Khmelnytsky Uprising - Khmelnytsky's Role

Khmelnytsky's Role

Born to a noble family, Bohdan Khmelnytsky attended Jesuit schools in Ukraine. At the age of 22 he joined his father in the service of the Commonwealth, battling against the Ottoman Empire in the Moldavian Magnate Wars. After being held captive in Constantinople, he returned to life as a registered Cossack, settling in his hometown of Subotiv with a wife and several children. He participated in campaigns for Grand Crown Hetman Stanisław Koniecpolski, led delegations to King Władysław IV Vasa in Warsaw and generally was well respected within the Cossack ranks. The course of his life was altered, however, when Aleksander Koniecpolski, heir to Hetman Koniecpolski's magnate estate, attempted to seize Khmelnytsky's land. In 1647 Chyhyryn starost (head of the local royal administration) Daniel Czapliński openly started to harass Khmelnytsky on behalf of the younger Koniecpolski in an attempt to force him off the land. On two occasions raids were made to Subotiv, during which considerable property damage was done and his son Yurii was badly beaten, until Khmelnytsky moved his family to a relative's house in Chyhyryn. He twice sought assistance from the king by traveling to Warsaw, only to find him either unwilling or powerless to confront the will of a magnate.

Having received no support from Polish officials, Khmelnytsky turned to his Cossack friends and subordinates. The case of a Cossack being unfairly treated by the Poles found a lot of support not only in his regiment but also throughout the Sich. All through the autumn of 1647 Khmelnytsky traveled from one regiment to the other and had numerous consultations with different Cossack leaders throughout Ukraine. His activity raised the suspicions of Polish authorities already used to Cossack revolts, and he was promptly arrested. Polkovnyk (colonel) Mykhailo Krychevsky assisted Khmelnytsky in his escape, and with a group of supporters he headed for the Zaporozhian Sich.

Cossacks were already on the brink of the new rebellion as plans for the new war with the Ottoman Empire advanced by the Polish king Władysław IV Vasa were cancelled by Sejm. Cossacks were gearing to resume their traditional and lucrative attacks on the Ottoman Empire (in the first quarter of the 17th century they raided the Black Sea shores almost annually), as they greatly resented being prevented from the pirate activities by the peace treaties between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire. Rumors about the emerging hostilities with "the infidels" were greeted with joy, and the news that there was to be no raiding after all was explosive in itself.

However, the Cossack rebellion might have fizzled in the same manner as the great rebellions of 1637–1638 but for the genius of Khmelnytsky. He (having taken part in the 1637 rebellion) realized that Cossacks, while having an excellent infantry, could not hope to match the Polish cavalry, which was probably the best in Europe at the time. However, combining Cossack infantry with Crimean Tatar cavalry could have provided a balanced military force and given the Cossacks a chance to beat the Polish army.

Khmelnytsky managed to overcome more than a century of mutual hostility between Cossacks and Tatars. He also turned the idea of Cossack as "protector of the Christian people" on its head by agreeing to pay the Khan of Crimea with jasyr or Christian captives. Initially these were Polish prisoners, but later whole tracts of land in Ukraine were assigned for Tatars to capture any unfortunate soul (including Jews who moved en masse into the palatinates of Ukraine after 1569) and lead them to be sold on the slave markets of Kaffa.