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Lecture 1 Ukraine from the earliest times till the middle of the 17th century. Time of the Cossacks-Hetman state. Ukraine under the reign of the AustroHungarian and Russian Empires. Plan 1. Early history 2. Kyivan Rus’ 3. Galicia-Volhynia 4. Period of Lithuanian and Polish rule 5. The Cossacks. 6. National liberation movement under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnytskiy. Narrowing of the autonomy and liquidation of Zaporizhian Sich. 7. Ukraine under the direct imperial Russian rule. 8. Western Ukraine under the Habsburg monarchy. The revolution of 1848. 1. Early history. Ukraine means borderland. It is an appropriate name for a land that lies on the southeastern edge of Europe, on the threshold of Asia, along the fringes of the Mediterranean world, and astride the once important border between sheltering forests and the open steppe. Flowing southward into the Black Sea are three major river systems that provide Ukraine with an adequate water supply: the mighty 2285-km-long Dnieper (Dnipro), wich bisects the land, the southern Buh, and the Dnister. The climate is generally moderate. Ukraine encompasses about 600,000 sq. Km and extends approximately 1300 km from west to east and 900 km from north to south. 1 Lying astride the main routes between Europe and Asia, Ukraine was repeatedly exposed to various frequently competing cultures. By means of the Black Sea, Ukraine gained access to the invIhorating civilisation of Greece, both ancient and Byzantine. In contrast, its position on the western fringe of the great Eurasian steppe exposed it to repeated invasions by warring nomads and the bitter struggle against them sapped the country's human and material resources. It gave rise to the Cossacks, the frontier warriors who became archetypical figures in Ukrainian history and culture. In Ukraine the earliest agrarian civilisations in Europe developed. Until very recently, agriculture has been the hallmark of Ukrainian life. The Earliest inhabitants 2 The earliest traces of human habitation in Ukraine reach back about 150,00 years. The earliest human inhabitants still possessed the signs of the primitive origins. By approximately 40,000 BC in the midst of the ice age the cro-magnons (or Homo sapiens) appeared, the species from which modern man is descended. During the Neolithic period, which lasted in Ukraine from about 6000 to 2000 BC, mankind experienced more profound changes than in the previous two to three million years. Instead of merely gathering and hunting food human beings had finally learned to produce it. Human settlement in Ukraine has been documented into distant prehistory. The late Neolithic Trypillian culture (The Trypillian culture is a late Neolithic archaeological culture that flourished between ca. 5500 BC and 2750 BC in the Dniester-Dnieper region of modern-day Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine. The Trypilians built the largest towns in Europe, each of them with 10,000 or 15,000 people. The settlements would be burned every 60-80 years with the culture moving elsewhere.) flourished from about 4500 BC to 3000 BC. The Copper Age people of the Trypillian culture resided in the western part. During the Iron Age, these were followed by the Dacians, Cimmerians (The Cimmerians were ancient equestrian nomads who, according to Herodotus, originally inhabited the region north of the Caucasus and the Black Sea, in what is now Ukraine and Rus’sia, in the 8th and 7th centuries BC.), Scythians (The Scythians were an Ancient Iranian people of horse-riding nomadic pastoralists who throughout Classical Antiquity dominated the Pontic-Caspian steppe, known at the time as Scythia.), Sarmatians (The Sarmatians were a people of Ancient Iranian origin. They migrated from Central Asia to the Ural Mountains around fifth century B.C. and eventually settled in most of southern European Rus’sia, Ukraine, and the eastern Balkans.) among other nomadic peoples. The Scythian Kingdom existed here from 750 BC to 250 BC. Along with ancient Greek colonies founded in the 6th century BC on the north-eastern shore of the Black Sea, the colonies of Tyras, Olbia , Hermonassa, continued as Roman and Byzantine cities until the 6th century AD. 3 The best known of the early agrarian peoples on the territory of present-day Ukraine were associated with the so-called Trypillian culture, which originated along the Dnister, Buh and Prut rivers. And later expanded to the Dniper. At their high point between 3500 and 2700 BC, they lived in large villages with as many as 600-700 inhabitants. Organized in clans along patriarchal lines, they often lived in long, narrow dwellings in which each nuclear family had its own clay over and partitioned space. The decorations on their pottery, characterized by flowing designs of ocher, black and white, reflected a culture rich in magical rituals and supernatural beliefs. 4 Even more important was the introduction of the wooden plow, which definitely made agriculture a more dependable. In the 3rd century AD, the Goths (the Goths were a heterogeneous East Germanic tribe. Originating in semi-legendary Scandza, believed to be somewhere in modern Götaland, Sweden, a Gothic population had crossed the Baltic Sea before the 2nd century) arrived in the lands of Ukraine around 250 AD to 375 AD. The Goths stayed in the area but came under the sway of the Huns (The Huns were a group of nomadic pastoral people who, appearing from beyond the VOlha, migrated into Europe c.AD 370 and built up an enormous empire in Europe. They were possibly the descendants of the Xiongnu who had been northern neighbours of China three hundred years before and may be the first expansion of Turkic people across Eurasia) from the 370s. With the power vacuum created with the end of Hunnic and Gothic rule, Slavic tribes (The Slavic Peoples are an ethnic and linguistic branch of Indo-European peoples, living mainly in eastern and central Europe. From the early 6th century they spread from their original homeland (most commonly thought to be in Eastern Europe) to inhabit most of eastern Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Many settled later in Siberia and Central Asia or emigrated to other parts of the world. Over half of Europe is, territorially speaking, inhabited by Slavic-speaking communities. Slavic peoples are 5 classified geographically and linguistically into West Slavic (including Czechs, Kashubians, Moravians, Poles, Silesians, Slovaks and Sorbs), East Slavic (including BelaRus’ians, Rus’sians, Rus’yns and Ukrainians), and South Slavic (including Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes) began to expand over much of what is now Ukraine during the 5th century, and beyond to the Balkans from the 6th century. 2. Kyivan Rus’. 6 According to legends, Kyiv was founded in the 5th century by three brothers Kiy, Shchek and Khoriv and their sister Lebid. In the 8th century, the territory of Kyivan Rus’was inhabited by a number of tribes who spoken a common proto-Slavic language, pagan beliefs. The ancestors of the Ukrainians included the Polianians, Siverianians, Derevlianians, Dulibians, White Croatians, Ulychians, and Tivertsians. The proto-Rus’sian Krivichians, Viatichians, and Radimichians and the proto-BeloRussian Drehovichians also lived on the lands that eventually constituted Kyivan Rus’. The Polianians were the largest and most developed of the tribes. None of the tribes, however, was able to create a viable state, and in the 9th century the Varangians from Scandinavia conquered the tribes and laid the groundwork for the Kyivan Rus’ state. According to some sources, the first Varangian rulers of Rus’ were Askold and Dyr. In 882, Kyiv was conquered from the Khazars by the Varangian noble Oleh who started the long period of rule of the Rurikid princes. During this time, several Slavic tribes were native to Ukraine, including the Polans, the Drevlyans, the Severians, the Ulichs, the Tiverians, and the Dulebes. Situated on lucrative trade routes, Kyiv quickly prospered as the center of the powerful Slavic state of Kyivan Rus’. Oleh is credited with moving the capital of Rus’ from Novgorod the Great to Kyiv and, in doing so, laid the foundation for the powerful state of Kyivan Rus’. According to East Slavic chronicles, Oleh was supreme ruler of the Rus’ from 882 to 912. Prince Ihor followed him, in 912, who not only continued external raids but also had to fight insubordinate tribes of Ulitchs and Derevlans. He died during a battle with Derevlans in 945. After Ihor's death, his wife Olha ruled Kyivan Rus’ as regent (945-c. 963) for their son, Svyatoslav. At the start of her reign, Olha spent great effort to avenge her husband's death at the hands of the Drevlians, and succeeded in slaughtering many of them and interring some in a ship burial, while still alive. She is reputed to have scalded captives to death and another, probably apocryphal, story tells of how she destroyed a town hostile to her. She asked that 7 each household present her with a dove as a gift, then tied burning papers to the legs of each dove which she then released to fly back to their homes. Each avian incendiary set fire to the thatched roof of their respective home and the town was destroyed. More importantly in the long term, Olha changed the system of tribute gathering (poliudie) in what may be regarded as the first legal reform recorded in Eastern Europe. She was the first Rus’ ruler to convert to Christianity, either in 945 or in 957. Known as ‘the Conqueror,’ Sviatoslav Ihorovych attempted to expand his territory to the Danube River, defeating the Bulgarians and establishing Pereiaslavets on the Danube. In 980, Prince Volodymyr defeated all his brothers and unified the country into one powerful state with Kyiv as the capital. He adopted Christianity in 988 and started to convert the population, which had up to then, worshiped Pagan gods. Force was often used against those who resisted. He produced silver and gold coins with his portrait on one side and the trident on the reverse side (The trident is Coat of Arms of present day Ukraine). In History he is known as Volodymyr the Great or Saint Volodymyr. One of the largest Kyivan cathedrals is dedicated to him. The University of Kyiv was named after the man who both civilized and Christianized Kyivan Rus’. 8 After his death in 1015, fighting and assassinations between his sons ensued, resulting in victory for prince Yaroslav in 1019. Yaroslav the Great consolidated nearly whole of his father's territory, defeated the Pechenegs and became one of the most powerful rulers in Europe. Yaroslav promoted family ties with other kingdoms, built many churches, improved Kyiv's fortifications, introduced laws and established courts. He sponsored the construction of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in 1037. Yaroslav was a notable patron of book culture and learning. The process of internal consolidation begun earlier was greatly furthered by Yaroslav the 9 Wise's codification of the law in Rus’kaia Pravda.he divided the country between his sons, who after his death in 1054, started to fight among themselves and divide their land between their sons. This resulted in a number of small principalities which not only fought each other, but also had to defend themselves from marauding Turkish and Polovetsian hordes, who plundered the countryside. In 1097 all princes agreed to stop fighting between themselves. In 1103 they united their forces under leadership of prince Monomakh. After death of Monomakh in 1125 Ukraine remained fragmented into the numerous principalities, each having their own customs and rules. Gradually Kyiv lost it's power and influence; many principalities separated. The quarreling between the princes left Rus’ vulnerable to foreign attacks, and the invasion of the Mongols in 1236–40 finally destroyed the state. The principalities never organized a common defense, and in turn each was conquered and pillaged. Kyiv was thoroughly sacked in 1240 and reduced to a shadow of its former self. The political and social institutions of Kyivan Rus’. From the 10th to the 12th century the Kyivan state underwent significant sociopolitical changes. Its original component tribes had no political tradition, and its first rulers viewed their domain simply as an object of exploitation, at best as a clan possession. Volodymyr the Great was the first ruler to give Rus’ political unity, by way of organized religion. The church provided him with the concepts of territorial and hierarchical 10 organization; Byzantine notions of autocracy were adopted by him and his successors to give them the equivalent of imperial authority. The political traditions introduced by Volodymyr were based on the principles of territorial indivisibility and dynastic sovereignty. The seniority system of rule—ascension from elder brother to younger and from the youngest uncle to the eldest nephew—provided the Riurykide dynasty with a rotating system of advancement of its members, gave them political experience in lands they could someday expect to rule from Kyiv, and assured control, by way of traditional sanctions, of key points of the realm. This system served well until the reign of Volodymyr Monomakh, but did not survive Kyiv's decline. The power of the grand prince was maintained by his military strength, particularly that of his druzhyna, or retinue. Ideologically, his power was upheld by the church, whose teachings gave him the attributes and responsibilities of a national leader, judge, and first Christian of the realm. The grand prince ruled and dispensed justice with the help of viceroys appointed by him, who were often the sons of the grand prince, of other princes, of governors, or of military commanders. These representatives of the grand prince's central power were aided by local administrators—the desiatski (see Desiatskyi). The grand prince consulted on important state matters with the Boyar Council, which consisted of his senior retainers and the local aristocracy of power and wealth. The viche (assembly), an important organ already within the tribal network, resolved all matters on behalf of the population. The city viche, composed of freemen, decided mainly on questions of war and peace and on the invitation, recognition, or expulsion of a prince. It became particularly important in the 12th century during the internecine wars of the princes for the throne of Kyiv. In the Princely era, Ukrainian society had its own peculiarities. Its privileged elite (the boyars and the ‘better people’), which enjoyed full protection of the law, was not a closed estate; based, as it was, on merit, which the prince rewarded with grants of land, its membership was dependent on the will of the prince. Thus even priests' sons and commoners could become boyars. The towns folk consisted of burghers—mostly 11 merchants and crafts people—and paupers. There was little difference in status between the wealthy merchants and the landed boyars. Most freemen were yeomen called smerds (see Smerd), who lived on their own land or on the land of the prince, paid taxes, and performed certain duties, such as building fortifications, bridges, and roads and serving in the levy en masse in times of war; gradually the smerds became dependent on their lords, and some became tenants or hired laborers on the land. A smaller catIhory of peasants consisted of zakups (see Zakup)—impoverished smerds who had become indentured and half-free. The lowest social stratum in Rus’ consisted of slaves. Male slaves were called kholopy (see Kholop); usually prisoners of war or the offspring of slaves, they had no rights as persons and were considered the legal, movable property of their masters. Certain churchmen and princes, eg, Volodymyr Monomakh in Volodymyr Monomakh's Statute, tried to improve the lot and legal status of the slaves. The economy of Kyivan Rus’. Relatively little is known about the economy of Kyiv, although there is no doubt that agriculture was the main activity of the inhabitants. Farming techniques and implements were naturally primitive and the peasants lived mostly at a subsistence level. Some animal husbandry was practiced, as was extensive grain cultivation. Land, particularly after the 11th century, was privately owned. Most peasants supplemented their agricultural activities with fishing, trapping, and hunting, especially in the northern forest and forest-steppe regions. The forests also supplied wood, the major source of fuel. The peasants generally lived in small, scattered villages. The second major component of Kyiv's economy was foreign trade. Not only were local goods, particularly furs, traded for important items, but much profit was made from the simple transshipment of goods along the great trade routes linking first east and west and later north and south. In the end, it was the breakdown of the trade route from ‘the Varangians to Byzantium that partially initiated Kyiv's decline, and it was the emergence of specialized routes linking the northern principalities to the Hanseatic League of states that furthered the disintegration of the state. 12 3. Galicia-Volhynia Western parts of Ukraine - Halychyna (Galicia) and Volynj (Volhynia) gradually emerged as leading principalities. Prince Roman ruled there in 1199. His sons succeeded in uniting both principalities into one rich and powerful state. Meanwhile, Prince Danylo (son of Prince Roman) established himself in Halych and his brother Vasylko in Volynj. Under Danylo’s reign, Galicia–Volhynia was one of the most powerful states in east central Europe. Demographic growth was enhanced by immigration from the west and the south, including Germans and Armenians. Commerce developed due to trade routes linking the Black Sea with Poland, Germany and the Baltic basin. Major cities, which served as important economic and cultural centers, were among others: Lviv (where the royal seat would later be moved by Danylo’s son), Volodymyr-in-Volhynia, Galych, Kholm, Peremyshl, Drohyczyn and Terebovlya. Galicia–Volhynia was important enough that in 1252 Danylo was able to marry his son Roman to the heiress of the Austrian Duchy in the vain hope of securing it for his family. Another son, Shvarn, married a daughter of Mindaugas, Lithuania's first king, and briefly ruled that land from 1267–1269. Danylo founded city Lviv in 1250 as a defense site against Tatars. In 1253 he accepted the royal crown from the pope and effected a short-lived church union with Rome. 13 After King Danylo’s death in 1264, he was succeeded by his son Lev. Lev moved the capital to Lviv in 1272 and for a time maintained the strength of Galicia–Volhynia. Unlike his father, who pursued a Western political course, Lev worked closely with the Mongols, in particular cultivating a close alliance with the Tatar Khan. After Lev's death in 1301, a period of decline ensued. Lev was succeeded by his son Yuriy I who ruled for only seven years. Although his reign was largely peaceful and Galicia–Volhynia flourished economically, Yuriy I lost Lublin to the Poles (1302) and Transcarpathia to the Hungarians. From 1308 until 1323 Galicia–Volhynia was jointly ruled by Yuriy I's sons Andriy and Lev II, who proclaimed themselves to be the kings of Galicia and Volhynia. They died together in 1323, in battle, fighting against the Mongols, and left no heirs. After the extinction of the Rurikid dynasty in Galicia–Volhynia in 1323, Volhynia passed into the control of the Lithuanian King Liubartas, while the boyars took control over Galicia. They invited the Polish Prince Boleslaw, a grandson of Yuriy I, to assume the Galician throne. The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania divided up the region between them: King Kazimierz III Wielki took Galicia and Western Volhynia, while the sister state of Eastern Volhynia together with Kyiv came under Lithuanian control, 1352– 1366. 14 4. Period of Lithuanian and Polish rule (1360-1599). The Lithuanian princes were reasonable rulers. In some cases they were assimilated where they adopted the local customs, language and religion. People did not resist them and appreciated their protection from Poland, Moscow and the Tatars. However, under Polish rule, western Ukraine was subjected to exploitation and colonization by an influx of people from Poland and Germany, who were taking over the property and offices from local boyars. After the Union of Lublin in 1569 and the formation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Ukraine fell under Polish administration, becoming part of the Crown of the Polish Kingdom. The period immediately following the creation of the Commonwealth saw a huge revitalisation in colonisation efforts. Many new cities and villages were founded. New schools spread the ideas of the Renaissance; Polish peasants who arrived in great numbers were quickly ruthenised; during this time, most of Ukrainian nobles became polonised and converted to Catholicism, and while most Ruthenian-speaking peasants remained within the Eastern Orthodox Church, social tension rose. Ruthenian peasants (Ukrainians and some from other nations) who fled efforts to force them into serfdom came to be known as Cossacks and earned a reputation for their fierce martial spirit. Some Cossacks were hired by the Commonwealth (became 'register Cossacks') as soldiers to 15 protect the south-eastern borders of Poland from Tatars or took part in campaigns abroad (like Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny in the battle of Khotyn 1621). Cossack units were also active in wars between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Muscovy.The Lithuanian princes were reasonable rulers. In some cases they were assimilated where they adopted the local customs, language and religion. People did not resist them and appreciated their protection from Poland, Moscow and the Tatars. However, under Polish rule, western Ukraine was subjected to exploitation and colonization by an influx of people from Poland and Germany, who were taking over the property and offices from local boyars. During the period of 1393-1430 the Grand Dutch of Lithuania was ruled by the Grand Duke Vytautas, who also is named Vytautas the Great for all the political and military achievements he brought to Lithuania. During his reign, the push eastward by the German Order was broken. In 1410 Vytautas, along with his cousin Yahaylo the King of Poland, won the Battle of Grunwald (Germany), against the might of the Order that way finishing almost 200 years of war. He also brought the Christianity to the pagan Lithuania. At the end of his era, Lithuania became one of the strongest states in Europe, stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. In 1400 Lithuania, together with its Ukrainian principalities, separated under king Vytautas- Yahaylo's cousin. Yahaylo’s younger brother, Svytryhaylo, opposed this arrangement. Ukrainian principalities under Vytautas were loosing their national character and independence to Polish influences. In 1413 a decision was made to allow only Catholics to occupy important government positions ("Horodlo Privilege"). Wide-spread discrimination against the Orthodox population followed. Nearly all Ukrainians in those days were Orthodox, therefore Ukrainian princes and boyars ended up helping Svytryhaylo in his fight with Vytautas. After Vytautas died in 1430, Svytryhaylo defended himself from Poles, but by the year 1440 his sphere of influence was reduced to the Volynj principality. 16 There was a period of hostilities between Lithuania and Moscow, when about 1480 Moscow annexed several principalities in eastern Ukraine. Also several popular uprisings took place. In 1490, a rebellion under Mukha, occurred in western Ukraine. Mukha sought help from neighboring Moldova. In 1500 in eastern Ukraine, there was an uprising under Prince Mykhaylo Hlynskiy, who expected help from Moscow and the Tatars. However Poland and Lithuania, at that time, were very strong and all uprisings were squashed. Meanwhile, in the South, marauding Tatar hordes converted a large area of the country into wilderness, without any law or order. It was a very rich part of Ukraine with productive soil, wild animals and rivers full of fish. It attracted many adventurous people, who although they had to fight the Tatars there, would be free from suppression by the Polish and Lithuanian overlords. They began to organize under Hetmans, thus originating Cossack society. To defend themselves from the Tatars, they constructed forts called "Sitch" and amalgamated them into a sort of union, with Zaporizhia as a centre. It was downstream of the Dnipro river cascades. In 1552, one of Ukrainian princes, Dmytro Wyshnevetskyi, being among the Cossacks, built a castle on the island Khortytsya. From there, the Cossacks conducted raids on Crimean towns sometimes with help from Moscow. Dmytro wanted to develop Zaporizhia, with help from Lithuania and Moscow, into a powerful fortress against Tatars and Turks. Being unable to achieve this goal, he left Zaporizhia in 1561, became involved in a war in Moldova and was captured and executed by the Turks in 1563. In spite of that there was a modest revival of Ukrainian culture later in 16th century. Church schools and seminaries were set up, based at first on the properties of Ukrainian magnate Hryhoriy Khodkovych and later on the holdings of Ostrozkyi princes. A printing industry began, culminating in the publication of the Bible in a print shop ran by Ivan Fedorovych. Trade and church brotherhoods sprang up. Schools were established and hospitals became centers of defense of the Orthodox Church and the fight for justice and equality. 17 Such a situation was the main cause, which multiplied the influx of people to Cossack territory, increasing the Cossack’s strength. The Tatars were pushed out into Crimea and the Cossacks became more daring in their raids on Turkish cities. While Ukrainian Cossacks defended not only Ukraine, but also the whole of eastern Europe from the Turks and Tatar hordes, they were causing diplomatic problems for Poland because Turkey used Cossack situation as an excuse for wars against Poland. When Cossack leader, Ivan Pidkova, conquered Moldova in 1577, the Poles captured and executed him in order to appease the Turks. They tried to control the Cossacks by recruiting some of them into the Polish military system as, so called, Registered Cossacks, but they could never really tame them. With decreasing danger from the Tatars, Polish nobles and Ukrainian princes loyal to the king, were granted possessions in territory controlled by the Cossacks and began to introduce their freedom limiting, unpopular laws. Dissatisfied with such treatment Cossacks, under Kryshtof Kosynskyi, rebelled about 1590, and by year 1593 controlled most of eastern Ukraine. After Kosynskyi, Hryhoriy Loboda became Cossack Hetman in 1593. Another section of Cossacks, numbering about 12000, under Semeryn Nalyvayko, were recruited by the Pope and the German Kaiser for war against theTurks. They conquered Moldova and in 1595 returned to Ukraine to fight against Polish rulers and to defend the Orthodox population from the Jesuits, who were instigating amalgamation with the Catholic Church. In 1596 at a synod of Brest, the Kyivan metropolitan and the majority of bishops signed an act of union with Rome. The Uniate church thus formed recognized supremacy of the pope but retained the Eastern rites and the Slavonic liturgical language. Also in year 1596 Polish king, Sigismund III Vasa, ordered Field Marshal Stanislav Zholkewski to subjugate the Cossack forces. After several months of fighting, Zholkewski surrounded Cossacks, led by Nalyvayko, Loboda and Shaula, at river Solonytsya near Lubny. There were about 6000 Cossack fighters and just as many women and children facing a much more superior force. The prolonged siege, lack of food and fodder, internal 18 squabbles (Loboda was killed in one the fights between sections of Cossacks) and intensive cannon fire destroyed defenders' capacity to resist. In order to save their families, Cossacks agreed to Zholkewski's terms to let them go free in exchange for handing over their leaders. However, after surrender, the Poles did not keep their word; they attacked and started to massacre defenseless and disoriented Cossacks. Only a section under leadership of Krempskyi broke through and joined with troops of Pidvysotskyi, who were coming to the rescue of the besieged Cossacks. Zholkewski, exhausted by prolonged fighting, decided to abandon the idea to conquer the Cossacks. He returned to Poland, where he tortured and executed the captured Cossack leaders. The most severe punishment was handed to Nalyvayko, who was tortured for about a year prior to a brutal execution. History » Lithuanian and Polish rule » Social changes Over three centuries of Lithuanian and Polish rule, Ukraine by the middle of the 17th century had undergone substantial social evolution. The princely and boyar families tracing their roots to Kyivan Rus’ had largely merged and become part of the privileged noble estate of Lithuania and Poland. Long attached to the Orthodox religion and the Ruthenian language and customs, the Ruthenian nobility in the late 16th century became increasingly prone to Polonization, a process often initiated by education in Jesuit schools and conversion to Roman Catholicism. 19 With the growth of towns and urban trades, especially in western Ukraine, the burghers became an important social stratum. They were divided both in terms of an internal social hierarchy associated with the guild system and by religion and ethnicity. Since the 13th century many Poles, Armenians, Germans, and Jews had settled in the cities and towns, where the Ukrainians were often reduced to a minority. Although the burghers came to play an influential role within the Ukrainian community, legal disabilities imposed on non-Catholics progressively limited their participation in the municipal self-government enjoyed by many cities and towns under Magdeburg Law. In the period of Polish rule the conditions of the peasantry steadily deteriorated. The free peasantry that had still existed into the late Lithuanian period underwent rapid enserfment, while serf obligations themselves became more onerous (see serfdom). Peasant unrest increased toward the end of the 16th century, especially in eastern Ukraine. The sparsely settled lands were opened to Polish proprietorship for the first time, and large latifundia (agricultural estates worked by a large number of peasants) were established through royal grants to meet the demands for grain on the European markets. To attract labour to the new estates, peasants were granted temporary exemptions from serf obligations; the expiration of these exemptions and the reintroduction of servitude among a population grown accustomed to freedom led to much discontent and peasant flight into the “wild fields”—the steppe lands to the east and south. Tensions were exacerbated by the fact that, while the peasants were Ukrainian and Orthodox, the landlords were largely Polish (or Polonized) and Roman Catholic, and the estate stewards or leaseholders for absentee proprietors frequently were Jewish. Thus, social discontent tended to coalesce with national and religious grievances. History » Lithuanian and Polish rule » Religious developments As social conditions among the Ukrainian population in Lithuania and Poland progressively deteriorated, so did the situation of the Ruthenian church. The Roman Catholic Church, steadily expanding eastward into Ukraine, enjoyed the support of the state and legal superiority over the Orthodox. External pressures and restrictions were 20 accompanied by a serious internal decline in the Ruthenian church. From the mid-16th century, both Catholicism, newly reinvIhorated by the Counter-Reformation and the arrival of Jesuits in Poland, and Protestantism (albeit temporarily) made inroads, especially among the Ruthenian nobility. Attempts to revive the fortunes of the Ruthenian church gathered strength in the last decades of the 16th century. About 1580 Prince Konstantyn Ostrozky founded at Ostroh in Volhynia a cultural centre that included an academy and a printing press and attracted leading scholars of the day; among its major achievements was the publication of the first complete text of the Bible in Slavonic. Lay brotherhoods, established by burghers in Lviv and other cities, maintained churches, supported schools and printing presses, and promoted charitable activities. The brotherhoods were frequently in conflict with the Orthodox hierarchy, however, on questions of authority over their institutions and clerical reforms. Religious developments took a radical turn in 1596 when, at a synod in Brest, the Kyivan metropolitan and the majority of bishops signed an act of union with Rome. By this act the Ruthenian church recognized papal primacy but retained the Eastern rite and the Slavonic liturgical language, as well as its administrative autonomy and traditional discipline, including a married clergy. This so-called Uniate church was unsuccessful in gaining the legal equality with the Latin church foreseen by the agreement. Nor was it able to stem the process of Polonization and Latinization of the nobility. At the same time, the Union of Brest-Litovsk caused a deep split in the Ruthenian church and society. This was reflected in a sizable polemical literature, struggles over the control of bishoprics and church properties that intensified after the restoration of an Orthodox hierarchy in 1620, and numerous acts of violence. Efforts to heal the breach in the 1620s and ’30s were ultimately fruitless. (Eastern Rite church.) 5. The Cossacks 21 The origins of the first Cossacks are uncertain. The traditional historiography dates the emergence of Cossacks to the 14-15th centuries. Some historians suggest that the Cossack people were of mixed ethnic origins, descending from Turks, Tatars, Russians, Ukrainians and others who settled or passed through the vast Steppe that stretches from Asia to southern Europe. It is after 1400 that the Cossacks emerge as an established and identifiable group in historical accounts. Rulers of Grand Duchy of Moscow and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth employed Cossacks as mobile guards against Tatar raids from the south in the territories of the present-day southwestern Russia and southern Ukraine. Those early Cossacks seemed to have included a significant number of Tatar descendants judging from the records of their names. From the mid-15th century, the Cossacks are mostly mentioned with Russian and Ukrainian names. In all historical records of that period, Cossack society was described as a loose federation of independent communities, often merging into larger units of a military character, entirely separate from, and mostly independent of, other nations (such as Poland, Russia or the Tatars). In the 16th century, these Cossack societies created two relatively independent territorial organisations: Zaporizhia, on the lower bends of the river Dnieper in Ukraine, between Russia, Poland and the Tatars of the Crimea, with the center, Zaporizhian Sich; The Don Cossack State, on the river Don, separating the then weak Russian State from the Mongol and Tatar tribes, vassals of Ottoman Empire 22 In Ukraine appeared autonomous Cossack state, which itself elected her leaders – hetmen, in other words commanders in chief, who at the same time executed civil power, and had own constitution. Hetman was the title used by commanders of the Ruthenian (Ukrainian) Dnieper Cossacks from the end of the sixteenth century. The title hetman was adopted from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Cossack hetmans had very broad powers and acted as supreme military commanders and executive leader (by issuing administrative decrees). However, the Hetmanate did not have a constitution, which allowed for powers and authority to change over time, which was needed due to internal conflicts and the pressure of the Russian government. 23 Colonel of Zaporozhian Cossack. The Cossacks were united by Zaporizka Sych, which was the social and political and military and administrative organization of the Ukrainian Cossacks, founded in the first part of XVI century beyond the Dnieper banks in the area of Khortitsa island. View of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station from Khortytsia. Zaporizhka Sych had a great influence on development of Ukraine and the history course at all. 24 Using small, shallow-draft, and highly manoeuvrable galleys known as chaiky, they moved swiftly across the Black Sea. According to the Cossacks' own records, these vessels, carrying a 50 to 70 man crew, could reach the Anatolian coast of Asia Minor from the mouth of the Dnieper River in forty hours. The chaiky were often accompanied by larger galleys, that served as command and control centres. The raids also acquired a distinct political purpose after Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny became hetman in 1613, intending to turn the host into the nucleus of a Ukrainian nation with the support of the European states. chaika By 1618 the Zaporozhians were members of the Anti-Turkish League, as Schaidachny transferred his seat of power to Kiev, the Polish Crown's regional capital. After 1624 the Zaporozhian raids gradually died out, as the Cossacks began to devote more and more of their martial energies to land-based campaigns. After the civil 25 war of 1648 (or Rebellion from the Polish viewpoint) the Zaporozhian Host gained control of parts of the Ukraine in 1649, although they at various time acknowledged the Polish King over the following decades. There were several Cossack uprisings against the Commonwealth in the early 17th century. The largest of them was the Khmelnytsky Uprising, which is considered to be one of the events which brought an end to the Golden Age of the Commonwealth. This uprising distanced Cossacks from the Commonwealth sphere of influence. The importance of Zaporozhian Cossacks in shaping the Ukrainian identity means that the Greater Coat of arms of Ukraine features a Zaporozhian Cossack figure on the right of the national emblem 6. National liberation movement under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnytskiy. Narrowing of the autonomy and liquidation of Zaporizhian Sich. The term Khmelnytsky Uprising refers to a rebellion or war of liberation in the lands of present-day Ukraine which continued from 1648–1657 or 1654. Under the command of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the Zaporozhian Cossacks allied with the Crimean Tatars, and the local Ukrainian peasantry, fought several battles against the armies and paramilitary forces of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Uprising started as the rebellion of the Cossack estate, but as other Orthodox Christian classes (peasants, burghers, petty nobility) of the Ukrainian palatinates joined them, the ultimate aim became a creation of an autonomous Ukrainian state. The Uprising succeeded in ending the Polish influence over those Cossack lands that were taken under Russian protectorate. These 26 events, along with internal conflicts and hostilities with Sweden and Russia, resulted in severely diminished Polish power during this period. Bohdan Khmelnytsky was a noble-born product of a Jesuit education in Ukraine. At the age of 22, he joined his father in the service of the Commonwealth. Bohdan was taken captive by the Turks and held for two years until his mother collected enough ransom money. During these two years he mastered the Turkish and Tatar languages. This proved to be helpful to him later in his relations with Turkey and Tatary. Bohdan returned to Subotiv to follow in his father's footsteps by becoming a Cossack (an idealistic, freedomloving, gallant and independent man who fights for the well being of Ukraine and is ready to sacrifice his life for his country, his religion, and his freedom), married Hanna Somko and lived together on his estate in Subotiv. After the signing of the Treaty of Borovytsia on December 24, 1637, Bohdan was elected Captain of the registered Cossacks in Chihiryn. He was part of a Cossack delegation to the Polish king, Wladyslaw IV in 1646. At this point in his career, he was 50 years old. In 1646, while away from his estate, a Polish nobleman, with the aid of local magnates (a very important and influential person in any field of activity, especially in a large business), laid claim to Khmelnytsky's estate, raided it, killed his yougest son, and kidnapped the woman that the recently widowed Bohdan intended to marry. This action gave him enough motivation to form a revolt againt the Poles. His life changed, and with it the course of Ukraine's history. Khmelnytsky organized supporters and plotted an uprising against the Polish landlords. Realizing that their cavalry was small, he seeked the aid of the Crimean Tatars, the Cossack's traditional enemies. The timing was right, and an alliance against the Poles was formed. 27 A five Ukrainian hryvnia banknote depicting Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky. Bohdan Khmelnytsky Having received no support from the 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 suspicions of the Polish authorities already used to Cossack revolts and he was promptly arrested. Polkovnyk (colonel) Mykhailo Krychevsky assisted Khmelnytsky with his escape, and with a group of supporters, he headed for the Zaporozhian Sich. 28 However, combining Cossack infantry with Crimean Tatar cavalry could have provided a balanced military force and give Cossacks a chance to beat the Polish army. Khmelnytsky managed to overcome more than a century of mutual hostility between Cossacks and Tatars. Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1648 On January 25, 1648, Khmelnytsky brought a contingent of 300-500 Cossacks to the Zaporizhian Sich. Once at the Sich, his oratory and diplomatic skills quickly struck a nerve with oppressed Ruthenians. As his men repelled an attempt by Commonwealth forces to retake the Sich more recruits joined his cause. The Cossack Rada elected him Hetman by the end of the month. Khmelnytsky threw most of his resources into recruiting more fighters. By April 1648, word of an uprising had spread through the Commonwealth. Either because they underestimated the size of the uprising, or because they wanted to act quickly to prevent it from spreading, the Commonwealth sent 3,000 soldiers towards Khmelnytsky, without waiting to gather additional forces. Khmelnytsky quickly marshalled his forces to meet his enemy en route at the Battle of Zhovti Vody. 29 Khmelnytsky stopped his forces at Bila Tserkva, and issued a list of demands to the Polish Crown, including raising the number of Registered Cossacks, returning Churches taken from the Orthodox faithful, and paying the Cossacks for wages which had been withheld for 5 years. Following the battle at Zbarazh and Zboriv, Khmelnytsky gained numerous privileges for the Cossacks under the Treaty of Zboriv. When hostilities resumed, however, Khmelnytsky's forces were abandoned by their former allies the Crimean Tatars, suffered a massive defeat in 1651 at the Battle of Berestechko, and were forced at Bila Tserkva (Biała Cerkiew) to accept a loser's treaty. A year later, the Cossacks had their revenge at the Battle of Batoh. Within a few months, almost all Polish nobles, officials, and priests had been wiped out or driven from the lands of present-day Ukraine. The Commonwealth population losses in the Uprising were over one million. The Uprising began a period in Polish history known as The Deluge (which included a Swedish invasion of the Commonwealth), that temporarily freed the Ukrainians from Polish domination but in short time subjected it to Russian domination. Diminished scope of PolishLithuanian control 30 Weakened by wars, in 1654 Khmelnytsky persuaded the Cossacks to ally with the Russian tsar in the Treaty of Pereyaslav. On the January 18th in 1654, Khmelnytsky called a meeting with the Cossack elite and a decision was made. Ukraine needed an overlord and it was decided upon to be ruled by the Muscovite tsar. This meeting was held at Pereiaslav, near Keiv. The towns people were gathered and the Hetman spoke of a need for an overlord. He presented four candidates - the Polish king, the Tatar Khan, the Ottoman Sultan, and the Muscovite tsar. It was explained to the townspeople that this was decided upon at the prior meeting and that the Muscovite tsar was the best choice. The crowd understood and agreed. At the town church, the Pereiaslav Agreement was sealed and marked a turning point in the history of Ukraine, Russia, and all of Eastern Europe. Muscovy now had its foot in the door to becoming a great power. Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky gave pride back to its people, and succeded in building the basis for a Ukrainian way of life. Without his efforts, the rebirth of the Ukrainian state would have been impossible. The Treaty of Pereyaslav was established in 1654 in the Ukrainian city of Pereyaslav. The alliance was concluded between the Hetman State, who were know as the Cossacks, and the Moscow Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich during the Cossack Era . The Treaty of Pereyaslav gave the Ukrainian Cossack state the protection of the tsar. The Treaty was established because the Crimean Tartar army betray the Cossacks and the Cossack hetman had realized he had to turn to Moscow for help. By signing the Treaty Ukraine did come under the protection of Moscow, so that any military offensive launched by Poland would result in an immediate offensive by Moscow. Although, because of this high commitment to the Ukrainian Cossack state Moscow demanded taxes to be collected from the Ukrainian people. Also, only the Hetman and Zaporozhian Host were seen as representatives of the Hetman State (Ohlobyn). While Ukraine viewed the Treaty as ‘a temporary alliance’ Moscow used the Treaty as a ‘backdoor’ to future Ukrainian internal affairs. 31 With the Commonwealth becoming increasingly weak, the Cossacks became more and more integrated into the Russian Empire, with their autonomy and privileges eroded. The remnants of these privileges were gradually abolished. Cossacks gradually lost their independence, and were abolished by Catherine II by the late 18th century(1775). The Cossacks that wanted to continue their lifestyle moved to Ottoman-controlled territies on the Danube or to the Kuban, where they live to this date. 7. Ukraine under the direct imperial Russian rule. During almost 150 years since the close of XVIII and to the beginning of XX centuries Ukrainians were under the power of two empires: 80 percent of them were subject to the Russian emperor; the rest settled the empire of Gabsburgs. At the dawn of the modern era, Ukrainians found themselves in political systems that were radically different from those to which they had been accustomed. Like all empires those of the Russian Romanovs and the Austrian Habsburgs were vast territorial conglomerates containing huge populations of ethnically and culturally diverse peoples. Political power 32 was highly centralized and vested in the person of the emperor who saw no need to take into account the views or desires of his subjects. The Russian empire was one of the biggest in the world. Beside the big measures it noticeably differed from other European countries by its political system. In any country of the continent leaders did not have such unlimited power, which used tsars-emperors. Nowhere bureaucracy was so despotic, police so cruel, and people so disfranchised as in Russia. Since XVIII century tsars had absolute power over all nationals in all areas of their life. The Russian Empire in 1866 As for the language and culture the Ukrainians were closely kindred to Russians, the government soon began to consider Ukraine as Russian side. Concrete and everywhere feature of imperial presence in Ukraine was the army. Its numerous detachments and forts studded the whole country, and its commanders imposed people with burdensome duties, the most terrible of which was draft, applied in Ukraine in 1797. The Term of service accounted 25 years. Because of inhuman regimentation and often wars such term was considered equal to death sentence. Incapacity of Russian government to provide their officials by sufficient fee gave birth to corruption at which it silently closed the eyes; especially it concerned the corruption of local scale. But if Russians used to get burden of bureaucracy system, for Ukrainians in XIX century that phenomenon was new and strange. Maybe it explains the 33 fact that Ukrainian Mykola Gogol in his famous play “Revisor” (1836) created so bright satire on imperial bureaucracy. Ukrainian lands in the Russian Empire formally lost all traces of their national distinctiveness. The territories were reorganized into regular Russian provinces administered by governors appointed from St. Petersburg. Equally important developments occurred in the social sphere. As compensation for their lost rights as a ruling elite in the Hetmanate, the Cossack starshyna were equalized with the Russian nobility; many entered imperial service, and some achieved the highest government ranks. Through education, intermarriage, and government service, the Ukrainian nobility gradually became Russified—as the earlier Ruthenian nobility had been Polonized—though many retained a sentimental attachment to the land and its folklore. The Polish nobility in the Right Bank retained its status and continued as the dominant landowning class. The large Jewish population was bound by numerous legal disabilities and, from 1881, victimized by recurrent waves of pogroms. The gradual process of enserfment of the peasantry in the Left Bank culminated in 1783 under Catherine II. The obligations there, however, were less onerous than in the Right Bank. Serfdom remained the dominant lot of the peasantry until the emancipation of 1861, and even after emancipation the peasants were still burdened by inadequate land allotments and heavy redemption payments that led to the impoverishment of many. Nevertheless, the reforms stimulated the development of industry by releasing labour from the land. Industrial development was especially marked in eastern Ukraine, notably the Donbas, which attracted workers from other parts of the empire. As a result, the emerging working class and the growing urban centres became highly Russified islands in a Ukrainian rural sea. In the 19th century the development of Ukrainian cultural life was closely connected with academic circles. The first modern university in Ukraine was established in 1805 at Kharkiv, and for 30 years Sloboda Ukraine was the major centre for Ukrainian scholarship and publishing activities. In 1834 a university was founded in Kiev, and in 1864 at Odessa. 34 Though Russian institutions, they did much to promote the study of local history and ethnography that had a stimulative effect on the Ukrainian national movement. Literature, however, became the primary vehicle for the 19th-century Ukrainian national revival. The most important writer—and unquestionably the most significant figure in the development of a modern Ukrainian national consciousness—was Taras Shevchenko. Born a serf, Shevchenko was bought out of servitude by a group of artists who recognized his talent for painting. Shevchenko's poetry reflected a conception of Ukraine as a free and democratic society that had a profound influence on the development of Ukrainian political thought. By the mid-19th century the cultural and literary stirrings in Ukraine aroused concern in tsarist ruling circles. Shevchenko's patriotic verse earned him arrest and years of exile in Central Asia. Taras Shevchenko The revolution that shook the Russian Empire in 1905 spawned worker strikes and peasant unrest in Ukraine as well. The consequent transformation of the tsarist autocracy into a semiconstitutional monarchy led to some easing in Ukrainian national life. In the political arena the introduction of an elected assembly, or Duma, in 1906 initially provided Ukrainians with a new forum to press their national concerns. 35 Administrative divisions of Russian Empire superimposed on map of Ukraine 8.Western Ukraine under the Habsburg monarchy. Austria in XVIII-XIX centuries constituted from mixture of two big nations, Hungarians and Ukrainians, and the several smaller ethnic groups, which settled the main part of Eastern Europe and in 1800 accounted approximately one seventh of the continent’s population. As no one nation or nationality had absolute majority, no one national culture was determining to such extent as Russian culture in the tsar empire. Though in the army and among officials prevailed Dutch language, which was spoken the most influential nation of the empire, striking feature of this empire remained its ethnic variety. 36 The Austrian Empire Prevailed majority of Ukrainians in Austrian empire inhabited in Halychyna – southeastern part of former Rych of Pospolite, captured by Habsburgs after the first division of Poland in 1772. Two years later Bukovyna – small Ukrainian land, took away by Vienna from falling into decay Ottoman empire – was jointed to Halychyna. Finally in 1795 after the third and the last division of Poland to the empire also were included lands, settled by Poles (including Krakiv). If eastern Halychyna was settled mainly by Ukrainians, than western Halychyna was mainly Polish. Joining in one administrative province of these two nations became in the future the reason for strained relations between them. Under the Habsburg’s middling control was another settled by Ukrainians region. Situated on the western hills of Carpathian Mountains, Zacarpatya from the Middle Ages was included to the part of Hungarian kingdom. In XIX it remained in the Hungarian part of the Habsburg’s empire and was isolated from other Ukrainian lands. The Habsburgs' annexation of Halychyna from Poland in 1772 was followed two years later by their acquisition of Bukovina, a partly Ukrainian and partly Romanian territory, from Moldavia. Already under Habsburg rule, as part of the Hungarian crown, was a third ethnically Ukrainian region—Transcarpathia. Within the Habsburg realm these three territories underwent many experiences in common, but they were distinguished also 37 by differences stemming from their specific ethnic environments and earlier histories. Western Ukraine under the Habsburg monarchy > Halychyna Under Austria, ethnically Ukrainian Halychyna was joined administratively with purely Polish areas to its west into a single province, with Lviv (German: Lemberg) as the provincial capital. Although, on balance, Habsburg policies favoured the Poles, Ukrainians (Ruthenians in the contemporary terminology) in Austria enjoyed far greater opportunities for their national development and made far greater progress than did Ukrainians in tsarist Russia. The reforms initiated by Maria Theresa and Joseph II and the introduction of the imperial bureaucracy in Halychyna improved the position of Ukrainians. Municipal reforms reversed the decline of cities and led to an improvement in the legal and social position of the Ukrainian urban population. Undertaken as early as 1775, educational reforms allowed for instruction in the native language, although in practice, until the mid19th century, Ukrainian-language teaching was limited largely to low-level parochial schools. In the course of the 19th century, the Greek Catholic church became a major national, as well as religious, institution. The revolution of 1848 that swept the Austrian Empire politicized the Ukrainians of Halychyna. Although suppressed, the revolution set in motion important transformations in Halychynan society. The corvée was abolished in 1848. Impoverishment of the Ukrainian peasantry increased, however, owing to lack of land reform, rural overpopulation, and a near total absence of industry to absorb the excess labour. Large-scale emigration to the Americas began in the 1880s and continued until World War I. Disappointment with the Habsburgs and concern over the new Polish ascendancy gave rise in the 1860s to pro-Russian sympathies among the older, more conservative, clerical intelligentsia. The Russophiles promoted a hybrid Ukrainian-Russian language and a cultural and political orientation toward Russia. 38 By the outbreak of World War I, Ukrainians in Austrian Halychyna were still an overwhelmingly agrarian and politically disadvantaged society. Nevertheless, they had made impressive educational and cultural advances, possessed a large native intelligentsia and an extensive institutional infrastructure, and achieved a high level of national consciousness, all of which contrasted sharply with the situation prevailing in Russianruled Ukraine. References: 1. Декларація про державний суверенітет України. Прийнята Верховною Радою Української РСР 16 липня 1990 року. - К. 1991. 2. Акт проголошення незалежності України, прийнятий Верховною Радою України 24 серпня 1991 року. - К. 1991. 3. Конституція України. Прийнята на п'ятій сесії Верховної Ради України 28 червня 1996 року. - К. 1996. 4. Крип'якевич І. П. Історія України. - Львів, 1990. 5. Полонська-Василенко Н. Історія України. Т. 1-2.-К. 1992. 6. Andrew Wilson. The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation. Yale University Press; 2nd edition (2002). 7. Anna Reid. Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine. London, Orion Books; 4th impression (1998, preface 2003). 8. Mykhailo HRus’hevsky. History of Ukraine-Rus’ in 9 volumes. 9. Orest Subtelny. Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (1988). 10. Paul Robert Magocsi. A History of Ukraine. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (1996). 39