Berestechko: Divide between Medieval and Modern History

This year marks the 350th anniversary of the Battle of Berestechko between the Cossack and Poles (June 18-30, 1651), which certainly constituted a turning point in Ukraine’s history and East European evolution. Ukrainian history can be regarded from different perspectives: from a molehill, mountain top, or eagle’s flight. The first shows simply court intrigue, the second interprets all events from the standpoint of forming a national state. And only the eagle’s flight allows one to see the people’s role in forming a civilization. This is especially true of dramatic events in the mid-seventeenth century.

The Lithuanian onslaught in Ukraine, led by Gediminas and his successors, and the appearance of the Rzeczpospolita or Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth in Europe in 1569, as a federal state consisting of two peoples, were evidence that a new multiethnic state had to emerge in Eastern Europe, the Pax Baltica, a role that had once been played by Kyiv Rus’.

However, this new formation could have no effect on the Rzeczpospolita with its independence based on the liberum veto, because it called for an empire, as did the very multiethnic structure of society. An empire in the form of a state pyramid, equal at the base and with a single apex.

Ukrainian Cossacks made a quite active appearance on the Polish political arena in the early seventeenth century, who had by then grown numerically and had a stronger structure. There was only one thing our third estate needed to affect the course of political discussions; the archetype of their leader had to materialize as a figure worthy of playing the role. Of the first Ukrainian hetmans attempting a dialogue with the highest authority, Petro Sahaidachny cut the most conspicuous figure; the rest just did not measure up.

In the early spring of 1648, after a decade of blissful quiet, Zaporozhzhian Cossacks once again took the field. A host of six to eight thousand, reinforced by some 7,000 Crimean Tatars, was led by former Registered Cossack Bohdan Khmelnytsky (spurred by a personal insult, considering that there is no evidence of his official opposition to the Polish regime).

As the news of Cossack victory at Zhovti Vody — and most importantly, that the revolt was led by Khmelnytsky — reached Warsaw, King Wladyslaw IV Vasa suffered a heart attack, for it meant the fiasco of his lifelong cause: reforming the Rzeczpospolita. He died shortly after on May 20, 1648. Another Polish defeat took place six days later. Once again Bohdan Khmelnytsky displayed his military talent. He was aware that he had to be constantly on the winning side, otherwise the Cossacks would follow their old tradition and give him to the Poles to get away themselves (as had been the case with Nalyvaiko, Ostrianytsia, Hunia, and others). At Zhovti Vody and Korsun, the Cossack forces not only won the battles, but primarily experienced a turning point in their collective consciousness. Both victories were striking; now they knew they could not only deal the Poles a heavy blow, but also defeat their regular troops.

It is not easy to analyze the situation even now, three and a half centuries later. The impression is that something suddenly made the society of that day boil over. Actually, it was a change of phase, with society passing from one state to the next, discharging an amount of energy enough to send all of Ukraine astir, reshuffling its hierarchical structure and triggering off even more tangible processes in Eastern Europe (e.g., Rzeczpospolita’s collapse and Muscovy beginning to transform into a powerful empire, the Third Rome). By that time the parameters of several parallel processes long since maturing and demanding immediate solutions had reached their critical value — problems actually facing all of Europe, as the devastating Thirty Years’ War (1618-48) was nearing its end, except for certain intervals.

The Cossacks emerged as a new creative force in Ukrainian society. At first, they seemed to defend their class rights; with time, they began to claim political leadership in the southeast of the Rzeczpospolita, meaning that they wanted to change the social hierarchy their own way. This meant drawing the Cossacks into class revolutions in Europe that would eventually result in restructuring the social hierarchy and ridding it of its cultural-aristocratic basis.

In addition to class problems, Ukrainian society would inevitably be affected by the cultural evolutionary processes in Europe, primarily religious wars, being a reflection par excellence of a new way of thinking and lifestyle, not passively contemplative but energetically active. Graphic examples of such wars was the one between the Huguenots and Catholics, climaxing in the Saint Bartholomew’s Massacre, Hussite Wars (led, among others, by John Zizka), and the Thirty Years’ War in Western Europe, killing three-quarters of the German and almost half the Bohemian population. In the end, this avalanche of passions reached the outskirts of Europe, triggering off the Puritan Revolution in England, with Cromwell’s Roundheads fighting the Cavaliers supporting Charles II. And then came the turn of the Rzeczpospolita and Ukraine. The Ukrainian people was thus drawn into the whirlpool of modern History.

Our people, aware of the threat to their traditional Orthodox values from Catholics and Uniates, could not but turn for help to a state where their forefather’s faith reigned supreme. In addition, that state was Ukraine’s immediate neighbor, and they even had an Orthodox tsar! And the tsar was not king which the local aristocracy refused to recognize. All were equal before the tsar, a very important argument, given the contemporary mentality.

And so the Cossacks became armed defenders of Orthodoxy. Later, they were blessed by Patriarch Paisi of Jerusalem and by their actions, even without knowing it, laid the cornerstone of a grand structure, the Single Undivided Orthodox State. Even after the first victories, at Zhovti Vody and Korsun, Bohdan Khmelnytsky sent a letter to Russian Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, requesting that he and his Cossacks be accepted as subjects “of the single Russian tsar,” so that “an age-old prophesy be fulfilled.”

Finally, the Cossacks as a class polarized Ukraine’s entire ethnic space, the degree of religious self-consciousness notwithstanding. Almost every man rose up in arms in Ukraine, at a time when attempts were being made to find an optimum form of political order in the Rzeczpospolita. The brilliant victory at Piljawci opened the road to Poland. But then the Cossacks failed at Lviv and Zamosc. In fact, Khmelnytsky never seized a single large fortified city; the Cossacks and Tatars could fight well only in the field.

Meanwhile, the Sejm convened in Warsaw to elect the king. Bohdan Khmelnytsky took an active part in the political intrigue through his agents. It was under his pressure that Charles, one of the contenders, pulled out in favor of Jan II Kazimierz [also called Kazimierz V (1609- 1672), future king of Poland (1648-1668)]. Once elected, the king addressed a letter to Khmelnytsky, proposing a truce. The Cossack- Tatar army returned to Ukraine and Khmelnytsky was greeted in Kyiv by the Orthodox clergy led by Metropolitan Kosovy and his ranking guest Patriarch Paisi of Jerusalem as the “Moses of Rus’.”

A new round of struggle for political leadership started the next year. After the famous Cossack victories at Zbarazh and Zboriv, the Treaty of Zboriv was signed on August 8, 1649, concerning the role of the national aristocracy and Cossack status in Ukraine. In general, the Compact of Zboriv for the first time legally sealed a new social hierarchy crystallized from the initial war chaos of 1648. The main result was that from now on the Cossacks who had won Ukraine for themselves with their swords were to be entered into the Register, becoming members of the nobility.

Still, the consequences of the Compact of Zboriv showed that radical changes had to be made in the entire Rzeczpospolita. Incidentally, some believe that Bohdan Khmelnytsky strove to enhance the monarchy, as only the king could guarantee the Cossacks their gains. Without political reform, the federal Rzeczpospolita with its treasured szlachta liberties could not achieve social stability. Warsaw must have been aware of this. Since the reform initiative came from the “state criminal” (as Khmelnytsky was branded because of his alliance with the Tatars), it could have never been implemented, and the Cossacks and the former political elite now prepared for a new round of destruction.

1650 passed in hasty war preparations, each side trying to find allies. Khmelnytsky held talks with Turkish Sultan Muhammad IV and George I Rakoczy, prince of Transylvania, prompting them to act jointly against Poland; he even tried Sweden, although most likely he wanted Moscow drawn in the war above all. He received promises, but that was all. The Tatars proved his only ally in the end.

In December 1650, the Polish king convened an extraordinary Sejm. Cossack deputies also arrived with four quite radical proposals from the Zaporozhzhian host. The most challenging was the last, concerning peace hostages Wiszniewecki, Kalinowski, and Lubomirski who were supposed to live in Ukraine and have no troops of their own. The Sejm unanimously declared war on Khmelnytsky. The king received subsidies and was empowered to mobilize irregulars and hire mercenaries.

Since the Cossack-Polish confrontation was also religious, both sides tried to present the forthcoming hostilities as a war in the name of the Lord. The Polish turned to Catholic Europe for help and to the Pope for blessings. Naturally, the pontiff blessed another round of Christian bloodshed, absolving all Catholic sins, for they would be committed in the name of a cause “pleasing to God.” He sent his nuncio Torres with a mantle and personally sanctified a sword for the king as a “defender of the true faith.”

Bohdan Khmelnytsky wasted no time either. He held a Cossack Rada (council), and everybody spoke in favor of the war, but deciding that it should be defensive until the Crimean khan arrived with reinforcements in the spring. Turkey proposed to send a corps of 20,000, but Khmelnytsky prudently declined. Of course, the Cossacks were also defending their Christian faith, just like the Poles, except that there was no way they could agree with the Catholics on the filioque. As it was, Metropolitan Josaphat traveled to the Cossack camp all the way from Greece to gird Khmelnytsky as the defender of Orthodoxy with a sword sanctified at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. The Patriarch of Constantinople sent a scroll, blessing the Christian bloodshed for the sake of asserting the true faith.

After several months of calm before the storm, the king arrived at Sokal in early May and a month later moved the troops to Berestechko. The Cossack army (100,000 or 70,000 strong, according to different sources, along with 30,000 Tatars led by Islam Girei) appeared in a week. June 18 saw the first clashes.

There are numerous detailed accounts of, and commentaries on, the battle, warring sides, and losses. It was a battle in which both sides did their utmost, showing skill and dedication. In all fairness, Bohdan Khmelnytsky was not in the best of form, and it is also true that the Cossacks owed all their previous victories over the Poles to his military talent. Shortly before the battle a messenger came with the news that his son Tymosh had discovered the hetman’s beloved wife to be adulterous and executed her.

In contrast, Jarema Wiszniewecki, Khmelnytsky’s main political adversary in Ukraine, had finally received an opportunity to show himself at his best. At the head of two regiments he slammed into the middle of the Cossack host.

After an abortive Tatar cavalry attack and Polish bombardment of the khan’s headquarters in response, Islam Girei ordered his troops to retreat. On seeing this, Khmelnytsky jumped on his horse and raced after them to persuade the khan to return. Many historians believe that the Tatar chief betrayed Khmelnytsky and took him hostage. Their arguments are analyzed by I. Sveshnikov in his monograph The Battle of Berestechko and by V. Stepankov in his monumental work Bohdan Khmelnytsky. Mykhailo Hrushevsky is known to have opposed this assumption, arguing that Khmelnytsky was never taken hostage, but volunteered to stay with the khan and then it was too late to return to his troops. The betrayal and hostage allegation was convenient for the hetman and was subsequently propagandized by his entourage. Had he suspected the khan of treacherous intentions, would he have raced off after him unguarded? And why would he leave Colonel Dzhedzhaliya in command?

As it was, the Cossacks were now alone with the Polish army led by the experienced Potocki and Kalinowski, while Wiszniewecki held his ambitions in check that one time. Berestechko showed the true Cossack strength and mentality. After all, the problem was not so much whether the Cossacks would emerge triumphant, as whether they could wage a long exhausting war for Ukrainian independence. Our national tragedy is not that the Cossacks were defeated at Berestechko, but that the battle showed that the Cossack character remained the same even on the crest of the wave of national liberation. That kind of mentality made the creation of a hierarchical society, a state by definition, impossible.

When the Cossacks discovered Khmelnytsky’s absence the following day word spread that he had betrayed them and fled with Islam Girei. A Cossack council convened spontaneously and demanded that a new hetman be elected. The starshyna officers tried to caution the Cossacks against taking rash decisions. Terrible havoc ensued and the council “shouted” for Colonel Dzhedzhaliya. He tried to refuse and was threatened with death, for such was the old Zaporozhzhian Cossack tradition. The newly appointed hetman attempted to propose negotiations, but the Cossacks made him order a sally. After that a sally was made by Colonel Bohun. And then the Polish artillery started regular bombardments, lasting for days on end. The Cossacks found themselves in a difficult situation and then a painfully familiar scenario was played out. Councils were held every day with a lot of shouting, voting down the hetman, electing a new one, and over and over again.

In the end, while Dzhedzhaliya was still hetman, truce envoys were dispatched and the Polish king promised forgiveness, but on one condition: that they deliver Khmelnytsky, Vyhovsky, and the Cossack colonels. The envoys said simply that they would gladly comply, except no one knew where Khmelnytsky was at the moment. The Polish side could not but become suspicious. Was the whole thing a setup conceived by the crafty Cossack leader? And then another Cossack council voted down Dzhedzhaliya and made Bohun the new hetman, instructing him to proceed with peace talks based on the Compact of Zboriv. As was to be expected, the king refused.

No one knows how many other hetmans were elected, but Bohun decided to act on his own. He held secret counsel with the colonels and other officers and told them his plan. It was to be a breakthrough across the swamp. The following day peasants attacked the Polish batteries while regular Cossack regiments withdrew from the field. What followed was sheer slaughter. Metropolitan Josaphat with his blessings also died there. The Poles captured the sanctified sword and presented it to the king, so that he had two such relics in his collection, each blessed by the highest Christian hierarch to kill fellow men and kindle the fire of the fratricidal war.

Strange as it may seem, Berestechko caused the Poles considerably more problems. The royal troops won the battle, perhaps the largest in modern history. Yet the Polish elite did not take advantage of the outcome. The death of Jarema Wiszniewecki on July 9 meant the end of the idea of the Grand Duchy of Rus’ and an equal trilateral confederation, into which the Rzeczpospolita could eventually be transformed.

By and large, the war started by Khmelnytsky in 1648 was not aimed at winning Ukrainian national independence. If it were, the war would not have gone the way it did. Perhaps inadvertently, the Ukrainian Cossacks led by Khmelnytsky solved the problem of the political basis, on which a universal multiethnic polity could evolve. The historical challenge was pressure from Turkey with its Crimean vassal. Such an empire was to stretch all over Eastern Europe, from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

After Berestechko and Wiszniewecki’s death it became clear that the Rzeczpospolita was deadlocked as an option of a multiethnic social system; it had lost dynamism and was unable to evolve as a unitary state (as visualized by Wladyslaw IV and his ally Khmelnytsky) or as an equal trilateral confederation. The only alternative was its absorption by a polity with a centralized system of government more befitting an empire — Muscovy. Strange as it may seem, the victory at Berestechko was won by the Russian tsar, making a noticeable entrance in the international arena and all subsequent events would unfold at precisely that angle.

Other options such as a Turkish or Swedish protectorate, or formation of an independent state, could not be considered seriously, as the peasants and rank-and-file Cossacks of the Zaporozhzhian Host were all Moscow-minded, upholding the same faith with the Russian tsar, the latter being the archetype of the defender of the old mentality. Even if Bohdan Khmelnytsky, with his prestige and authority, announced that Ukraine would become a Turkish subject, the very next day a so-called Black Council would replace him as hetman or give the mace to another hetman.

After Berestechko everything happened according to the Moscow scenario. Meanwhile the Polish and Zaporozhzhian hard-liners continued the devastating process; the old ties of the Polish social system had to be severed until reaching the point of no return. At that point, Moscow could finally start to gradually incorporate the Rzeczpospolita into the Third Rome.