Casualties
Estimates of the death tolls of the Khmelnytsky uprising, as many others from the eras analyzed by historical demography, vary and became a subject of ongoing reinterpretation as better sources and methodology are becoming available. Population losses of the entire Commonwealth population in the years 1648-1667 (a period which includes the Uprising, but also the Polish-Russian War and the Swedish invasion) are estimated at 4 million (roughly a decrease from 11-12 million to 7-8 million).
Before the uprising magnates had sold and leased certain privileges to Jewish arendators for a percentage of an estate's revenue. While enjoying themselves at their courts, they left it to the Jewish leaseholders and collectors to become objects of hatred to the oppressed and long-suffering peasants. Khmelnytsky told the people that the Poles had sold them as slaves "into the hands of the accursed Jews." With this as their battle cry, Cossacks and the peasantry massacred a large number of Jewish and Polish-Lithuanian townsfolk, as well as szlachta during the years 1648-1649. The contemporary 17th-century Eyewitness Chronicle (Yeven Mezulah) by Nathan ben Moses Hannover states:
Wherever they found the szlachta, royal officials or Jews, they killed them all, sparing neither women nor children. They pillaged the estates of the Jews and nobles, burned churches and killed their priests, leaving nothing whole. It was a rare individual in those days who had not soaked his hands in blood...
Read more about this topic: Khmelnytsky Uprising