Protector of the Cossacks and “Hetman” of the Independents
Contemporaries and researchers specializing in the stormy mid-seventeenth century have had reason enough to draw parallels between the Cossack Hetman and the victor of the English Civil War. Both were born toward the end of the century and died at almost the same age, at the pinnacle of glory. Both rebelled against their sovereigns and proved to be extraordinary military leaders; both were profoundly religious. Both were invincible during their lifetime and became targets of barbarian revenge after death. Stefan Czarniecki and English King Charles II were famous for their political necrophobia. The Crown Hetman of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, after seizing Subotiv, “threw the bones out of the grave of Bohdan Khmelnytsky and his son Tymish and burned them in the square.” (Dmytro Yavornytsky). King Charles II ordered Cromwell’s embalmed body exhumed and hanged in the place of execution, whereupon it was buried under the gallows without the head, which was impaled on the spire of Westminster Abbey. Royalists would marvel at the sight until the end of the restored sovereign’s rule.
Polish historian Ludwik Kubala wrote, “Foreigners compared Khmelnytsky to Cromwell because this comparison suggested itself, especially at a time when both attracted special attention in the west and east of Europe.” Pierre Chevalier stated in the foreword to his History of the Cossack War against Poland that the reader would find there “the image of a man who, in order to rise above others, set a giant mechanism in motion, inspiring terror in a kingdom that could not be shook by all the powerful states of the Christian world, not even by the mighty Ottoman Empire. In a word, [another] Cromwell that appeared for the second time in Rus’ and was as ambitious, valiant, and smart as Cromwell in England.” Contemporary French poet Jean Lore described Khmelnytsky and Cromwell as “the two greatest insurgents” in his Historical Muse, a burlesque newspaper of sorts, offering a weekly roundup of events in France and the rest of Europe (1650-64). Lore admitted that he received most information from the “grapevine at the court and in the city,” so it stands to reason that his comparison was popular in Paris at the time. Similar comparisons of events in Ukraine to those in England, and of Cromwell to Khmelnytsky were rather widespread even in Italian historiography, particularly in Majolino Bisaccioni’s History of Recent Civil Wars where “the first volume is dedicated to the English Revolution and the second one focuses on the Liberation War in Ukraine” (Dmytro Nalyvaiko).
Hundreds of years later, events of the mid-seventeenth century, in various parts of Europe, acquired a different meaning. Cromwell’s Civil War against English absolutism was finally dubbed by (Soviet — Ed.) historians the English Bourgeois Revolution that had a great impact on world history, while Khmelnytsky’s Cossack Revolution (referred to in Polish as wojna domowa, domestic war) gradually transformed into the “war of the Ukrainian people for liberation and reunification with Russia” (nineteenth edition of the Russian-language History of the USSR, 1950 edition, a classic of Stalinist historiography — Ed.) ending as a small chapter in the history of first the Russian and then Soviet empire.
Quite recently one could find purely academic evidence of the fallacy of such Russian/Soviet interpretation of Ukrainian history (see, for example, John Besarab, Pereyaslav 1654: A Historiographical Study, Edmonton, 1982, as well as the earlier Ukrainian-language study, Oleksander Ohloblyn, Ukrainian-Muscovite Agreement, 1654, New York and Toronto, 1954 — Ed.). The said evidence was kept away from the public eye and never formally recognized for the obvious reasons. After the Soviet Union’s collapse, the Khmelnytsky period as an event of world significance, as a revolution changing the visage of Europe and the rest of the world, has been proved empirically; Ukraine’s declaration of national independence, unlike those of other parts of the USSR, put an end to the world’s only remaining empire. This was done by that very Ukraine, created in 1648 by that glorious revolution led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky, which had existed for three and a half centuries in myths of the people and deeds of its heroes, until the (Hegelian? — Ed.) world spirit chose it at the turn of the third millennium to alter the course of world history.
It is only now that we regard every revolution exclusively as a social phenomenon introducing something new in society: norms/standards, ideals, laws, etc. (like scientific and social revolutions). Originally, revolution was understood as returning to old things, restoring something rejected and refuted by the current state of affairs [fourteenth century via the French from the Latin revolut -, the past participle stem of revolvere (e.g., revolve)]. That was precisely how the notion of revolution was interpreted in the seventeenth century. Revolutionaries Cromwell and Khmelnytsky took up arms to defend their people’s age-old inherent rights, ignored, restricted, and violated by the contemporary powers that be.
“We beseech Your Royal Majesty,” wrote Hetman Khmelnytsky to the Moscow tsar (quoted as translated by clerks of the then equivalent of the Foreign Department) “to confirm our rights, privileges, liberties, and other benefits conferred upon us hundreds of years ago by pious princes and kings, by Your Majesty’s deeds, so that these rights, privileges, and liberties be ours ad infinitum.” (He also wrote, “By tradition, the Zaporozhzhian Host was on permanent pay.”) The Hetman’s “petition” (in this case the terms and conditions of the protectorate) was acknowledged by the tsar as precisely this revolutionary formula: “We hereby decree that they be under our Crown with their previous rights and privileges as conferred thereupon by the Polish Kings and Lithuanian Grand Dukes, and that their liberties be inviolable in any way; that they settle their disputes as adjudicated by their seniors and in accordance with their laws.” Remarkably, the House of Commons also referred to age-old rights and privileges in a draft charge of treason against Charles I. The document read that the current king of England, not content with numerous encroachments made by his predecessors on the rights and freedoms of the people, was now determined to completely destroy the old underlying laws and rights of the nation.
Unlike future revolutionaries that would set out to do away with the “old world” to build a shining new one (and who would not bother adjusting their actions to tradition or precedent), the old ones, resolved to protect the past, had to reckon with all that. The problem was that they were opposed not by an innovating force but by that very past, in the form of royal authority and principles of conventional obedience. That problem confronted Cromwell in the first place. England was a country of old tradition and common law based on precedent. Thus, when John Bradshaw, chief justice of Chester, Cheshire, presiding over the Court of Justice, told Charles I that they were there under the authority of the Commons of England, and that the king and all his predecessors were responsible before them, Charles I promptly told him to demonstrate a precedent. He knew what he was talking about: there were no precedents. Therefore, legal and at the same time revolutionary methods — in the newest sense of the word — were badly needed.
The English Lord Protector was famous, among other things, for accepting the challenge. The tyrannical king was tried, condemned, and publicly executed, instead of dropping dead in his palace because of an “apoplectic stroke” or “hemorrhoidal colic.” This caused unprecedented reverberations in Europe. M. Barg wrote that seventeenth- century Europeans could hardly be surprised by the news of a rebellion against a legitimate king. Such rebellions had shaken many European countries during the century — but the news of Charles I of England beheaded in front of a huge crowd, condemned to death by an insurgent court, was shattering, something unheard of. It made the rulers of other countries far from the rebellious island shudder. Alexis I of Russia was no exception. He was outraged by the English killing their sovereign and said so.
The interest shown by contemporaries of the English Revolution in the revolution underway in the faraway Rzeczpospolita was explained by their quest for precedent. Cromwell, having no precedents in English history, could refer to those in world history. Considering that people on the other side of Europe rose in arms against their monarch, led by another revolutionary, and proved victorious, meant that revolution was pleasing to God and justifiable. A letter addressed to Khmelnytsky by an English author (possibly Cromwell) described the title conferred on Khmelnytsky by the English: “Dei gratia Generalissimos of the Host and ancient Greek religion and the Church, Ruler of all Zaporozhzhian Cossacks, the horror and destroyer of the Polish szlachta, conqueror of fortresses, destroyer of Roman [Catholic] priests, pursuer of heathens, Antichrist, and Jews...” (the rest of the document has not survived the ravages of time).
Rather than stating charges against Charles I, John Bradshow offered an abstract historical discourse on the people as the source of power, the sovereign as an officeholder, and the right of the people to rebel when faced with an abuse of office by the king. Let England and the world judge whether you were the defender of England, which you were supposed to be, or its foe and destroyer, he said, addressing the king. His reference to “the world” was quite characteristic. The world was watching not only England, but also Ukraine at the time.
After Khmelnytsky’s sensational victories at Zhovti Vody, Korsun, and Pyliavtsi, commissioners [envoys] of the newly elected king Jan II Kazimierz arrived in Ukraine. Having quite an experience of making false promises during talks with rebellious Cossacks and considering the scope of the current “revolt,” the Poles promised everything and at once: pardons for all previous transgressions, freedom of the old Greek religion, an increase in the number of registered (and therefore paid —Ed.) Cossack troops, restoration of old rights and liberties of the Cossacks in general and Khmelnytsky in particular (the latter would be returned his Hetman’s mace). Lviv Chamberlain M. Miaskowski kept a diary offering a detailed account of Khmelnytsky’s stand at the time. He was solemnly presented with a turquoise-decorated mace and a red standard with a white eagle and the inscription: Ioannes Casimirus Rex. “Khmelnytsky accepted both rather offhandedly, thanked Cossack style, and invited us to his place. Before dinner, His Excellency the Voivode [Adam Kysil — Author] addressed us in a friendly and exquisitely refined manner, demonstrating to the Hetman the generous gifts which he had desired and received today from His Royal Majesty.
” The Ukrainian side could simply call into question the ability of the Poles to keep their promise. Khmelnytsky, however, remained true to protocol and dealt the Poles an accurate shattering blow, speaking in strictly legal terms: “I have not received adequate satisfaction for the wrong done me by Czaplinski and Wisniowecki. The former must be handed over to me by all means and the latter must be punished, because they are the cause of all bloodshed and unrest.” The Cossack Hetman knew what he was talking about. The Polish crown would never surrender an aristocrat. This also proved the Polish king’s inability to honor his commitments toward his vassal Khmelnytsky, in which case the vassal was entitled to defend his rights, relying on his own resources, using force, even against the king. If the king was unable to maintain law and order in his realm, he had no right to demand obedience from his subjects. Khmelnytsky admonished the Polish envoys, saying their country was dominated by anarchy, that the Polish szlachta were the only free people, that even their king was not free: “Your king will be king only when he can give orders and mete out punishments to the szlachta, your counts and dukes; when he is free to order any aristocrat, any Cossack guilty of crimes beheaded. If your king does not want to be free, well, that’s his choice.”
Interestingly, the chamberlain does not provide a single legal argument [to the contrary] in his diary: “We asked him [to change his mind], tried to prove our point, referring to God and King, telling him about the consequences. It did not help.” What was supposed to help, what argumentation, remains unclear. At the mention of God, Khmelnytsky ironically pointed out, “His Holiness the Patriarch gave his blessings for this war in Kyiv ... and ordered me to destroy the Poles. Who am I to disobey His Holiness the Patriarch, the Head [of our Church] and our welcome guest?” The Polish envoys could think of nothing better than address insulting words to the Hetman (“it was difficult to converse with that mad beast”). Difficult, indeed, for want of convincing arguments. They even spoke with disdain about the innocent Patriarch of Jerusalem, Paisiy, claiming that “the vagabond was badly treated in Moscow, because they took him for what he was, a pretender and rogue” ([in reality, it was on record that] “the Tsar rose and stepped a couple of feet [from the throne] to meet the Patriarch. The Patriarch gave his blessings, he kissed His Majesty’s hand and the Tsar kissed the Patriarch on the right shoulder” — the Muscovites had a rather strange way to treat a pretender, vagabond, and rogue!).
Bohdan Khmelnytsky became aware of his historic mission after the revolutionary uprising had gained scope and momentum (Miaskowski admits in his diary: “On the way there our servants of both sexes, even girls, ran away to join the Cossacks”). And then he conceived an idea “something ... I have never dreamed of... freeing all the people of Rus’ from the yoke. Whereas I fought previously to avenge the wrongs done to me, now I shall fight in the name of our Orthodox faith.”
The religious factor was predominant in Oliver Cromwell’s political career from the outset. His first speech on record as an MP from Huntingdon was to defend the Puritan views of Dr. Thomas Beard, author of the book Theatre by the Grace of God and Cromwell’s teacher. Characteristically, when Charles I ordered the session closed Cromwell was among those disobeying the king. Eleven years later, as a member of the Long Parliament, Cromwell rose in defense of John Lilburne, thrown behind bars for an indefinite term (Cromwell said he would have been in gaol for as long as the king wished), in retaliation for distributing Puritan pamphlets. Royalist Philipp Warrick later recalled that Cromwell attached so much importance to the case, one would think the state was in jeopardy. And it really was; the king’s arbitrary rule was especially manifest in religious persecution. The regime’s cruelty forced many a Puritan to seek refuge in the New World. And so the “cause of God” and the “cause of Parliament” were inseparable in Oliver Cromwell’s thoughts and deeds; he was “the Lord’s warrior” in Parliament’s army and a general in the service of Providence.
From the Puritan point of view, there was nothing charismatic about the rule of the king. Thomas Beard taught Oliver that good kings had always been a very rare occurrence at all times and that even the mightiest and most famous of them would not be spared His wrath as well as that that they, like all mortals, should abide by the secular law. While in the battlefield, Cromwell was prepared to fire his pistol at the king, as he would at any other private person in the enemy ranks. He told his men to do the same. If anyone’s conscience forbade it, he should better find another commander. Much to the regret of the English people suffering from the long war, the moderate commanding officers of the parliamentary army feared not so much the king as victory over the sovereign anointed by God. The Earl of Manchester, for example, thus interpreted the voice of his conscience: Even if we defeated the king ninety-nine times, he would remain king, as would his descendants. If the king defeated us at least once, we would all be hanged. To this Cromwell replied that, if this were really so, why take up arms in the first place? They might as well make peace, however humiliating the terms.
Likewise, the Cossack Protector felt neither fear nor piety toward the royal charisma. To an extent, this attitude was fostered by the elective rather than hereditary status of the Polish king, of course. Patriarch Paisiy told officials in Moscow that they sent “two Jesuits and other secular envoys to discuss events in the world and the election of the king ... and that they would elect whomever they wished to be king.” Most importantly, the Cossack Hetman understood the essence of power, including that of the king; that essence was agreement (including the social compact). Khmelnytsky tried to explain to Moscow envoy Unkovsky the civilized principle of contractual relationships: “We had to kiss the cross, swearing allegiance to King Wladislaw, and this means no offence to His Majesty the Tsar. Now, in Poland and Lithuania, they have elected as king Jan Kazimierz, brother of Wladislaw, and Poland and Lithuania swore allegiance and the king swore allegiance (sic — Author). And the Lord has spared us them; we did not elect the king and did not crown him, so we are free of them by His grace.”
That Bohdan Khmelnytsky thought and acted legally is evidenced by changes in the Hetman’s insignia during the revolution. The standard he received from the Polish envoys February 20, 1649 (Old Style), read Ioannes Casimirus Rex. A letter dated June 8, 1648, addressed to the Russian tsar, concerning the first victories over the Poles and stating the Hetman’s desires to “have an Orthodox sovereign in my land, such as Your Majesty,” was signed “Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Hetman of the Zaporozhzhian Host under His Majesty the King.” Among other things, the letter informed about the death of His Majesty the King and that “the land is actually void now” [i.e., no longer ruled by the king]. From then on he would not add “under His Majesty the King” to his title and would simply sign “Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Hetman of the Zaporozhzhian Host” until the Compact of Zboriv. After the compact he signed under the title “By the Grace of God and His Majesty King Jan Kazimierz of Poland, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Rus, and Other Kingdoms Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky of the Great Zaporozhzhian Host.” This title vanished after the actual denunciation of the Treaty of Bila Tserkva. Finally he signed a letter to Alexis I of Moscow, his new sovereign, dated January 8, 1654: Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Hetman of the Zaporozhzhian Host under Your Majesty the Tsar.”
Allowing for the characteristic symbolism of feudal culture, such formal changes have a definite historical meaning (Moscow found a casus belli in the wrong manner of Polish address to the tsar: “This cannot be tolerated any longer; for many years the king’s letters and documents have contained salutations contrary to the treaty and consular agreement...”). Here charisma was not the point; it was the Hetman’s legal approach to politics. Foreign Department clerks in Moscow stated, “His letters contain the correct salutation, listing all His Majesty’s titles.” In other words, victories on the revolutionary battlefield were not the only thing in common between the historical figures of the Cossack Protector and “Hetman” of the Independents. Parallels are found in the legal domain as well.
Some believed at the time that the English Civil War was a Great Rebellion (this opinion is still harbored in certain quarters). Indeed, the monarchy was restored rather quickly, as was the House of Lords; the laws of the Commonwealth were nullified. Ukraine’s Great Revolution of 1648 and its consequences were (and still are) regarded in like manner (it was ours anyway, that which has presently become someone else’s, owing to some strange circumstances). However, just as Cromwell irreversibly brought the English monarchy back to the times of the Magna Carta, so did Khmelnytsky’s revolution bring Poland back to its borders of 1569 and Moscow back to the European borders of 1648. True, it happened a century later. But what does that matter? Historical justice takes its time, but it is inexorable.
