Under the “Eastern tsar”

The history of Ukraine in the late 17th and 18th centuries is still a special field for those experts who study the evolution and developmental stages of our early modern society. This period is full of contradictions and highly dramatic events — the Khmelnytsky era, the rise and fall of the Hetmanate, Ivan Mazepa, the defeat at Poltava, the fate of Pavlo Polubotok, and the abolition of the vestiges of Ukrainian autonomy by Catherine II — which cannot leave a single Ukrainian patriot indifferent.

Therefore, the publication of new synthesizing works with different approaches to the history of Khmelnytsky’s rule and the Hetmanate is always a milestone. This all the more true of studies that spotlight such extremely important aspects of this problem as foreign influence, the foreign factor in our history of the 17th and 18th centuries — specifically, the Muscovite state of the Romanovs.

The Day’s readers may be pleased to learn that the author of one of the most exhaustive monographs devoted to this set of questions is the historian Viktor Horobets, who is a regular contributor to our newspaper, the co-editor of Dvi Rusi, one of the books in The Day’s Library Series, director of the Social History Center at the Institute of Ukrainian History, and a professor at the Russian History Department of Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University.

Horobets’s book, We Desire an Eastern Tsar: The Ukrainian Hetmanate and the Russian Dynasty before and after Pereiaslav, has just been released by Krytyka, a Kyiv-based publishing house. This work has already drawn the attention of both historians and general readers.

Speaking at the book launch in the Elite Room of the Teacher’s House in Kyiv, Horobets emphasized that his monograph is the product of extensive work and reconsideration of the contradictions of that extremely complex period. “I am neither an advocate nor a prosecutor to condemn or acquit Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Ivan Vyhovsky, and other prominent figures of those days. What is important is for us to make a penetrating study on the basis of existing sources — and there can be no historical research without meticulous work with sources where the 18th century is concerned — of the specific conditions and circumstances that forced Ukrainian leaders of the day to act precisely the way they did.”

Horobets believes that the step taken by Khmelnytsky in January 1654 in Pereiaslav, when nascent Ukrainian statehood was under real threat (powerful diplomatic alliances had formed against Ukraine; the lack of true allies, at least in the hetman’s view; the death of Bohdan’s most beloved and talented son Tymish, etc.) was more or less adequate to the existing situation. The author especially stressed that in no way was it a policy of “with Russia forever and for centuries to come.” Rather, it was a compromise, and logically enough the hetman must have quickly understood the true essence of Muscovite policies and begun to seek new allies, including Sweden.

Professor Horobets admitted that while working on his monograph he wanted to avoid creating new myths of any coloring. (Even talented historians occasionally do this in the heat of debunking Soviet-era myths. But is it productive to replace eulogies of the Pereiaslav Council with curses?) The book embraces a huge span of time — from 1648 until the era of Catherine II and the abolition of the Hetmanate. Naturally, this complicated the goal that the author set himself, namely, to fathom the intricate essence of the period, the very logic of which often consisted of events beyond the bounds of logic, to depict not only the factual outline of Ukrainian-Russian relations but also the spiritual world of individuals and the deep-seated motives behind their actions.

“For me, as a rule, these defining motives were an understanding of the good and proper order of things, the historical mission of leaders, and their role in establishing this order, rather than the innate nobility or, on the contrary, treacherousness of certain statesmen,” said Horobets whose main criteria for the selection of materials were the fundamental importance of certain events for Ukraine and availability of reliable historical sources.

In the historian’s opinion, the Treaty of Pereiaslav did not compel Ukraine to follow the path that eventually led to the manifestos abolishing the Hetmanate. What, then, prevented Ukraine from realizing the state-building and democratic potential that it had in the 17th and 18th centuries? This is the fundamental question that Prof. Horobets examines in his beautifully designed, 450-page monograph. The author believes it is not worthwhile seeking the answer in historical parallels: this is a dangerous path because every epoch creates its own inimitable motives, moods, and reasons for action.

In his speech Horobets also touched upon some points on which his book sheds new light. He was able to track down archival records of Pavlo Polubotok’s trial, in which he found many fascinating facts. (He confessed that readers who like the famous story of “Polubotok’s treasures” will be disappointed). The historian also expressed some interesting thoughts about Ivan Vyhovsky, “a man who liked order,” and Khmelnytsky, who was “a man of the steppe” to a certain degree, and about the differences between them, key to the collisions of the period known as the Ruin.

Horobets concluded his speech by saying that he doubts his book will conclusively resolve this set of complex historical problems. Yaroslav Yatskiv, member of the Ukraine’s Academy of Sciences, who chaired the discussion, pointed out that Horobets spoke like a true scholar rather than a writer, and kept his emotions in check (quite a compliment).

Among the guests at the book launch were such celebrities as the outstanding Ukrainian poet and public figure Dmytro Pavlychko, who commented favorably on the book, noting that “we must speak the truth to the Russians — historians, politicians, and those who are our friends; we must tell everybody the truth”; the well-known physician Liubomyr Pyrih, and Mykhailo (Michel) Tereshchenko, a direct descendant of the famous Tereshchenko family. So let us hope that there are more meaningful discussions of this book whose author, Viktor Horobets, is, to quote his colleague Taras Chukhlib, “one of those historians who debunk myths instead of creating them.”