In 1654, the left-bank Ukraine was ruled by Poland. The Ukrainian people endured humiliation and oppression. In 1648, under the leadership of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnitsky, the Zaporozhye Cossacks began an uprising against the oppressors, and then turned to Russia for help, inviting the tsar to accept them as his subjects. The king accepted the offer. In 1654, Ukraine became part of Russia.
In 1654, an event occurred that changed the fate of several states - Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Turkey. Such an event was the entry of the left-bank Ukraine into Russia.
What formed the basis for the accession of Ukraine to Russia
Ukraine at the beginning of the 17th century was part of the Commonwealth, a small part of its lands belonged to Russia.
However, Ukrainians and Poles were not equal before the law. The Poles were the full-fledged masters of the country, and the Ukrainians lived as vassals, forced to endure oppression from both Poles and Jews. Ukrainian farmers had to pay rent to Poles for leasing Ukrainian land to Ukrainians. The freedom-loving Cossacks could hardly endure this oppression, and therefore periodically raised uprisings. However, the forces were too unequal, and each uprising was brutally suppressed.
It became clear that in order to gain freedom, the Cossacks needed a strong defender, and the first candidate for this role was, of course, Russia.
First, the hetman of the registered Cossacks Krishtof Kosinsky asked for help from Russia, then the hetman Pyotr Sagaidachny. In 1622, Bishop Isaiah Kopinsky proposed to the Russian tsar to accept the Orthodox under his citizenship, and in 1624 Metropolitan Job Boretsky asked for the same.
In addition to annexing their lands to Russia, the hetmans also considered the option of uniting with the Turkish sultan. But this was, so to speak, a fallback: the Ukrainians were much closer to uniting with the Russian people, united in faith and spirit.
However, Russia for a long time did not give an unambiguous answer to the proposal of the Ukrainians - the consequences of such a step were too ambiguous for it.
rebellion led by Bohdan Khmelnitsky, letter to the Russian tsar
In 1648, the largest Cossack uprising against the Poles took place. It was headed by Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky.
Khmelnitsky had a wealth of combat experience. He participated in the Spanish-French War, in which he headed a Cossack regiment that took part in the capture of Dunkirk.
Returning home, Bogdan could not calmly look at the humiliation of his fellow countrymen, who were forced to pay Jews not only for land, the right to trade in the market, the ability to move along the roads, but also for the opportunity to perform Orthodox rituals. Outraged by this state of affairs, Khmelnytsky wrote a complaint to the Polish king, but he ignored it, and after
The complaint, written by the hetman to the king of Poland, was ignored, but its consequences were tragic: Bogdan lost his son, who was detected to death, and his wife, who was forcibly married to a Pole, having recognized her marriage in Khmelnytsky as invalid (because according to Orthodox customs). By April 1648, having gathered a huge army at that time - 43,720 people - Bogdan Khmelnytsky raised an uprising against the oppressors.
For several years, the uprising, which had grown into an almost full-scale war, continued with varying success, but in the end it became clear that the Cossacks could not defeat the Polish army on their own.
Therefore, in 1653, Bohdan Khmelnitsky turned to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, writing him a letter in which he asked to take the Ukrainians under his protection and give them Russian citizenship.
Zemsky Sobor 1953
This request was considered at the Zemsky Sobor, and not all of its participants were in favor of Ukraine joining Russia. The consequences could be too grave: Poland will not allow the taking of its lands with impunity, which means there will be a war. And it's not a fact that Russia is ready for it. The council dragged on, but Ukraine could not wait - the price of delay was too high, and delivered an ultimatum to Russia: if the tsar did not agree to take the Ukrainians under his full wing, they would turn to the Turkish sultan with the same proposal. But Russia could not allow this in any way - the common border with the Turks posed too much of a threat.
At the Zemsky Sobor, it was decided to admit Ukraine to Russia.
Pereyaslavskaya Rada
The next stage in the unification of Russia and Ukraine was the meeting in Pereyaslav of eminent Cossacks and residents. This event, which took place on January 8, 1654, went down in history under the name Pereslavskaya Rada.
The decision to join Russia was made and confirmed by an oath. And then an agreement was drawn up, which described the conditions under which Ukraine became part of Russia. These conditions were described in 11 points. The Pereslavl treaty had 11 clauses, but later, already in Moscow, the number of clauses was increased to 23. After the treaty was considered at the Zemsky Sobor on March 27, 1654, Ukraine officially became part of Russia. The results of the Pereyaslavl treaty fully justified themselves. Ukraine was now under the protection of a strong Russia. At the same time, Moscow provided material assistance to the Ukrainians, but all the income of Little Russia remained in it.
Left-bank Ukraine quickly came to prosperity. Agriculture, animal husbandry and trade developed there. This led to the fact that from those Ukrainian territories that were under the control of Moldova, Poland, Turkey, and where people were still oppressed, people began to flee en masse to Little Russia.
War with Poland. Ukrainian demarche
Poland was not going to part with, in her opinion, her lands. Therefore, something happened that was warned at the Council by the opponents of Ukraine's annexation to Russia - in 1654 a war with Poland began, which lasted for 13 years. The war was difficult and not always successful for Russia. And a considerable "contribution" to these failures was made by the Ukrainians, who became the reason for the hostilities.
Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky, who took over the post of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, who died in 1657, decided not to fulfill the terms of the treaty with Russia, but to get the maximum benefit from the war. The Hetman began to bargain with both Russia and Poland, choosing the most profitable option. However, most of the Ukrainians did not tolerate such a betrayal, and in 1659, the place of the exiled Vyhovsky was taken by the son of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, Yuri. Both Russians and Ukrainians assumed that this would lead to the most fruitful cooperation, but the new hetman did not justify anyone's hopes. In 1660, during the campaign against Lvov, in which 30 thousand Russians and 25 thousand Ukrainians participated, something happened that the Russians did not expect from their allies.
At Lyubar, the Russian troops under the command of Sheremetev were suddenly attacked by the Polish troops, united in the Crimean troops. Sheremetev's army held out to the last, and largely because it was sure that the Cossacks were about to approach, and the outcome of the battle would be decided in our favor. The Russians were fatally wrong. Yuri Khmelnitsky never brought his army to the rescue. In addition, he promised that he would no longer fight against the Polish army, and concluded a peace treaty with the Poles.
The consequences of this betrayal were tragic for the Russian soldiers. The army was forced to surrender. Most of it died, the rest became slaves of the Crimean Tatars. Only a small part of them were able to return home after a long time.
Results of Ukraine's accession to Russia
Despite the double betrayal of the Ukrainians, Russia nevertheless won the war with Poland.
Thirteen years after the start of the war, on January 20, 1667, an armistice was concluded between the Russians and the Poles. It happened near Smolensk in the village of Andrusovo. The document was called the Andrusov truce.
Russia left the Left-Bank Ukraine, Smolensk, the territories inherited by Poland in the Time of Troubles.
Russia gained control over Kiev for a two-year period, and Moscow and Poland now governed the Zaporozhye Sich jointly.
19 years later, in 1686, Russia and Poland signed the "Eternal Peace". Now Kiev unconditionally belonged to Moscow, and the Poles received compensation in the amount of 146 thousand rubles. Poland also ceded control of the Zaporizhzhya Sich to Russia.
Politically, the accession of Ukraine to Russia also brought a number of advantages for Russia:
- became accessible territories in the south to the Black Sea and to the west;
- Poland was weakened as a result of the separation of the Ukrainian lands;
- the unification of Ukraine with Turkey became impossible.
