What did Khmelnytsky actually do to the Poles?

We have talked a lot with you about controversial issues in Ukrainian-Polish relations. An important figure who causes heated debates between Poles and Ukrainians is, of course, Bohdan Khmelnytsky. For us, he is a great hetman who founded and created the Ukrainian Cossack state, the Hetmanate.

Some, of course, have questions about Khmelnytsky's alliance with Muscovy. Among Poles, Khmelnytsky is usually associated with a short-sighted Cossack leader who raised an uprising against the central government and elite of the then Ukrainian Rus' to avenge his wrongs. And as a result of his policy, half of Ukraine fell under Moscow's rule.

Today I want to explore all the circumstances of Khmelnytsky's struggle and the attitude towards those events in Poland and Ukraine. This is important because, in my opinion, this story can to some extent explain the current state of relations between our countries.

My name is Akim Galimov, and this is a true story. Let me briefly remind you of those times. which will be discussed further. From the second half of the 15th century until the middle of the 16th century, Ukrainians and Poles lived in one state, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

This state was formed as a result of the decisions of the joint Diet in Lublin in 1569, when the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Ruthenia united with the Kingdom of Poland. Thus, almost all Ukrainian lands end up within the borders of the crown or, as they say simply, Poland.

At least several generations of Ukrainians considered the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth their homeland. And so, in January 1648, a small Orthodox nobleman, Chygrin centurion Bohdan Khmelnytsky, went to Zaporizhia.

Khmelnytsky's situation at that time was terrible. He had a personal conflict with the Chygryn sub-staro, Danil Chaplinsky, who inflicted personal insults on him, and then also accused him of treason, for which he could even face death. But I only have three months, and this exile will lead tens of thousands of Cossacks and peasants to fight for a fairer situation in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for themselves and for people from the outback in general.

And in a few years, it will demand complete independence from Warsaw. Why was this possible? We will talk about this with Ukrainian and Polish historians. Friends, Volodymyr Pylypenko, a historian from Chernihiv, is our good friend.

We have already made many different films and materials with you. Thank you for joining today. If we are talking about Khmelnytsky, there are different opinions about why this uprising actually started. And I've come across such, uh, such versions.

In particular, Mr. Brekhonenko, a historian, wrote about this, that even if Bohdan Khmelnytsky had not had these personal reasons due to raids on his farms and so on, that one way or another, this Cossack uprising would have started. So what do you think about this? Well, I guess I'll agree with Professor Brykhunenko, because the situation was such that her patience had run out.

Sooner or later he would have broken in. And turning to the classics, a revolutionary situation was developing. The Orthodox Church was oppressed, the peasants were exploited.

Well, even the Ukrainian nobility, being nobility, was limited in its political rights. The burghers were oppressed by the burghers, the Magdeburg law was oppressed. Thus, I am no longer talking about Orthodox priests, because this is, well, also an important component of our society.

One way or another, all classes of Ukrainian society at that time were dissatisfied with the situation. And if all the states are dissatisfied, then, well, all it takes is a spark.

Instead, Polish historians usually say that the picture of the situation of the Ruthenian population of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth before 1648 was much more complicated. Peasants were indeed subjected to increasing obligations, but their status varied significantly depending on the region and type of property and was often better than in the native Polish lands.

In many cities of Russia and Ukraine, there were Russian or Armenian communities with their own officials and courts. The Orthodox clergy, although they felt pressure after the union, retained their own institutions: brotherhoods, schools, printing houses, and were not without rights.

So, as Polish historians say, the reality of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is a mosaic of social and legal orders, not a simple opposition between the ruling Poles and the oppressed Ukrainians. And the most important thing is that the nobility in the Ukrainian lands, that is, those lords, were most often also local, Orthodox or Ukrainian Catholics.

Such was, for example, Adam Kysil, the voivode of Kyiv and an Orthodox senator of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, or one of the greatest magnates of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Prince Yarema Vyshnevetsky, a relative of the Orthodox Metropolitan of Kyiv, Petro Moga. Friends, let me introduce you to Pt.

Krol, historian, University of Warsaw, professor. Professor, thank you for agreeing to talk about Bohdan Khmelnytsky. A figure in the history of Ukraine and Poland, he is significant to a certain extent.

If we start from the very beginning, in your opinion, it was still an uprising, the reasons for Bohdan Khmelnytsky's uprising in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, what were the main, in your opinion, things that prompted him to this uprising? First of all, thank you very much for the invitation. I am very pleased to meet and talk about our common hero, who grew up in the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth and carried the heritage of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth within himself.

As for the reasons, there were indeed many. The issue of protecting the Orthodox faith, the issue of legalizing the Orthodox hierarchy, which, let me remind you, was illegally restored in and until 1632 was considered illegal by the authorities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. And the authorities sought to eliminate this hierarchy.

It is known that the main church associated with Orthodoxy was to be the Union Church. The Uniate or Greek Catholic Church was formed in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth just half a century before the events we are talking about, in 1596. Let me remind you, friends, that Greek Catholics perform the same rituals as Orthodox Christians.

Only they recognize the Pope as the head of the entire church. After the Union of Brest in 1596, which was recognized by the majority of bishops, but not by all believers, the situation of the Orthodox Church in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth became, to put it mildly, more difficult. For a long time, two jurisdictions coexisted in the state: the Union and the Orthodox.

And the struggle between them was not only religious, but also legal. However, in 1620, Patriarch Theophanes of Jerusalem ordained the Orthodox Metropolitan of Kyiv and the bishops of the Kyiv Metropolis, which, from the point of view of state law of those times, was an act without the king's sanction. Actually, this is exactly what can be called the restoration of Orthodoxy, which was considered illegal in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at that time.

But most Cossacks were Orthodox, like Bohdan Khmelnytsky. Do you understand where the moment of tension is? The church played a huge role then. I can assume that the authorities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth felt that they had tightened the screws too much.

And Theophanes' ordination of Orthodox bishops began the process of legalizing Orthodoxy, which ended in 1632, when the Sejm, with the assistance of Vladislav IV, approved the rights of the Kyiv Metropolis. It is worth saying that this decision was not a formality.

It opened the way for the activities of brotherhoods, monasteries, schools, and printing houses, in particular the founding of the Kyiv-Mohyla College. But on the ground, individual magnates and city officials resisted the implementation of the law and still oppressed the Orthodox.

Polish historians usually say that after the legalization of Orthodoxy, it gradually regained its place in the public life of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. and the confessional conflict has acquired a more balanced legal character.

Instead, Ukrainian historians usually emphasize that the fact that the Orthodox Church was legalized in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1632 did not mean that discrimination against it had ceased. The state still supported the Catholic and Union churches, while the Orthodox remained in the status of a smaller, unloved sister, whom they tried to pressure from all sides.

For example, Orthodox believers were encouraged to convert to other denominations. Therefore, in the middle of the 10th century, the defense of the Orthodox Church, even though it was legalized, was perceived as a completely valid reason for rebellion. And Khmelnytsky understood and used this perfectly.

A common issue that is evident in every uprising is the issue of the Cossack registry. How many registered Cossacks should there be, and also that the authorities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, as well as the nobility and magnates who had estates on the territory of Ukraine, respect the rights belonging to registered Cossacks. Friends, let me briefly remind you that registered Cossacks were knights, the military elite.

They participated in the wars of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, received a salary from the monarch, and were exempt from all state fees, taxes, and duties. This is what was called exercising freedoms.

Did the Cossacks in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth generally perceive them as their own? or yet, well, based on this kind of public perception, well, it was clear that it was like, well, not like how the Cossacks were treated. This question is complex, because it needs to be looked at from several perspectives.

During wartime, when there was a great threat, the Cossacks were treated as part of the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth, a very important part. And every time a war began, there was no problem with building a Cossack army.

Suddenly they became a very important element. But in peacetime, a problem arose because a Cossack who served in the royal army considered himself registered. He didn't care that his service was over, that the unit was disbanded.

He considered himself a registered Cossack, meaning he had the same rights, regardless of his place of residence. But a large number of such individuals who considered themselves registered, from 20 to 40,000, lived in Ukraine on private estates.

And this created a problem for the nobility, because on the one hand, these were people who did not want to work for the lord, and on the other, they could lead the peasant resistance at any moment. If the lord treated them too harshly, the nobility saw the Cossacks as disturbers of public peace.

During the war, she turned a blind eye to them, but after the war, she considered it a serious problem. Why couldn't they simply be equated with the nobility? The nobility believed that the Cossacks were unworthy of being equated with the nobility.

that they were not raised in a noble environment, did not have the same views, and were not raised in the same political culture, that they would not become an element that could easily be incorporated into the noble class without posing a threat to the public order of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and to the power of the nobility itself. Therefore, this concept was rejected.

The number of registered Cossacks was strictly regulated by the authorities, but the problem was that there were not enough registered Cossacks for military campaigns. And then the register was expanded at the expense of grassroots Cossacks who lived in the Sich, or peasants who wanted to become Cossacks.

After the end of hostilities, all these additional people were struck off the register and they lost their freedoms. These were thousands of Cossacks.

There was even a term for them: vypischyki, meaning those removed from the register. The Cossacks constantly sought to expand the register. None of those who served the king with weapons in their hands wanted to later become a scoundrel and lose all the freedoms they had earned with their blood.

And, you must admit, this really looks extremely unfair. Therefore, the Cossacks raised uprising after uprising, which the authorities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth regularly suppressed. And each time the situation of the Cossacks worsened.

But the so-called Ordinance of the Zaporozhian Army, that is, the constitution, or, in modern terms, the law adopted by the Sejm in 1638, finally tightened the screws. After that, all Cossacks, both registered and discharged, found themselves in an oppressed position.

This constitution was supposed to settle the Cossack question in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth once and for all, in the sense of ending a series of uprisings and riots caused by the Cossacks that broke out in Ukraine. What did the Constitution adopted by the Sejm in 1638 provide for? The number of registered troops was set at 6,000 Cossacks.

Outside the registered army, there was no population that could call itself Cossacks. Those who did not make it to the register according to the wording of the Constitution were turned into slaves. That is, they became either peasants if they lived in a village and had a farm, or burghers if they lived in a city.

They were subject to the authority of either the elders or the landowners and had no rights. It was a blow. After all, they used to be outcasts, and now they have been completely deprived of their rights.

This was one of the first clear decisions. The second was that Cossack self-government was abolished in order to subordinate control over the registered army. This meant that the Cossacks could no longer elect a hetman.

He was appointed by the king, but only from among the nobility. Similarly, the king appointed colonels, General Osal, judges, and virtually all administrators from among the nobility. Cossacks could only elect centurions.

What did this lead to? Moreover, the persons in whose hands the judicial power was concentrated were not connected with the registered army, but were connected with the nobility. This led to the fact that any abuses against the Cossacks, which they tried to appeal, were decided by these same colonels not in favor of the Cossacks.

These include attacks, looting of Cossack property, and coercion to perform various kinds of duties that the Cossacks were not obligated to perform and from which they were officially exempted. This is both murder and illegal imprisonment.

And there was no one to complain, because the commissioner and the colonels sided with the nobility. And more and more such complaints are starting to come in.

The best example is Bohdan Khmelnytskyi. The personal story of Bohdan Khmelnytsky is widely known. Chygryn sub-starosta Daniel Chaplynsky attacked his farm Subytiv, stole the utensils, and his men plundered the estate. According to later sources, Khmelnytsky's youngest son was also killed at the same time.

And no one, not even the Polish King Władysław IV, was able to quickly restore justice within the then existing estate and legal order. Imagine, friends, that the king in the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth had limited real leverage to intervene in private property matters.

Many things were decided by the Sejm and local courts. The king had very good relations with the Cossacks, in particular with Bohdan Khmelnytsky, but did not always have the tools to promptly protect his knights. Part of the nobility, to put it mildly, did not like the Cossacks, so the courts, which were also composed mainly of representatives of the nobility, often defended their own.

As in the case of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the decisions were on Chaplynsky's side. Khmelnytsky appealed to the crown hetman Mykola Pototsky, but he did not support him either. And soon Khmelnytsky was arrested as a suspect in the riot.

However, his friends helped him escape from prison. Now he had only one way to the Sich. A territory that actually lived according to its own Cossack rules and where the real effect of state laws was limited. To get from Chygeryn district to Sich Khmelnytskyi, you had to cover, for a second, friends, 400 km.

And he was unlucky that in those days, there really wasn't anywhere to eat properly along the way. For example, when I'm hungry, I can't work at all and my mind is constantly thinking about eating, eating, eating, eating. It's good that, unlike Khmelnytskyi, we always have the option to stop by for a look.

I order pizza almost every time I see one. The only problem is choosing one salami or cheese with pear. The salami is so spicy, and the cheesecake with pear has four types of cheese at once.

They are both tastier. I'll probably order two at once and definitely coffee. Friends, what a treat! But, of course, you didn't think I would eat all two of these pizzas by myself. We always come here as a team and eat here as a team.

So, Slava, come on, treat yourself. So, did everyone eat? Well, let's go then. So, January 1648. Bohdan Khmelnytsky, together with a detachment of 5,000 registered Cossacks loyal to him, arrives in Sich. This was a territory inhabited not by registered, but by grassroots Cossacks.

They lived by their own rules and chose their own military leaders. The peasant runs away to the Cossacks, the Cossacks take him in, and that's it. He becomes a Zaporozhian Cossack and you are no longer anything to anyone, you will never return.

They simply won't find you. What nobleman would dare to venture into the Sich and search for his fugitive village peasant there? Well, you have to be very adventurous and not be afraid for your life. And the Cossacks were such an alien body that they had to be either cut out, thrown out, destroyed as soon as they appeared, or else it would be too late.

And it was too late. And the state, what did the state do? The state would beat the Cossacks with one hand and feed the Cossacks with the other, because, well, obviously, the Cossacks protect against the Tatars. All attempts by the crown authorities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to limit the activities of the Sich usually ended with the Sich being revived in another place.

After suppressing the Cossack-peasant uprising of 1638, the government placed its garrison near the Mykytyn Sich near Nikopol to control the Cossacks' departure on campaigns and monitor compliance with the terms of the Zaporozhian army's ordinance. At the beginning of 1648, this garrison was still there, and the Cossacks lived scattered on the neighboring Dnieper islands, including Buch, Tomakivka, and Mykytyn Rih.

When Bohdan Khmelnytsky arrived in Mykytyn Sich with his detachment, some of the registered Cossacks who served the crown switched to his side. Without much resistance, the Sich comes under Khmelnytsky's control, along with fortifications and food supplies.

It was here that he sent out circulars to various segments of the population, calling for the fight for the rights of the Cossacks and the Orthodox faith. In response to his call, thousands of people began to arrive in the Sich: Cossacks, peasants, townspeople, and in some places even the nobility.

The crown authorities tried to stop this movement, but Mar. While forces were gathering in the Sich, Khmelnytsky, together with his son Timosh, set off for the Crimean Khanate. There he convinced Khan Islam Geray II to support the uprising and received assistance.

Several thousand horsemen led by the Perekop morza Tugaibey. In the Sich, the Cossacks welcomed Khmelnytsky with all the festivities. The next day, April 19, 1648, he was elected hetman of the Zaporozhian army.

He orders the crown army, which has come to suppress the Cossack uprising, to move to meet it. Thus began the events that went down in history as the Khmelnytskyi region. Some call it an uprising, some call it a riot, some call it a national liberation uprising.

And how right, by the way, I don't really like this classic, staged national liberation war led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky and in the Dogechki necessarily 1648-1657. It's like in schools.

Well, yes, this is a school, textbook definition. I always joke that out of this entire long two- line definition, only the word war and Bohdan Khmelnytskyi raise no questions. And even then, you can argue.

That's why I've been using the term Cossack revolution lately, because, well, it's really a revolution, it's an event that fundamentally changed the existing state of affairs, the existing economy, politics, the social system, everything, everything. That is, it is a revolution, and the driving force was the Cossacks, so it is a Cossack revolution.

We perceive this as an uprising, because it is another uprising. If we talk about periodization, the Khmelnytskyi uprising lasts from to the Pereyaslav Treaty. Then the Polish-Muscovite war begins.

If we look at these conflicts from the perspective of Polish historiography, for us it is still an uprising. However, it cannot be denied that from a Ukrainian perspective, what was happening in Ukraine was truly a huge revolution, a grand transformation.

Both historians, Ukrainian and Polish, are convinced that when Bohdan Khmelnytskyi began his revolution, he could not even approximately imagine what he would achieve. It seems that at first he was driven by personal resentment, like all those people who joined his army.

In their desire for revenge and justice, they most likely did not have a clear idea of ​​the ultimate goal. This understanding came later.

In the spring of 1648, Bohdan Khmelnytsky was able to gather an eight-thousand-strong army in the Sich, together with his Crimean Tatar allies. The Poles send 12,000 soldiers to subdue the Sich.

The Polish army is divided into three groups, which go their separate ways. Their plan is to meet at the fortress near Kamyany Zaton. It is on the left bank of the Dnieper River opposite Mykytyny Rog.

From there, attack the Sich with the entire army. However, it turned out that the smallest of the Polish detachments, only 3,000 soldiers, met Khmelnytsky's army before reaching Kamyany Zaton. So he had to fight on the small river Zhovti Voti.

This happened on April 29, 1648. The Polish detachment was commanded by Stefan Potocki, who was 24 years old at the time. Son of the Crown Hetman Mykola Pototsky.

Realizing that he has met an enemy who is significantly superior in strength, Stefan digs himself in at the camp and sends his father a letter describing the situation. However, the fact is that the majority of Stefan's detachment were registered Cossacks.

The same was true of the other one, commanded by Chehiryn Colonel Stanislav Kryzhachevsky, who, by the way, was a friend of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. And now several thousand registered members of the crown army are overthrowing their commanders and joining Khmelnytsky's army.

Thus, from the initial 8,000, the hetman's army grows to 15,000. Stefan Potocki has less than 15,000 troops left. His situation was catastrophic.

Every day, he barely repelled attacks from the Cossack and Crimean Tatar troops and waited for his father to come to his aid. However, Mykola Pototsky does not have time.

On May 16, Stephen's army was completely defeated, and he himself died of his wounds three days later. For Khmelnytsky and the Cossacks, this was the first major victory.

She gave them strength and, most importantly, the understanding that defeating the enemy is possible. Could you explain very simply what the reason for those victories is? Because, well, they weren't, well, Cossacks, they weren't fighting with partisans there, well, they were fighting against the crown army, well, professional troops.

And why did they manage to win and why did they lose later? After all, it seems to me that initially the Poles greatly underestimated the strength of the Cossacks. They didn't understand how many of them there were, well, maybe they understood by, well, not individually, but at least within the range of tens of thousands, yes, because there was an army of Cossacks there, which was counted in the tens of thousands.

And the Polish authorities probably did not understand the real danger. And secondly, the Polish authorities already had such a developed attitude. This was not the first Cossack uprising.

Look, the first Cossack uprising, they lost, the second they lost, the third they lost, the fourth they lost, the fifth they lost, they lost again. Well, they'll lose the next one.

That is, we had this: "Well, we'll finish them off anyway, well, we'll win anyway." To stop Khmelnytsky's rebels, Crown Hetman Mykola Pototsky, together with Field Hetman Martyn Kelynovsky, gathered about 10-12,000 troops and set out for Korsun. Meanwhile, the army of Khmelnytsky and the Crimean Tatars is moving there.

The crown troops do not accept battle. They retreat, burning the city so that it does not fall to the enemy. But Khmelnytsky, having anticipated this maneuver, orders Colonel Maksym Kryvonos to block their path.

On May 26, 1648, the crown army fell into a well- prepared ambush and suffered a heavy defeat within a few hours. Some of the soldiers died, others were captured.

Among the prisoners were both military leaders. Mykola Pototsky and Martyn Kalinovsky. After this crushing defeat, the government of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth announces the mobilization of the nobility. A significant force was assembled: about 32,000 crown troops and several thousand German mercenaries.

Khmelnytsky's main opponent becomes another Ukrainian, Prince Yarema Vyshnevetsky. He acted with ruthless determination, punishing rebellious Cossack peasants, burning towns, and executing prisoners. In the summer of 1648, Cossack and peasant detachments committed bloody pogroms in the cities of Podillia and Volhynia.

The city of Polone was particularly affected, where hundreds of Jews and Uniates were killed. Similar murders occurred in Nemyriv, Tulchyn, and many other cities and towns. In response to the insurgents' cruelty towards the nobility, and even more so towards the Jews, Vyshnevetsky responded with no less bloody punishments.

Thus, due to the structure of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, two parts of one people, the Orthodox Cossacks and the nobility and burghers, found themselves on opposite sides of a war that destroyed the old city. Meanwhile, the rebels, having captured all of the lands of today's Central Ukraine, were moving further west.

The militia gathered, they went to the sawmills, these unlucky sawmills for the Poles. The Poles themselves wrote it later, it was written by Twardowski, if I'm not mistaken. Samuel Tvardovsky, who was a participant in the Battle of Pylivtsi.

He wrote that our warriors went there, shining with weapons, flaunting their clothes on beautiful horses. They were marching as if on a parade.

Little did they know that they would soon be happy to give it all up if only to escape with love. Part of the Polish nobility, when they arrived at the Battle of Pylyavtsy, actually fled before the battle even began. Bohdan Khmelnytskyi approached the sawdust.

This is the modern Khmelnytskyi region with a large army. About 25,000 regular Cossacks and numerous rebel detachments. Instead, the crown army consisted mainly of the Commonwealth's movement of the nobility, that is, the gentry militia, which was poorly organized.

Khmelnytsky took advantageous positions, and the crown camp was located in a humid area. Starting from September 11, Cossack detachments attacked the enemy camp daily, exhausting it. When Tugaibey's Crimean Tatars arrived on September 13, panic broke out among the nobility.

The Commonwealth movement fled, leaving behind artillery and the camp. He outwitted Khmelnytsky and the Tatars, who were allies at that time. Uh, he outsmarted the Poles.

He disguised some of the Cossacks as Tatars and created the illusion of a huge Tatar cavalry. And part of the Polish nobility became frightened, thereby breaking the battle lines, and the Pylyavtsy became simply a scattering force for the Polish army. Wow, that was a huge defeat.

A huge defeat. A serious defeat. Not only, it was not only, uh, not only a military event, it was a blow to the image, a blow to everything. Contemporaries of the events wrote that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had never known such a disgrace.

After the victory at Pylyavtsy, Khmelnytsky's army captured huge trophies, 92 cannons, an entire caravan with provisions and jewels. According to eyewitness estimates, their value reached several million zlotys.

For contemporaries, this defeat became a symbol of the powerlessness of the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth. Its main forces were defeated, and the state was left almost without an army.

However, the decline was only temporary. The organization of new troops soon began. For Khmelnytsky, this victory opened the way further west to Volhynia, Podolia, and eventually to Lviv. Khmelnytsky then went further west, went there to Lviv, went further, further, further.

And this moment was the brink of disaster for Poland, because they clearly understood that they were losing the first, second, third voivodeship, and then they might even lose Ruthenia. And then, if Khmelnytskyi comes out and can go to Volyn, yes, he certainly grabbed a piece of Volyn for himself later, but, well, he didn't own Volyn globally, just like he didn't own the Ruthenian Voivodeship or Galicia.

Oh, and here the king dies. Vladislav IV dies, who had a reputation as a king who knows how to negotiate with the Cossacks, who has very good relations with the Cossacks. Therefore, the end of 1948 was a very unpleasant, very, very, very difficult period for Poland.

Well, what saved us, probably, was what nature saved us, winter began. Ugh. That is, it simply stopped the further offensive. This stopped the offensive, because in the winter, in ancient times, people tried not to fight in the winter.

It's complicated, it's logistics, it's food supply, it's all of this is difficult. Secondly, a huge number of peasants joined Khmelnytsky's army. When did they join? In May, June, July, August.

And who will take care of the farm? Yes, we still have to get back to the farm somehow. Well, by the way, we always don't think about it either, but in reality, yes, the army is growing and even supplying it, of course, it needs to be supplied, it needs to be fed by half a million people, it needs to feed the horses. Aha.

Horses. What will you feed them? And here are still a large number of Tatars, whom Tugaibey brought. They also have their own economy, they have their own hordes.

They need to come back too. This campaign, which lasted from May until November, lasted six months. Were there any six months of marching? What were the initial plans? So we're leaving.

But it's unclear whether there were any initial plans, because, well, from my point of view, it seems to me that Khmelnytskyi did not expect such a grandiose success at the beginning. But here, you know, if everything works out, well, we have to go, go, go, we have to go, as long as there is this courage, as long as there is huge support, we have to go, and then we'll figure it out.

It seems to me that from a purely psychological point of view, it was important for Khmelnytsky to win these victories, first militarily, then politically, and as long as he was doing well, he had to keep going, going, going, and then he had to stop and understand what he had done. Because it's one thing, well, ask any modern military, capturing is one thing, and controlling is another.

Yes? Well, how to control this territory? Well, the Cossacks captured vast, vast territories. Well, if you look at the map, it's barely, well, not a third, but maybe a quarter of the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth. This is a huge piece.

Her old administration collapsed. They simply ran away. Well, someone escaped, someone died. Well, because this Cossack-peasant campaign was accompanied by terrible, terrible things. Like any war, it was accompanied by murders and mass looting.

That is, this is what happened. There is no truth here, children. And the old administration collapsed. And who will manage? How to manage this territory? It needs to be administered somehow.

We need to improve life, governance, and taxation. This is all that needs to be done. So you need to take a breath and see what you have. Therefore, a winter break was absolutely essential.

On December 27, 1648, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, at the head of his victorious army, entered Kyiv as a hero-liberator. He is met by crowds.

It was very spectacular and inspiring. Battle banners fluttered. Cannons and war trophies were transported on numerous carts. Khmelnytsky and his foreman are dressed in luxurious clothes.

Everyone goes to the solemn service at St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv. It is conducted by Patriarch Paisios of Jerusalem, the personal envoy of the Ecumenical Patriarch. Paisius publicly forgives Khmelnytskyi all his past and, most importantly, future sins.

And this is a procedure that is carried out exclusively for monarchs. Paisius also blesses Khmelnytskyi for defending the Orthodox faith, because let us not forget that in the world of that time, people identified themselves not by nationality, but primarily by status and religion. Meeting and talking with an Orthodox hierarch of such a high rank literally made a difference in Khmelnytsky's mind.

This is what the eyewitness, Polish diplomat Wojtych Miaskowski, remembered. A delegation from the Poles arrives for negotiations and then Khmelnytsky, uh, well, if you believe Moskovsky's diary, uh, he writes that he says that this is a famous phrase that God gave me, that I was a small person, now I am an autocrat. Oh, the Russian autocrat.

I will free the entire Russian people from Lyatka slavery. And since I fought for my grievance before, now I will fight for our Orthodox Church and I will not go against the Tatars, I will not go against the Turks. I have enough belongings from the prince in the principality and in my land.

That is, the principality and my land. So, if the principality is mine, how do I position myself as a prince, right? He calls himself a Russian autocrat. Yes.

That is, it is unlikely, it is unlikely that he started the uprising with such ideas. Apparently, behind the scenes of this whole thing are high church hierarchs who thought in such categories, who understood what was at stake. Autocrats is generally a very, very, very serious statement.

And I have in my principality and he lists the territories. Well, let Ukraine be Poltava, Chernihiv, Kyiv. So, so.

Let it be Ukraine. in Volyn, in Podolia to Lviv, the hill and Halych. Ugh. Lviv-hill and Halych. He draws the line between his claims. In fact, it almost coincides with the settlement of the Rus' people at that time.

Well, I don't know, the plans for the march on Warsaw, for example, could have been like this. No, I went to Warsaw - why is that? Ugh. To do what? To reach Warsaw, to lose your entire army.

Because as long as you walk through Ukrainian ethnic lands, you are a hero-liberator. You are like, like, as Khmelnytsky was later written, the God-given liberator of the Russian people from Lyatka slavery. He is a liberator, he is a hero.

You've researched this period and Khmelnytsky a lot, do you think he dreamed of some kind of, well, independent or broad autonomy? I think it's the first one. He wanted it to be an independent state that would independently govern these territories.

Even if it has some kind of protector, a sultan, a king, it will be in the role of an ally, rather than in a subordinate position, as the Zaporozhian army had before the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Already in the summer of the following year, 1649, after heavy fighting near Zborov, where the allied Cossack army surrounded the army of the new king Jan Casimir, the Treaty of Zborov was concluded through the mediation of the Crimean Khan Islam Giray.

Under its terms, the Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Bratslav voivodeships were brought under the hetman's authority, and the Cossack register was increased to 40,000. The rights of the Orthodox Church were confirmed.

And Jesuits and Jews were forbidden to return to these lands. Formally, these territories remained part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but in fact an autonomous Cossack state, the Hetmanate, emerged in them. But the authorities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, King Jan Casimir, and the nobility in general were not ready to accept the existence of the Hetmanate, despite the fact that they had concluded the Treaty of Sboriv.

A new army is sent to subdue the Ukrainians. From June 28 to July 10, 1651, the largest battle of the Khmelnytskyi Revolution took place near Berestechko. This battle was also his great defeat.

It all started with a successful attack by the Cossacks. But after the crown artillery struck, the Crimean Tatar allies unexpectedly left the battlefield, but also captured Bohdan Khmelnytsky. He was not captured, but simply detained.

Meanwhile, the Cossack army, left without a hetman, was utterly defeated on July 10. If we talk about defeats, well, again with the school, what we were always told, and this also, I think, to some extent an emphasis on this, is as if a continuation of the Soviet, probably, policy towards the Crimean Tatars, yes, that defeat near Berestechko, this is a tarik, yes, the Tatars at this moment are very, very tempted to blame everything on someone. It's just that, well, why, why is everything okay? Because Khmelnytskyi is a good guy.

Why is everything bad? Well, the Tatars left. The Tatars, the Tatars betrayed. Yes. And why shouldn't they have betrayed? Everyone has their own interests. We need to look at who benefited from it.

It was beneficial for the Tatars that the war continue. If you look at the moments when the Tatars departed from Khmelnytsky and concluded separate agreements with Poland, these were moments when Khmelnytsky could, well, not finish off, but so well defeat the Poles. The Crimean Khan did not need this.

Similarly, at the moment when the Poles could have finished off Khmelnytsky, the Tatars cling to Khmelnytsky with their teeth and fight to the last, because it is not profitable for them either. It is in their interest to keep the war going.

And why Tatars? It was advantageous for the Tatars that there was no normal line of defense on the northern borders of the Khanate, so that they could take Yasir from time to time and trade for themselves. Well, because the Crimean Khanate was one of the main suppliers of slaves to the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman Empire is a boundless Arab market. Therefore, you can send as many slaves there as you want, as many as you can capture, actually. And actually, while they are fighting there, here, yes, yes.

There is such an incomprehensible situation here. Neither one nor the other can ensure border security. Oh, and plus, why does the Crimean Khan need a strong political entity nearby? It will claim the role of some kind of, well, maybe a regional leader? Well, why is this a new political player? Therefore, I think it is wrong to blame Khmelnytsky's defeats on the Tatars.

Well, but this loss, it, well, let's say, knocked him down a little bit. Of course, he lost his temper, lost his pace, lost his courage, yes. It became clear to the Poles that Khmelnytsky could be defeated.

We can and must win, and we must finish him off. Again, the Poles could have stopped in 1951 somewhere near Berestechko, right? And no, they went further, they went to the White Church. After the defeat at Berestechko, Bohdan Khmelnytskyi had to sign the disadvantageous Bila Tserkva Treaty, which left only the Kyiv region to the Cossack state.

This situation did not last long. The Crimean Khan admits his mistake and begins to help Khmelnytsky again. Already in the spring of 1652, the Hetmanate regained the Chernihiv and Bratslav regions thanks to the victory of the allied Cossack and Crimean Tatar troops in the Battle of Batog.

It was a real triumph of the Cossacks. But at the same time, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth lost almost all of its elite under the whip, because on Khmelnytsky's orders, several thousand prisoners of war had their throats cut or their heads chopped off. Polish researchers sometimes call this battle the Katyn of the 11th century.

Here, friends, I want to stop for a moment. Such, from our modern perspective, manifestations of cruelty were quite common at that time. Although even then it was believed that killing unarmed people after a battle was a violation of a warrior's honor, God's law, and customary law.

In practice, however, everything looked different. The troops of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth executed the captured Cossacks using cruel methods, including impalement, considering them not warriors, but rebels against the legitimate government. And this, in the law of that time, was considered grounds for the death penalty.

The Cossacks responded with violence in a spirit of revenge, especially against the nobility and officers. Under the whip, this mutual escalation of cruelty reached its climax.

P'tr Krol assesses the outcome of that battle as a kind of point of no return. Let me remind you that there was a mass extermination of captured Poles there. At the request and order of Khmelnytsky, the Nogai Tatars did this.

And some of the soldiers remained alive only because some Tatars hid them. There were few of these people, but some officers survived. This was done either with the hope of a larger ransom than Khmelnytsky paid, or through personal acquaintances.

An example is the Polish soldier and memoirist Zygmunt Druszkiewicz, who was rescued by the Drusztaris. So, on such a personal level, sympathy could persist.

We haven't talked about this yet, but it's also an interesting topic. After all, we often look at the events of 1648-1654 as a consistent policy of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth aimed at the bloody suppression of what was happening on Ukrainian lands. And sometimes it wasn't like that.

The plan for bloody nazification appears only after the whip. The whip changed everything. The beatings, particularly the massacre of prisoners, arouse only one desire on the Polish side: revenge. Then the war develops according to an even more brutal scenario.

The Polish government sends punitive expeditions to the Hetmanate, which massacre entire Ukrainian villages. Ukrainian peasant detachments, operating in all Ukrainian lands separately from Khmelnytsky's army, slaughter Catholics and Jews in whole families.

Peasants also considered Jews to be their oppressors, on a par with the nobility, because it was often Jewish families who were tenants of noble estates. Ukraine is literally drowning in blood.

The right bank suffers the most. Professor, how destructive was the Khmelnytskyi region in general for our territories, for the territories that are today part of Poland, and for these lands in general? It was destructive primarily for the Ukrainian lands. Please note that most armed campaigns take place in the Bratslav and Kyiv Voivodeships.

Only occasionally do we actually have only a few companies that reach the territories of modern western Ukraine. These campaigns were very bloody.

Already in 1648, there was a wave of murders of the nobility, Jews, and clergy. Although one should be cautious about the data provided by Polish sources. which emphasized the brutality and scale of these killings.

Of course, there were many of them, but not that many. However, later campaigns were conducted very harshly, especially by the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth. Polish troops either pacified settlements if they did not surrender, or carried out raids aimed at ravaging the territories.

Destroy the enemy to make it difficult for them to concentrate their forces and conduct combat operations. And besides, let's remember, no matter how large the army is marching, it is fed by the territories through which it passes.

And it doesn't matter whether it's the crown army or the Cossack army, it will simply live off these lands. As a result, these lands were truly devastated.

In 1653, Bohdan Khmelnytsky found himself in a very difficult military situation, with the very existence of the Hetmanate threatened. In addition, the hetman has a huge personal tragedy.

His eldest son dies. The solution that Khmelnytsky found in this situation turned Ukrainian history in a different direction. We still remember this episode, the Pereyaslov Council, when we try to find the point where our history went wrong.

And we're still trying to figure out if there was another option. To understand, let's go back to 1653, perhaps the most difficult year in Bohdan Khmelnytsky's life. I think you've noticed that in most of our videos I talk to scholars, mostly historians, and sometimes experts from other fields, depending on the topic.

Where scientists are not in the frame, they are out of the frame. Together with them, we work on our scripts. And at the end of each of our videos you can see the names of our consultants.

In general, this is one of the directions of the Real Story project. To be a platform for professional scientists so that important historical research, discoveries, facts, and topics they are working on or have worked on can be heard by as many people as possible, by the widest possible audience. This year we went a little further, and Real Story became a media partner of InScience Conference 2025.

This is the largest popular science conference in Ukraine, which took place on October 11-12 in Kyiv and was attended by thousands of adults and children. During the two days of the event, they could listen to speeches by scientists from Ukraine and the world, test real robots and other inventions of Ukrainian innovators, learn interesting things about space, genetics, and climate, as well as attend various lectures and panel discussions.

Among the conference guests were sponsors of real history at the highest levels. those people without whom our project would not be possible. And I once again thank every member of our community for their support and active participation in the creation of the "Real History" project, for the popularization of history and science in general, and, of course, for their involvement in our initiatives.

With your support and participation at the Inscience Conference, we held an important panel discussion, where, together with biologists and ecologists, we talked about the significance of a large meadow that had been buried under the water of the Kakhovka Reservoir for decades. Well, after that, we had a pleasant and useful time, chatting in an informal setting at the exhibition from the real history team.

We dedicated it to our initiative to restore the Cossack estate Porshchyna in the Chernihiv region. Here is a photo with the history of the manor complex, and a fragment of the original roof of the tenement house, which, friends, is at least two centuries old.

For donations to Pokorshchyna, we, together with the Fablo publishing house, donated the book Ukrainian Palaces of the Golden Age with my autograph and collected 14,000 UAH. Once again, I would like to thank our sponsors and take this opportunity to remind you that becoming a member of our community is very easy.

Click the sponsor button. Choose the level of support that suits you, and let's create a real story together. In our country, well, the Peryslav Agreement has quite an unambiguous assessment among Ukrainian historians.

People are treated differently in society. Some even call Khmelnytsky a traitor for concluding a treaty with the Moscow Tsar. In your opinion, what prompted Khmelnytsky to actually conclude this agreement? Bohdan Khmelnytsky understood that if the war lasted a long time, the resources of Ukrainian forces would not be enough to force the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, not to mention defeating it, but to force it to recognize the existence of at least very broad autonomy, and possibly independence.

He realized that he needed allies, so he asked for help in the first years of the struggle. First to the Crimean Khan, later he sought support from various neighbors and, from 1649, persistently sought to have Moscow enter the war. He also tried to conclude an anti-Polish alliance with the ruler of the Seven Cities.

Later, he sought to conclude an alliance with Sweden. What Ivan Vyhovsky later did. That is, he sought to create a broad coalition that would guarantee him the secure existence of the Cossack state in the territories that he already controlled or intended to annex. And in 1653 the situation clearly began to deteriorate.

In the fall of 1653, near Zhvanets, between Kamianets and Khotyn, a combined Cossack-Crimean Tatar army numbering several tens of thousands surrounded the camp of King Jan I Casimir, where there were at least 30,000 soldiers. Hunger and disease quickly spread to the Polish camp, killing thousands of people.

It would seem that the defeat of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is inevitable. But in early December, Khan Islam Giray II concluded a separate agreement with the Poles without consulting Khmelnytsky. The king pledged to pay the Khan 100,000 zlotys in indemnity and allowed Yasir to be taken away for 40 days.

For the Cossacks, this was a real stab in the back. After Zhyvanets, Khmelnytsky finally became convinced that he could no longer rely on Crimea and the following year he turned to the Moscow tsar for support. The Tatars took Yasir, and the Poles helped.

And officers wrote about this in letters, officers of the crown army. And let's add that this wasn't bragging, but rather a complaint about being forced to do this. There was a lot of sympathy in these letters about what was happening.

They were used by the Tatars as a raiding party. They approached the town, saying they wanted to take Yasir away from there. And the Poles had to force this town to surrender.

I can't understand how allies became enemies so quickly in those days. Enemies became allies again. Well, we'll take the same, uh, same Crimean Tatar army, yes, which is here acting with Khmelnytsky, the counterattack is already fighting here.

So how did it happen so quickly? Well, these soldiers, they, well, in fact, were supposed to stand side by side. How come they killed yesterday, and today they are already walking together? How did it happen? It was simple, it was simply a matter of state interest.

The state interest that dominated politics. They sought to maintain a balance between the warring parties, between the Hetmanate and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. A balance that favored Tatar activities and Tatar interests.

Other allies also failed Bohdan Khmelnytsky. For example, agreements with the Rakotsi. He tried to negotiate with him twice. In 1653, Derdz I Rákuci opposed Timosh Khmelnytsky in Moldova.

This was a serious blow for Bogdan. Dertő I Rákoti was the prince of Transylvania, i.e. Transylvania. It is now part of Romania.

Transylvania was at war with Moldova, and Timiș Khmelnytsky was married to the daughter of the ruler of Moldova, Rosanda Lupol. Bohdan Khmelnytsky tried to win over both rulers, Moldavian and Transylvanian, to his side.

However, it did not work out, and Khmelnytsky had to help his father-in-law in the battle with the Transylvanian army near Suceava, where he was mortally wounded. This happened in 1653.

It seems to me that Khmelnytsky wanted to create his own dynasty, which would be the legal ruler of the territory he had conquered. Now it was necessary to legalize in this territory.

The problem is that if he seized territory by force, that doesn't make him a legal ruler. This makes him, well, in political terminology, which has been around since ancient times. This makes him a tyrant.

That is, he is a tyrant for this - he is a person who seized power by force. He may be a good, bad ruler, but he seized power by force. And he would be, well, no match for a true monarch.

And a true monarch can only be a monarch if he is born into the family of a true monarch. So here's the idea. And as for Khmelnytsky, this does not apply to Khmelnytsky.

There is no blood. There's no blood, yes. There is no such blood. In a literal sense, power is in the blood. Ugh.

Where will you get this blood? And therefore he relied heavily on dynastic alliances with Moldova. He needed a daughter-in-law who would give him a grandson. A daughter-in-law from the legal royal family who will bear him a grandson with royal blood.

That's it. Well, it seems to me that Khmelnytsky was thinking two generations ahead. If in his plans he jumped into his grandson's generation. And this grandson, let's imagine that if Timofey and Rosanda were born, a son would be born, and he would be the legal ruler.

Yes, with reservations, but it would be legal. He would have legal blood. And so Timofey's death was not just a tragedy. The tragedy is personal, because it is a son, it is an older son.

Khmelnytsky, of course, relied on his eldest son. This was yet another, this was the collapse of his dynastic policy. So, Bohdan Khmelnytsky was looking for new allies.

The Moscow Kingdom was one of the options. He spent a long time persuading the Russian Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich to enter the war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. But Moscow is in no hurry to agree.

In mid-1653, the hetman played the Turkish card to force Moscow to enter into an alliance with the Hetmanate and act together against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Since the tsar hesitated, Khmelnytsky began negotiations with the Turkish sultan.

Which, of course, Moscow intelligence found out about. And in this form, it seems like the agreement will be signed here. He said that if Moscow did not agree, the Hetmanate would submit to Turkey.

That is why Moscow is accelerating its actions. And it all happens very quickly. As even one Ukrainian historian wrote, Moscow's diplomacy has never acted so quickly before. Hey, did he understand the risks that could come after this? No.

I think he was unable to predict what would happen next. He could not even predict what the next steps of the Tsar of the Muscovite state would be. Information that the Hetmanate could accept the Turkish protectorate reached the Moscow Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich on June 20, 1653, and on June 22, the Tsar sent a letter to Khmelnytskyi with a proposal to accept the Hetmanate under his royal hand.

That was the wording. On October 1, a Zemsky Sobor was convened in Muscovy. This is an advisory body that included representatives of different segments of the population. This council makes two key decisions: to declare war on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and to place the Hetmanate under the Moscow protectorate.

After that, the royal delegation leaves for Pereyaslav. There, on January 18, the Pereyaslov Council took place, which formally approved the idea of ​​an agreement with Muscovy. We are not aware of any document signed there today.

The draft of this agreement is now known as the "March Articles" and was developed after Pereyaslav. It is known that initially Hetman Khmelnytsky and the Cossack foremen wrote 23 articles.

It was their embassy that was brought from Khmelnytsky to Moscow for approval. The embassy was headed by the Judge General of the Hetmanate, Samiylo Bogdanovich Zarudny, and the Pereyaslav Colonel Pavlo Teterya. Throughout March 1654, representatives of the Hetmanate and the Moscow Tsar fiercely debated this document in Moscow.

Articles were crossed out, rewritten, and supplemented. Several times, we don't know exactly how many, we sent it to Khmelnytskyi for approval. Finally, on March 21, Ukrainian ambassadors submitted a new version of the draft agreement to the tsar.

There were 11 articles that both sides agreed to. The king approved them with minor amendments. So, we don't know exactly what was written in these articles. The original document was not found.

In the copy that is available to historians, the current conditions are as follows. The Hetmanate retains its military-administrative structure, judicial and financial systems. The Cossack register expands to 60,000 Cossacks, who receive pay from the Moscow Tsar.

Taxes for the Moscow treasury are collected by Ukrainian government officials. But the Hetmanate must abandon independent diplomacy with the Turkish Sultan and the Polish King. You can with others.

In return, Muscovy promises that it was extremely necessary for Khmelnytsky to enter the war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Well, what do you think, and Moscow, when they signed this agreement, did they already have an understanding of seizing these territories? Was this also, well, just situational on their part? Now that's an alliance.

I think that at the very beginning, the politicians of Muscovy, the tsar, and his advisors did not fully understand what future awaited these lands. There was also no certainty about how it would all end.

So I think that at the initial stage it was about involving the Cossack army, increasing our military capabilities on this front. And this was the first step towards implementing the grand plan that the Tsar and Patriarch Nikon had.

After defeating the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, move to the Balkans, free the Orthodox peoples who lived there from Turkish slavery, and reach Constantinople, if not further. And Ukraine stood on this path.

If Ukraine found itself in an alliance with Moscow, it would be a direct access to those territories. You could walk there calmly.

I think that at the moment when this understanding was already concluded, when the so-called March Articles were signed in Moscow, which regulated the relations between the Cossack state and the Muscovite state within the framework of this union, then the vision of what the future of these lands should be as part of the Muscovite state began to gradually crystallize. And this is evident when new envoys appear, bringing, for example, a demand that royal governors be stationed in the cities of Ukraine.

Artamon Matveyev 165 brings Khmelnytsky a proposal to create 10 regiments of a new formation on the territory of Ukraine from registered Cossacks. under the command of Moscow officers who will train under their guidance.

So, gradually such elements appear that would introduce the Moscow administration and slowly tie the Cossack state to the Moscow one. Although, of course, there was no talk of full incorporation yet.

This is the future. I hold the opinion that the alliance with Muscovy was forced. Khmelnytskyi needed help at the end of 1953. He needed people, he needed soldiers.

And Muscovy could provide it. And the fact that Khmelnytsky did not work out with Muscovy, and Muscovy did not work out with Khmelnytsky, seems to me to be the result of different political cultures and the ideas that were in the minds of Khmelnytsky and the Muscovite tsar when they concluded this agreement. They had a different value system.

These coordinates are ideological, they were different. Khmelnytsky thought of the alliance with Moscow as an alliance roughly like an alliance with the Polish king. When we conclude an agreement, we elect a king, the king has certain powers, certain obligations towards us.

We have an obligation to him. And if the king violates these obligations, then we can abandon ours. And the Moscow Tsar had the idea of autocracy, the idea that, uh, you are all serfs and now you are under my high hand.

I wonder if at that time, in the middle of the 16th century, Moscow perceived our lands the way it perceives them now, that these were some kind of primordial Moscow territories, Kyiv, some kind of sacred center for them from somewhere. A complicated, complicated question, because this is about the sacred center - this is what the priests wrote, by the way, by the way, that's when they started using the term Little Russia.

Ugh. And he is born in the field of Kyiv priests. Well, there was nothing wrong with it, it didn't have any negative connotations. Most likely, it arose as, well, a tracing, copying of the concept of Lesser Greece and Magna Graecia.

Minor Greece is Greece itself, and Magna Graecia is the territory where Greek culture spread. Similarly, Kyiv scribes spoke about Little Russia, actually, Russia, where everything came from, yes. Yes.

And Great Rus', where it all spread. Uh, and did the Moscow Tsar have any, uh, any claims to these territories? Well, of course he had, because, uh, even in the official title of Ivan the Terrible, there was a mention that he was the Prince of Chernigov. Ugh.

The Chernihiv Principality is included there. Therefore, he had dynastic claims, he had territorial claims. Have the Romanovs been considered yet? Well, it's not Ivan the Terrible, it's the Romanovs.

Did the Romanovs consider the alliance with Khmelnytsky as one of the steps in the Muscovite state's strategy of gathering Russian lands? Well, I can't say right now. One way or another, just two years after the signing of the March Articles, Muscovy betrayed this alliance with the Cossacks, concluding the Vilnius Truce with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on October 24, 1656.

This document provided that the Polish-Muscovite war would cease, and instead Muscovy and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth would jointly begin to oppose Sweden. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth signed this agreement, escaping complete defeat, because the Poles had to wage war on two fronts: against Muscovy and against the Swedes.

And the Poles lost both of these wars. After the Vilnius Armistice, Bohdan Khmelnytsky initiates the termination of the agreement with Muscovy. But on July 27, 1657, he died before he could terminate the agreement.

The causes of his death have not been fully clarified. Most likely, it was a stroke or the consequences of a long illness. In our film about Bohdan Khmelnytsky from the series Secrets of Great Ukrainians, we also considered the version of poisoning, which, however, is very difficult to verify.

After the death of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the new hetman Ivan Vyhovsky made an attempt to restore the independence of the hetmanate from Muscovy. In September 1658, he concluded the Treaty of Haditz with representatives of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

This treaty provided for the creation of a third equal part of the Grand Duchy of Rus' within the Federated Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was to include the Kyiv, Braslav, and Chernihiv voivodeships. The Hadyatsk Agreement was never fully implemented.

Mainly due to the resistance of part of the Cossacks, part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth nobility, and, of course, Moscow, which, as a result of the war with the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth, controlled part of the Hetmanate's territory. And this was the last major attempt to turn the Cossack state into an equal partner for the crown and Lithuania within the borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The fiasco of the agreement led to Ukraine becoming divided. The Left Bank and Kyiv remained under the control of Moscow, where an autonomous hetmanate functioned. The Right Bank was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1793.

If we talk about relations between Ukrainians and Poles, let's try again, and, well, let's say, draw conclusions today. This story about the Cossack revolution and the Khmelnytskyi region in general, what did it ultimately give to Polish-Ukrainian relations, in your opinion, but in today's more modern dimension, that it somehow opened up Ukrainians as a separate, let's say, sovereign nation for the Poles? Or on the contrary, it laid the foundation for some kind of, you know, long- running conflict, which then, yes, already manifested itself in the 20s at the end of the 20th century.

Well, what do you think? Well, I would venture to assume that for most Poles, the Khmelnytskyi Uprising or the Cossack Revolution is associated with something bad. Because, well, for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, defeat in the revolution, defeat for Khmelnytsky, and ultimately it was a defeat because they lost a large territory, it was the beginning of the end.

It began to weaken, weaken, and by the end of the 10th century it had almost fallen under the heel of Muscovy. Well, that's why, I think, for most Poles it's something negative.

But then again, I'm sure that most people don't know the details. Well, another thing is that ancient events are not worth bringing into the present. And in this sense, I believe that it is not worth involving the Volyn tragedy in modern Ukrainian- Polish and Polish-Ukrainian relations.

Don't confuse the Warsaw Pact with the one that Pilsudski and Petliura concluded. It is not worth getting involved with the Treaty of Riga, which Pilsudski later concluded with the Bolsheviks, thereby violating one of the points of the Warsaw Pact. The past must be left in the past.

We need to draw conclusions from it, how not to make mistakes, because after all, why do we study history, because we believe that we can see some wisdom there that will help us not to make mistakes or at least make fewer mistakes. Therefore, I believe that the Khmelnytskyi uprising showed that unwillingness to solve the problem and compromise with one's own citizens can lead to very unpleasant consequences.

This can be reduced to this statement. If Poles and Ukrainians quarrel, Moscow most often wins. The conflict between these two peoples, these two states in the middle of the 10th century, obviously benefited only the Muscovite state. And what can we learn from this? The fact that this feud is actually leading nowhere.

Sometimes it is difficult to reach an agreement, but a compromise, even in a situation where the interests of both sides differ greatly, although difficult, is sometimes worth making certain concessions in order to avoid even greater losses, as was the case in the Polish-Cossack conflict during the time of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. I completely agree, friends.

Well, you see, I can draw another conclusion here. Mr. PTR spoke about a compromise. This is an important thing. And it is actually possible when the parties treat each other as equals.

This, I think, is a very important story. The figure of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, as you can see, is very controversial. His decisions were probably not always unambiguous.

And today, from the height of our experience, we can, of course, criticize them. However, there is an undeniable fact. Bohdan Khmelnytsky gave Ukrainians a state.