Poland полностью

Instead of being admitted as the third nation of the Commonwealth, Ukraine was treated, by its own elite as well as by the Poles, as a sort of colony, and the resultant sense of deprivation engendered much bitterness. It was these simmering tensions that boiled over in the late 1640s, triggering a series of events that would abort the dream of Ukrainian nationhood and break the Commonwealth’s power decisively, to the benefit of Turkey and, above all, Muscovy.

In 1640, and again in 1644, unusually large Tatar tchambouls ravaged Podolia and Volynia. Hetman Koniecpolski managed to defeat them, but not before they had carried off multitudes into slavery. In the winter of 1645 the Tatars sent their tchambouls into Muscovy in even larger numbers, and this time Field-Hetman Mikołaj Potocki was dispatched with a Polish army to help the Muscovites, the consequence of a rapprochement which had taken place between Warsaw and Moscow. This gave rise to a plan for a joint Polish-Muscovite offensive into the Crimea, which Muscovy would then incorporate into its own dominions, followed by a similar expedition into Moldavia, which would be incorporated into the Commonwealth. Two unexpected events shattered this plan. One was that Hetman Koniecpolski, now approaching his sixtieth year, absented himself to marry for the third time. His bride, Zofia Opalińska, was not only a great heiress but also a vivacious girl of sixteen. After a brief honeymoon which the Hetman described to a friend in ecstatic terms, he died of exhaustion on 10 March 1646.

The other came in May, when King Władysław unexpectedly announced that he was going to lead a crusade to recover Istanbul, an enterprise he believed would earn him lasting fame. The Sejm was in uproar, and Chancellor Ossoliński quashed the project. But Władysław had already secretly given the Cossacks money, instructing them to double the register to 12,000 and to start building longboats. The Cossacks had set to work in high spirits. Their anger was all the greater when news reached them that the Sejm had put paid to the King’s plans. The agreed Crimean and Moldavian campaigns were less attractive to them than a royal licence to take to their boats and rampage around the southern shores of the Black Sea. It was at this point that one man and his personal grievances brought about an explosion. His name was Bohdan Chmielnicki.

Chmielnicki was born in 1595 into the landed szlachta, and although he was Orthodox, he had been educated by the Jesuits. He took part in the 1620 Moldavian campaign, and was taken prisoner by the Turks at the Battle of Cecora along with Koniecpolski. When they recovered their freedom, Koniecpolski obtained for him the post of Secretary to the Zaporozhian Army. Chmielnicki waged a personal vendetta with a Lithuanian neighbour who eventually killed his son. Failing to get justice from the local court, Chmielnicki went to the Sich, where he stirred the already indignant Cossacks into a frenzy and started negotiating with the Tatars.

The situation was not critical. The King was personally due in Ukraine, Polish forces were concentrating, and the Muscovite army had started moving south to link up with them. Hetman Potocki, however, decided that a show of strength was required, and in April 1648 he dispatched his twenty-four-year-old son Stefan with 3,500 men, half of them Cossacks, towards the Sich. Stefan Potocki was surrounded by the Zaporozhian Army under Chmielnicki and defeated, and his father was ambushed and taken prisoner ten days later at Korsuń. At this crucial moment, Władysław IV, the only man in a position to placate the Cossacks, died unexpectedly.

It was fortunate for the Commonwealth that both the Primate and interrex, Maciej Łubieński, and the Chancellor, Jerzy Ossoliński, were sagacious men. They arranged an immediate truce through Adam Kisiel, Palatine of Kiev, the only Orthodox member of the Senate, who began negotiations on a broader settlement. But hopes of an amicable resolution were dashed by Prince Wiśniowiecki, who led his own private army into the field against the Cossacks: the greatest lord of Ukraine was not interested in Ukrainian autonomy, only in putting down the rabble and restoring order. This strengthened the hand of those in the Cossack camp who wanted war rather than negotiation, and Chmielnicki bowed to the pressure.