Events and Personalities in Polish History by Paul Super

Author:Paul Super [Super, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General
ISBN: 9781528760416
Google: SGUNEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Read Books Ltd
Published: 2020-12-01T01:01:36+00:00

THE COSSACK AND TARTAR WARS

[1648—1656]

The causes of the frightful Cossack wars were social and religious; but the spark which ignited the flame was purely personal.

The Cossacks are not a tribe or race as many assume. They were in their origin an accumulation. The fertile but sparsely settled lands along the Dnieper north of the Crimea, left more or less vacant after the pushing back of the Tartars into that province, were called by the Poles ‘The Wild Steppes’. The indigenous population were Ruthenians, later to assume the name Ukrainians. To this territory fled from the neighbouring countries, chiefly Poland, Wallachia and Muscovy, murderers, rebels, escaped serfs, peasants who had been mistreated, criminals from the lower classes, and adventurers of all sorts. This new element became the Cossacks; indeed, the word itself probably comes from a Turkish word meaning ‘adventurer’, or ‘brigand’. To these new people religion meant little; the Ruthenians, however, were largely of the Uniate Church, or they were Orthodox.

Realizing their great value as an army of defence against the Tartars, Stefan Batory had organized and armed some thousands of Cossack light horse, and these were on Polish territory, in Polish pay, and subject to Poland. But their land as a whole was only slightly polonized.

Gradually there developed in the Ukraine a high degree of social oppression on the part of the great landlords, and eventually to this general grievance there was added fear on the part of the Ruthenians that they would be compelled to become Catholics and adopt the religion of Poland. The people bitterly said that the landlords, having deprived them of this world’s goods, would now secure their exclusion from heaven also by making them give up the true faith. This widespread popular discontent was naturally seized upon and encouraged by Poland’s enemies in Moscow and elsewhere. Rebellions occurred, based on this social and religious foundation; these brought repression and repression which led in turn to further rebellions.

At this point, 1648, in a bitter personal quarrel, Bohdan Chmielnicki, a minor landowner, was cruelly wronged by a crown official and was unable to secure redress from the Polish courts. In deep and just anger he went over to the discontented and rebellious Cossacks, and with a skill which leads one historian to consider him the most capable man of his day, organized an extensive and cruel war against the Poles. The whole Ukraine rose almost to a man; the Tartars, always glad to fish in troubled waters, joined in, and war after war followed, with such cruelty and destruction of Poland’s eastern provinces as only whole chapters can picture. In vast areas the civilization built during several centuries was wiped out.

Defeated at last, Chmielnicki went over to Moscow, which led to a 13 year Polish Muscovite war even more frightful than the 30 years’ War in Germany. This war, coming upon Poland when she was at war with Sweden, resulted in the treaty of 1667 so disastrous to Poland in the loss of its most eastern territory.

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