1648-1775 - Zaporozhian Cossacks
The constant state of warfare on the Tatar border forced the Ukrainian population in those parts to adopt a policy of continual "Preparedness." These fighting people of the marshes led a precarious life, but they had access to the virgin lands of the borders with all their natural treasures, and the exploiting Polish officials did not dare venture forth into these dangerous districts. These armed farmers, hunters and fishermen led an independent life and called themselves Cossacks, i. e., "free warriors."
In the 16th Century there arose among these Ukrainian Cossacks a military state organization, the center of which was a strongly fortified position below the rapids of the Dnieper (the Zaporozhian Sich). The Zaporozhian warrior state, compared by some to a religious order of knights (because of their compulsory celibacy and their wars against unbelievers), by others to a communistic republic, shows us most clearly what has always been the goal of the Ukrainian "political idea." In the Zaporozhian organization, absolute equality of all citizens in all political and social rights prevailed above all else. All authority was vested in the General Assembly of all the Zaporozhians, and their decisions were enforced by elective officers who were, at the same time, officers of the army. The liberty of the individual was very great, but had to yield to the will of the whole. And when, in time of war, the General Assembly delegated unlimited dictatorial power to the highest official, the Hetman, it gave him a degree of authority with which the power of any one of the absolute rulers of Europe at the time could not be compared.
In the aristocratic state organization of Poland there was no room for such a lawless democratic state as that of the Zaporozhians was in Polish eyes. The entire Ukrainian nation regarded the Zaporozhian Cossacks as their natural defenders against the terrible Tatar peril, and likewise as their sole hope as opposed to the oppression practiced by the Poles. An ominous discontent prevailed throughout the Ukraine, and after the Poles had naturally taken severe measures, a number of Cossack revolts occurred in rapid succession, beginning toward the end of the 16th Century and filling the first half of the 17th. In these revolts the Cossacks were supported by the oppressed peasantry. But the Polish Kingdom was rather deficient, always, as far as its standing army was concerned, and was obliged to appeal to the Ukrainian Cossack organization, which it could not possibly destroy, to aid in its wars against the Turks, the Russians and the Swedes.
Thus, the second Ukrainian state, the Cossack Republic, came into existence about the middle of the 17th Century, in a victorious war, to shake off the Polish yoke. Finally, in 1648, the Ukrainian Cossacks, aided by the entire people, from the Dnieper to the San, raised the standard of rebellion, and under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnyzki, succeeded in annihilating the Polish armies. Thus the Ukrainian Nation fought for and won its independence again after three hundred years of a foreign yoke. Chmelnyzki, after his victory over the Poles, extended the Cossack organization beyond the narrow bounds of the Zaporoze, over the entire huge area of the Ukraine.
By the Treaty of Pereyaslav (1654) it was ceded as a vassal state to Russia, which was related to it in religious faith. But Russia broke the treaties of suzerainty, shared the desolated Ukrainian land with Poland, and, after a century and a half, changed the autonomy of the Ukraine into abject serfdom.
Surrounded by enemies on all sides, the new state needed calm and quiet to enable it to achieve the necessary internal organization. Much time was needed to organize the new order completely in so enormous a country, to bring to a successful conclusion the fight against the Polish social-political order, which had prevailed here so long and was so different from the Ukrainian. It required much time to work out new constitutional forms, which were inevitable, now that the Zaporozhian organization was extended over great areas. Khmelnitsky negotiated with all the surrounding governments and peoples, with the Poles, the TransyIvanians, the Swedes, the Turks, and finally, in 1654, concluded the treaty of Pereyaslav with Russia, with which they were related by ties of religion. This treaty provided that the Ukraine should retain a complete autonomy, as well as their Cossack organization, the latter under the suzerainty of the Czar. The Hetman, who was to be elected by the votes of the General Assembly, was even to retain the right of conducting an independent foreign policy.
But Russia had no mind to respect the treaty that bound it in dual alliance with the warlike Ukrainian nation. The democratic form of government in the Ukraine was an abomination to Russia, just as it was to aristocratic Poland. Once the Cossack republic was under the control of Moscow, the Russian government felt that not a stone must be left unturned to destroy this dangerous national organism. Taking advantage of the untimely death of Khmelnitsky (1657), and the incompetence of his immediate successors, Russia began her political machinations in the Ukraine.
The Cossack generals were inspired with prejudice against the Hetman, the common Cossacks against their superior officers, and the common people against all who were wealthy and in authority; huge sums of money were spent, successfully, and vast tracts of land granted as fiefs; and Russia thus fished in troubled waters to very good advantage. At every successive election of a new Hetman the autonomy of the Ukraine was cut down, and in the Peace of Andrussovo (1667) with Poland, the country was partitioned. Of the two sections, one, that nearest to Poland, which had been dreadfully devastated and depopulated, was ceded to that country, and this section very soon lost its Ukrainian form of government and its Cossack organization. The section on the other side, the left side, east of the Dneiper, under its dashing Hetman, Mazeppa, made an effort, during the Scandinavian War, to throw off the Russian yoke. Mazeppa made an alliance with Charles XII of Sweden. But the Battle of Poltava (1709) buried all his hopes. He had to flee to Turkey with Charles XII, and the Ukrainian rebellion was put down by Peter the Great with the most frightful atrocities, and finally the guaranteed autonomy of the Ukraine was abolished.
A letter written in 1711 by King Charles – kept in Sweden's national archives – instructs the Swedish ambassador in Constantinople to recognise the Zaporizhzhian Sich as an independent state. The Zaporizhzhian Sich was a semi-autonomous quasi-state of the Cossacks, a predominantly eastern Slavic group originating in the steppes of Ukraine, that existed between the 16th to 18th centuries. It was centered around the region spanning the lower Dnieper River, where Ukraine’s current Zaporizhia region is located. The letter proposed “… to implement as soon as possible the article about the will of Ukraine and all Cossacks that all Ukraine and the Zaporizhzhia Army under the current commander Pylyp Orlyk regain the ancient freedom, possession of their land and its former borders, so that from now on this people will become an independent state and never again be subject to the obedience or protection of the king.”
To be sure, the title of Hetman was again introduced after the death of Peter the Great, but it had only a wretched semblance of life. Even this shadow of autonomy was destroyed in 1764; in 1775 the last bulwark of the Ukraine, the Zaporozhian Sich, fell into the hands of the Russians thru treachery, and was destroyed by them. The peasants became serfs. Russia thus succeeded, in the course of about a century and a half, in completely wiping out the later, second Ukrainian state.
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