitsky was forced to agree to halve the Cossack registry from forty thousand to twenty. Twenty thousand Cossacks were in his opposition, as they automatically lost the right to receive a salary for their military service to the Polish king. The Cossacks did not understand well that the king, against whom they had fought for three years, was not eager to pay them a special salary. They were poorly versed in the intricacies of this political economy and secretly believed that they deserved funding from Warsaw for "good behavior." Like, we will not rebel more, but for this you have to pay us.
But since the transfer link between Warsaw and the Cossack wallets was a hetman, now all the discontent of the lower classes turned to him. At the same time, the lower classes, as always, remained extremely non-self-critical. After all, it was they who rushed off at Berestechko through the swamp and lost the battle. The Cossack army was very similar to the football team that blew through the final match, but was indignant that half of the players were kicked out of the main team for a bad game. The “players” refused to leave the “sport base” and demanded that they be released again on the field for the same remuneration as before. Another picture just did not fit in their brain.
The Putivl voevods Prozorovsky and Suitcases informed the Moscow Tsar 2 of December 1651 about the growth of opposition sentiments among the Cossacks against Khmelnitsky: “I arrived in Putivl Ivashko Mosolitin, and in questioning us, you serf, said: he was in Kiev and heard from the Cherkas who asked us, he was in Kiev and heard from the Cherkas. that Colonels de and Cherkasy on the hetman on Bogdan Khmelnitsky are indignant. And they say that he is a hetman, he made peace with the Poles not by deed, not on their advice. ”
At the same time the idea arose for the first time to assemble a rad in Pereyaslav. According to the governor from the same letter: “Both de colonels, centurions, and Cherkasy of all regiments of the council go to Pereyaslavl want, and they don’t want to think about themselves, and they don’t want peace with the Pole from the Ukrainian cities beyond the Dnieper to the royal cities do not go".
The Cossacks were particularly irritated by the fact that, according to the terms of the Belotserkovsky Treaty, not only the roster was reduced, but also the territory controlled by the Zaporizhia army. She limited herself to Cherkasy and Kanev elders. In fact, it was a tiny spot on the map of today's Ukraine. And they completely forget that the Belotserkovsky Treaty demanded a complete purification by the Cossacks of the Left Bank - they all had to move to the right side of the Dnieper. Poland planned to isolate the Cossacks sanitary cordon from Russia.
The historian Vladimir Golobutsky wrote in the now-forgotten book “The Diplomatic History of the Liberation War of the Ukrainian People 1648 - 1654”, which was published half a century ago: “The Cossacks of the Chernigov regiment led by Pobodaylo who had to move to Kiev region decisively abandoned it. Moreover, they began to prepare for an armed struggle with the Polish army, aimed at Chernihiv region. 28 January1652 B. Khmelnitsky addressed Pobodailo with a prescription in which he reprimanded him for disobedience, demanded to refrain from any clashes with the Poles and offered to immediately move out with all the Cossacks in the Kiev province ... everyone who dared to violate his order entered into a hetman , they will be severely punished: “And if the yak rebels strengthened the revolts, they will tell Tim about them, but without a throat they will be in the throat”.
Since Golobutsky’s book was published in 1962 year with a tiny edition of 3700 copies and hasn’t been reprinted since, I will allow myself another quote from it: “There were even attempts to elect another hetman to Khmelnitsky’s place, which was supposed to immediately resume the war with the Poles. 26 february1652 The town of Sevsk voevode T. Shcherbatov notified the king that those Cossacks who, after drawing up the register, "were discharged and still have been subject to the Poles, were still", revolted, and that "those ... Cossacks of the Cossacks from Mirgorodka, Colonel Matvey Smooth called himself instead of Khmelnitsky hetman "... February 201652, the monastery of the Disna monastery Aron showed in the Ambassadorial order that the rebels chose Didyul as a hetman and threatened to seize Chigirin FOR KHMELNITSKY WITHOUT AGREEMENT PEOPLE'S PLACE
The manifestations of discontent on the part of the masses were brutally suppressed by the hetman authorities. In April, 1652, referring to the testimony of the trade people B. Gureyev and others, the Putivl governors reported that "Bogdan Khmelnitsky, having found the guilty who do not listen to the decree and repair the enthusiasm from the Poles, ordered death by death." Among the executed were Mirgorodsky colonel M. Gladky, Prilutsky Semyon and four centurions. Supporters of the executed were not laid down, however weapons».
The rebels against Khmelnitsky had a new leader - a certain Vdovichenko, who also declared himself a hetman. Poltava Colonel Pushkar joined him. In other words, by this time the control over the Zaporozhye army began to slip away from the hands of Khmelnitsky. To return it, the hetman had to go to extreme measures and execute his possible rivals. In Ukraine, began what would later be called Ruins. The leaders divorced clearly more than the resources capable of satisfying their ambitions. As Putivl voivods were reported to the tsar: “Once again a troubled time settled down from Cherkas, the decedents of the zbirattsa on lyakh felt it, and they went to the election to the new hetman to Vdovichenka, but they want to go to Kamenets Podolsky”.
In other words, some did not want to leave Chernihiv region and move to the Right Bank, others in general gathered to march on Kamenetz. Khmelnitsky himself, back in January 1652, asked King Jan Casimir and Diet for permission to send the Cossacks discharged from the register to the Black Sea campaign - against the Tatars and Turks, in order, according to the Russian ambassadors in Poland, “to stop them from rebellion, for that there are many thousands of Kozakov behind the raister, but they still do not want to go past plowing, and it will be impossible to calm them down without much blood. ”
From all this it can be seen that Khmelnitsky simultaneously pursued several policy options in the hope that at least one of them would work out. He extinguished the anti-Polish speeches of his colonels, tried to fuse the hottest part of the "electorate" in the campaign against the Crimea and ... showed the king that he was ready to accept his citizenship.
However, it is impossible to endlessly sit on two chairs. By the summer of Khmelnitsky began to chop off the excess ends of his policy. Moreover, the Poles themselves helped him do this by their intractability. To the surprise of all, the Saeima refused to ratify even the Belotserkovsky Treaty. The Polish elite was in a deep internal crisis. Two parties fought there: the war party, led by King Jan Casimir, and the peace party, led by sub-Chancellor Radzeevsky, representing the interests of geographically distant from Ukraine Great Poland voivodships. Political disputes have moved into the stage of armed fights. Polish deputies seized each other on saber right at the meeting of the Sejm in the presence of Russian and Cossack ambassadors. It became clear to everyone that it was impossible to come to an agreement with Poland - she was insane. Now the anti-Polish speeches of the Cossacks did not make sense to put out. And the hetman led them again.
At the end of May 1652, Khmelnitsky, together with the Tatars, defeated the Polish army led by Kalinowski under the mountain of Batog in Bratslav region. Usually this battle is called Ukrainian victory. But in reality, Tatars were twice as large as the Cossacks. Only four regiments came with the hetman - 10 — 12 of thousands of infantrymen. The horde captured most of the prisoners. Getman bought them from the allies for 50 thousands of thalers, after which the Cossacks cut off their heads. This case proves the intensity of the Ukrainian-Polish confrontation. Neither of them wanted to take prisoners. A year earlier - the Poles at Berestechko. Now - the Cossacks under Batog. Bogdan seemed to burn bridges to Poland. He sent a signal to Moscow that he had no choice but to take the oath to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.
A week before the Battle of Batog, 17 of May 1652, Khmelnitsky wrote to the Putivl voivode Khilkov that he would patrol over the Cossacks before the king, “did his royal majesty not treat us with our gracious caress and throw away our helping hand to give us our enemy, and we serve ready to his royal majesty straight and virne. "
Back in March of the same year, the Khmelnitsky ambassador to the king, Colonel Iskra, stated that the Zaporozhian Army, “oprich of the royal majesty of mercy of the child, has nowhere”. And regarding friendship with the Crimean Khan, he added that she “went on reluctantly: how the Poles stepped on them, and at that time they didn’t dove them to the Cherkasy, and they de called to join the Crimean Khan with a horde.”
All documents preceding Pereyaslavskaya Rada show that the initiators of the so-called “reunification of Ukraine with Russia” were precisely the Cossacks, headed by Khmelnitsky. The tsarist government for a long time and with distrust looked at these "Cherkas", as Ukrainians were called in Moscow. Here they remembered that at the time of the Time of Troubles, the Cherkasy went with the Poles to take the Kremlin. Violent "multi-vector" Cossack policy inspired suspicion of the Muscovites. If they "serve" the king and the khan in this way, then how will they serve the king? Something was needed that would break the skepticism of Alexei Mikhailovich and the boyar Duma regarding this Cossack freemen.
The king waited for the moment when the hetman, after all his multiple passes, would have only one road - to Pereyaslavl. Something that reminds me a lot of the current era.
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