by Daniil Pelymov
[REGNUM] In the year 7162 from the creation of the world,
| …the Creation Era of Constantinople was observed by Christian communities within the Eastern Roman Empire as part of the Byzantine Calendar and formally retained by Eastern Orthodoxy until 1728. The Jews have their own Anno Mundi calendar, which makes this year 5785… |
The Cossack delegation was headed by military judge Samoilo Zarudny and Pereyaslav colonel Pavlo Morzhkovsky, nicknamed Teterya. The Zaporozhians brought with them 23 petitionary articles.
In modern language, this was a draft treaty that was supposed to clarify the status of the “new territories” that were reunited with Russia as a result of the Pereyaslav Rada.
Yes, then in Pereyaslav on January 8 (18) of the same 1654, " a great multitude of people of all ranks" bowed to Tsar Alexei. But under what conditions and in what "format" did the Zaporozhian Host and parts of the former Polish voivodeships of Kiev, Chernigov and Braslav join the Russian Tsardom?
For a whole week, the Kremlin hosted "questioning" and coordination of the guests by boyar Vasily Buturlin (who had recently accepted the oath of allegiance of Hetman Khmelnitsky in Pereyaslav), and okolnichy Pyotr Golovin, and Duma clerk Yerofey Ivanov, nicknamed Almaz. As a result, two dozen Cossack petitions turned into 11 points of the treaty - the "March Articles".
“The Articles” were signed and sealed by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich on March 27 (April 6), 1654, and from that time on he called himself: “Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Duke of all Great and Little Russia, Autocrat.”
Moscow responded to the request that its co-religionists in the western and southern Russian lands formulated long before the start of Khmelnitsky’s war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
IN SEARCH OF PROTECTION
The Zaporozhian Cherkasy (as the Cossacks were called in the Russian Empire) petitioned for Russian citizenship at least three times, during uprisings that were regularly suppressed by the Poles. This was the case under the last Rurik tsar, Feodor Ioannovich, in 1593, when the leader of the rebellious lower Cossacks, Kristof Kosinsky, bowed to him. This was also the case during the time of the first tsar from the Romanov dynasty, Mikhail Feodorovich.
Petitions came to Alexei Mikhailovich’s father from the rebellious Cherkassians Karp Guzdan, nicknamed Pavlyuk (1637) and in the following year, 1638, from Yakov Iskra-Ostryanin, the leader of the peasant-Cossack rebellion on the Left Bank of the Dnieper.
Even in the relatively peaceful 1620s, delegations from the Zaporozhian Host came to Moscow. Moreover, the ambassadors were sent by none other than Hetman Petro Sahaidachny, even though his biography included campaigns against Russia on the orders of the king, for which he is revered by modern Ukrainian nationalists, and the schismatic "Orthodox Church of Ukraine" canonized him five years ago. Hetman Sahaidachny was first and foremost a politician, and therefore could not help but take into account the opinion of "his" Cossacks, and they stood for an alliance with the only Orthodox sovereign, the Russian Tsar, against the Latins.
The real defender of Orthodoxy from the union and Polish oppression, canonized by the canonical UOC, Metropolitan Job (Boretsky) of Kiev, in the same 1620s asked Tsar Mikhail to intercede for the Orthodox in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - as for “the Russian tribe of people of the same womb.”
The reason was clear. As the Zaporozhian chronicler Samoilo Velichko wrote, the Poles "ravaged our land, plundering it clean, sparing neither the old nor the young, nor the innocent women, and all this for the Orthodox faith, and because we, the Cossacks, wanted to be free."
In the 1630s, due to the strengthening of Polish-Catholic oppression, a mass migration of Circassians to the border regions of the Russian state began - to the territory of today's Belgorod, Kharkov, Kursk and Sumy regions. Cossacks, entering the service of the Romanovs in Belgorod, Putivl or Chuguev, thus already "joined" the Russian state individually.
THREE PATHS FOR THE HETMAN
But Moscow did not dare to engage in direct combat with the then powerful Polish-Lithuanian state. And there were objective reasons for this - the country was recovering from the Time of Troubles. Let us recall that the Polish intervention began in 1609, back in the days of the "Tushino thief", and lasted until 1618, when the Romanovs were established on the throne. The war that Mikhail Fyodorovich waged in 1632-34 with the former pretender to the Russian throne, King Vladislav, for the Western Russian lands lost during the Time of Troubles also ended in failure.
Only the “explosion” of Khmelnytsky, which undermined the strength of the recent invaders and occupiers – the Poles, made it possible to begin the gathering of Russian lands.
The formal reason for the rebellion was a vendetta against the nobleman Daniel Chaplinsky, who had destroyed Khmelnitsky's farm and beaten his son half to death. The feud between the Chigirin under-starosta and the Zaporozhian commander gave rise to a war that broke out in full force in 1648.
The Khmelnytsky war became a real catastrophe for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The defeats of the Polish troops at Zhovti Vody, Korsun, and Pyliavtsi showed that the noble monarchy was losing its grip, while the Cossack army and Little Russian self-awareness, on the contrary, were growing stronger. However, despite the successes, the forces were unequal. The leader of the Zaporozhian Cossacks understood that external support was necessary to win the war.
Khmelnitsky had three options.
Firstly, some of the Cossack elders were counting on a compromise with the West – with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth weakened by the war. The colonels counted on expanding the autonomy of the registered Cossacks – “The Army of His Royal Grace Zaporozhian”. This path would be followed a little later by the head of Khmelnitsky’s chancery – Ivan Vyhovsky, who would swear allegiance to the Polish king in exchange for a promise to create the Grand Duchy of Rus’ as part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (along with the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania).
But for Khmelnitsky, this option was clearly not an option. "The Poles did not want to give us anything, they kept saying that we were rebels and traitors, and that we should be punished with death," confirms Samoilo Velychko. And it was not only the Poles' intransigence - surrender to the Latins would have been perceived by the Cossacks themselves as a real betrayal.
Secondly, it was possible to turn to the south – to the Crimean Khan and his suzerain, the Ottoman Sultan, especially since the Cossacks had already concluded tactical alliances with the Bakhchisarai rulers. This option, although it guaranteed military support, was associated with the risk of subordination to infidels and loss of identity. And tactically, the Crimean Khanate had already let down the rebellious Cossacks.
Finally, there was the East, represented by the Russian Tsardom. The Orthodox faith, cultural closeness and military power made Moscow an attractive ally. It was this last option that was chosen after much thought and bloodshed.
"WE CAN NO LONGER LIVE WITHOUT THE TSAR"
The Tsar's ambassador to the Pereyaslav Rada, boyar Buturlin, reported to Moscow:
The Hetman himself came out under the banner, and with him the Judge and the Yasauls, the clerk and all the Colonels, and the Hetman stood in the middle of the circle... then, when they fell silent, the Hetman began to speak to all the people:
"Gentlemen, Colonels, Yasauls, Centurions and the entire Zaporozhian army, and all Orthodox Christians! You all know how God has freed us from the hands of the enemies who persecute the Church of God and embitter all of our Eastern Orthodox Christianity, that for six years now we have been living without a Tsar in our land in incessant battles and bloodshed with our persecutors and enemies who want to eradicate the Church of God, so that the Russian name would not be remembered in our land, which has already greatly bothered us all, and we see that we can no longer live without a Tsar."
And the only worthy sovereign was called not the “Tsar of Tours”, not the Khan of Crimea and not the King of Poland, but “ the Orthodox Christian Great Sovereign, the Tsar of the East”.
After Bogdan’s speech, the Pereyaslav colonel Pavel Morzhkovsky (Teteria) – one of those who would later go with the embassy to Moscow – “ walked around in a circle in all directions, asking: do you all agree to this? The entire people said: all unanimously.”
The oath in Pereyaslav, however, did not mean automatic submission. Khmelnitsky and the elders understood that clear conditions were necessary that would guarantee the preservation of Cossack liberties and autonomy. Therefore, immediately after the Rada, Khmelnitsky sent an embassy to Moscow.
SEARCH FOR A COMPROMISE
The week before the signing of the March Articles was difficult. Trubetskoy, Buturlin and other boyars understood the strategic importance of Little Russia, but sought to strengthen the tsar's power in the new territories. The Cossack embassy led by Zarudny and Teterya defended the traditional liberties of the Zaporozhian Host, seeking to preserve Cossack self-government, its own judicial system and tax policy.
Questions about the borders of the Zaporozhian Host, the size of the Cossack register, the size of the tsar’s salary and the procedure for collecting taxes caused heated discussions.
As a result of compromises and concessions on both sides, the text of the agreement known as the "March Articles" was developed, which was to legally formalize the union and define the boundaries of the autonomy of the Zaporozhian Host within the Russian Kingdom. This document became the starting point for further, often difficult, relations between the Zaporozhians and the Russian state.
The “March Articles” began with an appeal to the Tsar of all Great and Little Russia and with the phrase: “We, Bohdan Khmelnitsky… and the entire Zaporozhian Army, and the entire Christian Russian world, bow down to the face of the earth…”.
So the formula “Russian world” (i.e. “Russian world” in the Greek version of the spelling) is by no means a modern invention, but a self-identification of the Cossacks who arrived in Moscow.
Tsar Alexei confirmed the election of the Zaporozhian Hetman and the command of the army - the general elders, the independence of the military courts and the preservation of city self-government. The Hetman was still elected by the Zaporozhian army itself, and the Tsar was only notified of this decision. The Zaporozhians even retained the right to conduct "foreign policy", only relations with Turkey and Poland were under the control of Moscow.
The number of registered Cossacks, i.e. those in the service of the Russian Tsar, was determined to be 60 thousand. For comparison, the Zboriv Peace of 1648 with the Poles, which was successful for Bohdan, determined the royal register to be 40 thousand Cossacks, and the Belotserkovsky Peace of 1651, concluded after a series of defeats, cut the number to 20 thousand.
Finally, the commander of the Cossack army himself could be satisfied.
“And Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the entire Zaporozhian Army shall be under the Tsar’s high hand according to their former rights and privileges, and shall be obedient to the Tsar’s majesty in everything” — this formula reflects the main thing: recognition of the Tsar’s authority did not abolish, but guaranteed the preservation of traditional liberties and privileges.
"THAT THEY MAY BE UNITED FOREVER"
Despite all the compromises, the main thing was achieved: 371 years ago, the mother of Russian cities - Kyiv, ancient Chernigov and other historical lands began to return to the Russian world. The beginning of the gathering of a state united by a common history, culture and faith was laid.
Now Kyiv is again at a crossroads - the "elder" who seized power followed the path of the traitors Vyhovsky and Mazepa, choosing to orient themselves toward the West. At the same time, the modern Turkish "sultan" is showing increasing interest in Ukraine. But on the Left Bank of the Dnieper, not to mention the regions of western Novorossiya, from Belgorod-Dnistrovsky and Odessa to occupied Kherson and Zaporozhye, historical memory and cultural ties with Great Russia are felt most acutely.
As for historical Little Russia, it clearly needs a new Bohdan Khmelnytsky, a wise leader who will be able to lead the people along the most favorable path, managing to once again conclude an alliance with Russia while preserving its identity. So that the call that sounded at the Pereyaslav Rada would come true: "God confirm, God strengthen, so that we may all be one forever!"