Academic literature on the topic 'Cossack-Polish War'

The purpose of this article is to study the peculiarities of depicting the events of the first year of the national liberation war under the leadership of B. Khmelnytsky in the Polish historical science at the end XIXth century - 1939, and in particular the battles near Zhovti Vody, Korsun, Pyliavtsi, the siege of the Cossack-Tatar troops of Lviv; investigate various historical myths, stereotypes and evaluation patterns used by Polish historians in depicting the events of Khmelnytsky region; analyze the influences of historiographical concepts, cultural trends and political ideologies on the image of the history of the Polish-Cossack war in 1648. Methodology of the research: the work was based on such principles as historicism and scientific objectivity. Both general scientific (systematization, typology, retrospection) and a number of special historical methods (critical analysis and synthesis of source material, historical-genetic, historical-comparative, etc.) were used. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that a systematic analysis of the depiction of the events of Khmelnytsky region in 1648 in the Polish historiography of the end XIXth century – 1939 was done in this article for the first time in domestic science and the influences of political ideas on the interpretation of historical material were analysed by scientists. Conclusions. The history of the first year of the national liberation war of Ukrainians under the leadership of B. Khmelnytsky attracted considerable attention of Polish researchers and was considered as one of the cornerstones of the history of the Commonwealth, and especially of the Polish-Ukrainian relations. Due to the severity of the events, they were overgrown with various historical myths and were often interpreted through the prism of political conditions and various ideological trends. Thus, the symbolic meaning was given to the battle of Yellow Waters, which historians saw as the last battle of the Polish people for possession of the Black Sea steppes. The influence of the concept of "Poland's stronghold of Christianity" and the ideas of inter-civilizational struggle on the events of the Polish-Cossack war is revealed.

During the civil war in Russia in 1918–1921, the liberation efforts of the Cossacks of Don, Kuban, and Terek were unsuccessful, and their lands were incorporated into the USSR. Their representatives emigrating from their homeland found themselves in difficult material conditions. While in exile, many of them cooperated with Polish and German authorities. Interwar Poland was interested in the use of the Cossacks in the fight against the USSR. The General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces showed particular interest in the Free Cossack movement, as Don, Kuban, and Terek areas were the main places where the Red Army cavalry was formed.The Cossacks who stayed in their homeland experienced tragic times. The introduction of Soviet power also brought with it the elimination of the Cossacks through hunger, repressions, and deportations. However, at the end of the 1930s, the Soviet authorities introduced a new course of policy towards the Cossacks, thereby recognizing the advantages of Cossack military formations in the Red Army. At the beginning of the German-Soviet War in August 1941, the Soviet authorities formed sixteen Cossack cavalry divisions, six of which were immediately sent to the front.During World War II tens of thousands of the Cossacks also fought in German formations on the territory of the USSR. They were used mainly for anti-partisan actions. Due to the support of the Germans, the so-called Cossack State consisting of tens of thousands of Cossacks was created for the refugees from Don. They fought against partisans in Belarus, Poland, Yugoslavia, and Italy. After the capitulation of the Third Reich, the Cossack State, as well as other Cossack formations, found itself on the territory of Austria, and the Cossacks were taken into British captivity. As a result of the British-Soviet agreement, they were turned over to the Soviet authorities, from whose hands death or at best deportation to the camps awaited them.In addition, Cossack military formations were formed in the Far East with the support of Japan, which used them to fight against the USSR.

The purpose of the studyis general analysis of the main practical ways and forms of Muscovy’s intervention into Cossack-Polish confrontations as well as the main tendencies in its policy towards anti-Polish Cossack uprisings in Ukraine from 1591 to 1638. The author, using methods of critical analysis of Moscow Kingdom’s policy and new approaches in his scholar work, explains it in the context of development of political events and war conflicts in Central-Eastern Europe during above-mentioned period. The new conceptual view on Kremlin’s role in the inspiration of hostility between the Ukrainian Cossacks and Poland is proposed. The author explains it by the large-scale conquering policy of Moscow Kingdom. «Collection of lands of Rus’ (former State of Kyiv)» was declared as first step on the way of realization of its aggressive foreign policy. Ukrainian lands including Kyiv were main lands on the way of Kremlin’s policy tending toward territorial expansion. The policy with aim to attract the sympathies of Ukrainian Cossacks to Moscow Kingdom was integral part of political actions aiming to worse internal situation in Poland during realization of wide-spreading plans of creation of great-powered Moscow Kingdom in context of implementation of concept «Moscow is Third Rome». Despite of some financial support of Muscovy for the participants of anti-Polish Cossack uprisings in 1591–1596, the Ukrainian Cossacks didn’t kept their loyalty in relation to the king of Muscovy; they clearly demonstrated their animosity to Moscow Kingdom by their participation in many campaigns on Moscow, which were organized commonly with the representatives of internal opposition of Moscow king and by the political support of king of Poland in 1604–1618. The intentions of Kremlin to take the Army of Zaporizhzhia on service to Moscow king in 1620–1621 years are explained by its preparations of war against Poland that was not realized because Turkey refused to be an ally of Muscovy in planned military campaign against Warsaw. Separate attention is devoted to the history of formation of policy of spiritual dependence of Ukraine from Moscow. The author concentrates his special attention on characterization of ways of spiritual influence of Moscow patriarchy on the believers of Orthodox Church in Ukraine that was one of many measures for preparation of subordination of the Kyiv metropolitan and this Church in the formal submission of Moscow. The author interprets this policy as one of facilities of purposeful campaign of Kremlin’s psychological war against Poland and one of many practical ways of future policy of consistent political, economic, ideological, psychological and spiritual «Moscovization» of Ukraine under the name «Small Rus’», later «Small Russia» (separate administrative-territorial unit (province) with the limited autonomy as integral part of Moscow Kingdom). A conclusion is done, that both Cossack and Warsaw elites underestimated risks and threats of Moscow Kingdom intervention in Ukrainian-Polish confrontations as the «third force» or actually as their new participant. This interference became the first step on a way to to realization of plan of incorporation of Ukraine to Moscow Kingdom and at the same time to destruction of state and national independence of Poland and just created then Cossack state in Ukraine. Keywords Moscow Kingdom, Poland, Ukraine, Ukrainian Cossacks

We review a monograph published in 2015 in Moscow by Igor Babulin. It deals with an episode of the Russo-Polish War of 1654–1667, held in Ukraine during the Ruin in the times of Hetman Yuri Khmelnitsky. The reviewed publication contains a number of controversial statements, which are analyzed in this review. Attention is drawn to the politicization of the author and his distorted assessment of past events. It's important to bring under question the author's position on the battle between Moscow State and the Cossack army, led by Yuri Khmelnitsky, in Kaniv in 1662 as the biggest victory in the Russo-Polish War of 1654–1667. We analyze the reasons of exaggerating the importance of the victory of Russian troops in Kaniv in 1662.

The article has archeographic nature and contains the text of two documents in Polish found in the Manuscripts Department of Vasyl Stefanyk Lviv National Scientific Library, the report of a certain apprentice of the nobleman Krzysztof Fasz about the siege of Gomel and the report prepared for the command of the crown army about Cossack diplomatic mission to the field hetman of Lithuania Janusz Radziwiłł in June 1651. The purpose of the article is to make the first edition and scientifically comment on the mentioned documents together with their translation into Ukrainian.The year 1651 promised to be a turning point for the young Cossack state, which was trying to establish itself on the map of Europe. At the end of the winter, the Zaporozhian Army, the Crimean Khanate, the Polish Crown, and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania began preparations for a new round of armed conflict. The war, as two years before, was to last on two fronts – the Cossack-Polish and the Cossack-Lithuanian.Cossack regiments led by Martyn Nebaba, Matvii Gladkyi and Prokop Shumeiko, as well as certain Tatar units were transferred to Liubech and Loyev. The Cossacks guarded the crossings across the Dnieper and Sozh, preparing for the possible arrival of Lithuanian troops or the beginning of the Cossack offensive to the north.In the spring, Sivershchyna, which was a border region, became the scene of small skirmishes between the Cossacks of the Chernihiv Regiment and some units of the Lithuanian army. These skirmishes quickly escalated into full-fledged hostilities. Finally, on May 26, the Cossacks began the siege of Gomel Castle.Although the course of the siege of Gomel has been well studied by M. Hrushevskyi, the published document (№ 1) contains valuable and unique evidence of the activities of the Cossack departures, the mood in the besieged castle and the mention of the massacre of the burghers made by the Lithuanian garrison, also movement of the main Lithuanian army to repel Gomel.The second document, a report from the Lithuanian camp about the Cossack embassy to J. Radziwiłł, is already known to researchers. For the first time, M. Hrushevskyi partially introduced it into scientific circulation, using several fragments of it translated into Ukrainian. However, the historian did not pay much attention to the interesting data given in this report, first of all those concerning the description of the reception of envoys, their life in the Lithuanian camp, etc. Also, the researcher failed to correctly read certain fragments, including the name of one of the Cossack envoys.

The author describes the main forms and manifestations of internal conflicts in the environment of noble families in the Ukrainian lands since their accession to Rzecz Pospolita as united Polish-Lithuanian state on the basis of the Union of Lublin in 1569 up to the War under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi. According to author’s statements, permanent struggle among them was able to happen due to the specific of this state that garanted to reach Polish nobles the large rights. Long-time colonization of ‘Wild steppe’ was accompanied occasional ‘raider attacks’ of landowners against their neighbors. Particular emphasis is given to different situation of dependent peasants, which during these ‘local civil wars’ often did become ‘blind arms’ of their masters. The influence of these confrontations on the processes of the growth of protesting attitude among the Ukrainian gentry and peasantry and their influence on the rising of Cossack and peasant uprisings in Ukraine during abovementioned period are analyzed. The article contribute certainly to better understanding of disagreements in interests between often ethnically different social strata in Ukraine. Widespread of this confrontation provoked some anarchy of powerless inside the country as well as hostile situations between Polish and Ukrainian nobles. Cossack uprisings were results not only social conflicts between Polish gentry and Ukrainian peasantry, Orthodox Ukrainians and Rome-Catholic Poles, but also inter-strata conflicts among anti-Polish nobles and ‘loyal to Crown’ gentry of Poland. Conflicts after colonization of ‘Wild field’, as well as the value of personal insults of offended persons in provoking these conflicts are characterized. The accent is made that the assaults, violence and crimes were happened long time before Cossack-Polish conflicts. According to author’s conclusions, all these confrontations between different ethnic and social groups were transferred in a form the long-lasted wars of Cossacks and peasants against their former owners beginning from 1648. Keywords Rzeczpospolita, Ukraine, nobles, ethnosocial conflicts

After the end of the war with Sweden over the Vistula Estuary in 1629, the quarter army moved to the Ukrainian lands at the beginning of 1630. At that time, the Poles were afraid of the invasion of the Kantemir’s Republic of Poland, but also of the Turks themselves, led by the Beillerbei from Ochakiv Murtazy Pasha. Poland was by no means prepared for such aggression. In Lviv, heavy negotiations of the military commission with soldiers considering the payment for the Prussian war. What is worse, a Cossack uprising broke out in Ukraine and Hetman Stanisław Koniecpolski moved with the greater part of the army to suppress the rebellion. In addition, there was a confederation in the Polish army, headed by Janusz Wiliński, lieutenant of the Hussar banner, voivode of Bracław, Mikołaj Potocki. Eventually, all disputes were resolved. On the other hand, the growing conflict with the Ottoman Empire could be smoothed out again through diplomatic channels. Aleksander Piaseczyński was sent to Istanbul and he was assured that the peace treaty of 1623 was still in force. On the occasion, five articles were written in which the Polish side. It was stated there to stop the Cossack attacks and pay gifts to the Khan, and the Turks to remove the Nogai Horde from Budziak and ensure the security of the Crown borders by the Khanate.

Before starting a career as a Polish priest and scholar, Walerian Kalinka took part in various initiatives aimed at restoring Poland’s independence. One of the most “exotic” of his enterprises was his participation in the formation of the so-called Sultan Cossacks detachments, military units consisting of the Slavic population. From the perspective of Polish emigrants, the time of the confrontation between Russia and Turkey (and Western powers) was ideal for the formation of the Polish army. Kalinka was as an adjutant to General Władysław Zamoyski and on his behalf led the recruitment into the army, and also transformed the already existing detachment of the violent Michał Czajkowski, known as Sadyk-Pasha, into a unit of the Polish character regarding discipline and ties with emigration circles. Despite the weakening of Russia’s position, the new balance of political forces after the Crimean War did not contribute to the revival of Poland as a sovereign state. Many Polish soldiers abroad went through an internal crisis. Kalinka managed the demobilization of Cossack volunteers and sought a place for them in emigration. Once again, the war did not lead to freedom. Remaining under the influence of religiosity of general Zamoyski, Kalinka began to pay more attention to the connection between the national question and Catholicism. Thus, Kalinka became close to the already existing Order of the Resurrection of the Our Lord, also called Resurrectionists. Afterwards, he joined this order and became a humble monk, who, however, never gave up geopolitical illusions and, through religious initiatives, tried to realize his political dreams.

The article discusses the political reasons for Khmelnytsky uprising in the opinions of the nobility of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The outbreak of the Cossack insurrection led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky at the beginning of 1648, which immediately involved broad strata of the Ukrainian society and quickly transformed into a national liberation war, caused terror among noblemen. An additional factor influencing the mood of the nobility was the growing awareness of Khmelnytsky’s political ambitions, whose realization posed a deadly threat to the current political system of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This article is largely devoted to discussing the views of the nobility on the subject of political motives encouraging the Cossacks to armed resistance against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which fundamentally influenced its assessment of the nature of the uprising. Detailed analysis of correspondence, seimiks’ resolutions (lauda) and instructions as well as certain fictional and journalistic sources is provided. The article emphasizes that there was a conviction among the nobility of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of the political motives of the Cossack uprising. This conviction was mainly based on the news about Khmelnytsky’s aspirations to separate Ukraine and to build an independent state entity referred to as the Russian Principality. Understanding by the gentry of the emancipatory aspirations of the insurgents had a huge impact on the nature of the Commonwealth policy the towards events in Ukraine in the second half of the seventeenth century.

Summary. The purpose of the research is to study the depiction of the events of the Cossack-Polish war of 1652–1653 in the works of the Polish historians of the late 19th century till 1939, and in particular, the battles of Batoh, Zhvanets and Zhvanets Peace Treaty; to find out the peculiarities of scientific approaches and interpretations by researchers of historical events and the influences on them of the intellectual discourse of the epoch in which scientists lived and worked; to identify the specifics of scientists’ interpretations of the facts of the past through the prism of their political sympathies and belonging to various historical schools and trends; to analyze the diversity of scientists’ approaches to the causes and consequences of battles and attempts to establish understanding between the parties to the conflict; to consider general historians’ assessments of the significance of the events of 1652–1653 in the fate of the Polish and Ukrainian peoples. The methodology of the research is based on the general scientific principles of objectivity, historicism, objectivism, scientific pluralism, systematics and reliance on historical sources. Both general scientific (analysis, synthesis, induction and deduction, comparison) and special-historical methods were used in the work: historical-genetic, historical-comparative, problem-chronological, historical-systematic ones etc. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that it was the first to study the image of the events of the Polish-Cossack wars of 1652–1653 in Polish historiography of the late 19th century till 1939 on the basis of a significant set of historiographical sources. The peculiarities of ideological influences of political concepts and historical schools on the assessments of Polish scientists of the battles near Batoh and Zhvanets, Zhvanets Peace Treaty were studied in the research as well. Conclusions. Polish historians of the late 19th century – 1939 saw the cause of the new Polish-Cossack war of 1652 in the unresolved conflict during the Brest campaign, when the military victory of the crown armies was lost due to aristocratic anarchy and the flexibility of Polish commanders during negotiations at Bila Tserkva. Researchers believed that the difficult situation of B. Khmelnytsky after the defeat in 1651 pushed him to start a new round of war. Scholars exposed the Battle of Batoh itself as one of the greatest national tragedies of the Polish people and described these events in mythologized images. Special emphasis was placed on the depiction of the execution of captured Polish soldiers by Cossacks and Tatars, which emphasized the barbaric nature of the Cossacks. Scholars saw the very defeat of the crown troops as evidence of the problems of the society of the Commonwealth, which was ruled by aristocratic anarchy. For Polish scholars, the battle of Batoh became a symbol of the transition of the Polish-Ukrainian confrontation to a new stage, characterized by a special intransigence of the parties, and was a cornerstone in the destruction of the ancient brotherhood of both peoples. In the bloody finale of the campaign of 1652, scholars saw the reason for the conclusion of the Ukrainian-Moscow Agreement of 1654, because after the Battle of Batoh a peaceful settlement of relations between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Cossacks was no longer possible. The campaign of Zhvanets of 1653 was studied by many Polish historians in the context of the Moldavian campaigns of the crown and Cossack troops and it was considered to have been their finale. In assessing the significance of the Battle of Zhvanets, Polish researchers tended to define it as a hopeless forced confrontation between the hostile parties, who were aware of their futile chances for a final victory in this armed confrontation. Thus, scholars saw the campaign of Zhvanets as a failure for both sides of the conflict, which only exacerbated the depletion of their human and material resources. Similarly, scholars viewed Zhvanets Peace Treaty as a mere temporary agreement that was to suspend the military campaign of 1653 and had no prospect of continuing it to truly resolve the differences between the Ukrainian and Polish peoples. According to scholars, the treaty was forced by agreements with the Tatars for King John Casimir, while for B. Khmelnytsky it was fictitious because of his already reached agreement with Moscow. Historians have paid attention to the gradual strengthening of the role of the Crimean Khan as an arbiter in relations between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ukrainian Cossacks during 1652–1653, as well as the growth of his role in the geopolitical structure of Central and Eastern Europe.

This chapter details how the Polish nobility and the Jews fled from the Khmelnytsky uprising, which took many forms, depending on the circumstances. The uprising began in early 1648 with the fomenting of unrest in the Cossack heartland of Zaporizhia, particularly the region of the lower Dniepr River. The trouble soon spread to more northerly regions of left-bank Ukraine, causing panic among the Polish nobles settled there, who began to flee, calling for a military invasion to put an end to the unrest. This was not a very urbanized region, so formal Jewish communities were few and far between. Most of the Jews there lived as one- or two-family units in villages where they leased and ran taverns. As the violence began to take its toll, many of them decided to flee too, making for the larger and well-fortified towns to the west of the Dniepr River. The chapter then recounts the “ethnic cleansing” and religious violence the Jews faced.

‘Central Europe’ is a concept that varies in time and space. Ukraine is the second-largest country on the European continent, and is geographically located south-west of the Eastern European plain. The peculiarity of historical development and geographical location leads to the portrayal of Ukraine as a civilizational frontier area between the countries of the West and East. The nineteenth century was the period of birth of national histories, equally among non-historical (stateless) and historical (state) nations, while at the same time, at any historical moment, one can find the predecessor of the modern nation. The coherence of the Ukrainian narrative is ensured by proto-state and state forms: Kyivan Rus, the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Cossack era, Ukrainian statehood in 1917–1921, Soviet era, Carpatho-Ukraine’s autonomous existence in 1938–1939, and independent Ukraine since 1991. The Kyivan Rus was oriented towards Byzantium, and the Principality towards Western Europe. The Hetmanate’s political structure recognised as a historical Cossack statehood. In the mid-17th century, the Cossack uprising led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky brought to the fore the dilemma of pro-Moscow or pro-Polish (in fact, pro-European) orientation. Since the late 18th century, Ukrainian territories have become the periphery of the empires, and ties with Europe have weakened. Europe almost forgot about Ukraine’s existence. The central powers of the First World War attempted to tear Ukraine away from Russia and push it politically and civilizationally towards the West, albeit without any international interest in the question of Ukrainian statehood aspirations. Later, the Soviet Union created Ukrainian borders, but deprived the Ukrainians of any political activity. Pro-European Union tendencies were always present in independent Ukraine, but only took definite shape following the Revolution of Dignity in 2014. In 2014 Ukraine and the European Union signed the Association Agreement, came into effect in 2017. Russia’s disastrous full-scale invasion against Ukraine accelerated Ukraine–EU rapprochement, and as a result Ukraine was granted EU candidate status in 2022. Europeanisation is not only a process of identity construction, but also a value-based supranational ‘ways of doing things’. In this context, Ukraine’s place in the buffer zone between Eastern and Western Europe has changed over the centuries. The study analyses the development of opinions on this topic, based on the works of some selected Ukrainian and Ukrainian-descent thinkers from the 19th century to the present day.

This chapter discusses the Khmelnytsky uprising of 1648. The Khmelnytsky uprising was not a single experience for the Jews. This was mostly because there were at least five military forces at work, each of which had a different attitude toward them. For the Cossack armies under Bogdan Khmelnytsky's leadership, the Jews, though a problem, were by no means always high on their list of priorities. The Cossacks' basic grievances were aimed at the Polish authorities—particularly the nobility in the Sejm—and concerned issues of money and status. The second force with which Ukrainian Jewry had to deal was the mass of Ukrainian peasants who joined the uprising once it began to prove successful. The other forces include the Polish nobility, the townspeople, and the Tatar army. In all the chaos of the uprising, the Jews of Ukraine seem to have understood that the different groups they faced threatened their lives in two major ways: through violent attack and through capture.

Łukasz Miaskowski, a Podolia District Judge and Marshal of the Podolia Hood Court during the interregnum after the death of Władysław IV, was in the summer of 1648 in Kamianets-Podilskyi. Due to his extensive contacts with the elite of the Principality of Moldavia, he obtained, aggregated and passed on to the elites of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth information about events that took place in the Danubian principalities, the movements of the Tatar troops or the internal situation in the Ottoman Empire. In the summer of 1648, in the first period of Khmelnytsky’s Uprising, he also reported on the progress in the offensive of the Cossack troops, the mood among the rural population of Podolia and the Ukrainian lands, and the internal situation of Kamianets-Podilskyi. The analysis of the sources included in the article shows the technical condition of the fortress, the number of its crew and factors impacting the morale of its defenders, such as: fear of attack by the Cossacks and Tatars and fear of betrayal by the Ruthenians staying in the city. The addressees of Miaskowski’s correspondence include Grand Chancellor of the Crown Jerzy Ossoliński, Grand Standard-Bearer of the Crown Aleksander Koniecpolski, Crown Field Clerk Adam Hieronim Sieniawski or Lviv Chamberlain, and privately the sender’s brother, Wojciech Miaskowski.