<I>Istoriya Rusov</I> — Catechism, Koran, and Gospel of the Ukrainian People

However, there is a certain logical inconsistency to Ulianov’s metaphors, which somewhat lessens the value of his compliments. If one is to compare Istoriya Rusov with the divinely inspired books, then the consistency, integrity, and completeness of the Bible, in contrast to the chaotic nature of the Koran, obliges one to speak of it as the Bible of Ukrainian separatism. Thus, the anonymous Ukrainian patriot presented to the Russian “most highly educated readers” not a “Koran of separatism,” that is, according to Voltaire, such an “incomprehensible book, each line of which outrages common sense,” but a Bible, or a consistent, holistic, and complete moralistic and historical work of fiction composed in the magnificent style of European Enlightenment. Istoriya Rusov in fact enlightened the Russians and Ukrainians bogged down in their negligence and historical unawareness, and enlightened them in an able, literate, romantic, and passionate way.

“However, this does not explain its exceptional place in Russian and even world literature,” believes Ulianov, but the unprecedented success of the author’s falsification of history: “That there should be a work in which the history of the whole people is sheer legend and fabrication is unbelievable.” Strangely, a scholarly apologist of “one and indivisible Russia” complains about the completely undeveloped nature of Little Russian (that is, his own) history, “at a time when the eighteenth century saw extensive works on overall Russian history (that is, including the history of Ukraine into that of Russia as a branch of the latter) by Tatishchev, Shletser, Miller, Boltin, Count Shcherbatov, et al, topped off by the twelve-volume History of the Russian State by Karamzin.” In a strange way, the Russian public ignored the “extensive works” and even the twelve volumes of “overall Russian history” and instead yielded to the magic of a complete legend and figment of the imagination of some Little Russian. Apparently, there is a “whole people” with its own history, for which the luminaries of general Russian history showed no scholarly interest, as if it were history of a people foreign to them. Thus, at least on this Ulianov agrees with the “fabricator.” And he does not deny the fact that Little Russia in the period after the Mongol yoke, according to pseudo- Konysky, “is hardly ever mentioned in general Russian history. Meanwhile, ever since it was liberated from Tatars by Lithuanian Prince Gedemin, Russian History never mentioned it.” This could be seen as a combination of greed with disregard epitomized in the expression, “if we do not get it then no one will.”

Having attributed the influence of Istoriya Rusov to its exceptional artistic qualities, while the author’s unbridled artistic imagination quite successfully combined with the Russian reader’s ignorance of one’s own history, Ulianov nonetheless does not delve into artistic research, but confines his efforts to refuting purely historical accounts offered by pseudo-Konysky and above all his thesis about Ukraine’s historical independence from Russia. After 1991, the pathos of these refutations seems quite unconvincing, now that the issue of independence has been solved in both theory and practice. Thus let us leave history alone and concentrate on the work’s artistic aspect. Let us forget about reality and look at how the author of Istoriya Rusov used romantic historiography to glorify ideals and paint a beautiful utopia. In this utopia, love for one’s own land, honor, duty, freedom, and keeping one’s word come first. Pseudo-Konysky was the first after the saintly fathers of the Kyiv Pechersk Monastery of the Caves to speak out about the sanctity of an oath and the need to keep one’s word, thus breaking with the epic tradition of Rus’ princes (Lay of Host of Ihor) and Zaporozhzhian Cossacks (Taras Bulba).

Istoriya Rusov contrasts the Little Russian Cossacks (the Little Russian Host) with the Zaporozhzhian Cossacks (the Zaporozhzhian Host) and a registered Cossack with a Zaporozhzhian partisan as categorically as order is opposed to chaos. Although the author recognizes that after Hetman Sahaidachny “all the subsequent Hetmans began to add Zaporozhzhian Host to their titles, and Little Russian colonels, the sotnyks [captains] followed suit, and even the Little Russian Host was often referred to as the Zaporozhzhian Host,” he nonetheless continues to name Ukrainian Cossacks and their hetmans as “Little Russian” contrary to commonly known and undeniable facts.

However, pseudo-Konysky’s attitude toward the Zaporozhzhian Cossacks is quite ambivalent. On the one hand, a Zaporozhzhian Cossack is “something of a fool or leper,” a partisan and rogue; Sich Cossacks “reap where they haven’t sown, and squander whatever they have seized.” Zaporozhzhian Cossacks are savages of the wild steppe; they have caused “much damage across Little Russia, at times surpassing the Tatars, to say nothing of their rowdiness; they seized all belongings of the people, as if they were in common possession.” State-building and noble knightly democracy were alien to them. Speaking about the election of Ivan Briukhovetsky, whose hetmanship and host were “nothing but a gang of rogues,” the author noted: Zaporozhzhian Cossacks “interfered in these elections.” To thank his electors and honor his pre-election commitments, Hetman Briukhovetsky “resorted to all kinds of ploys to expel from regiments the colonels he didn’t like and installed in their places Zaporozhzhian colonels, who through their debauchery and arbitrariness destroyed all order and military discipline that had been introduced under Hetman Count Ruzhynsky and reinforced under Hetman Zinovy Khmelnytsky, and instead allowed janissary-like murder, arbitrariness, and unruliness.”

But on the other hand, the Zaporozhzhian Cossacks were bearers of the rights and freedoms granted to Little Russia, and each registered Cossack carried a little of the freedom of Zaporozhzhian Cossacks downstream. For this reason hetmans, colonels, and sotnyks used Zaporozhzhian titles for themselves and the whole Little Russian Host. According to the author, they did this “to preserve their right to hold elections, which the Poles sought to ban across all Little Russian villages. Meanwhile, Zaporozhzhian Cossacks by entering into Little Russian elections, of which they had none before, and being far from the villages and relations with the Poles, could comfortably preserve their military rights and freedoms and ward off the Poles.” In the years leading up to the union, when the top military leaders betrayed their people and faith, thereby placing the country and host on the verge of disappearance, and “registered Cossacks became mercenaries without chieftains or leaders,” it was Zaporozhzhian Cossacks who had come to the rescue of their homeland and freedom. “Needy registered Cossacks... went down to the Zaporozhzhian Sich thus increasing its strength and making it, so to speak, a rallying place for all Cossacks in the land of the persecuted. Conversely, the top Zaporozhzhian Cossacks left for Little Russian regiments and occupied official posts in them. But they brought no discipline or order with them, for which reason these regiments saw several significant changes.” It is understandable where the heart of Little Russian freedom lies, from which the living blood of freedom carries the air of freedom all across Ukraine in a mighty torrent.

Bohdan Khmelnytsky most accurately formulated the principle of the relationship between Zaporozhzhian Cossacks and Little Russian Cossacks. In his explanation to Moscow ambassadors why the Zaporozhzhian Host could and should not swear allegiance to the Tsar, he said: “The Zaporozhzhian Cossacks are no big people in these parts, thus there is no need to involve them in this, because they learn from us and return to us. Meanwhile, the number of foreigners among them is negligible, unfit for and incapable of honoring all obligations; and this is believed to be their ultimate freedom, something they live from.”

The anonymous author of Istoriya Rusov contrasts the Zaporozhzhian (rogue, pirate and) essentially barbarian understanding of freedom with a civilized understanding of freedom. The chaos of freedoms undetermined by anything is contrasted with the order determined, on the one hand, by the natural right to life and freedom and, on the other, by the agreement of the parties, the latter being impossible without keeping one’s word. As told by the author, the whole history of Little Russia is a tragic fight by a free, Orthodox, and innately noble people for its freedom. Notably, this fight had been bestowed upon this people by their fate of being surrounded by treacherous and infidel peoples. Having found itself between a hammer and anvil or, so to speak, between the Scylla of Christian perfidy and the Charybdis of Mohammedanism, the sworn enemy of Christendom, the Little Russian people split into old Cossacks or a company that “has always been more given to their own faith and time-honored customs,” and young Cossacks, who were pragmatics rather than Orthodox Christians. In the discussion on the direction of integration that followed the victorious battles with the Poles, “young officials and Cossacks were the first to express their agreement for a union with the Turks on the assumption that ‘the Turks hold military people in high respect, while for the peasants they have neither the rents, nor exorbitant taxes, nor mandatory drafts that they have in Poland; and most importantly, they have no slavery or thralldom that they have in Muscovy. All this we can see in the neighboring principalities of Moldavia and Volosk, which can serve as an example for us. And since we, according to the Hetman, cannot survive on our own without outside protectorate, then a Turkish protectorate is the most reliable and beneficial of all. And despite their faith, each Turk who has sworn on his own beard will never go back on his word. Meanwhile, the vows and oaths of the Christians are often only a mask hiding ruses, treachery, and all kinds of lies.” The age-old proximity to the Muslim world obviously had its effect on the Zaporozhzhian Cossacks. “As for Tatar onslaughts, this is like our game of chess with them,” Zaporozhzhian Cossacks retorted when reminded about the harm done to the Orthodox Christians by the infidels.

In his response to the young Cossacks, Hetman Khmelnytsky resorted to subtle sophistry, painting a horrible picture of the downfall of Christendom, which would become inevitable if Little Russians join the infidels and struck at the Muscovite empire, “at this last remainder of a free Christian state, with which we have a common faith,” and bring it under the Mohammedan yoke. “What will become of us then? Indeed, nothing but the butt of a joke. And we will be damned even more than the people of Sodom and Gomorrah punished by divine wrath. Then we will be left on our own like a shipwreck in a boundless sea, battered by winds, deprived of haven and hope of rescue.” The apocalyptic scenes painted by the Hetman impressed his listeners, and the Little Russian people offered itself in sacrifice to the Christian faith. Indeed, it was destined to suffer from the perfidy and malfeasance of Muscovy and be resurrected only after three centuries.

For the author of Istoriya Rusov keeping one’s word is the ultimate virtue. He censures the Poles, whose clergy “appropriated some incomprehensible authority over the acts of God and humans and decreed that oaths be kept only among the Catholics. Meanwhile, the Poles could disregard whatever agreements they had with other peoples as schismatic and exempt from divine justice.” That is, the Poles treated not only Ukrainians but all other peoples and states in a most barbarous way, contrary to honor and all rules. Pseudo-Konysky tells how in 1444 the Polish king violated a peace treaty with the Porte “in a most treacherous and shameful way... The Pope issued a bull absolving the king of all oaths and commitments before Turks and assured him that oaths given to the infidels are null and void and that Christians can be absolved from them... On learning about the treacherous invasion by Polish king and his army into his lands, the sultan appealed to neighboring peoples, swore on the sky and earth that he had done nothing for the peace with the Poles to be broken along with the solemn oaths that established it, and finished his tirade with such words: ‘The infidels have dishonored their God, the guarantor of peace treaties; thus I will appeal to him for help!’ The sultan encouraged his army with the help of his Allah, whose name he constantly invoked; the king also encouraged his army with the blessing of the Holy Father and the presence of his cardinal. Eventually, the champions of Allah defeated the papal followers. The Polish army was defeated and scattered; the king slain.”

Istoriya Rusov literally overflows with the utopian scenes of the chivalrous behavior of the Little Russians. Consider for example the fidelity and knightly attitude toward the king as a sovereign by the grace of God: “The Hetman ordered his army not to raise the sword against the king as a sanctified personage, the appointed sovereign, and respect him with piety on every occasion... The king was a few times surrounded by Cossacks, but no one ever touched him and released him with respect.” Compare this with Cromwell’s infamous order to the parliamentary army to shoot the king. The author tells about Khmelnytsky’s sworn enemies released on parole, local Jews and Poles left unharmed, Christian burials of enemies killed in action, pensions to widows, and much more. This felt like a breath of fresh air from Europe that broke into the stagnant atmosphere of Russian imperial betrayals, murders, tortures, coups, and Asiatic despotism. It was as if Plutarch’s great men had come to life on Ukrainian land. It was no accident that Russian poet Ryleyev’s Hetman Nalyvayko’s said such legendary words:

For all I know, death is in store
For him who ventures first to rise
Against the tyrants of the people.
Although condemned by destiny I am,
Pray tell me, has freedom ever been
Reclaimed without the sacrifice of life?

Istoriya Rusov was a textbook of our Bard. As Omeljan Pritsak wrote in his work titled Shevchenko the Prophet, “ Istoriya Rusov or, as Shevchenko would call it, ‘Konysky’s Chronicle,’ remained his major source of historical information about Ukraine’s past. Moreover, this work shaped his sophistical views on history.” Mykhailo Drahomanov believed, “It was obvious that Shevchenko came across Istoriya Rusov, whose authorship was attributed to Konysky, between 1840 and 1844, and its sense of Ukrainian autonomy and Cossack republicanism of the times of the Decembrists captivated him. Shevchenko took whole scenes from Istoriya Rusov, and nothing except the Bible had a greater influence on Shevchenko’s system of thought than Istoriya Rusov.”

Indeed, we must agree with Drahomanov, who believed that Istoriya Rusov was “the immediate precursor of The Bard. Its anonymous author, a passionate patriot of Ukraine, and unparalleled writer, as if to say: “I baptize you with water; but he who is mightier than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” (Luke 3:16).

Pseudo-Konysky also wrote, “... they began to think of a protectorate and choose it from the countries that had sent their envoys... The elders together with the Hetman agreed to Moscow’s proposal as that from a people of a common faith and kinship. But the young opposed them and attempted to prove via their orator General Osaul (Deputy Hetman) Bohun that “Muscovy is a country of extreme thralldom, that everything there belongs to either God or the Tsar, and there can be no personal ownership, and that, in their view, people were created not to own anything but only to toil in servitude. Even Moscow nobles and boyars are called ‘serfs of the Tsar,’ and in their pleas they always write that they bow down low and hit the floor with their forehead. To a noble people, they are all serfs... In brief, to unite with such a slavish people means jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.” Never was it better put.