Unsuccessful hetman

The lives of historical figures who live or lived at the time of ruination cannot be easy and simple. Speaking about the epoch of the Ruin in 1657–76 we can see some convincing and illustrative examples of that. Ivan Vyhovsky, Petro Doroshenko, Ivan Briukhovetsky, Demian Mnohohrishny, and others had one thing in common: they all went a difficult path from popular fame and a sweet taste of power to popular hatred, shame, and loss of all or most of the privileges, to political defeat, and sometimes even to a cruel death.

A good example of this is the figure of Pavlo Teteria Morzhkovsky, hetman of Right-Bank Ukraine (1663–65). The harsh ups and downs in the life of this person clearly prove that it is extremely important for a really wise politician to rely in the realization of far-reaching plans not on foreign allies either in the West or in the East, but first of all on his own people. It is also extremely important for a state leader to make the right decision in the right way and at the right time. Teteria, a well-educated and clever person, had stubbornly, though unsuccessfully, tried to unite at least some territories of the Hetman State and avoid political and social hostility at the time of a complete decline of almost all national and state institutions after Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s death. He failed.

Why? The answer to this question, which is far from being abstract for present-day Ukrainians, can be found on the pages of a new book by Volodymyr Hazin, a young historian who is, nevertheless, already well-known in Ukraine. (The Day has carried several of his articles.). Hazin holds a Ph.D. degree in history, and works as an associate professor at the Department of Ukrainian History in Kamianets-Podilsky State University.

His new book, entitled Hetman Pavlo Teteria, was published by the Aksioma publishing house in Kamianets-Podilsky in 2009. It contains not only main landmarks in the political biography of this “failed” hetman, but also an unbiased objective analysis of the root causes behind Teteria’s failures, the ups and downs of his career, and obvious and unobvious motives behind his actions. It deserves special attention, because this hetman had no luck in both imperial and Soviet times. Teteria was viewed by leading historians in both Ukraine and Russia (Nikolay Kostomarov, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Volodymyr Antonovych, Volodymyr Solovyov, and Vasily Klyuchevsky) only as a Polish marionette, hypocritical self-lover, a kind of an intriguer, etc.

In contrast to this, Hazin has analyzed a great number of historical documents and sources, among them Samovydets Chronicle, Hryhorii Hrabianka and Samiilo Velychko Chronicles, works by Mykola Markevych, Dmytro Bantysh-Kamensky, Orest Levytsky, Dmytro Yavornytsky, Viacheslav Lypynsky, as well as research by such modern scholars as Yaroslav Dashkevych, Natalia Yakovenko, Valerii Smolii, Valerii Stepankov, Viktor Horobets, and many others. He also analyzed authentic materials from the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, the Main Archive of Ancient Acts in Warsaw, the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kyiv, and many others. The research he carried out enabled him to create a multifaceted, complex image of his hero that is far from stereotypical. Hazin has absolutely succeeded in this.

“One can imagine what the situation was for Ukrainian society in the middle and in the second half of the 17th century. Driven to despair by the cruel national and religious oppression on the part of Poland, the Ukrainian Cossacks, peasants, and burghers rose to fight for their rights. The nascent Ukrainian political elite was based on Cossack officers, Ukrainian patriotic clergy, and nobility. Then they realized the need to revive their own state. At the same time, Ukrainian society still had strong stereotypes that dictated the need to keep Ukrainian lands within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It led to a division in the Ukrainian nobility; some of them joined the Polish army, which left for Ukraine on a punitive raid.

“The desire to find a compromise with Poland became stronger after the emergence of the Moscow factor. After 1654 and especially after the death of great Ukrainian Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky in 1657, Russia began taking away the rights of Ukrainian state by rudely interfering into its domestic and foreign affairs. Moreover, the political interests of Cossack officers and nobility, poorer Cossacks stationed in towns, or the most radical part of Ukrainian population — the Zaporozhian Host — greatly influenced the actions of some individuals or groups of people. Therefore, national, private and group interests mixed in the consciousness of people at the time and, no doubt, had impact on what they did.” This citation comes from the first chapter of Hazin’s new book.

One should know this historical context in order to understand Teteria, his time, his evolution from one of Khmelnytsky’s confidants to the henchman of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Hazin writes about Teteria that he was “a talented politician and diplomat who was in Khmelnytsky’s confidence and carried out his most important orders. He found himself at the helm of the government in one of the most tragic periods of Ukrainian history and left a memory of himself as one of the least successful Ukrainian hetmans.”

At the same time, “Teteria’s political program fit the ideological basis of the statehood-oriented group of officers. This group uncompromisingly fought for the Ukrainian state, the rights of the Orthodox religion and church, and the privileges of the Cossacks. However, the fact that his political program, especially in social issues, did not meet the hopes of most ordinary Cossacks and peasants and the belief that Poland could foster state creation processes in Ukraine essentially programmed the failure of political plans and efforts of the government and the political forces that supported it.” Hazin’s clearly formulated conclusion is very up to date.

Defeats, miscalculations, and dramas of the past sometimes seem quite abstract. Should we be concerned about the lives of people who left politics and even this life a long time ago? But it is not that simple. In order not to repeat old mistakes, for example, even the mistakes made by Teteria, who spent the last six years of his life in isolation in exile and was likely poisoned by Poles, we should at least draw conclusions. These conclusions have to be made with good timing.

Hazin wrote that “the very idea of renewing Cossack Ukraine’s unity and independence with the help of Russia, Poland, Crimea, or Turkey was impossible to carry out right from the start. There was no place for Ukraine in the rivalry of these countries for dominance in Eastern Europe. None of its neighbors wanted to see Ukraine strong and independent, a country that could change the usual configuration of power in the region.” Time will show whether these thoughts are relevant only for the tragedies of the Ruin.