ZBORIV: THORNY ROAD TO FREEDOM

In this treaty, Ukraine was presented de facto as an equal party in international negotiations for the first time in three centuries. A whole series of the uprisings by the Ukrainian Cossacks and peasants at the turn of the seventeenth century ended in defeat. The rebellious province obtained its chance to win freedom in the late 1640s.

The Ukrainians, who felt like second-class people in their own land, looked forward to their first opportunity to overthrow the yoke of Polish magnates, gentry, and omnipotent functionaries. Any Ukrainian felt himself downtrodden, be it a registered Cossack subordinated to Polish overlords and obeying orders from Warsaw or an unregistered Cossack and was obliged to work, together with serfs for his landlord, also usually a Pole. The Ukrainian nobility was largely Polonized and had adopted Roman or Uniate Catholicism. The Orthodox faith was often an additional reason for arbitrary rule by of the occupiers.

The last decade before the 1648 uprising was rather quiet in Ukraine. Incapacitated by the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), Europe lost any interest in its eastern frontiers; the Polish magnates and nobility kept King Wladyslaw IV from any attempts to intervene in the war, for they were satisfied that Poland managed to hold the northern borders in the fight with the Swedish King Gustav Adolph (the latter turned his eyes toward Germany), while Moscow was disgraced in the Smolensk War. Nor was Poland interested in worsening its relations with the powerful Ottoman Empire.

It was precisely at this moment that what appeared at first glance a trivial event took place: the foray of the Polish nobleman Czaplinski's forces into the farmstead of Subotiv belonging to Ukrainian nobleman Bohdan-Zynovy Khmelnytsky. Czaplinski had Khmelnytsky's younger son beaten to death, plundered the manor, and kidnapped Motrona, the future Hetman's paramour. Khmelnytsky failed to win his case in court, and his friends even had to buy him out of prison. But this tiny spark was enough to kindle the flame of war in Ukraine. Khmelnytsky went to Zaporizhzhia at the end of 1647, where the Cossacks elect him Hetman as early as February 1648. The oppressors would look upon all previous uprisings as a child's play.

In February 1648 the Hetman concluded a military alliance with the Crimean Khan Islam Girey III (the Tartars had not received their tribute from the Poles for several years). As soon as May 5-6, the allied army routed Polish detachments under Stefan Potocki near Zhovti Vody. Ten days later, the Polish suffered another defeat near Korsun. Soon after, Khmelnytsky announced mobilization. The situation became disastrous for the commonwealth. The Polish King Wladyslaw, who enjoyed considerable authority among the Ukrainians, died. Incidentally, the then Cossack demand were rather modest: that the register be expanded to 12,000.

The Left-Bank magnate Yarema Vyshnevetsky, who owned huge estates and viewed the uprising as a danger to his own interests, became Khmelnytsky's chief (and strong, thanks to his intelligence and valor) rival. He fought his way to Volyn using scorched-earth tactics (both warring sides shed an ocean of blood in the hostilities). Even earlier, on September 13, 1648, the Cossack-and-peasant army defeated the Poles near Pyliavka, and Khmelnytsky crossed Volyn and Galicia to Zamo л s л c. Papa Khmel seemed hold victory in his hands, for he said, quite resolutely, that he would «cross Little and Great Poland with the fire and sword.» But the election of Jan II Kazimierz, Wladyslaw's brother, as Polish king, changed everything. The new monarch promised basic concessions to the Cossacks and Orthodox faith, and Khmelnytsky decided to make peace, remaining content with the lesser gains.

He began to understand gradually that it is not worthy of a winner to ask boons. Conversely, the Poles recovered, little by little, from the humiliating defeats, so the decisive clash lurked just around the corner. Vyshnevetsky and other magnates invaded Podillia, but the huge Ukrainian-Tartar army (estimated at 100,000 to 200,000) surrounded the Polish army of 30,000 near Zbarazh. The allies failed in their attempts to rout the enemy at once. But the hungry Polish army only relied on the royal army. Receiving no reinforcements, the Polish monarch together with his personal guard units and mercenaries marched toward Zboriv. Here, too, Khmelnytsky showed himself a brilliant strategist: leaving a part of his forces near Zbarazh, he also surrounded the panic-stricken royal units on August 5, 1649. The enemy had exhausted its will to resist. The royal army clerk Wojciech Miaskowski wrote: «For several centuries, Poland had not been in such a danger as it was on August 5.» But when the fate of the Poles had already been sealed, the Crimean Tartars concluded, behind Khmelnytsky's back, a peace agreement with the king and forced the Ukrainians to send envoys to the latter and negotiate the treaty articles. The Khan's faith-breaking would more than once save the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from catastrophe in the war. For the Cossacks a war on two fronts was impossible.

Khmelnytsky and the Cossack officer corps drew up a declaration demanding the Polish king establish a 40,000-man register. But all peasants who remained unregistered were to go back to their lords, and this provision created an explosive situation impelling the inevitable continuation of the uprising in the immediate future. A general amnesty for the insurgents was a very crucial article of the treaty. No royal troops were allowed in the territories allotted to the registered Cossacks (Kyiv, Bratslav and Chernihiv provinces), and only the Orthodox nobility could occupy official posts. Interests of the Orthodox church were also taken into account: all rights and property were returned to it, while the Kyiv metropolitan and two bishops were granted seats in the Polish Senate. Jesuits, the aggressive promoters of Roman Catholic faith, were banned from Kyiv and other cities of the Cossack districts.

The Zboriv Peace was solemnly signed in a Polish camp in the presence of Jan Kazimierz, crown chancellor Juri Osolinski, Kyiv governor Adam Kysil, Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, and his son Tymosh. Naturally, this peace was a heavy burden on the Hetman's heart. Both sides understood it was only a temporary armistice. The magnates, and especially those who had holdings in Left-Bank Ukraine (one of them, Vyshnevetsky, especially vehemently protested against the treaty), accused the king of ignoring the interests of his kingdom. The Hetman had his own problem: how to sign up all those wanting into the limited 40,000 register. With tacit approval, the register was extended to 50,000, and an additional 20,000-strong roster was also set up for a reserve corps led by Tymosh Khmelnytsky. In addition, numerous Cossacks' families and their servants were exempt from the lords' feudal authority. As to the item on the Polish nobility claiming back their estates, the Hetman was in no hurry to fulfill it, the more so that the Polish Diet had in fact disavowed a number of contractual provisions and approved the treaty only with reservations.

Khmelnytsky turned for help to the Muscovite Tsar, asking him «to show His affection and readiness to protect a kindred and friendly people.» However, the alliance with Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich was opposed by Colonels Ivan Bohun («Ukraine's first saber,» according to contemporaries), Dmytro Kryvonosenko (son of the Hetman's famous comrade-in-arms, Maksym Kryvonys), Danylo Nechai, and Matviy Hladky. Even earlier, Moscow had made only timid attempts to influence the situation on its southwestern border. The treaty was valid up to December 1650. Victories and defeats lay ahead — tragedy near Berestechko, triumph near Batih, the Bila Tserkva Treaty, and Pereyaslav Rada. Yet, it is hard to overestimate the role of the Peace of Zboriv which gave the Ukrainian people hope in a better future.