Ukrainian Cossack State. Formation of the Ukrainian Cossack state. The origin of the Ukrainian Cossacks. Factors that led to the formation of the Cossack layer

Ukraine is reputed to be a purely poetic country, and rightly so. It was not for nothing that the Polish magnates at the emergency Sejm in Warsaw, in 1659, in their speech to King Casimir, called it fruitful Egypt, the promised land, flowing with honey and milk, fruitful, abundant in everything, reputed to be a golden cloud from time immemorial.

N. Sementovsky, historian of the 19th century.

Since ancient times, the original inhabitants of the Ukrainian lands were Slavic tribes. The Tale of Bygone Years, a chronicle compiled in the second decade of the 12th century in Kyiv by Nestor and edited by Sylvester, speaks of such a settlement of the tribes of the Slavs - a glade lived along the Dnieper, Dulebs, Buzhans and Volynians lived along the Bug, Tivertsy and Ulychi lived along the Dniester, to the south of Pripyat - a clearing, on the Left Bank of the Dnieper - northerners, in the Carpathian region - white Croats. The territories of these tribes became part of the "famous in all lands" Kiev state with its capital in the city of Kyiv, known since the 5th century. The Kiev state was glorified by many princes - Oleg, Olga, who converted to Orthodoxy, Svyatoslav, Vladimir, who baptized the country, Yaroslav the Wise, Vladimir Monomakh. Strong ties were established with Western Europe, Byzantium, Central Asia, the peoples of the Caucasus, the steppe inhabitants, who constantly raided the Ukrainian lands, were defeated and left the historical arena: Khazars, Pechenegs, Polovtsy. The lands of the Ilmen Slavs also became part of the Kiev state.

In the middle of the 19th century, an unknown historian wrote in the then newspapers of the Russian Empire:

“The significance of Kievan Rus has not yet been understood by anyone. This ancient, bright Russia is illuminated with some kind of fun, festive radiance. The heterogeneous population of the environs of Kyiv, the Greek trade route and others that passed by Kyiv or adjoined it, uninterrupted relations with Byzantium and Western Europe, church celebrations, cathedrals, princely congresses, united militias that attracted to Kyiv a multitude of people from all parts of Russia, contentment, luxury; many churches, witnessed by foreigners; an early awakened need for book teaching, with some kind of ease and freedom in the relations of people of various ranks and classes, finally, the inner unity of life, the universal desire to sanctify all relations with a religious principle, which is so clearly reflected in the view of our ancient chronicler. All this together points to such conditions and germs of enlightenment, which not all of them were inherited by Russia of Vladimir.

The most significant after the Kievan state in the Ukrainian and Slavic lands was the Galician principality, located between South Russia and Poland. Trade routes from Russia to Hungary, Poland and Central Europe passed through it. Prince Vladimir (1144–1152) and his son Yaroslav Osmomysl (1152–1187) played an important role in the Principality and in its political life. In 1199, Roman Volynsky united two principalities - Galicia and Volyn. In 1205, during a campaign against Poland, Roman unexpectedly died. The Hungarians, led by King Andrew II, occupied Volhynia and Galich and divided it with Poland. However, not for long. The inhabitants of the principality expelled the invaders and the famous Daniil Romanovich Galitsky became the head of the state. In 1240, the power of the Galicia-Volyn prince extended to Kyiv.

In 1240, the Ukrainian lands were invaded by the Mongol-Tatars, led by Genghis Khan's grandson Batu, and were completely devastated. The historian N. Berezin wrote in his work "Ukraine", published in St. Petersburg at the beginning of the 20th century:

“Tatars came from Asia. People locked themselves in the cities, which were taken one by one by the Tatars, until the turn came to Kyiv. Kyiv did not resist either. And how to resist. No matter how bravely the townspeople fought in despair, they could not resist the innumerable force. The country of glades and northerners was emptied to the point that when the Italian traveler, the monk Plano Carpini, passed through these places shortly after the pogrom, he saw only wastelands dotted with whitening bones, black coal fires, already overgrown with steppe weeds. There were almost no people to be seen. Where thousands and tens of thousands lived, individual families of frightened, destitute people scurried around timidly. The Tatars remained roaming in the steppe nearby, and no one had the courage and desire to return to the places where, as in the old days under the Polovtsy, one could expect an hourly raid, having no hope of finding protection in the city or with the prince.

Before the Tatar pogrom, Kyiv remained the main center of the Russian land. All the main events of ancient Russian history unfolded around him. It is not known what would have happened if Kyiv had remained the same crowded city. Perhaps, besides Poland, Lithuania and Moscow, there would be one more powerful state on earth, and Russia, in the end, would have gathered around Kyiv, and not around Moscow.

The Tatar invasion devastated the whole of Ukraine, after which it did not recover until it became part of the Lithuanian principality, while the Moscow princes of the Tatars provided significant assistance in founding a large despotic state.

In 1246, Daniel of Galicia also recognized the power of the Mongol Khan. The Galician and Volhynian principalities were constantly attacked by the Poles, Hungarians, Tatar-Mongols. Hungary captured the Transcarpathian Ukraine in the XI century, where, in addition to the Bulgarians, Hungarians, people from the Galician land have long lived. The very historical self-name "Ukraine" was first mentioned in historical sources from the 12th century in relation to the Principalities of Pereyaslav and Galicia, and in the 13th century it spread to most of the country's territory. Hungary tried to continue the seizure of new Ukrainian lands, but a new state stood in its way - the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

The Lithuanian principality was formed in the basin of the middle Neman in the 13th century and, under the great Lithuanian prince Gediminas (1316–1341), subjugated the lands near the Western Dvina, the upper Dnieper, the upper Pripyat and the Western Bug. Under his son Olgerd (1345–1377), Lithuania conquered the Kiev region, Chernihiv region, Podolia and Pereyaslav region. In 1349, in the battles for it with Hungary, Poland captured Galicia, nine years before that, Lithuania conquered Volhynia.

The Ukrainian lands, which became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, almost retained their autonomy, language, and religion. Lithuanian princes began to accept Orthodoxy. Another thing was in Galicia, which fell under the authority of the Polish Crown; the Polish elite often abused the policy of destroying the culture of peoples dependent on it.

In 1385, the first attempt to completely unify Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into a single state as a result of the signing of the Union of Kreva was not completed. Since that time, Poland, Lithuania and Muscovy fought for the Ukrainian lands - until a certain time with varying success.

Various regions of Ukraine were isolated and disunited. With the development of trade, economic ties were established between them. Kyiv, Volyn, Chernihiv, Galich, Podolia gradually merged into a single economic space, a single whole, complementing each other. Their territorial unity was also created. Since the 15th century, Ukrainian cities have been governed according to the Magdeburg law of local self-government, which secured the rights and freedoms of citizens - Volyn, Kyiv, Zhytomyr. Development proceeded thanks to the trade routes going through Ukraine.

In 1453, the troops of the Turkish Empire took Constantinople, then captured the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, Moldavia, Bukovina, and subjugated the Crimea. Since 1498, the Turks began constant campaigns against Ukrainian lands, robberies and seizures of territories. Turks and Crimean Tatars even ravaged Kyiv. The population of southern Ukraine, taken into slavery, thinned out, poorly protected by the authorities.

In 1492-1493, as a result of the Russian-Polish war, part of the Ukrainian lands passed to the Muscovite state, in 1503 Chernihiv region became part of the Moscow Grand Duchy.

Ukrainian lands blocked the Polish Crown and Lithuania from raids from the south, taking on the main blows. The situation of the Ukrainian peasantry, crushed by taxes, corvée, and religious oppression, was constantly deteriorating. The king had no real power, the actual power was with the magnates - landowners who manipulated the Sejm. Ukrainians began to leave for the steppe regions, to the lower reaches of the Dnieper. A free man took as much land as he could cultivate, although he went out to plow with weapons, fearing, and not in vain, Tatar raids, but there were no pans in the steppe.

They also left parental authority, from bondage, punishment, debts, problems, they were simply looking for a better life. They went to the "grassroots places" and did not return back. Thanks to the conditions of a dangerous life, these settlers became good warriors, and their settlements advanced further and further into the steppe. N. Berezin wrote:

“Having settled down to live in a country dangerous from the Tatars, the South Russian people themselves had to defend themselves. The Polish state did not give him protection. Defending themselves from predators, people got used to weapons, got used to unite for defense and attack in military alliances or brotherhoods, in various “kupas”, “companies”, “burses”, with an elected ataman, with a common treasury, with a warehouse of weapons and assembly places, where to go in case of danger. Members of such brotherhoods were called by different names, until for all of them, in the end, one common name was established - the Cossacks.

Many researchers and brilliant historians have been involved in the history of the Ukrainian Cossacks, putting forward their own versions of the emergence of this brilliant phenomenon for more than three hundred years.

In 1736–1740, Lieutenant-Engineer Prince S. I. Myshetsky, who wrote one of the first “Stories of the Zaporizhian Cossacks” was in the Zaporizhzhya Sich to carry out serf work there:

“In 948, one person, named Semyon, left the Kiev and Poltava lands, at the mouth of the Bug River, in the estuary, on one spit, which is still called Semyonov horn, for his crafts, namely, for beating wild goats, wild boars and other game, and having been on this spit for one summer, he came home, and as his neighbors visited the local allowance, more than a hundred people sold themselves to him, for these trades, and they began to have this Semyon as an ataman. And they lived for a long time on this Bug River, and sewed coats and trousers from the skin of wild goats, and tacos happened to great glory, that glorious archers began to be and called them goats.

As the Greek Emperor, living in the city-city with the Turk, had a war and hired himself a willing military people, His Majesty was inspired that there are such people that they didn’t let any beast through, and where they are, they will fall here, and they are nicknamed goats; They have their dwelling along the Bug River. His Majesty liked it very much, and sent a commissar to them with a monetary treasury, and as the commissar came to the Bug River and found the goats and ataman Semyon in the reeds, he announced to this ataman that His Majesty deigned to send them a monetary treasury, and ordered to announce: that they and their people would fix the capture of this enemy, near the Danube and other places here. And this ataman Semyon, having taken the money, went willingly with all the goats, and having arrived to Ukraine, to the towns of Lysenka and Medvedovka and other towns available here, added more troops to himself, more than two thousand people, and went to the Danube and other places available here. And under the Turk, through the help of God, a search was made in different places. And especially those kozars really showed themselves in this case, somehow: by driving away herds of horses and other cattle from the Turks, they also took away communication from the Turks, and the unfortified towns, like redoubts, were ruined, and they took all the people prisoner, and others were cut down. And at the end of this battle, His Majesty favored them with his mercy, and called them Cossacks.

One of the historians of the 19th century, G.F. Miller, wrote in 1847 in his Discourse on the Cossacks:

“According to the well-known Batu ruin, the Lithuanian princes took possession of the Principality of Kiev, and in 1340 the Polish king Casimir I turned it into a voivodeship and divided all of Little Russia into regiments.

The first hetman was Pretselav Lanskaronsky, during which King Sigismund gave freedom to the Cossacks and granted them land above and below the rapids on both sides of the Dnieper, taken by Casimir I in 1340. But then, as the Poles began to oppress the Little Russians, some of them chose an empty place for themselves below the rapids, and there, practicing in animal and fishing, they called themselves either from goats, or from catching wild goats by the Cossacks, which the name was later applied not only to the Little Russians, but also to the Pole hunters who struck the Tatar Khan Melingirey in 1516.

“Scientists have been arguing for a long time about what the word “Cossack” means. Others made it from the word "goat", because, they say, the Cossacks competed with wild goats in the dexterity of their movements; others - from the word "spit", because the favorite pastime of these people was fishing on sandbanks, spits. Now everyone agrees that the word "Cossack" or "Cossack" is not Russian at all, but Tatar. The Kirghiz even now call themselves Cossacks, and among the Tatars their entire military estate consisted of ulans (khan descendants), murzas (princes, nobles) and ordinary Cossacks who did not own land. These Tatar Cossacks constantly roamed the steppes, kept field guards and lived on spoils of war! The very word "Cossack" or otherwise "kaisak" meant in their language a "light-pack rider", a free man, a tramp. Ukrainians from the Kiev and Poltava regions also went out to the steppes, which delivered them honey, fish, animal skins, furs and rich pastures, and there was plenty of all this. Therefore, many people did not like agricultural hard work then, and it was difficult to do it correctly, when no one was sure of the future: the Tatars would fly in and plunder everything; and the steppe beckoned brave people with the charm of a free life.

Many Ukrainians then lived a semi-nomadic life: somewhere in a village or city they had estates, usually protected, since proper farming was not carried out, and they themselves worked in the winter either at a tar mill or at a distillery, in the spring in whole artels, under the leadership of elected officials. vatazhkov, went to the steppe to hunt, go fishing; to graze horses on luxurious grasses, but here they constantly encountered Tatar vagabonds, and they were strongly tempted to harm the hated enemy as much as possible, and by the way, profit from him. Either they will catch a lone Tatar with a lasso, then they will burn down some ulus (Tatar camp), then, like snakes, they will sneak up in the tall grass to the Tatar chambul for the night - part will drive the grazing Tatar horses into the field, where they will be caught, and the other will rush at the confused Tatars, unaccustomed to foot combat, and cut them mercilessly with sabers. Having thoroughly studied all the Tatar habits, all their usual roads and crossings that they used for their devastating raids, the Ukrainian natives were soon very useful to their countrymen: they informed them about the movement of the Tatars, about the big raids that were being prepared, put a watchman (varta) on high barrows and lay in thick reeds near various river fords and Dnieper crossings.

This life, full of dangerous adventures, among the barren steppe, in continuous petty war, left a special imprint on the Ukrainians. They became so hardy that, on occasion, they could eat only roots, acorns, horns and hooves of animals, for days on end not dismount from their horses, swim across wide rivers and even the terrible Dnieper rapids. Death, which constantly threatened them in all forms, made them brave and carefree, and the absence of any constraint, the habit of relying on themselves in everything, and not waiting for help from the state, developed in them a love of freedom and an independent character. All these armed Ukrainian immigrants began to call themselves Cossacks, because in many ways they were similar to their enemies - the Tatar Cossacks: they adopted not only all their military tricks, but even the costume and the custom of shaving their heads, leaving only a long forelock. When winter came, a small part of the Cossacks arranged for themselves on some impregnable Dnieper island huts made of brushwood, covered with horseskins, and remained there in the winter, keeping a varta (watchman). Most of them returned home to Ukraine; there they sold at fairs brought from the steppe furs, skins, honey, fish, often salted, for lack of salt, ash, as well as beaten off (stolen) Tatar horses and cattle. Their stories about their exploits and the delights of a free steppe life encouraged many listeners, burghers and peasants, to try their luck - “show in the field”, and once they tasted this life, they no longer returned to the former and also became Cossacks. From this, the further, the number of Cossacks grew and grew.

Since there were no permanent troops in Lithuania and Ukraine, the Kanev and Cherkasy elders tried to take advantage of the courage and experience of the Cossacks in military affairs to protect the border from the Tatars and Turks, forming properly armed outskirts, companies and hundreds of them; they themselves encouraged the townspeople and peasants to send vartu from their midst to the steppe in turn, and all such people were exempted from taxes. The Tatars soon felt the Cossack strength. In 1527, the khan complained to the Polish king Sigismund: “Kanev and Cherkasy Cossacks come to us, stand under our uluses on the Dnieper and harm our people; I sent your grace many times to stop them, but you did not want to stop them. I went to the Moscow prince, 30 people returned from my army for illness; the Cossacks wounded them and took the horses. Is it good? The Cherkassy and Kanev authorities, therefore, let the Cossacks, along with the Cossacks of your enemy and mine, the Moscow prince, under our uluses and, that they only find out in our panship, let them know to Moscow.

Sometimes the elders themselves became the head of the Cossacks and led them on a campaign, smashed the Tatar pens, beat the Turks near Ochakovo and took a huge amount of cattle and horses. Of these elders, the “famous Cossack” Evstafiy-Ostap Dashkovich became especially famous as Cossack leaders. Already in 1538, this Dashkovich proposed to the king to build a castle with a 2000 Cossack garrison on some Dnieper island beyond the thresholds; but for some reason it didn't work out. Kanev and Cherkassy became the main gathering places for the Ukrainian Cossacks; so in Moscow the Cossacks were called "Cherkasy". From here, the Cossacks spread throughout the Kiev region, Poltava region, Chernihiv region, and the southern part of Podolia. But along with these Little Russian or city Cossacks, who soon began to receive salaries from the treasury for their service, independent Cossack bands, or “kupy”, acted in the steppe, led by their elected hetmans (from the German word “hauptman” - captain) . They had two main goals: the fight against the Tatars and the occupation of profitable steppe industries.

Historian A. Kuzmin wrote in 1902 in the book "Zaporozhian Sich":

“The Polish gentry began to move to Ukraine, where they settled on the lands begged from the king, distributed by him as a reward for service; Lithuanian and Russian nobles, wishing to obtain the rights of the gentry and to be equal in all with it, began to convert to Catholicism.

Gradually, the Polish order began to take root in Ukraine, including serfdom. In less than a few decades, the Russian people saw themselves in the bitterest bondage, the difference in faith and language of pan and clap destroyed the former closeness between them, they became strangers.

The pan-Catholic, living off his crops, did not feel sorry for them, as "schismatics" - heretics, squeezing all the juice out of them and called them nothing more than "cattle" - cattle.

The life of the peasants was hard and bitter, especially in the right-bank Ukraine, and therefore many of them began to run away to the east and to the Niz, where, unless they were intercepted on the road, they turned into free Cossacks.

"Cossack" in Tatar means - a tramp, a rider, a free warrior. This name has been around for a long time. This was the name of the free inhabitants of the left-bank Ukraine, who swam down the Dnieper for fish and then sold it in Kyiv and other cities. These daredevils began to be recruited as elders from the royal towns and volosts, or they themselves gathered in gangs and chose their leaders. Fishing in the lower reaches of the Dnieper, in the vicinity of the Tatars, often ended in bloody clashes with them, and therefore these fishermen, at the same time, had to be warriors, which is why they began to be called Cossacks.

The outstanding Russian historian S. M. Solovyov wrote:

“Initially and predominantly a Cossack, a homeless person, an exile from society, a person who is cramped, hard in society under certain conditions; The Cossack, through flight from society, sought only personal freedom; he appeared in the steppe with that narrow, infantile view of social relations to which his former environment of private dependence had accustomed him. He fled to the steppe in order to be a free Cossack, and not a peasant, for the concept of masculinity was combined with the concept of labor. A free Cossack, well done, did not want to work at all, or wanted to work as little as possible, wanted to live at the expense of others, at the expense of other people's labor.

All the daring and restless heads, all those who had reason to be at enmity with the government, rushed to the steppe Zaporozhye; it was here that uprisings broke out and spilled over all of Ukraine, from here the leaders of these uprisings appeared.

Modern Ukrainian historians V. M. Sklyarenko, V. V. Syadro, P. V. Kharchenko about the origin of the Cossacks:

“The issue of the emergence of the Cossacks still occupies one of the main places in the history of Ukraine. Disputes and discussions on this issue have been going on for several centuries and have not subsided so far. A small number of sources does not make it possible to fully answer some important aspects of this process, as a result of which there are a huge number of hypotheses and theories regarding the emergence of the Cossacks.

The Ukrainian Cossacks originated on the territory of the Middle Dnieper at the end of the 15th century. Among scientists there is no unanimity on the origin of the word "Cossack". It was believed that it comes from the name of the peoples who once lived near the Dnieper and Don (Kasogs, Kh (k) Azars), or from the self-name of modern Kirghiz - Kaysaks. There were other etymological versions of the origin of the term "Cossack": from the Turkish "kaz" (i.e. goose), from the Mongolian "ko" (armor, protection) and "zah" (line). Some scientists derived it from the Tatar verbs "kaz" - "dig", "kez" - "wander", "kach" - "run, escape"; others have created an incredible etymology of this word from "kaz" - "goose" and "ak" - "white".

The word "Cossack" was first mentioned in the Latin manuscript of the end of the XIII century "Godex cumanicus" in the meaning of "watchman" or "on duty". Following this, it is increasingly found in Turkic sources, meaning a free armed man.

The modern historian V. K. Gubarev wrote in his work “History of Ukraine” about the Cossacks:

“The term “Cossack” itself is of Turkic origin. In the "Secret History of the Mongols" (1240), this is the name of a free person, not bound by family ties, prone to conquest. In the dictionary of the Polovtsian language (1303), the Cossack is called a warrior-scout, guard. On the lands of Russia, Cossacks began to be called free people who settled in the border regions of the Moscow State, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland. In the conditions of the border, being between two hostile socio-cultural worlds - the world of Christianity and the world of Islam - the Cossacks from the very beginning were forced to unite in armed detachments led by elected atamans, and be ready at any moment to give an answer to those who coveted their independence. They replenished their ranks at the expense of runaway peasants, serfs and convicts, people persecuted for religious or political reasons. Their partnership was multinational. So, the Polish ambassador Pyasochinsky, speaking in 1601 with representatives of the Turkish government, noted that among the Cossacks there were "Poles, Ukrainians, Muscovites, Volokhi, Turks, Tatars, Jews, and in general people of any language."

The historian N. Sementovsky wrote in his study “Little Russian Antiquity, Zaporozhye and Don”, published in 1846 in St. Petersburg:

“In the boundless steppes between the Black, Aral and Caspian Seas, from unknown times a people appears, bearing the name “Cossacks”. There is no true story about the origin and initial fate of this people either in chronicles or in history. It is only true that the Cossacks in the tenth century already existed in the Russian lands - Little Russia and further along the Dnieper, Don and Bug.

Like the beginning of the history of all political societies, the history of the Cossacks begins with the appearance of knights, whose deeds survive for many centuries, are recorded in the annals and then serve as the first pages in the history of peoples.

The researcher P. Simonovsky argued in the work "A short essay on the Cossack Little Russian people and their military affairs, collected from various foreign histories, German - Besheng, Latin - Bezoldi, French - Chevalier and Russian manuscripts of 1765", published in the printing house of Moscow University in 1847 year:

“It is enough that the name of this Cossack is ancient and known to everyone. This word, Cossack, is composed of two dialects - Caspian, that is, the Caspian Sea, and Saki, that is, the Scythian people, for they were called Saks, according to the author Pliny.

The Little Russian Cossacks, without a doubt, are the oldest from the Don, and in 1579, in the reign of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, they began to be known, and they began to be as early as 1340, when Poland conquered the Red Russia.

When the famous Lithuanian prince Gedimin, in 1320, put an end to the Tatar possession over Kiev, took the city of Kyiv without the slightest resistance and established his governor in it, that the inhabitants of that land were afraid and many of them were forced to leave their homes and seek settlements for themselves. down the Dnieper, where as soon as they settled, the Poles, Lithuanians, Tatars, being now their neighbors, incessantly attacked and insulted the Little Russians, which is why they, defending themselves, acquired, from small to large, the habit of military art.

Usually Ukrainian Cossacks were then called Cossacks, because everyone lived on the other side of the Dnieper rapids.

King of Poland Sigismund I (1507-1548) took from there some part of that military people and settled them at the top of the Dnieper rapids, to protect the borders from Turkish and Tatar attacks, when those Cossacks multiplied so much that they were able, in agreement with the brethren with his Cossacks, to smash the Turks and Tatars on the Black Sea.

King Stefan Batory, to whom Poland, for many good institutions, owes a lot, arguing how the Cossacks are needed and useful in the war, made a military corps out of them in 1576, dividing it into 6 regiments, each regiment had a thousand people, and those regiments divided into hundreds, so that each Cossack belonging to the regiment was inscribed in a hundred and, when necessary, must certainly be in it. Every regiment and every hundred had a commander appointed by the king, who then, by definition of the king, was without change. Over all those regiments, the king made them the chief commander with the title of hetman, to whom, for better respect and veneration, he granted the royal banner, bunchuk, mace and seal with the image of a Cossack standing in the field, which is now printed by Little Russia. At the same time, he also determined the military foremen - the convoy, the judge, the clerk, the captain.

In 1910, the historian M. A. Karaulov II wrote in the Essays on Cossack antiquity:

“The word “Cossack” is undoubtedly not of Russian origin. This word gave rise to various scientists and researchers to build a wide variety of conjectures to clarify its origin and original meaning. Some tried to compare it with the name of the Kasog tribe, who lived in the 9th-11th centuries in the foothills of the North Caucasus; and with Kazakhia, Transcaucasia, the Georgian border region, mentioned by the Byzantine emperor of the tenth century, Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus; and with the Khazars, who lived on the lower reaches of the Don and Volga in the VIII-X centuries. This word was also derived from the Turko-Tatar word "koz" - "goose", and from the Mongolian word "ko" - "armor, armor, protection", and "zah" - boundary, border, line, from where "goats" should have meaning "defender of the border". The historian Golubovsky considers this word to be the Polovtsian word for "guard". However, despite all the efforts of scientists, the question of the origin of the word "Cossack" is still controversial and unclear. It is easy to see that in Russian historical monuments, at the very beginning, the word “Cossack” is used either in the general sense of “homeless person”, “exile”, or in the narrower sense of “a lonely free man”, serving the state or its individual members out of good will.

The Cossacks are, in spirit and aims, their direct continuation of the Holy Russian heroism, and therefore it must be considered as ancient as the Russian state itself. We can safely say that the Cossacks are Russia, but not weak-willed servile Russia, groaning under a foreign yoke and powerlessly drowning in internecine struggle, but Russia is free, victorious, widely spreading its eagle wings across the steppe expanse and boldly looking into the eyes of its neighbors - enemies " .

The results of the historical discussion at the end of the 19th century were summed up by the famous encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron:

“As one of the ways to get rid of the oppression of the landowners, the flight of the serfs developed. The serfs and the poorest philistinism went to the eastern, sparsely populated steppe regions, to the lower reaches of the Dnieper, where they entered the service in border castles, and were also engaged in hunting and fishing. Such non-settled people began to be called Cossacks. They actually became free people. The Cossacks became the organizers of campaigns against the Tatars, which were caused by their constant raids.

In the second half of the 16th century, the Cossacks created their own military center beyond the Dnieper rapids - the Zaporozhian Sich.

The modern Ukrainian historian V. F. Ostafiychuk wrote in his work “History of Ukraine: a modern view”, published in Kyiv in 2008:

“In Soviet historiography, it was argued that the formation of the Cossacks took place only at the expense of the peasants who fled from serfdom. Unfortunately, this class approach to the consideration of the issue of the formation of the Cossacks still outweighs in scientific works and popular publications. A number of Ukrainian historians, in particular L. Zaliznyak and others, deny this "statement" and argue that the Cossacks entered the historical field long before the enslavement of the peasants. Ukraine was known to late medieval Europe as the "country of the Cossacks". Voltaire wrote in The History of Charles XII: “Ukraine, the country of the Cossacks, is one of the most fertile countries in the world. Ukraine has always wanted freedom.” Cossacks in form and essence were a kind of European chivalry. They originate from the princely era and are the heirs of the retinue and chivalric traditions of Kievan Rus. It is probably no coincidence that church hierarchs in their Manifesto of 1621 called the Zaporizhzhya army the heirs of the ancient princely knighthood. The bull of Pope Gregory IX speaks of the Cossacks under the year 1227.

The Cossacks gave birth not so much to serfdom, as to an ardent desire to revive their state in the ancient Kievan Russian expanses. It was on this desire that the ideology of armed rebuff was formed, the unity of all those who contributed to this cause, regardless of nationality, social origin. Therefore, in the ranks of the Cossacks, there were peasants, and artisans, and gentry, and priests, and aristocrats, and foreigners. The Cossacks were replenished both by people from the Ukrainian lands, and from Belarus, the Moscow principality, and Moldova.

The Cossacks mastered the uninhabited Ukrainian steppes in the lower reaches of the Dnieper, which were not subject to the power of either the Polish or the Tatar-Turkish invaders. Free settlers - Cossacks, for whom freedom was valued above all else, created a new common organization in new places - a Cossack society, a community in which everyone received equal rights with everyone to use economic lands and participate in self-government, including in the election of Cossack leaders . At the same time, everyone was obliged to guard the settlements with weapons in their hands, to go on military campaigns.

Ukrainian historians V. V. Sklyarenko, V. V. Sadro and P. V. Kharchenko wrote in 2008 about the Cossacks – “a phenomenon that was destined to become a new and powerful force during the general national and social decline of Ukrainians”:

“The Ukrainian Cossacks as a phenomenon appeared on the historical arena at the end of the 15th century, but as a social stratum it was formed only at the turn of the 16th-17th centuries. It was then that the Ukrainian Cossacks grew into a separate class group with their own special interests, economic and social prerogatives. There is a huge difference between a Cossack - a steppe warrior of the late 15th - early 16th century, who was engaged in the so-called "departure" (economic craft), and a Cossack of the late 16th century, who became the defender of the interests of the Ukrainian people in the powerful multinational union of the Commonwealth - a huge difference.

The Cossacks were formed on a fairly large ethnic and social base, which over the course of two centuries was constantly updated and changed. The peasantry, the boyars, the gentry, the bourgeoisie were drawn into this process.

By the beginning of the 15th century, the Polish Crown on the Right Bank and Left Bank of the Dnieper. In southeastern Ukraine, the Zholkovskys, Kalinovskys, Zamoyskys, and Koretskys ruled. Serfdom was finally strengthened in the Ukrainian lands. Polish orders and laws were transferred to Ukraine. All this was intensified by national and religious oppression. Peasants were forced to accept Catholicism, deprived of their rights, called cattle - "cattle". Faith played an important role in the creation of the Cossacks. Pans in castles and estates, with rare exceptions, were Catholics, ordinary people were Orthodox and stubbornly adhered to this faith. From religious compulsion, the people went to the Cossacks in the steppe.

The gentry constantly interfered with the development of Ukrainian cities that already had the Magdeburg Law. The impoverished townspeople fled to the Cossacks in the steppe. Orthodox boyars and nobles were also oppressed by the Polish magnates. The Russian historian A. Apostolov wrote at the beginning of the 20th century:

“The gentry poured into Russia in a wide stream, followed by the Catholic clergy. The magnates zealously asked the king for deeds of deed to free lands, and the king willingly gave these letters. A certain pan received such a piece of land that you could not go round him on a good horse for several days. Behind the lords, the petty gentry, the "corralled" poor, also reached out here, in order to take advantage of the crumbs from the lord's booty. Such a gentleman will curry favor with the pan, he will help him “grow into the ground”, acquire an economy, he will go uphill, you look - another will soon become a magnate himself. Another shabby gentry sold his last property in his homeland and hurried to Ukraine with money; there he appeared to the pan and asked to give him a plot of land for free. This was very beneficial for Panama, as it increased the profitability of their lands: the newly arrived gentry tried to populate the land; if it was empty, he started servants and households; if the land was with the peasants, then he imposed taxes on them and then paid rent to the pan. Since then, the settlement of Ukraine has rapidly moved forward, the country was rich, deserted and could feed a lot of people. The trouble was that the gentry flowed in from Poland in abundance, the Polish kmets did not go. Here cheap laborers were needed, but they either did not exist at all, or a free population sat on the new lands: zemyanki, Cossacks, who were not at all disposed to work for nothing for the new masters who had fallen to them from the sky; the gentry grew up on cotton labor and did not recognize any other. In addition, the Russian commoner was in the eyes of the Pole a schismatic, a heretic, and they did not call him otherwise than “cattle” (animal), “dog blood”. The court against the pan could not be found anywhere: the judges were corrupt, and the magnates were not afraid of them, scoffing at the court verdicts. The disasters of the people were further intensified by the presence in Ukraine of a violent mercenary "quartz army": the zholners who served in it were outrageous and robbed the inhabitants.

In a word, the position of the Khlops in the Ukraine soon became as difficult as it was in Poland, and even worse. One Polish writer says:

“In Turkey, not a single pasha can do this to the last peasant, otherwise he will pay with his head; and among the Muscovites the first boyar, and among the Tatars, the Murza do not dare to insult a simple clap, even a non-believer. Only in Poland we are free to do everything in small towns and villages. Asiatic despots will not torture as many people in their entire lives as they will be tortured in the free Commonwealth.

The pans received huge incomes from their estates, scattered the money like chaff, and yet they could not squander it. Magnates spent their whole lives in feasts and drinking bouts; in the gilded chambers of the castles, music thundered day and night, Hungarian wine stood in barrels, and many gentry-parasites languished.

Other gentry followed the lords. The same writer says:

“From the senator to the craftsman, everyone drinks away their fortune, then goes into irredeemable debt. No one wants to live by labor, everyone strives to seize someone else's. It is easy to get it, easy to go down; everyone thinks only of that, in order to have a wilder revelry. The earnings of poor people, collected with their tears, sometimes with a skin, they exterminate like locusts: one person eats at one time as much as many poor people earn in a long time. They laugh at the Poles that they probably have such a property that they can sleep peacefully on it, without tormenting their conscience.

The Ukrainians did not want to turn into “rednecks”, they did not want to turn into flakes, they wanted freedom. Those people, peasants, artisans, nobles, who went to the Dnieper rapids, did not fall into an empty place - they were already expected there, the Ukrainian Cossacks already had their own organization, and there were already a lot of Cossacks themselves, experienced steppe warriors.

The southern outskirts of the Ukrainian lands were subjected to constant raids and devastation from the hordes of the Crimean Tatars - the Polish Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which included Ukrainian territories, had to take measures to protect the border. The attacks of the Crimeans became more and more menacing and devastating, the enemy detachments moved farther and farther, and from 1506 the Grand Duchy of Lithuania began to pay tribute to the Crimean Khan. This, of course, did not help, and in 1511 a large diet was convened in the city of Piotrokovo to discuss the Tatar problem.

Voivode Evstafiy-Ostap Dashkovich proposed to the Sejm to create an advanced security line in the lower reaches of the Dnieper:

“It is necessary for this to establish an active guard of only two thousand soldiers. They could travel on small ships and boats between the Dnieper islands and rapids, preventing the Tatar crossing. To cover this guard, the islands should be strengthened, and no more than five hundred horsemen are needed to deliver life supplies to it.

The Seimas approved Dashkovich's project and decided to organize a 4,000-strong army in the lower reaches of the Dnieper, for the armament and maintenance of which to collect a special land tax. The army guarding Podolia was led by Evstafiy Dashkovich. Historian M.A. Karaulov wrote:

“Dashkovich actively set about implementing his great, as it turned out, plan. It is precisely this circumstance that we owe to the fact that in the Zaporizhzhya internal system, life and order, from the very first steps, the features of the military structure of both the ancient states of Sparta and Rome, and the later knightly orders are striking.

Dashkovich selected four thousand Cossacks, divided them into regiments and hundreds, placed elders, colonels, captains, centurions and foremen over them, arranged a Cossack court of senior Cossacks. Every year, he changed two thousand Cossacks, who were kept "on the Niza", for others, releasing the first "in the field, in the steppe." From the very beginning, the Ukrainian Cossacks were divided into two types - employees on the border and living at home until such time as they were not called to a military campaign.

The first campaign took place in 1516 - 1,200 Cossacks led by Dashkovich reached Ak-Kerman in Turkish possessions, defeated the Tatars and returned, bringing with them 500 horses and 3,000 heads of cattle. In the following campaigns, the Cossacks of E. Dashkovich against the Tatars were assisted by Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky - in 1522 and 1523. Before that, in 1515 and 1521, the Cossacks, on the orders of the authorities, went on a campaign to the outskirts of Moscow.

The Dnieper guards were at first small in number and could not fight large enemy military formations. A large Cossack army was assigned to form Bogdan Rozhinsky, the commander of the troops in the Ukrainian lands. He organized twenty local regiments of two thousand Cossacks each and divided them into hundreds. They got their names according to the cities and villages where they were located - “The Kiev Regiment, the Kyiv Hundred”. All Cossacks were rewritten, a list of names, a register was compiled; the Cossacks themselves began to be called registered. Half of the Cossacks were cavalry, armed at their own expense with guns, pistols, sabers and spears, intended for action "in the field." The second half, the infantry, armed with guns, spears and daggers, was intended for the defense of cities and towns. During the hostilities, registered Cossacks received a salary, sometimes clothes. In peacetime, they were engaged in farming, crafts, trade, and were exempt from taxes.

In the second half of the 16th century, the Cossacks created their own military center beyond the Dnieper rapids - the Zaporozhian Sich. Zaporozhye land became the center of Cossack power. The great Taras Shevchenko wrote:

"And I'm going to make friends

With my faithful friend -

The one with the Great Meadow.

On Khortitsa with mother

I will reap kindly

Walk at the oxamity

Meda - drink wine!

The Russian historian of the early twentieth century A. Kuzmin left a very poetic description of the Zaporizhzhya lands:

“Niz, or Zaporizhia, were lands lying on both sides of the Dnieper, below its rapids, almost to the very Black Sea.

These places were steppe, and nature here had a dual character; in places it represented an extraordinary abundance, in which Ukraine generally differed, and in places it was an extreme lack.

In the spring, Zaporizhzhia was a boundlessly spreading green tablecloth, a boundless, as if silky meadow, with overhanging rocks over deep rivers and deep gullies.

And how much variety there was! Here the log is spread, the ravine stretches; there, along the banks of the rivers, rocks protrude from behind the rocks; here a brook murmurs melodically or a crystal-clear river meanders capriciously; here small hillocks rise, mounds and graves rise, and farther away, by the mighty flowing waters, dense, virgin thick-leaved forests turn black.

All this is extremely beautiful and majestic!

Zaporozhye was rich in water: the Dnieper alone with its tributaries occupied a huge area of ​​land, giving the opportunity to develop forest and steppe flora, despite the scorching sun in summer and severe cold in winter, but they amazed the traveler with the density of its thicket, the size of individual trees and the variety of their species.

There were: linden, maple, hornbeam, elm, oak, ash, plane tree, tannery, vine, black sorrel, willow, willow, wild rose, hawthorn, mulberry, blackthorn, wild pear and apple tree, duli, barberry and many others.

The largest forest areas lay only to the east of the mouth of the Dnieper, and in the rest of Zaporizhzhya, the forest grew everywhere along the banks of rivers and gullies.

The land was fertile and fat; it could abundantly produce various kinds of bread: rye, wheat, barley, oats, buckwheat, millet, flax, hemp. From garden vegetables: watermelons, melons, cucumbers, potatoes, garlic, onions, beets, parsley.

In the space of several hundred acres one could find many types of vegetation: wild tea, sage, feather grass, chicory, cockle, asparagus, horseradish, poppy, chamomile.

All this, at the first brilliance of the spring sun, rose from the earth, grew rapidly and in a short time reached almost full development.

Along with the appearance of vegetation, animals also appeared, birds also flew in; especially abounded with those and other "floods".

The floodplains are low-lying valleys on both sides of the middle and lower reaches of the Dnieper, especially on the left bank, covered with lush grass, high reeds and various kinds, mostly softwoods, trees: in spring and rainy autumn, the floodplains were completely flooded with water, while in summer they were dry, except for the lowest places filled with water and representing channels - rivers, lakes and swamps. The consequence of this was that in the hottest summer, when the coastal steppes were scorched by the sun, and therefore lifeless spaces, the floodplains had and provided the moisture necessary for the development of plants and were a refuge from the heat of various kinds of animals and birds.

Boars, bears, badgers, wolves, foxes, otters, buffaloes, wild horses, deer, fallow deer, goats and others swarmed in the floodplains; partridges, corncrakes, starlings and many small birds hid, darted and flew in thick grass and bushes, fleeing from huge vipers, various snakes and from eagles, hawks and falcons soaring in the heights; drokhvy, wild hens, like a herd of rams, grazed in the coastal steppe; the tops of the bare oaks were covered with groups of black grouse perched on the boughs; swans, geese, ducks, cormorants, cranes, women birds and other water and marsh birds swam, dived and fed in rivers and lakes, sometimes rising into the air in noisy flocks to escape the attempts of gourmet foxes, and again descended to another lake , as rich in fish as the former.

Nowhere, it seems, was there such a variety of different fish as in the Dnieper and its tributaries; from ancient times, legends about its wealth in fish have come down. Here were found: sturgeon, catfish, stellate sturgeon, tench, sterlet, pike, ram, chabaks, perches, ruffs, roach, pike perch, ide, herring, chili and beluga, reaching up to three fathoms in length.

In total, the Nizovites had plenty here:

They also had plenty of dense forest,

And a jumping beast

And flying birds

And floating fish

They also have plenty of grass-ants

Good horses to the grass!

The use of these natural gifts of nature was the main means of life for the Cossacks. Hunting and fishing gave them almost everything. If something was missing, then in the “search”, as they called their raids on the Crimean and Turkish possessions, they got the rest: dresses, weapons, and so on.

Having got acquainted with the mouth of the Dnieper, with its numerous girls, islands and reeds, the Cossacks began to go to sea, where they captured Turkish merchant ships.

Making their sometimes daring raids, the Cossacks were not afraid of the revenge of the Turks: they were saved from this by the same Dnieper. According to Biplan, there were more than ten thousand islands in the lower Dnieper, and all of them were covered with such dense grass, such impenetrable reeds and tall trees, that inexperienced sailors from afar mistook huge trees for the masts of ships sailing through the Dnieper waters, and the whole mass of islands - for one huge island.

Zaporozhye was just as securely covered from the north by the rapids of the Dnieper. Whoever has not seen these rapids, who has not tried to pass through them, can never imagine all the menacingness, all the horror and grandeur that the Dnieper strikes every traveler here. The blood freezes in the veins, the lips close, the heart stops beating. Already from a distance you can recognize the approach of the thresholds by that strange noise, the deafening roar of water, which, pouring into the gaps between the thresholds, foams strongly, rises high and then falls down at once, instantly dragging everything with it. Many ships were wrecked and people died here.

There were no roads in Zaporozhye, except for the Dnieper. Large islands, rising high above the water with their steep granite sides, densely overgrown with trees and grass, were the favorite and most reliable place of settlement for all immigrants from Ukraine. Here they felt like free people, knowing that the gentlemen would not even try to penetrate here.

Here is the Niz, which was the object of deep reverence in the eyes of every Cossack.

But the same Zaporozhye-Niz in places and at other times of the year was of the opposite character, showing an extreme lack of everything. Therefore, it becomes clear why the area where the Cossacks nested did not belong to any of the neighboring peoples and bore their name of the Wild Field, but the Poles mistakenly called all of Zaporozhye the Wild Field.

The wild field began in the west of the Sinyukha River, a tributary of the Bug, and stretched east to the right bank of the Dnieper, further extending to the south. It was a barren area, devastated, moreover, often by locusts, so remote from settlements that a person risked dying of starvation during the journey; only some places near the water abounded with fish and game and had pasture for horses.

From the middle of summer, the steppes of the left bank differed little from the Wild Field: rivers and streams dried up from the heat, the grass dried up and became unsuitable for grazing horses and cattle. The dryness of the grass provided abundant food for steppe fires, sometimes covering an area of ​​several tens of miles. In the summer, around noon, flies the size of half an inch appeared and bit the horses until they bled, and in the evening swarms of mosquitoes arose with a dull buzz from all damp and low-lying places, greedily attacking all living things, and only in the smoke of fires could one find salvation from them. Among the other hardships that visit Zaporozhye in the summer, we must add locusts and contagious diseases. The dampness of the floodplains contributed to the rooting of various contagious fevers in Zaporozhye, and sometimes a terrible disease was added to them, known as a pestilence or impudent death; many Cossacks died from it.

In winter, it was no better on Niza: a fierce cold, a snowstorm and packs of wolves embittered from hunger made the position of a traveler in the steppe terrible, where, except for wolves, nothing living was shown, and only the wind broke the silence, with a roar driving snowdrifts from one place to another .

If we add to all this that the Cossacks were usually either searching or hunting in the floodplains, in the vicinity of irreconcilable enemies - the Tatars, then it becomes clear that the life of a Cossack on the Niz was harsh and full of hardships. In general, to go beyond the thresholds to the Lower meant to expose oneself to many hardships that only a person with a strong nature could endure.

It was on this land that the fortress of the Ukrainian Cossacks appeared - the Sich, the Zaporizhzhya Sich.

The first Cossack fortress, which became the prototype of the Zaporizhzhya Sich, was built in the 1550s on the Dnieper island Malaya Khortitsa by the Orthodox prince Dmitry Vyshnevetsky, later nicknamed or identified by the Cossacks with the Ukrainian folk hero Cossack Baid. The prince, a descendant of both Rurikovich and Gediminovich, in 1550 was appointed headman of Cherkasy and Kanev by the Polish king. He gathered and united scattered Cossack detachments, made several trips to the Crimea, and in 1553-1556 built the first fort on Malaya Khortitsa - "a city opposite Horse Waters." Many historians call it the cradle of the Ukrainian Cossacks. The Cossacks called him their hetman. Prior to this, the leaders of the Cossack detachments were called chieftains. This word, probably of Turkic origin, meant an elected leader; the military ataman was considered the chief commander of the army. Later, among the Cossacks, the ataman became the head of the army. The very word "hetman" (Polish hetman, Czech hejtman, German hauptman) meant chief, leader. In the Czech Republic during the Hussite wars, it was the hetman who led the Taborite troops. In Poland and Lithuania, hetmans were originally called the commanders of mercenary troops, later, from the 16th century, the life-long title of hetman was borne by the commander of all the armed forces of the state - the great hetman, and his deputy - the full hetman. It was from the first Cossack commander D. Vyshnevetsky that hetmans began to be called the elected heads of the registered and Zaporizhzhya Cossacks.

The first Cossacks took the Turkish fortress of Islamkermen and the cannons from there stood on the Khortitsa stones, guarding the Zaporizhian kosh. Khan twice besieged the Khortitskaya fortress, but could not take it. The Cossacks left on their own when food and ammunition ran out. An outstanding Ukrainian historian of the 20th century N. Polonskaya-Vasilenko wrote:

“Vishnevetsky asked the Lithuanian government for help with “people and shooting”, but received a response characteristic of that government: without providing assistance, it advised not to touch the Tatars and Turks.

Having no hope for the help of the Lithuanian government, he turned to Moscow, which gave him a large amount of money and the city of Belev with the district. A joint campaign with the Moscow troops against the Tatars did not give anything. The Moscow government sent Vishnevetsky to the Caucasus to fight the Circassians, but Vishnevetsky returned to Ukraine. In 1561, Sigismund-August, in order not to irritate the Tatars, sent Vishnevetsky's Cossacks to Livonia, to fight against Moscow. After that, Vishnevetsky succumbed to the temptation to become the Moldavian ruler, but the Volokhi betrayed him and gave him to the Turks.

In 1563 D. Vishnevetsky was executed in Istanbul. The great historian M. Hrushevsky called it "a lightning-fast meteor that flew through Ukrainian life."

Since that time, the Cossacks began to live permanently on the Dnieper islands, “repairing big Skodas to the nomads of the Perekop Khan; once caught the Crimean merchants thirty people and killed them because they took Lithuanian captives bought by them in Moscow. Even then, the Cossacks did not really reckon with the supreme power of the Polish crown. They became a formidable force. The Cossacks beat the Tatars, punishing for the raids, the Cossacks began to go to sea and attack the Turkish ships. Peasants and impoverished philistines fled to the Niz, which became a haven for all those who hated serfdom, national and religious persecution. The Cossacks began to form customs and traditions. Their number began to increase significantly after 1569, when, after the Union of Lublin, a Catholic state was created - the Commonwealth. The Polish chronicler-chronist M. Belsky wrote about the Cossacks-Cossacks of the second half of the 16th century:

“These people are usually engaged in fishing on the banks of the Dnieper, which they dry in the sun without salt and feed on it during the summer, disperse to the nearest cities for the winter, hiding their boats in a secluded place on the Dnieper island, leaving several hundred people there on the kuren. , or as they say, shooting. They also have their guns; they cause great misfortune to the Tatars and Turks and have already several times destroyed Ochakov, Tyaginka, Belgorod and other castles, and took a lot of booty in the fields; so that the Turks and Tatars are afraid to drive the sheep and cattle far to pasture, as before.

Among the islands is the island of Khortitsa, where Vishnevetsky lived before and did much harm to the Tatars, so that they did not dare to invade us so often. There is also a third island, Tomakovka, where the grassroots Cossacks live most of all, since it serves as the strongest castle for them.

The Cossacks are so accustomed to this area that they pass the rapids in their leather boats, which they call seagulls, on which they go down and drag them up on ropes. In such boats, Russia used to harm the Greek emperor, sailing to Constantinople itself.

In 1575, the Cossacks, led by Bogdan Ruzhinsky, went to the Crimea and freed many Christian prisoners. The following year, in Turkish Anatolia, they took and burned the cities of Sinop and Trebizond.

After the unification of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into the Commonwealth, the Cossack regiments created in Ukrainian cities came under the command of a special "Cossack senior", directly subordinate to the crown hetman. The Zaporizhzhya Cossacks did not submit to King Sigismund and, despite his letters and universals, continued to fight the Tatars and Turks. Several thousand Cossacks could not stop the combined Tatar-Turkish troops, and in 1574 there was an invasion of the southern lands of the Commonwealth. The Tatars gained a huge crowd, burned the outlying towns and towns and returned to the Crimea. The Dnieper guard was not numerous.

In addition to the city and registered Cossacks, regiments of okhochekomon - equestrian volunteers were created. These regiments were named after the colonels appointed by the hetman. Depending on the international situation, there were from five to twenty of them.

Ivan Podkova, who became the head of the Cossacks and Okhochekomon, broke a horseshoe with two fingers of one hand, made several successful trips to Turkish lands. Having defeated the Turkish army in the battle on the Prut River in 1577, the Cossack troops occupied the Moldavian capital of Iasi. Ivan Podkova invited the Polish king to "take Moldavia under his own hand." The king did not want to quarrel with the Sultan and ordered the Cossacks to leave Turkish Moldavia. Ivan Podkova was captured by deceit in Nemirov and executed in Lvov. An Italian diplomat present at the execution reported to the Duke of Tuscany:

“The drumbeat and the great noise from the crowd of people sounded in the town hall square. Having gone to the place of execution and looking at people without fear of death, Podkova turned to the people: “Panov Poles, I have been brought to execution and I don’t know why, because I don’t know any guilt behind me that would deserve such punishment. I know only one thing, that I have always fought against the enemies of the Christian name and have always fought for the benefit of this name for our Fatherland. Now I must die, because the filthy dog ​​of the Turks ordered so to your king, his servant, and your king to the executioner.

Taras Shevchenko dedicated his poems to the Zaporozhian hero:

“... Chorna hmara because of Lyman

The sky, the sun krie,

Blue sea with a beast

Now stop, then vie.

The Dnieper was flooded.

"Anute, clap,

On the bandanas! Sea grae -

Let's go for a walk!"

Whilst all around, burn like ti:

No earth, no sky.

Serce mlie, and to the Cossacks

Togo tilki th need.

Plivut sobi and spivayut,

Fishing litae…

And in front of the otaman

Vede, who knows.

Pokhodzhae vzdovzh kayak,

Turn off the cradle in the mouth;

Look here and there -

De de be roboti?

Twisting black mustache,

Chuprina behind the ear

Lifting your hat - you have steel.

"Hail the enemy to the guinea!

Not to Sinop, otamana,

Panov-youth,

And at Tsargrad, to the Sultan,

Let's go visit!"

"Good, father otamane!" -

It roared all around.

"Thank you!" -

I put on a hat.

Started to boil

blue sea; canoe vzdovzh

Znovu pojae

Pan otaman ta hell

Look at the little ones."

The Tatars tried several times to destroy the Cossack fortification on the Dnieper island. The Cossack camp - kosh - consisted of large kurens - sheds, dugouts, which the Cossacks easily abandoned in case of need. The Tatars occupied the island and soon left, and "sich" appeared on another island - and so everything went "in a circle." The island with the Sich was fortified with rows of trenches and cannon batteries. On the pier there was usually a ferry and a lot of boats, kayaks, "gas chambers", marching gulls, there were forges, workshops, and trading tents. Resin was boiling in large cauldrons, boats were being prepared for campaigns. On the island itself there were kurens, a small wooden church. Between the pier and the kurens there was a small guard outpost, watching the passing and passing by. The Cossacks themselves, usually very bizarrely dressed, always wore a famously broken Cossack hat with a red top - a sign of Cossack dignity. Under pain of death, women were not allowed to enter the Sich, only a single Cossack could become a Cossack.

The Cossacks accepted all Orthodox who wished. There were up to several dozen kurens, each had his own chieftain. In the kuren - a long barn for one hundred or two hundred people, built of brushwood smeared with clay and covered with turf - Cossack goods and supplies were stored. The treasury and weapons were stored in the military treasury - a cache, located even under water. The historian A. Kuzmin wrote about the Cossacks at the beginning of the 20th century:

“A day at the Setch began at sunrise. Crossing themselves and rinsing their faces with a handful of fresh Dnieper water, everyone began to “do a huge job”: some went to repair boats, some rode horses or learned to shoot at a target, some fished or went hunting.

At this time, the "cooks" with assistants made a fire in the "forges" and cooked borscht, fish soup, porridge, dumplings in fat cauldrons, and whole rams, wild boars, saigas, bulls and even huge tours were roasted on iron rods; bakers baked heaps of bread.

All these dishes were prepared for each chicken separately. Loaves of bread were laid out on horse skins, or even directly on the ground, and salt shakers were placed. The Cossacks who had gathered for dinner, throwing off their high hats and crossing themselves at sunrise, took out spoons from the depths of their bottomless pockets, took out knives, cut bread into pieces and sat down in a circle on the ground, crossing and tucking their legs under them in Turkish style. The cooks, in huge scoops, poured into wooden bowls, up to a fathom in circumference, the brew, which was spread among the groups of Cossacks. The Cossacks ate sedately, without haste, and, as usual, ate everything without a trace. He was the first to lower the spoon into the bowl "dad". After the brew, they served baked and fried food, dividing it into parts with axes and knives, and the heart of the animal was constantly given to the ataman, so that “the animal was kind to its children,” and the lung of the animal was divided equally among everyone, so that “the Cossack was light on the water.”

After dinner, the whole Sich lay down to rest. The Cossacks did not like to sleep in stuffy huts, but preferred to stretch out on a scroll or on hay right under the open sky; they were not afraid of bad weather.

The Cossacks spent the evening in inactivity: lying on the ground with cradles in their teeth, they listened to the stories of experienced comrades about sea campaigns, about battles with Tatars and Poles.

Such a pastime, however, does not give us the right to consider the Cossacks completely inactive and incapable of work. Part of the Cossacks was constantly absent in the steppe or floodplains, hunting or fishing. Kurenny chieftains led a line between the Cossacks sent to these works, which served as a means to feed the entire Sich.

For whole weeks these parties lived in impassable and swampy floodplains or in the boundless steppe, where they often encountered detachments of the Tatars, and it was here that young and inexperienced Cossacks actually learned those military techniques and skills that made them such dexterous and dangerous opponents in the war. .

In clashes with the Tatars, the Cossacks used many small military tricks that helped them win even in cases where the advantage was on the side of the enemy. So, if the Cossacks saw that they could not cope with the Tatars in an open battle, then they tried to get away from them on their fast horses and, in order to confuse the enemy, they were divided into several parties and dispersed in different directions. Large parties went in a goose, small ones three or four in a row, trying to trample as much grass as possible in order to give the Tatars a wrong idea of ​​the size of each party. The Tatars also had to be divided into several parts, according to the strength and number of Cossack parties. The Cossacks only needed this: having gathered at the appointed place, they defeated the detachments of the Tatars one by one.

The experienced Cossack was not afraid to get lost in the endless steppe, in this boundless sea of ​​grass: the sky and the steppe itself with its diverse life faithfully and accurately gave him all the information necessary for the traveler. So, day and night, the Cossack could find out what time it was, determine in which direction this or that part of the world lay. During the day he recognized this by the height of the sun, at night he was helped by brightly shining and shining stars.

The Cossacks were well acquainted with all the sounds and voices of the wild steppe and smoother. The Zaporozhets howled like a wolf, hissed like a snake, roared like a Turin, sang like a quail and cuckooed like a real cuckoo. The cry "p" ygu-p "ygu" was even a conditional cry of the Cossacks; with this cry they let each other know of their presence. In general, all these animal and bird cries were a series of conventional signals that were used by the Cossacks, invisible to each other, to mislead, deceive, outwit their enemies. It happened that, gliding in the grass, like snakes, several Cossacks would inaudibly approach the camp of the Tatars that had spent the night in the steppe and frighten away the herd of their horses. Then the rest of the Cossacks, lurking with their horses in the tall grass, like a storm flew into the Tatars rushing about the camp in disorder, and there was no salvation for them. While a merciless massacre was going on by the light of blazing fires, a small detachment of Cossacks on the best horses rushed across the steppe in front of the Tatar herd, since a good horse was considered the best prey for a Cossack.

Hunting and fishing, although often ending in bloody battles with the Tatars, were not considered by the Cossacks as a real “cause”: only a war with “infidels” was considered such a business.

Almost every year, the Cossacks undertook sea trips to the Crimea and Turechina.

With the announcement of a campaign in the Sich, feverish activity began to boil. There were no more drunks and walkers, everyone was serious, diligently and quickly made the necessary preparations for the campaign. Seagulls caulked for the campaign, there they ground and dried gunpowder, here they cut and dried pieces of various meat in the sun, some cooked crackers, mended clothes, others shot muskets and sharpened sabers.

The ataman ordered calmly and authoritatively. Kurenye atamans with badges in their hands watched the work, and in the ataman’s kuren, the military clerk and captains compiled lists of Cossacks who went on a campaign, as well as those who were left in the Sich to protect it from an unexpected raid in the absence of a kosh.

It is difficult to say in what year the Cossacks' sea campaigns began: for a long time, small parties of Cossacks, while fishing at the mouth of the Dnieper, went out to the open sea, where, on occasion, they attacked the merchant galleys of the Turks. From 1601 to 1612, every summer the Cossacks captured several galleys, from the next year 1613, large sea campaigns of the Cossacks began.

Peasants, tradesmen, merchants, servants, artisans, small service gentry, who were transferred to the category of state peasants, went to the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks. It was an already established military force, not subordinate to the Polish Crown. And something had to be done about her.

The first attempt to solve the problem of the Ukrainian Cossacks belonged to the Polish king Stefan Batory, who ruled in the Commonwealth in 1575-1586. He tried to streamline the Ukrainian Cossacks, which the Polish Crown was already afraid of. "Wishing" Cossacks were recorded in a new register, and then divided into six regiments. The number of registered Cossacks, according to various sources, ranged from several hundred to several thousand. They received their foreman and their court. The Cossack hetman was chosen by the Cossacks themselves, the Polish king approved him or not. The city of Trakhtemirov near Kanev became the Cossack capital; since 1578, an arsenal and a hospital appeared there. In addition to Trakhtemirov, the hetman's capital of Baturyn began to be built. Batory fought with the Moscow Tsar Ivan the Terrible, and he needed the Cossacks not to touch the Turks and Tatars, with whom the Commonwealth signed peace. However, these measures did not lead to the consequences that Batory expected.

Kyiv, Bila Tserkva, Korsun, Konstantinov, Bar, Cherkassy, ​​Chichirin, Kodak, Yampol, Bratslav, Vinnitsa, Uman, Chernihiv, Lubny, Pereyaslavl, Fastov became the cities of registered Cossacks. However, several tens of thousands of Cossacks lost their Cossack rights and privileges and had to move to the peasant class - "Embassy", risking becoming serfs of the Polish pans. The Cossacks and all the Okhochekomon went to the Zaporizhzhya Sich, which was completely independent, despite Batory's attempts to curb the Cossacks, who, contrary to the prohibitions of the king, chose a ataman for themselves. The envoys of the king, who came for Cossack freedom, were drowned in the Dnieper. The number of Cossacks reached twenty thousand soldiers. From that time on, the division of Ukrainian Cossacks into registered, city and Zaporizhzhya, grassroots Cossacks began. A researcher of the early twentieth century wrote about the beginning of the Zaporozhian Sich:

“The once peaceful artels of fishermen, shepherds and chumaks have now turned into a well-organized army that did not recognize anyone's power under it. Now the Cossacks had their own lands, which they jealously guarded; had their subjects - all those colonists who lived under their wing in the steppe. In Ukraine and in foreign lands, they were considered “glorious knights”, a solid bulwark of Christianity against Muslims, and soon they also came out against the proud Poles, as fighters for the desecrated faith and the Ukrainian people oppressed by the Pans.

The main center of the Zaporozhian lands was the fortified Sich - Sicha. The authorities were there, the main armed force was quartered, there was a harbor for all ships that came from the sea. At first, the Sich was on the island of Khortytsya, then it was transferred several times further down the Dnieper, closer to the Crimea, to various Dnieper islands: Bazavluk, Tomakovka, on an island at the mouth of Chertomlak. The Cossacks always chose impregnable places to build their Sich. Only the floodplain of the Great Meadow stretched for 45 versts in length and 20 in width, protecting the Cossacks from the Tatar side. The Sich was completely impregnable from three sides: from the south lay a network of floodplains all the way to the Dnieper, from the north there was an estuary, and from the west - the high bank of the Bazavluka River. In winter, the Cossacks broke the ice near the most accessible part of their island and did not allow the water to become covered with a thick layer, so that the enemy could not get to them by land.

Having found a convenient place, the Cossacks carved a forest on it and prepared logs for a palisade; hence, it is believed, the very word "Sich" originated. The Sich was surrounded by a moat and an earthen rampart with passages to the river. To prevent the shaft from crumbling, it was reinforced with a palisade, the logs of which were pointed on top and tarred on the bottom. Chertomlytskaya Sich had 900 sazhens along the shaft around.

The entire army of the Grassroots, or "tvariststvo", consisted of Sich and Zimovchaks. The first lived in the Sich itself and constituted the “chivalry”. They alone chose their foremen, participated in the division of booty, they all had the same rights. Complete equality reigned in the Sich; intelligence and courage were respected, not noble birth. Zimovchaks were called Cossacks, both single and family, who lived not in the Sich, but in winter quarters, farms and villages scattered across the steppe. They were engaged in various crafts and delivered food to the Sich. The number of Sich Cossacks at different times was different: it reached ten or fifteen thousand or more, and all with families up to one hundred thousand people. They say that when the Sultan asked the Cossacks how many of them there were, they answered him: "We have a bush, then a Cossack, and where there is a bayrak, then there are a hundred Cossacks."

For the most part, the Sich were Ukrainians, but there were also Great Russians, and Poles, and Volokhi, even baptized Tatars, Turks and Kalmyks. Here all those who suffered some kind of offense and did not find justice, all persecuted for their faith, found shelter; there were those who were attracted by fame or the hope of prey.

This is how the Sich was replenished. Leaving the partnership was always free.

Entering the brotherhood, the Cossack, as it were, broke with all his past and even abandoned his former name, but accepted the one that his comrades gave him. These nicknames meant either doing some kind of craft, for example: “Koval, Rybalka, Bondarenko, Zolotarenko; or hinted at some peculiarity in clothing or appearance: Taste, Bald, Rudy, Smooth, Nechesa, Pereby-Nis. Sometimes these playful nicknames were very intricate, for example, Zaderi-Nog, Pivtor-Kozhukha, Zaderi-Khvist-Pistol, Zakruty-Guba.

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HistoryKrainskothCossacksa

Causesemergence of the Ukrainian Cossacks

The Ukrainian Cossacks are a significant phenomenon in European history. The word "Cossack" is of Turkic origin. In translation, it means "free man".

The main historical condition for the emergence of the Ukrainian Cossacks as a social class and armed force is the bondage of Ukraine, which was under the rule of neighboring states, the absence of its own ethnic statehood, social oppression, as well as national and religious oppression that the Ukrainian people suffered from foreign rulers.

The immediate causes of the emergence of the Ukrainian Cossacks took shape at the end of the 15th century. First of all, Ukraine needed such a social force that would become the leading stratum of the Ukrainian people and the creator of a new state of its own.

Economic factors were no less important, first of all, the strengthening of the feudal dependence of the peasants, the lack of their own arable land and the extreme attractiveness of the virgin expanses in the south of the Kiev region and Podolia, as well as the boundless steppes of the Wild Field beyond the rapids of the Dnieper.

Consequently, one of the reasons for the emergence of the Ukrainian Cossacks was the forced escape of peasants and philistines from the estates of magnates and gentry to free lands. The Ukrainian fugitives had to defend the populated lands.

The need for armed protection from the constant threat of Tatar and Turkish attacks, from the military offensive of the state administration of Lithuania and Poland forced farmers and artisans to become professional soldiers. Actually, this is how the Cossacks arose.

The first written references to the Ukrainian Cossacks contain sources from the late 15th - early 16th centuries. The oldest mention, which under 1489 informs about the Ukrainian Cossacks in Podolia, is placed in the “Chronicle” of the Polish historian Martyn Belsky.

With the advent of the Cossacks, the settlement and revival of the Ukrainian lands of the Dnieper region, devastated by the Khan's hordes, took place. In the desolate but free expanses of the Dnieper, Ukrainian peasants were fleeing from feudal serf oppression and foreign domination.

The main form of economy in Zaporozhye was a winter hut. Winter quarters arose in the first half of the 16th century. They were laid by the Cossacks on the outskirts of the Great Meadow, in the then deserted Ukrainian steppes, in a dangerous neighborhood with the nomads - the Nogai Tatars, who constantly threatened to attack. Courageous people settled in the winter quarters, forced to farm in difficult conditions and always be ready to repel an enemy attack. The winter quarters, advanced far to the south, played a big role in the development of the southern Ukrainian lands.

Over time, especially in the Podpolnenskaya (1734-1775) Zaporizhzhya Sich, winter quarters expanded into large estates with several residential and outbuildings, in particular the houses of the owner and the owner-manager, separate huts were intended for farm laborers. Zimovnik was a kind of farm and the main form of land ownership in Zaporozhye. Only own and hired labor, without feudal coercion and serfdom, was used in Zaporizhzhya winter quarters. Anyone could become the owner of a wintering farm.

In the 1st century winter quarters turned into large diversified farms, where, along with agriculture, cattle breeding, fishing, beekeeping, hunting, pottery and other crafts, as well as handicrafts, developed.

Zaporozhye Cossacks

Zaporizhian or grassroots Cossacks lived in the lower reaches of the Dnieper, south of the Dnieper rapids. At the end of the XIV century, these lands were outside the jurisdiction of any state - the Commonwealth, the Crimean Khanate, the Muscovite State and the Ottoman Empire. With the formation of a permanent main fortification (kosh), which also served as the capital of the lower Dnieper Cossacks, later called living in it and its environs, began to be called Sich. The Sich (grassroots) Cossacks lived as a separate community, independent of any state.

Registered Cossacks

In 1572, with his letter of June 5, the Polish king Sigismund II Augustus confirmed the order of the crown hetman to recruit 300 grassroots Cossacks for public service and place them under the command of the crown hetman. Since the Cossacks accepted into the civil service were included in a special list - the register, they formed a separate privileged class among the Cossacks and the Little Russian population of the Commonwealth - the registered Cossacks. Registered Cossacks carried out military service in the interests of the state, for salaries and privileges. From about this time, such an entity as the registered Cossack army has been counting.

Later, this military-political structure received the name of the Zaporizhian Army.

In 1654, the Zaporizhzhya Army, which by that time had become a de facto independent state, together with “their cities and lands” (Hetmanate), voluntarily, with all the privileges, transferred to the service of the Russian Tsar. After that, the Zaporizhzhya Army became officially known as the "Army of His Royal Majesty Zaporozhye."

As a result of the divergence between the policies of the leadership of the Hetmanate and the Kosh atamans of the Zaporizhzhya Sich at the end of the 17th century, the unity of the Zaporizhzhya Host as an integral military-political organism was violated.

Sloboda Cossacks

Starting from the middle of the 17th century, leaving the war-torn lands of Right-Bank Ukraine, a significant part of the Little Russian population of the Commonwealth and some Zaporizhzhya Cossack detachments moved to the border empty southern outskirts of the Russian kingdom (in the territory of modern north-eastern Ukraine, as well as border regions of Russia adjacent to it) , as a result of which the Sloboda Cossacks arose.

Already under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, these settlers were ranked among the Belgorod category and began to be called "Sloboda Ukrainian Cossack regiments", and the region inhabited by them received the general name "Sloboda Ukraine" ("Sloboda Ukraine"), in contrast to "Ukraine", which consisted from the Belgorod and Sevsky regiments, - and its settlers, who retained their Cossack structure, guaranteed to them by letters of grant from the Moscow sovereigns, were called Sloboda Cossacks.

Court Cossacks

Court Cossacks are known among the Cossacks of Ukraine in the 18th century. So they called the protection of the Polish magnates and who were kept at their expense. Court Cossacks were hired from among the peasants and, despite their status, often took part in popular uprisings. The most famous court Cossack is Ivan Gonta, Umansky centurion of the court Cossacks of Count Silesia Potocki.

Free Cossacks

In mid-March 1917, the peasant Smoktiy from Rusanovka, in Belotserkovshchina, organized the Rusakovskaya Hundred. Soon the peasants decided to convene a Cossack congress in Zvenigorodka and work out the statute of the organization there. This was done by Kovtunenko, a man with a higher education. In early April, all the elected hundred commanders arrived at the congress and adopted the statute of an organization called "Free Cossacks"

1. The Free Cossacks are organized to defend the liberties of the Ukrainian people and maintain order;

2. Free Cossacks - a territorial paramilitary organization, where citizens of the county not younger than 18 years old have the right to join;

3. The organization does not accept people “hostile to Ukraine and people punished by the court for criminal offenses”;

4. All the affairs of the organization are in charge of the commanders and councils of the Cossack foreman;

5. The foreman is elected by the people to command posts. The elected commanders appoint their own deputies, clerk, treasurer and librarian.

Red Cossacks

Ukrainian Communists and Bolsheviks, as well as ordinary citizens who supported the ideas of Soviet power, also did not stand aside from these processes. Under various names in the villages, especially on the left-bank Ukraine (Pridneprovye, Slobozhanshchina), the ancient Cossack region, detachments of Red Cossacks began to spontaneously form in the villages, for self-defense against various, local and newcomers, rapists and invaders, to establish Soviet power in the region. In Kharkov, it was also decided to create the first regular units of the Red, Red Cossacks.

The formation of the regiments of the Red Cossacks in fact became the beginning of the formation of a regular Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army not only in Ukraine, but also in the territories of the former USSR. The decree on the formation of the Red Cossacks was signed on January 10, 1918, that is, earlier than February 23 (the official day of the formation of the Red Army in Soviet history books). Unlike the Red Guard detachments, which were maintained at the expense of enterprises, funds for the maintenance of the Red Cossacks were allocated by party organizations, and then by the Soviet government. The command of the Red Cossacks was not chosen, but appointed.

The role of the Cossacks in the history of Ukraine

In historiography, the Ukrainian Cossacks are considered as the most important stage in the formation of the Ukrainian people and statehood. The role of the Cossacks in the entire socio-political life of Ukraine was so great that the terms "Cossacks" and "country of Cossacks" in the XVI-XVIII centuries. were the designation of the country and the people in general (much earlier than the main names "Ukrainian" and "Ukraine" were established as the main ones).

The Cossacks during this period played the role of a national symbol, carrier of ethnicity and defender of national interests and faith.

Criticism of the role of the Cossacks in Ukraine.

The movement for the independence of Ukraine was also connected with the Cossacks by such a critic of the idea of ​​the Ukrainian nation as Mykola Ulyanov, who negatively assessed the Ukrainian Cossacks: “the Cossacks were brought up in the spirit of rejecting the state ... not only did they not value the hetman’s prestige, but the hetmans themselves were killed with ease heart and were at any moment ready for the "separation" of the hetman's belongings, "and" the Cossack "democracy" was in fact an ochlocracy ... Without creating their own state, the Cossacks were the most quarrelsome element in those states with which they were connected by historical fate.

The Cossacks not only defended their lands from the Turks and Tatars, but also took up arms to defend their rights, which were increasingly oppressed by the Polish and even Ukrainian gentry. In 1592, an uprising broke out under the leadership of Hetman Kryshtof Kosiński. It all started with the fact that, in gratitude for military assistance, the Polish king gave some Cossacks land near the Ros River, which the Ostrog princes considered their possessions and did not give them away.

Armed Cossacks, supported by peasants and philistines, took possession of several castles and manorial estates, in particular, those of the Ostrozhsky princes. At the same time, the rebels destroyed documents for the right to own land. Seriously frightened, the Ostrozhskys, together with other landowners, quickly gathered a significant army and opposed the army of Hetman Kosinsky.

In one of the battles near Cherkassy, ​​Kosinsky was killed, and the Cossacks were forced to make peace. And in 1594, the fire of the uprising flared up with renewed vigor. Now, together with the Cossacks, a part of the registered Cossacks, headed by Severin Nalivaiko, came forward. Passing with his army through the whole of Ukraine - from Moldova to Belarus, he raised the people to fight. As an eyewitness wrote, "the whole of Ukraine turned out to be."

Long after the end of this uprising, the Poles called Orthodox Ukrainians "Nalivaiki". In negotiations with the Poles, Nalivaiko offered to give the Cossacks the lands between the Dniester and the Southern Bug, where they would have their own power, independent of Poland. The king of Poland, extremely alarmed by the actions of the Cossacks, sent an army against them. A fierce battle took place near Belaya Tserkov. There was no winner in this battle, but the Cossacks retreated to the left bank of the Dnieper, where, after a many-day siege of the Cossack camp over the Solonitsa River, near Lubny, the rebels were defeated. Nalivaiko was captured and executed in Warsaw.

Everyone who took part in the Cossack war was beaten with whips, the skin was cut out on the back, blinded, their property and land were taken away. After the defeat of this uprising, the Cossacks and Ukraine were subjected to even greater oppression; The law of the Sejm abolished the rights of the Cossack army, limited the territory of the Cossacks, and introduced various other restrictions.

At this time, two groups formed among the Cossacks. One included predominantly wealthy Cossacks, moderate views, who offered to peacefully achieve their goal: to negotiate, write letters to the king, and so on. The Cossacks, who made up the second group, sought to continue to defend their rights and liberties with a saber. In order to somehow distract the Cossacks from a new uprising, a prudent foreman sent them against the Tatars. Ilenno at this time account for the loudest Cossack victories in battles with the Tatars and Turks.

By the middle of the 17th century, most of the Ukrainian lands belonged to Polish landowners, who were the full owners of not only the land, but also the peasants themselves and their property. The philistines and artisans also suffered from their dominance. The situation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was miserable.

The Polish authorities did not recognize the Ukrainian language. For example, complaints and statements to the court written in Ukrainian were not accepted. The Cossack liberties obtained under Sagaidachny were again almost lost; the Cossack foreman was no longer elected, but appointed by the Polish authorities, the number of registered Cossacks decreased, the Cossacks were allowed to live only within the small territory of Ukraine, again determined by the government of Poland. The Cossacks were also harassed, placing two regiments of registrars led by a Polish colonel in the Sich.

On the Dnieper in front of the Kodatsky threshold, the Poles built the Kodak fortress to block the path of the Cossacks from the Sich to Ukraine and the fugitives from Ukraine to the Sich. There was a well-armed garrison at Kodak. The Polish king believed that he had finally conquered the Cossacks and all of Ukraine. But as soon as a spark was thrown, the flames of the liberation war flared up again. Neither military garrisons, nor threats, nor punishments, nor the same Kodak fortress helped.

This spark was lit by Bogdan Khmelnitsky. The memory of their own statehood of the times of the Kievan state, of the rights and liberties of Ukraine, which is part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, lived among the people. And Khmelnytsky was the first hetman who resolutely led the Cossack army, and not only the Cossacks, but also the peasants, gentlemen, petty bourgeois, to fight for freedom, for the restoration of the Ukrainian state.

Under Hetman Bogdan Khmelnytsky, the Ukrainian state had no clearly defined borders and extended to the east - along the cities of Glukhov and Lebedyn; in the south - along Zaporozhye, but not to the Black Sea; in the west - along the cities of Korets, Polonnoe, Bar, Bush, in the north - along Minsk, Turov, Gomel, Galicia, Kholmshchina, part of Volhynia and Podolia belonged to Poland, part of the Left Bank - to the Russian state, southern steppes - to the Tatars. The capital of the state under Khmelnitsky was the city of Chigirin.

Estates

During the time of Khmelnytsky, the Polish gentry either fled from Ukraine or were destroyed. Most of the Ukrainian petty gentry joined the Cossacks. A prominent place in the state was occupied by the Cossack estate, since it was the Cossacks who were the main force in the War of Liberation. But the peasants made up the majority of the population, they considered themselves free people, did not recognize dependence on the gentry, they easily found themselves, that is, they went to the Cossacks. The burgher class remained quite numerous.

build

Cossack orders and customs that had developed in the Sich now operated throughout the state. The hetman was at the head of the state, he was elected at the General (general) Cossack Council (foremen, colonels, representatives of all regiments). The symbols of the hetman's power in the state were kleinods: mace, banner-flag, bunchuk, timpani. Of particular importance was the seal with the coat of arms, which depicted a Cossack with a gun on his shoulder. In addition, the hetman used a personal seal with the family coat of arms.

The hetman directly ruled the state with the help of the general foreman, which, in particular, included: the general baggage officer (responsible for artillery and military supplies), the general judge (headed the legal proceedings), the general clerk (headed the hetman's office), the general captain (he was the hetman's assistant for military affairs). The entire general foreman constituted the foremen's council under the hetman.

station wagons

The hetman issued universals - written orders that were to be carried out by all the people of Ukraine. The territory of Ukraine was divided into regiments, which, in turn, into hundreds. The regiments were named after their main cities: Pereyaslavsky, Korsunsky, Kievsky ... At various times there were from 10 to 25 regiments. The regiments were headed by elected colonels, and hundreds were headed by centurions, who decided both military and civil affairs, that is, they had power over all the inhabitants of the regiment or hundreds. Unfortunately, Ukraine did not have time to develop its own laws on the structure, court, the right to land and others. Tried mainly according to Polish law. And in the Sich, the Cossacks lived according to their old unwritten laws. All taxes and duties went to the state treasury.

Army

During the War of Liberation, there were 200-300 thousand soldiers in the army - former registered Cossacks, Cossacks, peasants, and bourgeois. Hetman Khmelnytsky's permanent army consisted of 40-60 thousand. The first mercenary regiments were also formed. Zaporizhia, headed by the ataman, although recognizing the power of the hetman over itself, however, retained special orders.

The basis of the army was cavalry and infantry. Special detachments took care of the stocks of food and hay. The weapons were varied: sabers, pistols, spears, crossbows, bows, knives. Artillery played an important role: large fortress cannons, light field and small ones, from which they fired from a horse.

The Cossacks acquired military skills over the years. The Cossacks knew how to fight both the Tatar cavalry and the Polish gentry, they knew how to take cities and fortresses. They were also dexterous on the water, their canoes more than once reached the shores of the Crimea and Turkey. In Ukraine, there were quite a few workshops for the manufacture of firearms and edged weapons, gunpowder, and bullets.

Even during the life of Hetman Bogdan Khmelnytsky, his son Yuriy was elected his successor. However, he was still very young, and besides, a man of weak character. Therefore, the Cossack foreman quickly handed over the hetman's mace to Ivan Vyhovsky. Relying on the foreman, Hetman Vyhovsky at the same time contributed to its enrichment and strengthening. But not wanting to obey their masters, and not just the Polish ones, the Cossacks and peasants revolted.

It was headed by the Poltava colonel Pushkar, who aspired to become a hetman and sought support in Moscow. Vygovsky defeated Pushkar's army, and burned the city of Poltava, which was the center of the uprising. The situation in Ukraine worsened. The Russian army concentrated on the border with Ukraine, only waiting for an opportunity to invade. Taking into account this threat and realizing that the tsar did not adhere to the "March Articles" of 1654, hetman Vyhovsky concluded a new treaty with Poland. According to it, Ukraine was to become part of the Commonwealth as a separate Grand Duchy of Russia with its regional government, with the right to mint its own money.

Having learned about this treaty, the tsar hastily sent his army to Ukraine, but in the decisive battle near Konotop Vyhovsky defeated him. But no one was satisfied with the agreement with Poland in Ukraine either. The foreman, who only recently felt like a master in his own state, in case of recognition of the dominion of Poland, could lose his land holdings. Peasants, petty bourgeois, and clergy were afraid of the new Polish domination. And the Cossacks, with only one mention of an agreement with Poland, grabbed their sabers. Vyhovsky was deprived of the hetman's mace. Soon he was executed by the Poles. However, peace and tranquility in the Ukrainian lands did not come. There was no agreement between the Ukrainians.

The Right-Bank Ukraine gravitated more toward the Commonwealth, and the Left-Bank Ukraine gravitated toward its closest neighbor, the Russian state. Ukraine actually disintegrated, on the left and right banks of the Dnieper they elected their own hetmans. They sought support in Warsaw, in Moscow or among the Turks, and the struggle for hetmanship over the whole of Ukraine continued among them.

In the history of Ukraine, a period began, which was called "Ruins". Indeed, the wars, the struggle of the hetmans among themselves destroyed, devastated Ukraine, weakened the people. The state was weakening, the devastation was in the economy.

On the Right Bank, the hetman's mace went to Pavlo Tetera, a former Pereyaslav colonel married to the daughter of Bogdan Khmelnitsky. After him, Petro Doroshenko became the hetman of the Right-Bank Ukraine. He had far-reaching plans, and he tried to bring them to life - to return to Ukraine the freedom won under Khmelnitsky.

On the Left Bank, after the struggle for the mace, the Zaporizhzhya ataman Ivan Bryukhovetsky became the hetman. At first, he unconditionally recognized the primacy of Moscow, but over time, he seemed to see the light, realizing that even greater oppression of Ukraine was taking place. Having agreed with the right-bank hetman Petro Doroshenko, he was preparing to oppose Moscow. But the foreman and the Cossacks did not like Bryukhovetsky, they rebelled and killed him. And Petro Doroshenko was elected hetman of both parts of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, in 1677, in the Belarusian village of Andrusovo, Russia concluded an agreement with Poland. Ukraine did not know about the preparation of the Russian-Polish treaty, neither Bryukhovetsky, nor Doroshenko, nor any other representative of Ukraine were invited to Andrusov, as if such a state does not exist at all and this treaty does not concern Ukraine.

According to this agreement, Ukraine was divided into two parts: the Right Bank was to go to the Commonwealth, and the Left Bank with Kiev - to the Russian state. On the Left Bank, dependence on the Russian state increased even more, Russia increasingly neglected the rights of Ukraine and violated them.

After the Andrusov Treaty, a census of the population of Ukraine was carried out in order to impose new taxes in favor of the tsar. The Ukrainian church was forced to submit to the Moscow church authorities. Such a policy of the king in relation to Ukraine led to an increase in popular anger. When Petro Doroshenko became the hetman of Ukraine, he, not believing either Poland or Russia, negotiated with the Turkish sultan for help in the liberation of Ukraine. Under this agreement between Hetman Doroshenko and Turkey, Ukraine was to receive significantly more rights than it had from an alliance with Poland or Russia. But the Turks, having moved along with the Tatars to Ukraine, did not really care about the interests of Ukraine. Moaned Ukraine now from the Turks. Doroshenko was forced to lay down his mace

As a result of the War of Liberation, under Khmelnytsky, the Ukrainian state was restored. But a little time passed and by the end of the 17th century Ukraine was again divided among themselves by strong neighbors - Russia and Poland. Left-bank Ukraine became part of Russia.

The period of time in the history of the Left Bank from the Treaty of Andrus to the final liquidation of the Cossack system, the rights and freedoms of Ukraine at the end of the 18th century was called the Hetmanate.

Why was it named like that? Despite the fact that dependence on the tsar increased over time, the left-bank Ukrainian lands remained under the leadership of the Ukrainian hetman. Elected by the Ukrainians, he had zachitelnoe power, for example handed out land, appointed to posts. Managed, as before, relying on the foreman.

However, now each new hetman had to swear allegiance to the tsar and sign an agreement with him - confirmation of the March Articles of 1654. But the longer, the more these articles were violated, the hetman's power weakened, and Ukraine lost the remnants of independence and independence. concluding an agreement with the tsar, he tried to preserve the rights of Ukraine, but it was not possible to do this in full.For example, Russian troops remained standing not only in Kyiv, but also in all large cities of Ukraine.

Mnogohrishny was a man of strong character and was able to stop hostilities on the left bank of the Dnieper for a certain time. The hetman took care of peace in the state, monitored the collection of taxes, but ruled too autocratically. The Cossack foreman, who by that time had become a noticeable force in the state, could not stand this and sent a denunciation to the king. Mnogosinny was exiled to Siberia, where he died.

The new hetman was elected at the suggestion of the foreman. They became Ivan Samoylovich - an educated man, but not decisive. He tried both to please the king and to keep the favor of the foreman. Samoylovich made quite a lot of efforts to strengthen his position in Ukraine. He forced Zaporozhye to unconditionally recognize the power of the hetman, to fulfill all the orders of the hetman.

Hetman Samoylovich was called the hetman of both banks of the Dnieper. Russia, expanding its borders, was preparing for a war with the Tatars and Turks in order to take possession of the Black Sea and Crimea. Samoylovich dissuaded the king, as he understood that this war would bring many troubles to Ukraine. And so it happened. The Russian governors shifted the blame for the unsuccessful campaign of the Russian-Cossack troops against the Tatars to Hetman Samoylovich. And the Ukrainian foreman, hostile to him, wrote a denunciation to the tsar - as if the hetman cared only about his own enrichment. Samoylovich was overthrown from the hetmanship. And this Ukrainian hetman ended his life in Siberia.

Hetman Ivan Mazepa

In 1687, Ivan Mazepa became the new hetman, who served before this general captain. He was the hetman for the longest time - 22 years. (B. Khmelnytsky was hetman for 9 years, P. Sahaydachny - 12, I. Samoylovich - 15, Mazepa's successor I. Skoropadsky - 13 years). Ivan Mazepa was born on the Right Bank, in the village of Mazepintsy, near the White Church.

In his youth, he received a good education, studied at European universities, lived in France and Holland, visited Germany and Italy, then served with the Polish king. Then Mazepa went to Zaporozhye to the Cossacks, served as hetmans Doroshenko and Samoylovich. More than once he was sent to solve various important issues in the Crimea and Moscow. Thanks to his education, his mind, he entered into the confidence of the king.

And after the arrest of Hetman Samoilovich, with the consent of Moscow, the foreman elected Mazepa as hetman. Mazepa arranged his hetman's court in Baturyn, which was then the capital of Ukraine, on the model of the royal one. Foreign ambassadors noted that the hetman knew several languages, had a library, liked to play the kobza, and wrote poetry. Mazepa took care of the development of Ukrainian culture. He took care of the Kiev Academy, for it he built a new educational building and the cathedral of the Brotherhood Monastery. By his order and at his expense, many churches were built, in particular in Kyiv, Baturin, Chernigov, Pereyaslav. Mazepa sent talented youth to study abroad. However, Mazepa was forced to fulfill the will of the king.

For example, send Cossacks to build the new capital of the Russian Empire - St. Petersburg, where they died by the thousands from hunger, cold, and disease. No wonder they said that St. Petersburg stands on the bones of the Cossacks. The Cossacks also took part in the construction of canals and fortresses in other parts of Russia. To keep the hetman's mace, Mazepa was forced to obey the orders of the king. And the foreman and the Cossacks reproached him that he was more concerned about personal benefit than about Ukraine. But Mazepa understood that power was on the side of Russia and therefore one should act carefully, cunningly. Trying to strengthen his position, the hetman strengthened the position of the foreman, gave them lands and estates. At the same time, the enslavement of the peasants by the Ukrainian pandom was intensifying. Mazepa was called the hetman of both banks of the Dnieper, although in fact the Right Bank belonged to the Poles.

Gradually, life was restored there, and an uprising broke out again against the rule of Poland, led by the Fastov colonel Semyon Paly. Cossack regiments occupied many cities and towns in the Kiev region. The rebels turned to the Russian tsar for help. At this time, Mazepa with the Cossack army crossed to the right bank of the Dnieper and pretended that his goal was to suppress the uprising, but in fact his main task was to assert his power on the Ukrainian Right Bank. Colonel Paliy interfered with the sole rule of Mazepa, so the hetman removed him from power and arrested him, and Tsar Peter exiled him to Siberia. Poland demanded that the Kiev lands be returned to her, but Hetman Mazepa still kept them under his mace. In 1707, Tsar Peter I, seeking to expand the possessions of Russia and, above all, secure access to the Baltic Sea, began a war with the Swedes.

In the war, he intended to use the Ukrainian army. Both the hetman and the foreman resisted this. Mazepa decided that the time had come to liberate Ukraine from the power of the tsar and began to negotiate with the Swedish king Charles XII in order to oppose the tsarist army together. According to the agreement with Sweden, after the victory over Russia, Ukraine was to become an independent state - a principality with lifelong hereditary power of the hetman-prince, and also be in alliance with Sweden. Mazepa conducted these negotiations in secret, continuing to demonstrate feigned loyalty to the tsar. Therefore, Peter 1 did not even believe it when Judge General Kochubey and Colonel Iskra arrived in Moscow from Ukraine and told about the negotiations between Hetman Mazepa and the Swedish king. The king sent them to Mazepa, and on his orders they were executed.

However, when the tsar began to demand that Mazepa urgently come to him with an army, the old hetman pretended to be ill and started a rumor that he was preparing for death. Meanwhile, Russian detachments rushed to Ukraine; Swedish troops approached from Belarus. Then Mazepa openly called for a war against the tsar, explaining the reason for the break with Moscow by the desire to return the will to Ukraine.

But Mazepa was supported only by a part of the population and the Cossacks, led by Kosh ataman Kost Godienko. Most Ukrainians simply did not believe Mazepa, since until quite recently the hetman obediently obeyed the tsar and even called himself a "royal bandwagon." Upon learning that Mazepa had gone over to the side of Charles XII, Peter I was terribly angry. He declared Hetman Mazepa a traitor and ordered the clergy to annually curse Mazepa's name in the church. Tsar Peter won, whose army greatly outnumbered the Swedes and Cossacks. Mazepa's plan failed, he had to flee to Turkish possessions together with the Swedish king. The king offered Turkey a lot of money for the extradition of Mazepa, but did not receive consent. In the same year, 1709, Mazepa died.

Sloboda and Western Ukrainian lands at the end of the 17th century

In addition to the Hetmanate, the Cossack system was also preserved in Sloboda Ukraine (Slobozhanshchina). These were lands to the east of the Poltava region. Once they were part of the Sernigov-Seversky principality, then they were empty for a long time, and then they ended up within the Russian state and were inhabited by a few immigrants from Russia. And since the middle of the 16th century, fleeing from Polish domination, especially after unsuccessful uprisings and defeats during the War of Independence, many Ukrainian Cossacks, together with their families, crossed the border with Russia and settled in the southern lands of the Russian state. Discord in Ukraine, which began after the death of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, also forced many Cossacks and peasants to flee to these parts. Settlers founded free settlements - settlements.

This is where the name "Slobozhanshchina" comes from. For Russia, such a resettlement was beneficial: empty lands were settled, in addition, settlements formed a reliable defense line on its southern border. Some settlements eventually grew into large cities - Sumy, Kharkov, Akhtyrka and others.

Therefore, the Russian government distributed large land plots to the Cossacks and allowed some Cossack orders to be preserved. As in the Hetmanate, the territory was divided into regiments and hundreds, respectively, with their foreman, the Cossack court operated. However, the hetman was not elected in Slobozhanshchina, and the Cossack regiments were subordinate to the Russian governor. Unfortunately, Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky failed to keep the western lands as part of his state. Podolia, Volhynia, Galicia pretty soon found themselves under the rule of Poland again.

Transcarpathia all the time remained under the rule of Hungary. Feeling that the weakened Cossacks could no longer resist, the Polish gentry again went on the offensive against the rights of Ukrainians both in cities and in villages. The corvee was restored. Ukrainian landowners and philistines gradually adopted Polish customs. The schools were also Polish. The Ukrainian language was preserved only in everyday life, and then mainly in the villages. The Catholic Church has grown strong.

Philip Orlyk's Constitution

After Mazepa's death, they chose Pylyp Orlyk as the new hetman. He, rooting for the fate of Ukraine and hoping to return to his homeland, wrote the first constitution of Ukraine - "The conclusion of the rights and liberties of Ukraine." Orlyk believed that Ukraine should free itself from the power of Russia and have such a system: the highest power belongs to the hetman, but there will also be a senior council. The constitution also spoke about other aspects of the life of Ukraine as a state. However, Orlik did not have a chance to be a hetman in Ukraine. He lived abroad, sought help from foreign rulers to fight for the freedom of Ukraine, but in vain. He died in a foreign land.

Restriction of the rights of Ukraine and the Cossacks. Tsar Peter 1, who sought to deprive Ukraine of its last rights and liberties, after the defeat of Hetman Mazepa, began to oppress the Ukrainian people even more decisively. On his orders, the capital of Ukraine - Baturyn, Russian troops burned, destroyed, and killed the inhabitants who did not have time to escape.

The Zaporozhian Sich was also destroyed. Supporters of Mazepa and participants in the uprising were hanged, put on stakes, many were exiled to Siberia, and their property was taken to the royal treasury.

In all churches of Ukraine, it was ordered to replace Ukrainian books with Russian ones, and the printing or use of books in the Ukrainian language during worship was prohibited altogether.

Under Hetman Ivan Skoropadsky, who was elected on the orders of Peter the Great, the rights of Ukraine and the Cossacks were increasingly limited: Russian officials had to control the courts and even the office of the hetman himself, and the lands were distributed to those close to the tsar.

And when the hetman and the foreman turned to Peter with a request that the conditions signed under Khmelnitsky in 1654 be observed, the tsar did not agree, but, on the contrary, established a special council - the Little Russian Collegium, which included six Russian officers and which was supposed to rule Ukraine together with the hetman.

Hetman Ivan Skoropadsky

Resistance to such a policy of the tsar increased noticeably during the reign of (temporary) hetman Pavlo Polubotka. Polubotok collected several thousand signatures under a petition to the tsar for the return of Ukraine's former rights. For this, Peter ordered the arrest of Polubotok and put him in the Peter and Paul Fortress. There Polubotok died.

In the future, many more prominent Ukrainians ended their lives in this fortress. After Polubotok, the tsar forbade the election of a new hetman, because, they say, all of them, from Khmelnitsky to Polubotok, are traitors who want to secede from Russia.

Instead of Ukrainians, Russians were appointed colonels in almost all regiments. It seemed that the end of Hetman Ukraine had come. But Tsar Peter died, and a few years later it was allowed to again elect a hetman in Ukraine, and the Little Russian Collegium was abolished.

Last Hetmans

Daniil Apostol was elected the new hetman. The most he managed to do was to beg for the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks, who fought with Mazepa against Peter I, permission to return to their lands from Turkish possessions. After Daniel the Apostle, difficult times again came for Ukraine; Cossacks fought together with the Russian army against Turkey, built fortresses. It was forbidden to elect a hetman, and the power in Ukraine was exercised by a "rule" of Russians and Ukrainians.

This continued until Kirill Razumovsky was elected Hetman of Ukraine, with the permission of the Russian Empress Elizabeth. Of simple origin, originally from the Kiev region, Razumovsky so exalted himself by chance. As hetman, Razumovsky cared more about palaces, luxury, meals, entertainment, and not about the Ukrainian people, the Cossacks. He moved the capital of Ukraine to Glukhov. The foreman under Razumovsky tried to completely equalize in rights with the Russian landowners.

End of the Hetmanate

When the next Russian queen, Catherine II, set about "improving" the system in the empire, she first of all ordered Razumovsky to lay down the hetman's mace. The Little Russian Board was again appointed to govern Ukraine, and the hetman was no longer elected. This happened in 1764. Thus ended the era of the Hetmanate. Gradually, but steadily, everywhere in Ukraine the same order was established as in Russia. In 1783, Catherine II by a special decree fixed the obligatory corvée. All peasants in Ukraine became serfs and did not have the right to move to another place of residence.

Ukraine was divided into three governorships (later - provinces) with centers in Kyiv, Chernigov and Novgorod-Seversky, and all this together was called the Little Russian Governor-General. The Little Russian Collegium was dissolved.

And actually the Kazan regiments were transformed into ten regiments of the Russian army. The Cossack officers received the same rights as the Russian nobles, and ordinary Cossacks became state peasants. It was then that the dream of the Russian tsars came true: there was no Ukraine, but there were just Little Russian provinces, and no hetmans, general officers, Cossacks. Tsarina Catherine, destroying the Cossack system in the Ukrainian lands to the end, canceled it in Slobozhanshchina. Ukraine has completely lost its rights, its freedom; the free Ukrainian state ceased to exist.

Destruction of the Zaporozhian Sich

Zaporizhzhya Sich has always been and is for Ukrainians a symbol of freedom. This is our national pride and shrine. Since its inception, the Sich has been the center from where, in fact, all protests against the enslavers of Ukraine began. During the time of the Hetmanate, the Sich lost its significance as the main military center for a certain time. The Cossacks often did not find a common language with the hetmans, they wanted to be independent from them, frustrated their state plans, tried to pursue their own policy.

However, as soon as Hetman Mazepa made an attempt to liberate Ukraine from the Russian yoke, the Cossacks joined him. After the first defeat of the Sich by Tsar Peter, the New Sich existed in the Turkish lands for about twenty years. Then Queen Catherine II allowed the Cossacks to return to Ukraine, and the Sich people settled on the Bazavluk River.

Although the Sich lost its former strength and significance, it was still like the last echo of the former free Ukraine, reminiscent of the past victories of the Cossacks over the Poles near Korsun and Zhovti Vody, over the Russian army near Konotop, over the Tatars and Turks. Russian tsarism tried to finally destroy the Sich, this center of love for freedom.

By order of Empress Catherine in 1775, Russian troops suddenly surrounded the Sich. Cossacks Ukrainian Hetman Mazepa

The Cossacks were forced to lay down their arms, hand over the Kleinods, and hand over the foreman. The last Sich ataman, Pyotr Kalnyshevsky, was imprisoned in the Solovetsky Monastery in northern Russia, where he died at the age of one hundred and thirteen. Many Cossacks who managed to escape during the siege and destruction of the Sich went to the Turkish lands and founded another Sich on the Danube, and some of the Cossacks moved to the possessions of Austria. The rest, who remained in Ukraine, were forced to serve the Russian tsars. Over time, they were transferred to the Kuban, where some of the customs of the Cossacks are still preserved, Ukrainian songs are sung, mothers teach children the Ukrainian language.

Literature

1. Natalia Yakovenko Drawing the history of Ukraine from the most recent hours to the end of the XVIII century. - K .: Geneza, 1997. - 380 p.

2. Shcherbak Vitaliy Ukrainian Cossacks: the formation of a social state. The other half of the XV - the middle of the XVII century. - K., 2000.

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During the summer - autumn of 1648, Ukrainian central and local authorities, judicial institutions were created on the liberated Ukrainian lands, a new principle of administrative-territorial division was introduced; a new socio-economic structure gradually took shape. Consequently, already before the end of 1648 there was a Ukrainian Cossack state - the Hetmanate.

Power in the Cossack state belonged to the foreman. The supreme legislative body was the General Council - the common rad of the whole army. Subsequently, her functions began to be performed by the Starshinskaya Rada, which consisted of colonels and a general foreman.

Executive and judicial power was concentrated in the hands of the hetman. In particular, he convened the General and Starshinsky Radas, published universals, took part in legal proceedings (it was under the Hetman that the General Military Court functioned), organized the financial system, started a war by decision of the Rada, conducted peace negotiations, led diplomatic relations with other states and intelligence service, was the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

The hetman was assisted in managing all the affairs of internal administration and foreign relations by the general foreman, who in fact was the Cabinet of Ministers and at the same time the General Military Staff. It consisted of: a general clerk, a general baggage officer, two general captains, two general judges.

The territory of the Cossack state, according to the terms of the Zboriv Treaty, consisted of the lands of the former Kiev, Chernihiv and Bratslav provinces. The capital and the hetman's residence became Chigirin.

The entire territory of the Ukrainian state in 1649 divided for 16 regiments: on the Right Bank - 9, on the Left Bank - 7. The center of the regiment was one of the significant cities of the regimental territory. At the head of each regiment was colonel, who was either elected at the regimental council or appointed hetman.

The territory of the regiment, in turn, was divided into 10-20, or even more hundreds. Hundreds, like shelves, were not uniform in size. The military-administrative power on the territory of hundreds was exercised by centurions. The administrative centers of hundreds were cities, towns and large villages.

The Cossack state had its own judicial system. It consisted of the General, regimental and centenary courts. The highest judicial institution was the General Military Court under the hetman. He considered the appeal cases of the regimental and centenary courts, as well as some cases with which petitioners applied directly to the hetman.

The formation of the Ukrainian Cossack state - the Hetmanate took place against the backdrop of profound changes in economic and social life. Large and medium-sized secular landownership, the farm-panshchina system of economy, and serfdom were liquidated. Instead, Cossack, peasant, and state ownership of land was formed. This led to significant changes in the social structure of society. They manifested themselves, first of all, in the absence of the gentry-magnate estate, a decrease in the number of petty gentry;

the leading role in the life of society began to play the Cossack estate.

The indisputable conquest of the Cossack state was the personal freedom of the absolute majority of peasants and philistines, who had the opportunity to freely join the Cossack estate. The situation of the townspeople improved also due to the fact that the dominance of foreigners and national-religious obstacles to practicing crafts, fishing, trade and participating in the organization of self-government were eliminated in the cities.

Introduction 8

1. The emergence of the Cossacks 9

2. Zaporizhzhya Sich 13

2.1. The state structure of the Zaporizhzhya Sich 13

2.2. Social system of the Zaporizhzhya Sich 21

2.3. Law of the Zaporozhian Sich 28

3. The decline of the Cossack state 36

Conclusion 40

List of sources used 41

INTRODUCTION

The relevance of this issue lies in the fact that it is difficult to name another topic from the history of Ukraine that would arouse such great interest as the history of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks. Numerous scientific and popular, historical and literary works, works of fine art, dramaturgy, music, oral folk art are devoted to him.

To understand the beginning of the Cossacks, it is necessary to review the previous history of the region, where the Cossacks came from, otherwise it is difficult to understand where and how the Cossacks appeared. Scientists make up various hypotheses, indicate various reasons for the emergence of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks, among which it is difficult to sort out.

The well-known Ukrainian historian D. Doroshenko wrote about the problem of the emergence of the Cossacks: “The Cossacks originated and developed organically, as a result of the special conditions of Ukrainian life in the 15th and 16th centuries on the steppe border, in the vicinity of the predatory Tatar Crimea. The process of its origin and formation was long, and any individual moments of this process were hardly noticeable and could not be fixed, especially since it was the life of the Cossacks that took place in the wilderness of the steppe, far from cultural centers. This led to the fact that when the Cossacks finally entered the wide arena of history, as a formed military class, then no one was able to give a clear and accurate answer to the question of how it rebelled and where it came from.

1. THE APPEARANCE OF KOZAKHESTVY

1.1. Causes of the Cossacks.

The term "Cossack" was first mentioned in a 13th century source. (in the initial Mongolian chronicle of 1240) and comes from the Turkic languages. The semantic meaning of this term is “lonely”, “prone to robbery, conquest”. In the dictionary of the Polovtsian language, the term "Cossack" is translated as "guard, escort".

Such a detail is interesting. Eastern ancient sources call the Polovtsy the "yellow horde". The Polovtsians worshiped the Eternal Blue Sky. Since 1055, the Polovtsy began to take possession of the steppe expanses of Ukraine. They walked in kurens (as the Polovtsians called clans), which were divided into koshes (families), and they were called "Cossacks" ("ko" - the sky, "zak" - to protect). Over time, when the Polovtsy began to accept Christianity, the pagan term "protectors of heaven" became unnecessary. The root of the word "koz" (free man) was understandable and relevant. In the steppe on the southeastern borders of Russia at the end of the XII century. military associations arise from the Rus and Polovtsy, which were formed not on a tribal or ethnic basis, but as a joint force that defended the borders of Kievan Rus. In this environment, the word "hetman" (leader) was born.

The Cossacks, i.e., the joint border detachments of the Polovtsy and the Rus, became the force that was the first to put up desperate resistance to the Mongol-Tatar invaders.

Consequently, the roots of the Ukrainian Cossacks go back to the time of the Polovtsian kurens. The period of the end of the XII - the first half of the XIII century. characterized as the first stage in the formation and development of the Ukrainian Cossacks.

The main reason for the formation of the Cossacks was rooted in the socio-political conditions that developed on the Ukrainian lands in the second half of the XV-XVI centuries. Poland and Lithuania further limited the self-government of these lands until the elimination of the remnants of their autonomy. The expansion of Catholicism intensified. At the same time, the class-“position” of the feudal lords, the gentry, was consolidated, as a result of which its land ownership expanded. Consequently, the position of the enslaved peasantry worsened every year. Peasant self-government was limited; patrimonial court of feudal lords. The all-zemstvo privilege of 1447 sharply limited peasant transitions. The Charter of 1529 generalized the previous restrictions on the peasant will and, in essence, formalized the peasantry in a position without rights. Especially suppressed the peasantry was the “Charter for Portages” of 1557, which was accompanied by the liquidation of the peasant community, the introduction of estates and the introduction of corvee as the main form of using the labor of the enslaved peasantry.

One of the two main reasons for the emergence of the Cossacks is the oppression by the feudal lords and the urban elite of the Polish-Lithuanian state, which forced rural residents and the urban poor to flee. The second reason was the Turkish-Tatar aggression, which in the Middle Ages was a mortal danger for the Slavic and a number of other peoples.

The strengthening of socio-economic, political and national-religious oppression caused the anti-feudal and national liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people, its forms were diverse: escape from the feudal lords, arson of noble estates, armed uprisings. The most common form of protest was the mass flight of peasants to the eastern and southeastern lands. They founded new settlements - settlements, developed sparsely populated lands and wastelands. Such fugitives called themselves Cossacks, that is, free people. Kanev and Cherkassy became their main areas. At the beginning of the XIV century. beyond the Dnieper rapids, small Cossack fortified towns - Sichs - appeared, on the basis of which the Zaporozhian Sich was formed, which became the main focus of the struggle of the masses of Ukraine for their national independence.

The colonization policy of the Polish-Lithuanian state in Ukraine caused social and national resistance of the Ukrainian people. The peasants fled from the corvee to the southern, steppe regions of Ukraine. As a result, a new social status was formed on the plains of the Dnieper region - the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks.

The first Ukrainian Cossacks appeared in the late 80s of the XV century. With the spread of serfdom in the middle of the XVI century. their numbers have grown significantly. Zaporozhye became the center of the Cossacks.

And in case of war, a military convoy, who was in charge of artillery and military food and shared all the labors of the asaul. The position of kuren chieftains, simply called "tamannya", numbering 38, according to the number of kurens in the Zaporizhzhya Sich, like others, was elective; an efficient, brave, resolute person was elected to the kurenny, sometimes from a former military foreman, and mostly from simple Cossacks; choice...

Close economic and cultural ties, by the decision of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in 1954, the Crimean region was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR. This ended the formation of the modern territory of Ukraine. Today, Ukraine includes 24 administrative regions and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea." From school history textbooks of the late 20th and early 11th centuries. "The formation of a new independent state is a process ...

Fish, tar and other supplies... In stone and wooden shops, the burghers and raznochintsy trade..." The decline of Glukhov ended the catastrophic fire of 1784, which in its own way summed up the collapse of the Hetmanate. About him, Governor-General P. Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky Petersburg reported the following: "In the city of Glukhov on the Belopolovsky suburb of 1784 on August 7 at 10 o'clock in the morning, from one old hut ...

Forms (theology, philosophy, alchemy, astronomy). The Poles felt their growing strength and tried to extend their influence to the east: to Russian and Tatar lands. Taras Bulba and his tribesmen lived in such an environment. Namely - fellow tribesmen, since they can not be called fellow citizens. After all, they did not submit to any state, but united in more or less organized ...

The liberated territory of Ukraine was divided into 17 military administrative units - regiments. The most famous among them were Kyiv, Bratslav, Cherkasy, Chernigov, Poltava, Chigirinsky, Pereyaslavsky. In addition to administrative-territorial, there were regiments and purely military ones, which were formed in the corresponding administrative territories.

The regiments were divided into hundreds. Their number in each regiment was different - from 10 to 20 hundred. In the registers of hundreds, the number of Cossacks was also different. In some - a few dozen, in others - up to 300 people.

The hetman and the general foreman were elected at a large military council. Colonels and centurions were also elected, although sometimes candidates were determined from above. However, this administration also had a lot of existing social relations and orders. Having come to power, the foreman, together with the Ukrainian gentry and clergy, demanded from the peasants and the poor of the cities obedience to the orders established during the reign of Poland. B. issued universals about the obligation to perform duties, which provoked a protest from the peasants and the poor of the cities. However, the creation of its own administrative-state structure for managing the liberated part of Ukraine was of great political importance in the matter of continuing the traditions of Ukrainian statehood.

Consequently, the national state system of Ukraine was formed on the basis of democracy and, and Bogdan became the head of the government of the Ukrainian state, called the "Zaporozhian Host". A certain unlimited power of the hetman, his (the power of authority) caused dissatisfaction among some of those accustomed to the Zaporizhzhya freemen, to its democracy. But as long as B. Khmelnytsky was the hetman, they put up with it.

Great changes took place in the internal life of Ukraine during the reign of B. Khmelnytsky. It was suppressed by the oppression of the gentry of the population. Although the peasants continued to perform their duties, they were no longer so disenfranchised. was gone completely, the peasant now could not be killed, sold, punished with whips. It was not considered attached to the ground. A significant part of the population, in particular the Cossacks, are completely free people. Ukrainian cities were given the right to develop freely, conduct trade, improve crafts, their rights were not limited by cruel Polish laws. Gone was the national oppression. The union was liquidated, in state institutions the Polish language was replaced by Ukrainian. There were conditions for the development of the economy in the Ukrainian lands.

Already from the beginning of the Liberation War, its leader understood that the Ukrainian people alone could not overcome the political and military power of the Commonwealth. Therefore, Bogdan decided to look for allies in order to receive material, moral, political and military assistance from them. First of all, he concluded an allied agreement with the Khan. In the decisive battles of the beginning of the war, the cavalry really provided significant assistance to the Ukrainian people's army. Bogdan Khmelnitsky was so confident in his ally, saying: “I will not look for Tatars in the wild fields or in the forest. They themselves will come to me, in spite of the Poles, as soon as I let you know. "But, despite the allied obligations, the Crimean Khan Islam Giray betrayed Bogdan in the battle near Zborov and later cheated more than once. This harmed the victories of the people's army over the Polish army.

Quite close ties were established between Khmelnytsky and the Ottoman Empire. The hetman received moral and political support from the Sultan, as well as a promise to send Tatars subordinate to him to help. Moreover, the permanent Turkish ambassador to the administration of B. Khmelnitsky (chaush) offered him and the Zaporizhzhya Army to become subjects of the Porte. The Sultan even hoped to attract Cossack troops to the war against Venice. But such plans were not implemented, and interstate relations were complicated by Tatar betrayals. Sweden and Semigradya (Hungary) also entered into relations with the hetman's administration.

When the War of Liberation began, Venice closely followed the course of events and Khmelnytsky's relations with the Turks. After all, the Republic of Venice was at war with the Porte and therefore wanted to push the Cossacks against it. The Venetian Senate decided to establish diplomatic relations with Khmelnytsky. The implementation of this plan was entrusted to the ambassador of Venice in Vienna, who sent Alberto Vimina, who knew the Slavic languages, to Chigirin. In the spring of 1650 Vimin arrived at the hetman's residence. However, the embassy was not successful. Khmelnytsky very politely accepted Vimin, and restrainedly refused the proposals of Venice, seeing in them the double-dealing of the Venetians and the danger of such an alliance for Ukraine.

Relations between B. Khmelnytsky and the government of the Moldavian principality developed dramatically, which developed in close unity with the Ukrainian one. The official language of the principality was Old Church Slavonic, 1640 p. in the capital, in Iasi, Slavic-Greek-Latin was opened. Persecuted by the Ottoman oppressors, the Moldavians sought salvation in Ukraine, in the Zaporozhian Sich. Detachments often went to fight the Turkish-Tatar in Moldavia.

At the beginning of the War of Independence, the ruling elite of the principality took a hostile position towards it. The Moldavian ruler Vasily Lupul, closely associated with the Polish and Lithuanian magnates, contributed to their actions against Bogdan Khmelnitsky. An alliance of Poland and Moldova against Ukraine was formed. Bogdan decided to use military force. In August 1650, a 60,000-strong Ukrainian army, together with a 30,000-strong Tatar army, entered Moldavia. The vanguard Cossack detachment of Daniil Nechai occupied Iasi. Vasily Lupul agreed to an alliance with the government of Ukraine and paid an indemnity of 60 thousand thalers. To consolidate the union, Lupul agreed to the marriage of his daughter Rozanda with Timofey Khmelnitsky. When the owner did not keep the agreement, Bogdan Khmelnitsky had to make a second trip to Moldova. So the hetman ensured the strengthening of the positions of the western border and rear of Ukraine.

Relations were established between the Hetman's administration and the government of Moscow, it was necessary to secure the eastern flank of the Ukrainian People's Liberation Army. Ukraine-Moscow economic and communication took shape a long time ago. Zaporozhye and Don Cossacks interacted in the fight against Turkish-Tatar aggression. The leaders of numerous in Ukraine and their participants realized that Muscovy could become for them a place of salvation from the offensive of the invaders. B. Khmelnitsky also understood this well. Already after the first victories, on June 8, 1648, he sent Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich his own hand, which has survived to this day. Recalling the origin of Muscovy from, Bogdan Khmelnitsky asked the tsar to help Ukraine in the fight against Poland.

But the tsar at that time could not provide open military assistance. Moscow had just finished two wars with Poland and did not have enough strength to fight again. In addition, the state itself was restless. In a number of cities and in Moscow, an uprising of townspeople took place. The tsar was afraid that the fire of the uprising that had engulfed Ukraine might spread to Muscovy. And the alliance of B. Khmelnitsky with the Crimean Khan did not contribute to the proposed friendship.

However, detachments of Don Cossacks operated in the Ukrainian army, and the tsarist government also gave some support to the hetman. Ukraine was sold weapons, gunpowder, lead, clothing. Ukrainians, who fled from temporary setbacks, were encouraged to settle on the territory of the Muscovite state. All this, no doubt, supported the Ukrainians in their liberation struggle. B. Khmelnytsky throughout the war continued negotiations with the king on a closer union between Ukraine and Muscovy.

Military successes and diplomatic measures brought the international prestige of Ukraine and its hetman. The Lord Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell, welcomed B. Khmelnitsky and called him "the emperor of the Cossacks, the thunderstorm and the destroyer of Poland." Ukrainian, Italian Alberto Vimina, Frenchman Pierre Chevalier, Syrian Pavel Aleppsky wrote about him. Grigory Grabyanka, then a Cossack of the Gadyach regiment, noted: “He did not know sleep, day or night. And when sleep exhausted him in business and military concerns, then he rested a little. I then not on a luxurious bed, but on a sunbed, as it should be for a warrior. As he fell, he did not worry about the silence, but even in the noise and the cry of the military, he quietly rested himself no matter what. He did not differ in clothes from others, weapons and horses were also hooked, others had few underwear. I saw many times how he, covered with an ordinary Cossack cloak, guarded, tired from work, rested in the open air.

Asceticism and simplicity in everyday life and in the behavior of Hetman Khmelnytsky were unanimously noted by foreigners. Alberto Vimina saw the hetman's simplicity and democracy in dealing with people, which earned him deep respect and sympathy: "He shakes hands with everyone who enters his room and asks everyone to sit down when they are Cossacks." A. Vimina personally met Bogdan, had conversations with him, sat at the same table, retained this image for a long time and presents it almost in a portrait description: “he will grow rather tall than medium, wide in, strong build. His speech and method of government testify that he has a healthy mind and a penetrating mind.

In such an assessment of B. Khmelnitsky, Vimina is not alone. The Syrian traveler Pavel Aleppsky writes about him in a similar way: “This Khmel, a man of advanced years, but endowed in abundance with the gifts of happiness: cunning, calm, silent, does not fence himself off from people, does all things personally, is moderate in dishes, drinks and clothes. When the Cossacks met the Syrians, the hetman was with a large entourage, among which no one could recognize him: everyone was in luxurious clothes and with expensive weapons, and he looked like an ordinary colonel. Pavel of Aleppo emphasizes that during the feast in honor of the guests, there were neither exquisite dishes, nor precious dishes, nor many servants on the table - everything that travelers saw from the Moldavian and Wallachian hosts. I he exclaims: "What a contrast, Khmel, between your big name and deeds and your appearance." Aleppo emphasizes that “everyone who sees him will be surprised and say: “Yes, here he is, this Hop, whose fame and name have spread throughout the world.”

And the Ukrainian people themselves preserved the memory of B. Khmelnytsky and his days as the best times of free state take-off: , hetman Khmelnitsky, our father, Zinovy-Bogdan Chigirinsky! God forbid that we follow your head and walk, we don’t give our faith in a fight for eternity. ”

The formation of the Cossack-Hetman government and the establishment of its relations with foreigners contributed to the rise of the national liberation struggle for the development and strengthening of the Ukrainian state.