Victory betrayed

A nation that loses its dignity and because of this is incapable of remembering the difficult and costly victories that were achieved (and there are such victories), and which is fixated on defeats deprives itself of a future. Such is the meaning of the fascinating and truly symbolic coincidence of the two polarized anniversaries that Ukraine will mark in mid- 2009: the 300th anniversary of the Battle of Poltava (June 27, 1709) and the 350th anniversary of the Battle of Konotop (June 29, 1659).

Remarkably, the “weight” of these two anniversaries in the historical consciousness of Ukrainian society is absolutely different: the “glorious” and “eternally memorable” victory of the Russian army at Poltava, which marked the headlong transformation of the despotic Muscovite state into an empire, became the systemic nucleus of a whole set of hurrah-patriotic myths, while even to this day the Battle of Konotop is not perceived as one of the most glorious events of Ukrainian national history. Naturally, this is the result of a centuries-long taboo.

Meanwhile, the victory at Konotop was a devastating blow to the Muscovite army. Graphic proof of this is found in the History of Russia from Earliest Times by Sergei Solovev, the most outstanding Russian historian of the mid-19th century: “The cream of the Muscovite cavalry, which had taken part in the victorious campaigns of 1654 and 1655, perished in a single day; never afterward would the Muscovite tsar be able to deploy such a brilliant army! Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich appeared before the people clad in mourning clothes and Moscow was gripped with horror. The blow was all the heavier for being unexpected! Lucky in war and terrifying to his enemies, Trubetskoi — on whom the biggest hopes were placed — had lost a huge army! After the capture of so many cities, after the capture of the Lithuanian capital, the tsarist capital of Moscow now trembled with fear for its safety: on the tsar’s orders, people of all classes rushed to build earthworks to reinforce Moscow. The tsar himself and his boyars came once in while to inspect the work. Residents of the suburbs with their families and property filled Moscow, and the rumor spread that the tsar was moving to Yaroslavl, beyond the Volga.”

This is the historical truth, and it cannot be rewritten by contemporary Ukrainophobes, who insist that the victory at Konotop was won not by Ukrainian forces but by Crimean Tatar troops. Indeed, when you cannot keep an event secret, you must “head” the process of distorting it in people’s minds.

The Battle of Konotop cannot be described briefly. To get at least an inkling about it, one should know about the heroic defense of Konotop Fortress, whose garrison under Hryhorii Hulianytsky, the colonel of Nizhyn, numbered a mere 5,000 Cossacks against the Muscovite tsar’s 100,000-strong army led by senior boyar Trubetskoi. Think about it: Hulianytsky defended Konotop from an army that was 20 times larger than his. Who knows about this, besides people who are truly interested in national history and are not dilettantes?

On June 29, 1659, Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky’s “coalition” army (to use a modern term), which, in addition to Ukrainian Cossacks, included soldiers from various countries, volunteers from Poland, Transylvania, Moldova, Wallachia, and, of course, a Crimean Tatar detachment led by Khan Mehmet-Girei, finally reached the Sosnivka crossing at Konotop. Hetman Vyhovsky immediately attacked the advance Muscovite detachment near the crossing and then, leaving Mehmet-Girei’s troops waiting in ambush, engaged part of Trubetskoi’s army under Prince Semen Pozharsky’s command.

In the heat of battle the hetman suddenly ordered his troops to fall back, masterfully simulating a hasty retreat. After several Russian voivodes (the princes Lvov and Liapunov, the Buturlin brothers, and Prince Pozharsky) gave chase, they quickly fell into the ambush organized by Mehmet-Girei. Then the Cossacks attacked them from the rear after quickly destroying the Sosnivka crossing, thus making it impossible for the Muscovite cavalry to retreat. The result of the battle can hardly be described other than as a complete rout of Prince Trubetskoi’s army. The distinguished Ukrainian historian Dmytro Doroshenko wrote that “the fields of Konotop were covered with the bodies of 30,000 Muscovites” (the minimum death toll).

It is important to stress that the “Ukrainian part” of Vyhovsky’s troops understood perfectly what cause it was fighting for. Almost certainly they recalled the following words from the manifesto of the Ukrainian government (1657), which explained in detail the reasons for the split with Muscovy: “We, the entire Zaporozhian Host, declare and testify before God and the whole world that the great wars fought against Poland had no other goal than to protect the holy Eastern Church and our ancestors’ freedom, to which we cleave with love. It was led by our hetman of hallowed memory Bohdan Khmelnytsky and our Chancellor Ivan Vyhovsky. This is why we entered into an alliance with the Tatars, with Her Majesty Christina, the Swedish Queen, and later with His Majesty Carl Gustav, and we remained unswervingly loyal to all of them. Nor did we ever give Poland cause to breach the accords, but devoutly maintained our loyalty, agreements, and alliances with everyone. We accepted the protectorate of the Grand Prince of Muscovy for the sole purpose of preserving, with God’s help, our freedom that was achieved and sanctified by blood, so that we could hand it down to our descendants.”

This document also states that Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, in contrast, did not keep his promises or honor his commitments. For example, the Muscovite ruler held talks with Poland behind Ukraine’s back, strengthened the Muscovite military presence in Ukrainian lands, interfered in Ukrainian affairs, and constantly and secretly supported the “internal opposition” and undisguised insurgents like Martyn Pushkar, etc.

In other words, there were arguments in support of the uprising against Muscovy. Then why was this spectacular victory at Konotop eventually betrayed and lost, but not so much because of Trubetskoi’s troops as because of Ukrainians, like the colonel of Pereiaslav Tymish Tsiutsiura, well-known Cossack officers, including Vasyl Zolotarenko and Yakym Solomko, and the arch priests Maksym Fylymonovych and Semen Adamovych, who comprised the so-called “Muscovite party in Ukraine”? The historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky offers an interesting answer to this question. “If Bohdan Khmel nytsky had not died so early, and furthermore, if Ukraine could have lived quietly after his death for at least a dozen years, then the seeds of subsequent tempests would not have sprouted. Ukrainian society showed great organizational talent, it lived at an extraordinarily quick pace, and showed quick progress in its political consciousness. If it had been left to its own devices and could have worked calmly on its social and political orders and its constitution, it would have definitely been able to make its new order stable and enduring. Yet this was precisely what it lacked: an opportunity to peacefully and freely work on developing and consolidating the new order.”

What Hrushevsky writes further is even more fascinating: “Besides those weak political points that we have discussed, the enemies of Ukraine were also assisted by the social division between the Ukrainian masses and Cossack officers’ circles, between the people and the Cossack officer leadership. The masses rebelled in order to rid themselves of the landowners’ yoke; meanwhile, the Cossack officers, who held the reins of power and had thus supplanted the nobility, were eager to follow in its footsteps: to own lands, found villages for themselves, and have their own subjects. The new system was too much of a class one, an estate one, and too affiliated to the military, and this created difficulties in the transition to its new, all-national significance. This animosity (between the elite and the people — I. S.) became acutely manifested later, but its harbingers appear very quickly after Khmelnytsky’s death and weaken the Cossack officers’ position and their policies. This was a great shame because the Cossack officers had had in mind the liberation of all of Ukraine and the political interests of the entire people.”

The people, however, had somewhat different views on the matter and believed that the Cossack officers were acting only in their own narrowly egotistic interests. It was at this very time that the rebellion of the rabble (holota), mutinous Zaporozhian Cossacks, rank- and-file Cossacks, and burgers took place in the rear of Vyhovsky’s troops: in Nizhyn, Romen, Hadiach, and Lokhvytsia. Without a doubt, this rebellion was instigated by Muscovy, which was posing as a “protector” of the interests of the common people of Ukraine, and it cancelled out the victory at Konotop. In October 1659 Hetman Vyhovsky was forced to abdicate, a move that opened the way to that horrible period in Ukrainian history known as the Ruin.

Our duty to remember the glorious Battle of Konotop is thus greater. (The public’s initiative to mark its 350th anniversary on an official level is very to the point.) However, we must also remember the bitter lessons of history that are connected to it.