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Founding
Founding of Cossack Hetmanate
1649–1764 Cossack state in Ukraine
- 30 January 1648
- Chyhyryn
- Europe
Founding
1649–1764 Cossack state in Ukraine
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
The Cossack Hetmanate (Ukrainian: Гетьма́нщина; see other names), officially the Zaporozhian Host, was a stratocratic state established by Registered Cossacks in Dnieper Ukraine. Its territory was located mostly in the region of Central Ukraine, as well as in parts of Belarus and southwestern Russia, and at different points it also incorporated the territories of Zaporozhian Sich to the south. The Hetmanate existed between 1648 and 1764, although its administrative-judicial system persisted until 1781.
The Hetmanate was legally recognized in the eastern territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth by the Treaty of Zboriv, signed on August 18, 1649 by Bohdan Khmelnytsky (Hetman of the Zaporizhian Host) and Adam Kysil (representing Crown Forces), as a result of the Khmelnytsky Uprising. Establishment of vassal relations with the Tsardom of Moscow in the Treaty of Pereiaslav of 1654 is considered a benchmark of the Cossack Hetmanate in Soviet, Ukrainian, and Russian historiography. The second Pereiaslav Council in 1659 restricted the independence of the Hetmanate, and from the Russian side there were attempts to declare agreements reached with Yurii Khmelnytsky in 1659 as nothing more than the "former Bohdan's agreements" of 1654. The 1667 Treaty of Andrusovo, conducted without any representation from the Cossack Hetmanate, established the borders between the Polish and Russian states, dividing the Hetmanate in half along the Dnieper and putting the Zaporozhian Sich under a formal joint Russian-Polish administration.
After a failed attempt to break the union with Russia by Ivan Mazepa in 1708, the whole area was included into the Kiev Governorate, and Cossack autonomy was severely restricted. Catherine II of Russia officially abolished the position of Hetman in 1764, and from 1764 to 1781, the Cossack Hetmanate was incorporated as the Little Russia Governorate headed by Pyotr Rumyantsev, with the last remnants of the Hetmanate's administrative system abolished in 1781. Despite the state's eventual disbandment, it produced a lasting historical legacy, with descendants of the Hetmanate's ruling class pioneering the Ukrainian national revival during the 19th century.
The official name of the Cossack Hetmanate was the Zaporizhian Host / Army of Zaporozhia (Ukrainian: Військо Запорозьке). The historiographic term Hetmanate (Ukrainian: Гетьманщина, romanized: Hetmanshchyna) was coined in the late 19th century, deriving from the word hetman, the title of the general of the Zaporizhian Army. Despite not being centered in Zaporizhia, the host's name (lit. 'beyond the rapids') was derived from Cossacks centered on the Zaporizhian Sich, as well as a general name for Ukrainian Cossacks as a political and military organization.
The name "Ukraine", initially referring to the Polish palatinates of Kyiv, Bratslav and Chernihiv, was widely used in reference to the lands of the Hetmanate, although its meaning was rather poetic than formal, and denoted the generic homeland of the Cossacks. The Constitution of Pylyp Orlyk (1710) refers to the Hetmanate as "Little Russia" ("кордони Малої Росії, Вітчизни нашої", lit. 'borders of Little Russia, our Fatherland') and "Ukraine" (Ukrainian: Україна, Latin: Ucraina); the latter name is found in various Polish, Russian, Ottoman and Arab sources. Following the Khmelnytsky Uprising in 1648, the name "Little Russia" gained ground and was used in relations with Moscow, while internally, the territory was called Ukraine and its inhabitants as the "Ruthenian nation". In Russian diplomatic correspondence, it was called Little Russia (Russian: Малороссия, romanized: Malorossiya) and the Little Russia Office was created as a government department. The Cossack Hetmanate was called the "Country of Ukraine" (Turkish: اوكراینا مملكتی, romanized: Ukrayna memleketi) by the Ottoman Empire. In the text of Treaty of Buchach, it is mentioned as the Ukrainian State (Polish: Państwo Ukraińskie). The map of Ukraine made by Johann Homann, refers to it as 'Ukraine, or the Land of Cossacks" (Latin: Ukrania quae et Terra Cosaccorum). The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin also talks about "Ukraine" rather than "Cossack Hetmanate" in his poem Poltava describing events around the 1709 Battle of Poltava.
The founder of the Hetmanate, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, declared himself the ruler of the Ruthenian state to the Polish representative Adam Kysil in February 1649. His contemporary Metropolitan Sylvestr Kosiv recognized him as "the leader and the commander of our land". In his letter to Constantin Șerban (1657), he referred to himself as Clementiae divinae Generalis Dux Exercituum Zaporoviensium.
Grand Principality of Ruthenia was the proposed name of the Cossack Hetmanate as part of the Polish–Lithuanian–Ruthenian Commonwealth.
The Hetmanate emerged as a result of a major Cossack uprising in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which broke out in 1648 in Ukrainian lands under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. The causes of the uprising included corruption within the royal administrations of the Commonwealth, social disenfranchisement, intensification of the activities of the Orthodox Church, and the growth of the Cossack population despite government-imposed limitations. As a result of continuous wars with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Cossack Hetmanate effectively became independent but lacked international legal recognition.
After many successful military campaigns against the Poles, Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky made a triumphant entry into Kyiv on Christmas 1648, where he was hailed as a liberator of the people from Polish captivity. In February 1649, during negotiations in Pereiaslav with a Polish delegation, Khmelnytsky made it clear to the Poles that he wanted to be the Hetman of a Ruthenia stretching to Chelm and Halych, and built with the Tatars' help. He warned them that he intended to resume his military campaign.
When the delegation returned and informed John II Casimir of Khmelnytsky's new campaign, the king called for an all szlachta volunteer army, and sent regular troops against the cossacks in southern Volhynia. However, after obtaining intelligence of superior cossack forces, the Polish troops retreated to Zbarazh to set up a defense. The forces of Jeremi Wiśniowiecki reinforced the Zbarazh defenders while he took the lead of all Polish forces. Khmelnytsky besieged the city, wearing it down through a series of random attacks and bombardments. The king, while rushing to help Wiśniowiecki, was ambushed with his newly gathered forces. Khmelnytsky, leaving part of his army with Ivan Cherniata near Zbarazh, moved together with İslâm III Giray to intercept the Polish reinforcements and block their way at a river crossing near Zboriv. Caught by some degree of surprise, John Casimir started negotiations with the Tatar khan. With the khan at his side, he forced Khmelnytsky to start peace negotiations.
Khmelnytsky signed the Treaty of Zboriv in August 1649, with a result somewhat less than the Cossack leader had anticipated from his campaign. According to the concluded agreement, the number of Registered Cossacks had to be increased to 40,000 and the Crown Forces were not allowed to enter the territory east of towns Hornostaipil, Korostyshiv, Pavoloch, Pohrebyshche, Vinnytsia, Bratslav, Yampil up to Muscovy border which generally related to the Kyiv Voivodeship (Palatinatus Kioviensis), Bratslav Voivodeship (Palatinatus Braclavensis), and Chernihiv Voivodeship (Ducatus Chernichov and Ducatus Novogrodeck) .
As ruler of the Hetmanate, Khmelnytsky engaged in state-building across multiple spheres: military, administration, finance, economics, and culture. He invested the Zaporozhian Host under the leadership of its hetman with supreme power in the new Ruthenian state, and unified all the spheres of Ukrainian society under his authority. This involved building a government system and a developed military and civilian administration out of Cossack officers and Ruthenian nobles, as well as the establishment of an elite within the Cossack Hetman state.
The Hetmanate used Polish currency, and Polish was frequently used as the language of administration and even of command. However, after the Truce of Andrusovo in 1667, the "simple language" (Ukrainian: проста мова), or the commonly spoken vernacular language of Ukraine, began to be written down and widely used in official documents of the Cossack Hetmanate.
The unreliability of the alliance with the Crimean Khanate compelled Khmelnytsky to seek foreign assistance in the struggle against Warsaw. Among the candidates willing to accept the Cossacks under their protection, the hetman considered Ottoman Sultan Mehmed and Muscovite Tsar Alexis. After prolonged negotiations, the Cossack side chose the latter.
After the Crimean Tatars betrayed the Cossacks for the third time in 1653, Khmelnytsky realized he could no longer rely on Ottoman support against Poland, and he was forced to turn to Tsardom of Russia for help. Final attempts to negotiate took place in January 1654 in the town of Pereiaslav between Khmelnytsky with Cossack leaders and the Tsar's ambassador, Vasiliy Buturlin. At the Pereiaslav Council, Khmelnytsky and the Cossack elite swore allegiance to the tsar in exchange for recognition of the Hetmanate’s self-government and the declaration of war against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Additional conditions of the Muscovite–Cossack alliance were set out in the March Articles, which were signed by the hetman later that same year. The treaty was concluded in April in Moscow by the Cossacks Samiilo Bohdanovych-Zarudny and Pavlo Teteria, and by Aleksey Trubetskoy, Vasilii Buturlin, and other boyars. As a result of the treaty, the Zaporozhian Host became an autonomous Hetmanate within the Russian state. The treaty also led to the Russo-Polish War of 1654–1667.
In the spring of 1654, a joint Cossack–Muscovite army invaded the territory of Lithuania. The Cossacks independently captured the lands of White Ruthenia and, together with the Muscovites, seized the capital Vilnius. In response, the army of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, along with Crimean Tatars, launched a campaign against the Ukrainian Bratslav region. Khmelnytsky halted the enemy in 1655 at the Battle of Okhmativ. The military weakening of the Commonwealth was exploited by the Swedish Empire. In 1655, Swedish King Charles X launched a war against the Commonwealth in the Baltic region.
The following year, fearing the strengthening of Sweden in the region, the Muscovite Tsardom declared war on Sweden and concluded a separate Vilnius Peace with the Commonwealth. The Muscovites excluded the Cossacks from negotiations with the Poles and opposed the annexation of southern Belarus to the Hetmanate. Due to violations of the Pereiaslav agreements, Khmelnytsky concluded an alliance with the Swedish Empire and the Principality of Transylvania — enemies of Muscovy — and continued the struggle against the Commonwealth. This amounted to a de facto break with Muscovite protectorate. He also renewed diplomatic contacts with Crimea, perceiving a threat to Cossack sovereignty from the southeast.
The period of Hetmanate history known as "the Ruin", lasting from 1657 to 1687, was marked by constant civil wars throughout the state.
After Bohdan Khmelnytsky died in 1657, his sixteen-year-old son Yurii Khmelnytsky was elected as successor. Bohdan's son was not only too young and inexperienced, but also clearly lacked the charisma and leadership qualities of his father. In response, Ivan Vyhovsky, the general scribe (Ukrainian: писар, romanized: pysar) of the Hetmanate and an adviser to Bohdan Khmelnytsky, was elected hetman in 1657 by the Starshyna council. His election caused widespread discontent among other regiments and the Zaporizhian Host, who sent runners to Moscow with complaints. As a result, new elections were called that same year at which Vyhovsky was reelected at the General Military Council. This election was also confirmed by Russian authorities who were informed according to the Pereiaslav treaty. Moscow continued to accept runners from the regions of Cossack Hetmanate completely disregarding the authority of hetman and spreading rumors that in truth Russia did not support the candidacy of Vyhovsky.
Vyhovsky's election was opposed by the Zaporozhian Cossacks, who had not been invited to the council, and by Poltava colonel Martyn Pushkar, who led opposition forces that rejected the restoration of the noble-dominated social order. Together with the Zaporozhian ataman Yakiv Barabash, Pushkar raised a rebellion in Left-Bank Ukraine and appealed for support to the only possible ally — Muscovite Tsardom. Initially, the tsar attempted to reconcile the sides, later sending troops intended to support either the hetman, if he dismissed the Tatars, or the rebels if he failed to do so. Vyhovsky, seeing the situation turning out of his control, went on to extinguish the revolt. In the spring of 1658 Vyhovsky crossed Dnieper and confronted mutineers near Poltava with the help of Tatars. During the battle Pushkar was killed and replaced with a new colonel, while the leaders of the uprising were strictly repressed.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Cossack Hetmanate”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.