Pereyaslav Rada 1654. Consequences of the Pereyaslav Rada

The brochure is devoted to the analysis of historical facts related to one of the most important events in the history of our country - the unification of Ukraine and Russia ("Pereyaslav Rada") in January 1654. The topic seems relevant, especially in connection with the attempts of some historians and politicians to interpret this historical event in a negative light. The publication is addressed to everyone who is interested in the history of our country.

1. Relations between Ukraine and Russia at the beginning of the liberation war of the Ukrainian people in 1648–1654
The beginning of Ukrainian-Russian official relations, which eventually became the main direction foreign policy The troops of Zaporizhia (the official name of the Ukrainian Hetmanate) were established by a letter from Hetman Bohdan Khmelnitsky to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich dated June 8, 1648. And at the beginning of 1649, the first Cossack embassy headed from Kyiv to Moscow, headed by Colonel Siluyan Muzhilovsky, announced the letter of the hetman with a request “Take all the Zaporizhia Host under your sovereign hand and help inflict with your sovereign military people ...”. In total, more than 30 appeals of the hetman to the tsar with a request for military assistance and unification with Russia are known.
The tsarist government for a long time rejected, referring to the Treaty of Polyanovsky with the Commonwealth (1634), the requests of the hetman, limiting themselves to economic and diplomatic assistance to the Zaporozhian Host. Perhaps, in Moscow, despite the great activity of Khmelnitsky, they did not believe in the seriousness of his intentions, since there were no concrete proposals from the Ukrainian side on the ways and forms of unification.
Only at the end of January 1651, in connection with preparations for the consideration of the issue of unification with Ukraine at the Zemsky Sobor, the Russian government for the first time tried to find out from the Ukrainian embassy M. Sulichich in what forms and under what conditions B. Khmelnitsky wants to unite Ukraine with Russia. The embassy did not give a direct answer, referring to the lack of instructions from the hetman. However, according to some Russian researchers, “even if Bogdan in 1648-1649. applied with a serious practical (and not just tactical) offer of Russian citizenship, he most likely would have been refused”1.
It should be borne in mind that the development of events in Ukraine in the initial period of the liberation war of 1648-1654. turned out to be a complete surprise for the Russian leadership. In addition, the tsarist government, connected with Poland by a defensive agreement of 1647 against Crimean Khanate, was preparing for a joint struggle with her against the invasion of the Tatar horde. But the very first messages about the deployment of the Cossack uprising, received in Moscow in February 1648, attracted close attention Russian government and frontier (border) governors who were instructed to collect information about events in Ukraine, the actions of the rebels, Polish and Tatar troops.
March 18, 1648 political and statesman The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, at that time the Bratslav governor, the nobleman of the "Greek faith" Adam Kisel officially notified the Russian authorities about the uprising in Zaporozhye under the leadership of B. Khmelnitsky. In early April, it became known in Moscow about the alliance of the Cossacks with the Tatars. This news alarmed the tsarist government, and it instructed the border governors to prepare to repulse the Horde.
During April-May, more and more disturbing and often contradictory reports were received in Moscow. The tone of letters from representatives of the Polish authorities also became more and more concerned. On May 2, 1648, Putivl voivode Nikifor Pleshcheev received a letter from Konstantin Malyashinsky, a Polish constable of the city of Krasny, who reported that Khmelnitsky with Cossacks and a horde besieged the Polish camp in the upper reaches of the Saksagan River, and the number of Tatars was constantly increasing. Ten days later, the Polish magnate Jeremiah Vishnevetsky, who had already written about 40 thousand Tatars and called on the Russian authorities to jointly act against them, turned to the same governor. On May 18, 1648, Moscow received another letter from A. Kisel, who reported about the encirclement of a 30,000-strong Tatar horde in the Zheltye Vody tract Polish army and insisted on the immediate action of the Russian troops in Ukraine.
A day after receiving this letter, the tsar instructed to prepare a military campaign against the Tatars, but it was to begin only when the "most authentic news" about the attack of the Horde was received.
Polish-Russian unity did not last long. Already on May 31, 1648, A. Kisel, in a letter to the Gnieznin Bishop Matvey Lubensky, the ruler of Poland in the “inter-royalty” that came after the death of Vladislav IV on May 20, 1648, reported with alarm that, although he managed to achieve with his letters to the tsarist government that Putivl had a 40,000th Russian army, intended against the Tatars, however, the news of the defeat of the Poles and the death of the king preceded the arrival of the troops and now no one can guarantee that Moscow will not support the Cossacks: “Who can vouch for them? One blood, one religion. Save the Lord, so that they do not plan something against our fatherland ... ".
In late May - early June, the Russian border governors, on the instructions of the central government, concerned about the appearance of Tatars in Ukraine, sent their representatives with letters to Kisel and Vishnevetsky. Several messengers were intercepted by the Cossacks and delivered to the hetman. On June 8, 1648, Bogdan Khmelnitsky handed over his letter to the tsar to one of them, Grigory Klimov. Already on June 19 it was delivered to Moscow.
In his letter, the hetman noted that the Cossacks were dying for the ancient Greek faith, reported on their victories and the death of the Polish king, and also asked that “if your royal majesty hears that the Poles want to attack us again, hurry up at the same hour from our side attack them. In addition, the letter contains a phrase that has long been the subject of a dispute among scientists: “We want an autocratic owner in our land, like your grace, an Orthodox Christian king, if the eternal prophecy from Christ our God were fulfilled, that everything is in the hands of his holy mercy” .
Some researchers see this as a desire for “Ukraine to be under the rule of the tsar”, that is, to unite with Russia, others see it as an offer to the Russian tsar to take the Polish throne that was vacant after the death of Vladislav IV. According to I.P. Krypiakevich, Khmelnytsky's call to Alexei Mikhailovich to take the Polish throne in those specific conditions meant a desire for "reunification of Ukraine with Russia"2.
For a long time the tsarist government avoided direct and official contacts with the hetman. Only in December 1648, six months after the hetman's first appeal, did the messenger deliver the royal charter to him, which marked the beginning of a new stage in relations between Russia and Ukraine. The letter meant, in fact, the recognition of the hetman as the ruler of Ukraine. In the spring of 1649, an embassy headed by G. Unkovsky was sent to Ukraine to clarify the situation. In general, from 1649 to the beginning of 1654, 13 embassies from Moscow visited Ukraine.
G. Unkovsky came to the conclusion that in Ukraine “people of all ranks” are in favor of unification with Russia and rely on the hetman in everything, “however his will for such a thing will be, and they will not lag behind him.” The ambassador also drew attention to how the Cossack elite imagined their relationship with Russia in the event of unification: the foremen praised the royal “mercy” to the Don Cossacks and expressed the hope that when Ukraine united with Russia, the same attitude would be towards the Zaporizhian Host.
This information gives grounds to believe that the hetman's elite intended to build relations with Moscow following the example of the Don Cossacks. The Don Cossacks recognized their overlord in the person of the tsar, but they considered serving him as a voluntary matter and on this basis for a long time refused the royal oath. All relations between Moscow and the Don Army were conducted through the Posolsky order, that is, as with a foreign state.
The Russian government understood the great importance of unification with Ukraine, linking this with the return of the Smolensk region and other lands lost by Russia under the Polyanovsky Peace of 1634. However, Moscow feared the inevitable military conflict with the Commonwealth in this case, the previous clashes with which ended unsuccessfully for the Russians as a whole. . According to V.O. Klyuchevsky, “Little Russia was still far beyond the horizon of Moscow politics, and the memory of the Circassians of Lisovsky and Sapieha was still quite fresh”3.

The main reason for the indecision of the tsarist government was the difficult internal situation in Russia in the middle of the 17th century. At this time, the Muscovite kingdom was just beginning to recover from the catastrophic consequences of the 14-year period of civil war and foreign military intervention (1604-1618). During this period, Russia lost, according to some estimates, up to half of the population and was a crippled country whose economy was destroyed. The minimum necessary funds were extracted by the hardest extraordinary methods. In general, the restoration of the country's agricultural production was achieved only in the middle - third quarter of the 17th century.
As a result of the wars, Poland pushed Russia back to the borders of the 15th century, and Sweden pushed it back from the coast. Baltic Sea, and the Russian border moved 100–200 km to the east. The attempt made by the Russian government during the Smolensk War (1632-1634) to return the territories occupied by the Poles ended in failure. Its course was directly affected by the attacks of Ukrainian Cossacks and Crimean Tatars on the southern lands of Russia, which forced Russian command transfer a considerable part of the forces to the southern front. Crimean Tatars even reached the Moscow district.
In general, for the first half of XVII Art. the Tatars took 200 thousand people into captivity. For the ransom of captives in the Russian budget there was even a special expense item of 150 thousand rubles annually. At the same time, huge sums were spent on gifts to the Crimean khans. According to the calculations of the Russian scientist V.V. Kargalov, only in the first half of the XVII century. the treasury spent about a million rubles on them - an amount equal to the cost of building four new cities.
Military failures forced the Moscow government to start updating the armed forces and restoring the system of defensive fortifications. On the eve of the Smolensk War, the second major military reform since the time of Ivan the Terrible began in the country, and immediately after the war, in 1635, the creation of the “Belgorod border line”, stretching for 800 km from Akhtyrka to the Tambov region, began. All these measures required the attraction of large resources and the utmost effort of the forces of the whole country.
Only after solving the most acute domestic political problems was the tsarist government able to move on to solving foreign policy tasks. In 1651, the Zemsky Sobor was convened to discuss the issue of Ukraine. There are no records of his work. And the opinions of the clergy that have come down to us say that no unequivocal decision was made.
The very fact of the preparation and holding of the Zemsky Sobor testified to the emerging changes in the policy of the Russian government towards Ukraine. However, the situation after the council did not become radically different. According to modern Russian researcher L.V. Zaborovsky, “until August 1653 (the failure of the embassy led by B.A. Repnin-Obolensky to the Commonwealth4), when the general line wavered, the Moscow court sought to act more as an intermediary in achieving peace in Ukraine”5.
Requests for citizenship by the hetman of the Zaporizhian Army became more frequent, but Moscow reacted to them with extreme restraint. In January 1652, Bogdan Khmelnitsky sent Colonel Ivan Iskra to Moscow. The hetman asked for help in the war, and in case of defeat, permission to move with the entire army to Russian territory, to Putivl. The Moscow government agreed to the resettlement and even marked the lands along the rivers Khopra and Medveditsa, where the Cossacks could settle.
In April 1653, Ukrainian ambassadors K. Burlyai and S. Muzhilovsky again asked the tsar to unite and provide assistance to military men. At the same time, they pointed out that even for the mediation of the tsarist government in reconciling the Zaporizhian Army with Poland, the hetman's government would be very grateful, since the king with troops was preparing to attack Ukraine.
In fact, only since 1653, under the influence of the aggravation of the situation in Ukraine, political changes were outlined in Moscow: instead of trying to resolve the conflict by diplomatic means, the tsarist government began to directly prepare for a war with Poland.
The course of events was accelerated by information received in Moscow on June 20 from the border governors, about the arrival of a Turkish envoy to B. Khmelnitsky with a proposal to the hetman and the entire Zaporozhye Host to become subjects of Turkey. This not only threatened the international prestige of Russia, but also meant the appearance of borders near Kursk Ottoman Empire which had views of Kazan and Astrakhan. Having learned about this, the tsar already on June 22, 1653 ordered to officially notify B. Khmelnitsky of his consent to accept the Zaporizhzhya Army under his “ high hand»6.
After that, the negotiation process noticeably intensifies, as evidenced by the lively exchange of embassies, with the initiative passing to Moscow. In just two and a half months, three Russian embassies visited Ukraine one after another, which testified to the seriousness of the tsar's intentions.

2. Completion of negotiations on the unification of Ukraine with Russia. Pereyaslav Rada
On May 25, 1653, the Zemsky Sobor opened in Moscow, and the issue of Ukraine was brought up for discussion. Representatives of all the estates that took part in the council expressed a unanimous opinion on the need to accept the Zaporizhian Army into Russia. On this issue, a draft decision of the council was prepared. However, its adoption was postponed until the return of the embassy of Prince B.A. from the Commonwealth. Repnin-Obolensky. The embassy returned to Moscow at the end of September, and on October 1, the Zemsky Sobor approved the decision to admit Ukraine to Russia7.
On October 2, 1653, a royal letter was sent to the embassy headed by R. Streshnev and M. Bredikhin, who was in Ukraine at that time, with an order that they inform B. Khmelnitsky about the decision of the Zemsky Sobor. The letter ended with the words that the hetman and all the Zaporizhzhya Army should rely on the royal mercy "without any thought."
To implement the decision of the Zemsky Sobor, the tsarist government sent a large plenipotentiary embassy to Ukraine, headed by the close boyar Vasily Buturlin. The embassy also included the devious Ivan Alferyev and the Duma clerk Larion Lopukhin. The embassy was accompanied by a large retinue of 40 dignitaries and an honorary escort of 200 archers, led by archery head Artamon Matveev.
Bogdan Khmelnitsky met in Chigirin on December 26 with R. Streshnev and M. Bredikhin. The hetman thanked for the letter dated October 2 and stated that he ordered all the colonels, centurions and yesauls to come to Pereyaslav, where the embassy headed by V.V. Buturlin.
Initially, the ceremony of the unification of Ukraine with Russia was supposed to be held in Kyiv, but B. Khmelnitsky, for a number of reasons, moved it to Pereyaslav. It is possible that this decision was influenced by the anti-Moscow sentiments of the highest Ukrainian Orthodox hierarchs who were in Kyiv. In addition, Kyiv was threatened by a military danger from Lithuania.
Pereyaslav at that time was a large city and an old Cossack regimental center. Located far from the Polish, Lithuanian and Tatar borders, the city was well fortified. Cossack artillery and gunpowder stocks were also located here.
On December 31, the Russian embassy was solemnly greeted far beyond Pereyaslav by Cossacks led by local colonel P. Teterya.
On January 6, 1654, Bogdan Khmelnitsky arrived in Pereyaslav. The next day he met with Russian ambassadors led by Buturlin. They exchanged welcoming speeches, agreed to hold a meeting and an oath. Bohdan Khmelnitsky thanked the Russian government for agreeing to the unification and here he gave the rationale for the unification itself: Little Russia by his mercy.
On the morning of January 8, the foremen's council took place, approving the decision to go "under the sovereign's high hand." Then, on the square in front of the Assumption Cathedral, “people of various ranks” gathered for a general (general) council. At 3 pm, Bogdan Khmelnitsky appeared on the square with a general foreman. As recorded in the report of the Russian embassy, ​​the hetman, standing in the center of the circle, addressed the participants of the council with a short speech, which is reproduced below in full:
“Panov colonels, yasauls, centurions and the entire army of Zaporozhye, and all Orthodox Christians! You all know how God freed us from the hands of enemies who persecute the church of God and embitter all the Christianity of our Eastern Orthodoxy, that for 6 years we have been living without a sovereign in our land in incessant warfare and bloodshed with our persecutors and enemies, who want to uproot the Church of God, so that the Russian name is not mentioned in our land, which has already bothered us all, and we see that we can no longer live without a king. For this purpose, now I have gathered a council, which is manifest to all the people, so that you can choose with us a sovereign from four, whom you want.
The first king is the Turks, who many times, through his ambassadors, called us under his region; the second is the Crimean Khan; the third is the king of Poland, whom, if you like, and now he can still accept us in the same caress; the fourth is the Orthodox Great Russia sovereign tsar and Grand Duke Aleksei Mikhailovich of All Russia, Autocrat of Eastern Russia, whom we have been asking ourselves for 6 years of our unceasing prayers - here whom you want to elect.
The Tsar of Tours is a busurman: we all know how our brethren, Orthodox Christian Greeks, endure misfortune and what is the essence of godless oppression. The Crimean Khan is also a Busurman, whom we accepted out of need and in friendship, what intolerable misfortunes we accepted. What a captivity, what a merciless shedding of Christian blood from the Polish from the lords of oppression - you don’t need to tell anyone. You yourself all know that it is better to honor a Jew and a dog than a Christian, our brother.
And the Orthodox Christian great sovereign, the Tsar of the East, is with us one piety of the Greek law, one confession, one body of the Church with the Orthodoxy of Great Russia, the head of the property of Jesus Christ. That great sovereign, the Christian tsar, taking pity on the unbearable anger of the Orthodox churches in our Little Russia, not despising our six years of unceasing prayers, now, having bowed his merciful royal heart to us, his great neighbors to us with his royal mercy, deign to send, whom there are with let us love with zeal, we will not find the most beneficent refuge to his royal high hands. And there will be someone who does not agree with us now, where the free road wants.
In response to the call of the hetman, as recorded in the article list of the Russian ambassador, “the whole people cried out: we will let the tsar of the East, the Orthodox, die with a strong hand in our pious faith, rather than get the hater of Christ’s trash!”10.

Then Pereyaslav Colonel P. Teterya, going around the circle, asked those present: “Do you all agree to this? All the people said: all with one accord ... God, confirm, God, strengthen, so that Thou art forever and ever be one. Then the hetman said: “Wait tacos”11.
After that, Bogdan Khmelnitsky, together with representatives of the Cossack regiments, went to the Russian ambassadors. Vasily Buturlin solemnly presented the hetman with a royal letter of consent Russian state accept Ukraine. Khmelnitsky and Buturlin exchanged welcoming speeches.
Then the hetman, foremen and Russian ambassadors went to the Cathedral Church of the Assumption, where the clergy were to take the oath. Here Bogdan Khmelnitsky asked the ambassadors to swear on behalf of the king that all estates would retain their rights and liberties. The ambassadors refused to take the oath under the pretext that the autocrat could not swear allegiance to his subjects. After the meeting of the hetman with the foremen, it was decided to swear allegiance, and about their deeds "beat the brow of the great sovereign." V. Buturlin, on behalf of the tsar, assured those present that all the rights and liberties of Ukraine would be confirmed. The hetman, and after him the foremen (clerk, baggage officer, judges, army captains and colonels) publicly took an oath of allegiance to Russia, “what will they be with the lands and cities under the sovereign’s high hand forever unrelenting”12.
After the oath, Vasily Buturlin, on behalf of the Russian government, handed over to Bogdan Khmelnitsky the signs of hetman power - a banner, a mace, a feryaz, a hat, and gifts for the foremen.
On the same day, the hetman reported to Moscow about the decision of the Pereyaslav Rada and asked the tsar "to grant us mercy and great generosity to his sovereign direct and faithful servants and subjects of his favor and mercy"13. It is noteworthy that in the letter the hetman changed the royal title, calling the tsar the autocrat not of "all Russia", but "all Great and Lesser Russia". The redaction of the royal title proposed by B. Khmelnitsky was positively received by the Russian government, and a month later, on February 9, 1654, in a letter announcing the birth of an heir, Alexei Mikhailovich called himself autocrat of all Great and Little Russia14.
The next day, January 9, in the Assumption Cathedral "they brought to faith both centurions and captains and clerks and Cossacks and philistines ..., worthy colonels, and other initial people and Cossacks who radiated in Pereyaslav, and burghers and all sorts of ranks of people"15. In total, 284 members of the Pereyaslav Rada were sworn in these days.
Only after that, on January 10, negotiations began on the conditions for the entry of the Ukrainian hetmanate into the Muscovite kingdom. At the first stage, the hetman and clerk Ivan Vyhovsky participated in them from the Ukrainian side. Initially, the parties discussed the relationship of the Zaporizhian Army with the Polish king and the Crimean Khan, as well as plans for a war with the Commonwealth.
The hetman then announced to the ambassadors that the taxes previously collected for the Polish king would be transferred to the royal treasury. Khmelnytsky asked to confirm the rights to the estates owned by Orthodox monasteries and churches. Buturlin replied that the tsar would confirm these rights. He also reminded the hetman of the request of his ambassador L. Kapusta, who, on behalf of B. Khmelnitsky, raised the issue of sending Moscow governors with warriors to Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. Buturlin said that the army led by the governors F.S. Kurakin and F.F. Volkonsky will arrive soon and he should be provided with everything necessary. The hetman took this message positively and said that the Muscovite army would be met at the border by a Cossack colonel who would lead them to Kyiv. The hetman also asked that by the spring the tsar ordered to send more military men "as many as the sovereign wills", than "more, then better".
On the same day, the second stage of the negotiations took place, in which, in addition to the hetman and the clerk, the Ukrainian side was attended by "and the convoy, and judges, and colonels, and military judges." This time, the Ukrainian side raised a wider range of issues for discussion and put forward a number of wishes. In particular, the hetman raised the question of the need to preserve the foundations of the estate structure in Ukraine and secure special rights for the Cossacks, stating: “in the Zaporizhzhya de army, who in what rank was in this place, and now the sovereign would have granted, ordered to be in order that the gentry was a gentry, and a Cossack was a Cossack, and a tradesman was a tradesman; and the Cossack would have judged the colonels and the centurions”16. The hetman also asked for 60,000 Cossacks. Cossacks do not need to pay salaries, but do not take “washing, and bridgework, and transportation” from them.
The ambassadors declared that all these requests would be granted by the Russian government. In addition, B. Khmelnitsky expressed a wish that the Chigirinsky starostvo be transferred to him (for a mace). I. Vyhovsky also asked to confirm his right to own his estates, and “besides, welcome ... and other estates” and give the Zaporozhian Army a royal seal, because the old seal “is not good, because the royal name is written on that seal” 17.
On January 13, Bogdan Khmelnytsky went to Chyhyryn, and the next day, representatives of the Russian embassy, ​​having received from the hetman a list of 177 cities and towns of the Zaporozhye Host, began to leave to swear in the population. A contemporary of these events, the chronicler Samovydets wrote that the whole people “made it willingly ... all over Ukraine”, and “considerable joy came among the people.”
The oath was covered different estimates, from 40% to the majority of the adult population of the hetmanate, which in terms of its scale was an unprecedented affair not only for Ukraine, but for all of Europe at that time. A total of 127,338 people swore allegiance: 62,949 Cossacks, 62,454 philistines, 188 gentry and 37 monastic servants. In January - March 1654, only men were sworn in - the owners of yards, estates, Cossacks. The peasants, as a feudal dependent population, were not sworn in.
The oath clearly showed the divergence of attitudes of various sections of the Ukrainian people towards the issue of unification with Russia. Most of the Cossacks and townspeople reacted positively to this act. Extremely wary - the foremen's elite and the gentry. The elite of the Ukrainian Orthodox clergy refused to take the oath, fearing a transition from nominal dependence on the Patriarch of Constantinople to real subordination to the Moscow Patriarchate. The second reason, apparently, was that after the Pereyaslav Rada, four dioceses of the Kyiv Metropolis (Belarusian, Lvov, Lutsk and Przemysl) remained in the Commonwealth and only two (Kyiv and Chernihiv) - in the Moscow kingdom.

3. Legal registration of the entry of Ukraine into Russia
For legal registration agreements reached in Pereyaslav on the conditions for the entry of the Zaporizhian Army into the Russian state on February 17, 1654. the Ukrainian embassy (61 people) headed by Judge General S. Bogdanovich-Zarudny and Pereyaslav Colonel P. Teterya left for Moscow.
On March 12, the embassy was solemnly welcomed in Moscow, and the next day he had an audience with the tsar. In addition to gifts, members of the embassy gave the tsar a letter from the hetman. Bohdan Khmelnitsky, on his own behalf, the Zaporizhzhya Army and the entire people of the "Orthodox Russian" raised the issue of confirming the oral promises given in Pereyaslav by V.V. Buturlin on behalf of the tsar during negotiations with the hetman and the foreman. However, the letter contains only a part of the Ukrainian side's proposals. The rest, as indicated in the letter, the ambassadors had to state orally: “The multiplier in the letter is not written: our envoys will tell you everything to the great sovereign”18.
On the same day, negotiations between the Ukrainian delegation and representatives of the tsarist government began in the Ambassadorial Prikaz, during which the embassy leadership verbally stated its wishes, recorded by the Russian side in two editions (of sixteen and twenty articles without a systematic presentation). However, the boyars, after consulting, suggested that the embassy state them in writing: “and ordered the boyar to send their speeches in writing as an envoy”19.
On March 14, 1654, the ambassadors, on behalf of "the hetman and the entire Zaporizhian Army," filed a writing their 23-point proposals. The original of this document, called the "March Articles", or "Articles of Bogdan Khmelnitsky", has not been preserved and has not been published. Back in 1709, Peter I ordered to search for him in the Moscow archives, but he was informed that he was not there. In the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts in Moscow, there is only a translation of the "Articles" with Ukrainian language into Russian under the title "A petition on the points of Bohdan Khmelnitsky for confirmation of their former rights and liberties and for courts and for the rest of the year, and no one has been signed."
The "Articles" consist of a short introduction and 23 paragraphs covering a wide range of topics:
- on the confirmation of all Cossack rights and privileges (clauses 1, 7, 13);
- about the 60,000th Cossack register (clause 2);
- on the rights of the Orthodox nobility (p. 3);
- on payment to the foreman and funds for the maintenance of the troops (clauses 8–12, 21, 23);
- on the free election of the hetman and the transfer to him of the Chigirinsky starostvo (p. 6, 5);
- on the preservation of local administration and the collection of taxes in Ukraine by the tsarist government (p. 4, 15);
- on the non-interference of tsarist officials in the internal affairs of the hetmanate (p. 16);
- on the issuance by the tsarist government of letters of liberties to the Cossacks and the Orthodox gentry, with the granting of the right to the hetman's government to determine who is a "Cossack" and who is a "plowed peasant" (paragraph 17);
- about the Kiev Metropolitan and the confirmation of the rights of the clergy (p. 18, 13);
- about sending Russian troops to Smolensk (p. 19), joint actions against the Crimea (p. 22) and the deployment of tsarist garrisons in Ukraine (p. 20);
- on the right of the hetman's administration (with the knowledge of the tsarist government) to diplomatic relations with foreign states (clause 14).
There is no consensus on this document in the historical literature. Some historians see in the "Articles" a draft treaty between B. Khmelnytsky and the tsar, others - an instruction to the ambassadors, reworked by them into a petition. Indeed, in form the text of the "Articles" strongly resembles the hetman's instruction to the embassy of Philo Garkusha, which was accidentally preserved. In addition, the text lacks elements required for official hetman forms: signature (or subcription), place and date of writing.
These facts, unfortunately, have not yet been adequately reflected in historical research. At the same time, the opinion has taken root in the historical literature that the Articles "were behind the hetman's hand and seal." As for the seal, there are no indications in this regard in the postscript to the text, but it is doubtful that, when addressing the tsar, the hetman used a seal with the name of the Polish king. Moreover, it has actually become the norm that in modern editions"Articles" in their text publishers arbitrarily enter the date and place of writing: 1654, February 17, Chigirin.
At the same time, the only indication of the presence of a signature and a seal is the mention of this by the royal clerks during negotiations with the embassy of P. Teteri in August 1657, who reproached the hetman for not fulfilling the clause of the Articles on paying salaries to the Cossacks from the Ukrainian budget.
The reliability of this information was called into question by M.S. Grushevsky, who suggested that the Moscow government consciously, in order to give the "Articles" more significance, referred "instead of the articles to the letter of the hetman to the tsar, brought by his ambassadors"20, which was indeed executed properly.
Most of the points submitted by the ambassadors of the Zaporizhian Army on March 14 were accepted and confirmed with some changes by the tsar's letters of commendation, and the decision on the issue of salaries to the Cossacks, which was to be paid from taxes collected in Ukraine, was postponed. According to researchers, if a salary of 30 gold coins was established for ordinary Cossacks, with a registered number of 60 thousand, annual payments to the entire army would amount to 1.8-1.9 million gold coins, or more than half of Poland's annual budget, or 8-10% of the budget Russia. The tsar postponed the solution of this issue until the amount of income from Ukraine was clarified, which should have been mainly used to support it itself.
This decision was justified by the fact that the tsar had already spent large amounts of money on the maintenance of the troops to protect Ukraine "from the Latins." In addition, at the negotiations in Pereyaslav, the hetman announced that he would not ask for payment to the army.
The ambassadors immediately responded to this resolution by filing a special petition. In it, they asked “for every Cossack a salary of thirty gold pieces, but when this is not possible, at least something to reduce; however, so that I don’t have anything to turn around before the army”21.
The king ordered that taxes be collected in his favor under the control of his representatives. And already from the treasury, funds were to be allocated for the maintenance of the army, the Cossack administration, foreign policy activities, etc.
On March 17, the ambassadors handed over to the tsarist government whole line documents they brought with them (extracts from city books) as evidence of their rights, the confirmation of which they asked for in Moscow22.
On March 19, Ukrainian ambassadors were invited to a farewell audience with the Tsar. After the audience, another meeting of the ambassadors with the boyars took place, at which some questions were clarified: about the number of judges and gunners in the Zaporozhye Host; about the funds needed to maintain the garrisons in Kodak and Zaporozhye, etc. In addition, the ambassadors were acquainted with the royal resolutions on the "Articles" and with decisions that were not in the resolutions. In particular: 1. On the issuance of salaries to the Cossacks from the funds of the king, until a census of Ukrainian taxes is carried out, from which the army will receive salaries in the future; 2. On the ban on relations between the hetman and the Polish king and the Turkish sultan; 3. About the presence of the royal governors in Kyiv and Chernigov; 4. On the extradition of Russian fugitives to the tsarist government; 5. On the readiness of the Russian troops to defend Ukraine, etc.
Despite the farewell audience on March 19, the Ukrainian embassy remained in Moscow until March 27, awaiting the issuance of royal charters and other acts. On this day, the embassy was handed over a number of documents: the royal charter to Hetman Bohdan Khmelnitsky and the entire Zaporizhzhya Army on the preservation of their rights and liberties; "Articles of Bogdan Khmelnitsky" of 11 points; a royal charter to the Ukrainian Orthodox gentry and four charters to the hetman: for Chigirinskoe (for a mace) and Gadyachskoe elders, confirming his ownership of "patrimonial estates" - Subbotov and Novoselki, as well as Medvedovka, Borki and Kamenka, which made Bogdan Khmelnitsky the richest magnate in Ukraine.
All these acts, together with letters received later (in April-September) confirming the rights of the Zaporizhian Army, to the burghers of Pereyaslav, Kyiv and Chernigov, as well as to the Ukrainian clergy, constitute a set of documents that determined the position of the Zaporizhian Army in the Muscovite kingdom.
Closely adjoining this complex and, perhaps, royal awards to the Ukrainian foreman are part of it. Already on March 27, 1654, on the basis of written requests, royal letters for estates “from the peasants and from all land” were received by the heads of the Ukrainian embassy S. Bogdanovich-Zarudny and P. Teterya. These awards were kept secret, as their owners were afraid of the revenge of their recent associates - ordinary Cossacks.
In August 1657, P. Teterya asked the Moscow government that the tsar in the army “didn’t order to announce what someone was granted from the tsar’s majesty, ... but only de in the army they know that he, the clerk and his comrades, asked themselves from the tsar majesties are such great majesty, and they will all be killed immediately. And he also filed his petition, which indicated that the royal charter issued to him for Smela was "buried in the ground, fearing ruin and deteriorated," and therefore asked for a new charter on the charter.
The legal registration of the decisions of the Zemsky Sobor and the Pereyaslav Rada was carried out taking into account the different legal status of the parties. By that time, the Muscovite kingdom had been acting as an independent state for centuries. The Zaporozhian army was legally part of the Commonwealth and did not represent a legitimate state. In this regard, the entry of the hetmanate into Russia was formalized not in the form of a (bilateral) agreement, but as an act of granting the sovereign to his subjects.
There is no doubt that not only the Moscow boyars, but also the hetman himself understood the difference between a treaty and an award. However, no protest was expressed. Moreover, the Ukrainian side not only did not oppose this form of agreement, but in every possible way initiated and even thanked for these acts. So, in a letter to the tsar dated July 28, 1654, Bogdan Khmelnitsky noted: “... All of Malaya Russia unanimously rejoiced that your royal majesty would now, and henceforth, promise you your sovereign mercy”23.
Of course, the parties understood citizenship in different ways. The Ukrainian side saw it as a protectorate, which did not exclude the possibility of exit, the Russian side saw it as direct citizenship with broad autonomy, but the impossibility of secession, which it interpreted as treason. The form and procedure for formalizing the relationship between the Zaporozhye Host and the Moscow State corresponded to the norms of diplomatic practice of that time and were not something unique in this sense. Similarly, the tsarist government in 1654-1655. a number of agreements were concluded with the Smolensk and Belarusian gentry.
The peculiarity of the Pereyaslav political act was that initially the relevant decisions were made at the Zemsky Sobor on October 1, 1653 and the Pereyaslav Rada on January 8, 1654, then confirmed by an individual oath of the inhabitants of the hetmanate, and then the parties agreed on their relations and formalized them legally in the form set of documents. Moreover, the most important rights of the main estates of the hetmanate - the gentry, the Cossacks, the townspeople and the clergy were issued with special letters of commendation. This circumstance, according to some researchers, calls into question the very fact of bilateral relations between the tsar and the hetman and speaks not so much about the Cossack statehood, but about the existence of agreements between the tsar and the estates of a certain territory.
The main components of the aforementioned set of documents are: "Charter to Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the All Zaporizhzhya Army on the preservation of their rights and liberties"; "Articles of Bogdan Khmelnitsky" of 11 paragraphs with royal resolutions. The content of these acts exhaustively covers the "Pleading Articles" of 23 points. Both documents are a single whole, but the main one, according to M.S. Grushevsky, was originally "Charter of Letters ...", "Articles ..." were an additional act, as its continuation and addition. Later, the "Articles ..." became the main document regulating relations between Ukraine and Russia.
During the life of B. Khmelnitsky, both of these documents were not made public. They were announced only in 1657 at the council, which approved the election of I. Vyhovsky as hetman, and then they were completely lost.
The originals of the "Letter of Letters ..." and "Articles of Bogdan Khmelnitsky" have not been found to this day. The Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts contains only their drafts in Russian. It is possible that the originals, compiled in the form of royal awards, i.e. unilateral acts, were made by Moscow clerks in one copy, intended only for the Ukrainian side, and died or were deliberately destroyed during the Ruin. It is possible that they were taken out by the Hetman of the Right-Bank Ukraine Pavlo Teterya in 1665, together with the Kleinods and the treasury of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, to Poland.
Fifteen years after the Pereyaslav Rada, the Ambassadorial Order turned to Demyan Mnogohrishny, Hetman of the Left-Bank Ukraine, to send to Moscow all agreements between Ukraine and Poland and Russia, starting from 1648. The Hetman sent copies of some documents, but the Articles did not

Summary
From the above facts, the following conclusions can be drawn:
The unification of Ukraine with Russia was voluntary, and the initiative came from the Ukrainian side.
The Zaporizhzhya Army became part of the Russian state on a contractual basis and on the basis of the widest autonomy, retaining its state structure practically unchanged.
It provided for the free election of the hetman, whose power was actually for life. The hetman was given symbols of power: banner, mace, seal. The Hetmanate retained its own armed forces, which increased to 60 thousand Cossacks, local authorities, Administrative division, judicial and financial systems.
Taxes from Ukraine to the Moscow treasury practically did not come and went to their own needs.
In fact, there was no tsarist administration on the territory of the Zaporozhye Host, not counting the governor in Kyiv, who commanded only the Russian garrison.
The restrictions on the independence of the hetmanate were as follows: the tsar was recognized as the supreme sovereign of the country, and the hetman was accountable to Moscow in financial and foreign policy activities (relations with the Polish king and the Turkish sultan were allowed only by decree of the tsar).
The territory of the Zaporozhian Army is not recorded in the documents. An indirect indication of its borders can only be the mention in the 9th paragraph of the final version of the "Articles of Bohdan Khmelnitsky" of the Zboriv Treaty, in which they are outlined very accurately. In addition, the territory of the Hetmanate can be judged by the list of regiments and settlements of the Zaporizhian Army, handed over by B. Khmelnitsky to the Russian embassy for the swearing in of its inhabitants. Judging by this information, the area covered by the jurisdiction of the hetman's administration was approximately 200,000 square meters. km, that is, about a third of the territory of present-day Ukraine (604 thousand sq. km). The formation of the modern territory and the formation of national statehood took more than three hundred years of Ukraine's stay in the Russian state and the USSR.
References:
1 Petrukhintsev N., Smirnov A. Marriage of convenience. Crisis of the 17th century. // Motherland. - 2004. - No. 1. - From 15.
2 Krip'yakevich I.P. Bogdan Khmelnitsky. - K., 1954. - P. 419.
3 Klyuchevsky V.O. Works. - T. 3. - M., 1988. - P. 109.
4 In April 1653, the tsarist government sent an embassy to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, headed by Prince B.A. Repnin-Obolensky, which was supposed to achieve reconciliation between Poland and the Zaporozhian Host on the terms of the Zboriv Treaty and the liquidation of the union. In addition, the embassy was instructed to study internal state Commonwealth. An agreement was not reached, and negotiations were broken off on 7 August. At the same time, the embassy became convinced of Poland's internal weakness.
5 Zaborovsky L.V. Pereyaslav Rada and the Moscow Agreements of 1654: Research Problems // Russia-Ukraine: History of Relationships. – M., 1997. – P.41–42.
6 Cit.: Reunification of Rus'. Collection of documents and materials for teachers and teachers of history. - TO.: Kievan Rus, 2008. - P.40.
7 Ibid. - P.52.
8 Ibid. – P.61.
9 Ibid. – P.62–63.
10 Ibid. - P.63.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid. - P.70.
13 Ibid. - P.114.
14 Ibid. – P.118.
15 Ibid. – P.73–74.
16 Ibid. - P.79.
17 Ibid. - P.82.
18 Ibid. - P.133.
19 Ibid. - P.140.
20 Grushevsky M. Pereyaslavskaya umova of Ukraine from Moscow // Pereyaslavskaya Rada of 1654. - K., 2003. - P.13.
21 Ibid. - P.151.
22 In total, the ambassadors handed over 10 documents to the boyars: 1. Privileges of King Jan Casimir to the Zaporozhian Army, given near Zborov on August 18, 1649; 2. Articles of the Zborovsky treaty of January 12, 1650; 3. Royal privileges to the Cossacks on the Trakhtemirovsky monastery of January 12, 1650; 4. Royal confirmation of the Zborowski privilege of January 12, 1650; 5. Royal privileges on the grant of Chigirin to the hetman's mace of January 12, 1650; 6. Royal charter granted to B. Khmelnitsky for Medvedovka, Zhabotin and Kamenka with forests dated March 27, 1649; 7. Royal charter granted to Bogdan Khmelnitsky for the settlement of Novoselki dated January 12, 1650; 8. Letter of grant from King Vladislav IV to the centurion of the gentry Bogdan Khmelnitsky for the settlement of Saturdays dated July 22, 1646; 9. Royal charter granted to Bogdan Khmelnitsky for the steppe beyond Chigirin dated May 14, 1652; 10. Royal privileges to Bogdan Khmelnitsky, confirming the charter on Saturdays of August 15, 1650.
23 Acts related to the history of the South and Western Russia. - T. 10. - St. Petersburg, 1878. - S. 721-722.

The autumn of 1653 came. The sixth year of the liberation war of the Ukrainian people led by Bogdan Khmelnytsky was drawing to a close. During this time, the Cossack army won a number of outstanding victories: on May 6, 1648, the Polish avant-garde under the command of Stefan Potocki was utterly defeated at Zhovti Vody; 10 days later, on May 16, the main Polish forces were defeated near Korsun, while the Cossacks captured huge trophies and captured both crown hetmans - Nikolai Potocki and Martin Kalinovsky; in September 1648, near Pilyavtsy, in Volyn, the same fate befell the numerous Polish army under the command of Zaslavsky, Konetspolsky and Ostrorog.

But not only victories accompanied the Ukrainian people in the struggle against the rule of the Polish feudal lords. Bogdan Khmelnitsky's ally, the Crimean Khan, betrayed the Cossacks more than once. In August 1649, in the battle of Zborov, at the most critical moment for the Poles, he went over to their side and thus wrested victory from the hands of the Cossacks. He acted in the same insidious way in June 1651 near Berestechko: he not only fled from the battlefield with the entire horde, but also forcibly took Khmelnitsky with him. Because of this, the Cossacks suffered a heavy defeat. The Tatar khans, in addition, mercilessly plundered Ukraine and took the population into captivity in masses.

Polish feudal lords inflicted terrible disasters on the Ukrainian people: they burned entire cities and villages, and tortured and killed the population. The devastation of the country led to economic ruin and famine.

Gentry Poland was a strong state. It disposed of large funds and enjoyed the support of Western European states. Under such conditions, it was possible to get rid of its yoke only with the help of Russia, under the protection of which various sections of Ukrainian society had long sought to protect. Ukraine was connected with the Russian people by the historical past, the closeness of culture, the unity of faith and the common tasks of fighting against aggressive neighbors: Pan Poland, Turkey and the Crimean Khanate.

Already on June 8, 1648, immediately after the first victories, Bogdan Khmelnitsky sent a letter to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. “Zychili (wanted) byhmo sobi,” wrote the Ukrainian hetman, “an autocrat of such a ruler in his land as your royal greatness.” Khmelnitsky also asked the king for military assistance. Six months later, Khmelnitsky sent his ambassador to Moscow, Colonel Muzhilovsky, who repeated the content of this letter. However, the tsarist government for almost six years refrained from taking Ukraine under its rule and the inevitable war with Poland. There were many reasons for this.

From the first days of the liberation war in Ukraine, mass testimony began: the peasants declared themselves Cossacks - free from serfdom, killed or expelled landowners and introduced Cossack orders - they elected atamans, judges, clerks and decided all public affairs at rural gatherings (radas). At the same time, armed detachments were created, pouring into the main Cossack army. Information about this constantly came to Moscow. Diplomat Kunakov, who visited Ukraine, reported, for example, to the government: “And many people, self-willed and plowed peasants, gathered in regiments to Bohdan Khmelnitsky, beating their lords in their estates (estates).” Kunakov advised to protect the borders of the Russian state from Ukrainian rebels more tightly.

But the flight of their peasants to the Ukraine to participate in the liberation war was even more frightening for the Russian feudal lords. Moreover, such fugitives often dealt with their landowners beforehand. In June 1648, a formidable outbreak broke out in Moscow itself. popular uprising which then spread to other cities. Having suppressed the uprising, the tsarist government convened a Zemsky Sobor, at which the Code of 1649 was adopted, which finally enserfed the peasants (see the article “Moscow uprising of 1648”). It is clear that the Moscow boyars and nobles were wary of providing direct assistance to the liberation war of the Ukrainian people.

In addition, Russia was not ready for a war with Poland and experienced great financial difficulties. Finally, the Russian government feared a blow from Sweden in the event of a war with Poland. Sweden, which seized from Russia (at the beginning of the 17th century) access to the Baltic Sea, tried to secure it for itself and took a hostile and waiting position.

Nevertheless, the Russian government established diplomatic relations with the Ukrainian hetman and began to provide assistance to Ukraine. Was allowed duty-free export to Ukraine of food and other goods, including weapons - guns. The Russian government did not prevent the participation of the Don Cossacks in the war of liberation, in a number of cases it allowed Ukrainian troops to be transferred across Russian territory, and concentrated its troops on the Polish border in order to alleviate the situation of the Ukrainian Cossack troops in this way. The Russian government accepted Ukrainian peasants and Cossacks who fled from their homeland from the revenge of the Polish feudal lords. The fugitives received land, assistance to set up a household and settled as free people, most often Cossacks. During the war of liberation, these settlers formed a whole region, called the Sloboda Ukraine (the main part of it is the modern Kharkov region). Such a policy consolidated the sympathy of the Ukrainian people for Russia.

Seal of the Zaporozhian army.

By the summer of 1653, gentry Poland, despite previous heavy defeats, had gathered huge forces. It hoped to crush the liberation movement in the Ukraine and restore the brutal national-religious oppression and serfdom there. King Jan Casimir, at the head of a 60,000-strong army, went through Lvov to Kamenets-Podolsky and near it, near Zhvanets, became a camp. The Commonwealth (gentry militia) went to the aid of the king. At the same time, Hetman Radziwill was ordered to invade Ukraine from Lithuania, take Kyiv and go to Zhvanets to unite. At the end of September, a Ukrainian army led by Bogdan Khmelnitsky and his ally, the Crimean Khan with a horde, approached Zhvanets. A decisive battle was ahead.

At that moment, on October 1, 1653, the Zemsky Sobor in Moscow made a historic decision: to declare war on Poland and “to take Hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the entire Zaporizhzhya Army with their cities and lands under ... the sovereign’s high hand.” Immediately after that, the great ambassadors were sent to Ukraine: the boyar V. Buturlin, the roundabout I. Alferyev and the clerk L. Lopukhin.

Military operations began near Zhvanets. The Tatars surrounded the royal camp. Khan was already preparing for a decisive blow to the Polish camp, as near Zhvanets they learned about the decision of the Zemskogr Sobor. The situation has changed dramatically. The Khan and the King, both enemies of Russia, made peace (December 15, 1653). However, they have so far refused to take active steps against Ukraine, since powerful Russia already stood behind it.

Hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky.

Meanwhile, the Russian embassy was already approaching Pereyaslav. It brought the hetman a royal charter, as well as signs of hetman dignity: a banner, a mace, a feryaz and a hat. On December 31, five miles from Pereyaslav, the embassy was solemnly met by a local colonel, with whom, as an eyewitness recorded, there were "centuries and atamans and Cossacks with six hundred people or more, with banners and trumpets, and timpani." The Cossacks lined up at the entrance to the city greeted the ambassadors with rifle shots. The entire population of the city came out to meet the embassy. Church bells were rung.

January 8, 1654 came. At about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, drumming and the sounds of timpani were heard, calling the people to the city square. When “a great multitude of all sorts of ranks of people” gathered, a colo (circle) was formed. Despite wartime, representatives of almost all Ukrainian regiments, cities and residents of the surrounding area arrived in Pereyaslav. Many, unable to fit in the square, stood on the roofs of houses.

Forever with Moscow, forever with the Russian people. Painting by M. Khmelko.

Under the bunchuk, surrounded by a foreman, the hetman appeared. Stopping in the middle of the circle, Bohdan Khmelnitsky addressed the audience with a speech. He recalled the suffering of the Ukrainian people under the yoke of the gentry of Poland and the need to become under the power and protection of a strong power. Such a power, Khmelnitsky stressed, can only be Russia. The words of the hetman were covered with a roar of approval: "Let us command a strong hand under the tsar of the East, the Orthodox...". Two colonels, going around the ranks, asked if everyone agreed to this. The answer was: "All with one accord."

As the Ukrainian chronicler S. Velichko noted later in his chronicle, the Cossacks also welcomed the reunification.

From Pereyaslav royal ambassador V. Buturlin sent the stewards, lawyers and nobles who were with him to all regiments (districts), cities and towns of Ukraine to bring the population to the oath. The Ukrainian people were filled with the hope that reunification would bring them peace and prosperity. The masses of the people - peasants, Cossacks, townspeople - hoped that as part of Russia they would retain freedom from serfdom and various oppressions, obtained at the cost of heavy sacrifices during the war. These hopes were supported by the fact that in Russia there were vast areas - Don, Yaik and others, which did not yet know serfdom and enjoyed self-government. As for the Cossack elders, the gentry, the landowners, they hoped to restore with the help of tsarism the serfdom that had shaken during the war and strengthen their position. ruling class.

The position of Ukraine within the Russian state was formalized by the so-called "Articles of Bogdan Khmelnitsky". They were submitted to the tsar by the hetman in March 1654 and approved, with some changes, by special letters. These charters preserved the electivity of the hetman and the military, administrative and judicial structure that had developed in Ukraine during the liberation war. The military force of Ukraine was 60,000 Cossack troops. The hetman, head of the army and administration, had the right to receive and dismiss ambassadors from all states, except for Poland and Turkey. Thus, Ukraine received political autonomy. The position of the ruling class was assigned to the Cossack elders and the Ukrainian gentry. The tsarist government began to strictly protect his privileges: the right to own estates and exploit the peasants.

The reunification of Ukraine with Russia was of great historical significance. Unlike Poland, where feudal anarchy reigned, where large feudal lords not only fought with each other, but often took up arms against the king, Russia was a state with a strong central government.

Accession to Russia saved Ukraine from feudal wars that ruined the population and undermined economic life countries. At the same time, the restrictions and harassment that Ukrainian citizens were subjected to under Polish rule were abolished. All this created more favorable conditions for the economic development of the country.

Recognition of autonomy for Ukraine contributed to its political and cultural development. For the cultural development of Ukraine, the influence of progressive Russian culture was of great importance. The reunification of Ukraine with Russia united the forces of both peoples to protect the country from dangerous enemies - the Crimean Khanate and Sultan's Turkey. By reuniting with Russia, the Ukrainian people have preserved themselves as a nation. He was no longer in danger of being swallowed up by gentry Poland and Sultan's Turkey. At the same time, he found in the person of the Russian people a powerful friend and ally in the struggle against the autocracy, the landlords, and the capitalists.

Pereyaslav Rada became a deliverance from the imminent danger of mass ethnocide of the Little Russians by the Poles. Reunification preserved the Orthodox faith, which at that time was under the special threat of being drawn into the Unia or outright destruction.

Pereyaslav Council. Reflections and conclusions on the eve of the 360th anniversary

Clarifying concepts

Then the anniversary of the Pereyaslav Rada was officially celebrated, according to the Decree of the President of Ukraine No. 238 of 13.03.2002. At the same time, as part of the implementation of this Decree, such significant events were held in our country as the International Scientific and Theoretical Conference “Pereyaslav Rada of 1654: Historical Significance and Political Consequences” (Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky, February 3, 2004) and the anniversary meeting of the Council of the Peoples of Belarus , Russia, Ukraine (Zaporozhye, 17-19.05.2004). A number of major scientific and educational projects have also been implemented. First of all, this is the publication of the fundamental collection “Pereyaslav Rada of 1654 to the Roku (historiography and research)” (Kiev, “Smoloskyp”, 2003, 890 pages), as well as the reprinting of the monograph by N. M. Kostomarov “Bogdan Khmelnitsky” and the collection “Country of Cossacks” , which includes "Description of Ukraine" by Guillaume Levasseur de Beauplan and "Chronicle of the Seeker" by Samuil Velichko (Kyiv, "Rainbow", 2004). The first collection contains the arguments of those Ukrainian and foreign thinkers who, on the whole, negatively evaluate the Rada in Pereyaslav and its consequences; the other, contemporaries of the events of the National Liberation War of 1648-54.

This time our President is not the same, and the date is not round. Yes, and the attention of society is focused on a completely different topic of the day. So much the better: knowing the total amount of arguments for and against the fateful decision taken by the Cossack foreman on January 8, 1654, one can assess the meaning, consequences and current lessons of the Pereyaslav Rada without emotion and bias. At the same time, adequate terminology should be used, avoiding such dubious maxims as “the reunification of Ukraine with Russia” (Ukraine as a subject of international law arose only in 1917) or “the reunification of Little Rus' and Great Russia” (the western regions of Little Russia - Galicia, Volyn and Podolia - remained under foreign occupation after January 8, 1654). From the point of view of historical truth, we are talking about Moscow’s consent to take under its protection not all of Little Rus', but only the Liberty Lands of the Zaporizhzhya Grassroots Army and the three Little Russian voivodeships of the Commonwealth, within which, according to the Zboriv Treaty, an autonomous hetman administration and regimental territorial structure were introduced .

Moscow is the only hope

The reason why the rebel Cossacks sought support and salvation in Moscow is well known. This is an unbearable national, religious and economic oppression that the indigenous people of Little Rus' (South-Western) were subjected to in the Polish-Lithuanian colonial empire. Here everyone agrees with each other without exception. domestic historians and publicists. Suffice it to say that at the end of the 16th century, powerful peasant-Cossack uprisings led by Kryshtof Kosinsky (1591-93) and Severin Nalivaiko (1594-96) swept through Little Rus'. In Kyiv, Lvov, Drohobych, Lutsk and other Russian cities, Orthodox brotherhoods launched their activities, which, to the best of their ability, opposed the Uniate and Roman Catholic expansion. In the 30s of the XVII century, the armed struggle against the Polish invaders flared up with new force. Let us recall a series of uprisings led by Taras Fedorovich (1630), Ivan Sulima (1635), Pavel Pavlyuk (1637).

The apogee of the national liberation movement in Little Russia was the nationwide Cossack-peasant war of 1648-54, led by Bogdan-Zinovy ​​Khmelnitsky. Already in his first letter to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich dated June 8, 1648, the hetman was extremely frank: “They would have snatched the autocrat of such a ruler into their lands, like your royal greatness, the Orthodox Chrestian Tsar” (“History of the Ukrainian SSR”, K., ed. in the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, 1953, vol. 1, p. 226). And again: “And we, with the whole Zaporozky army, are ready to serve your royal majesty” (ibid.).

At the same time, it is important to note that among the initiators of entering "under the high royal hand" he was far from the first. In 1620, Hetman Pyotr Konashevich-Sagaydachny - the same one whose troops in 1613 and 1618 were the main striking force of the Polish interventionists against Russia - turned to Sovereign Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov with a petition in which he stated that the Zaporizhian Army wanted to serve the autocrat of all Rus'. In a letter of reply, the tsar praised the hetman for his good intentions. And he even sent a salary of 300 rubles to the Cossacks - an exorbitant amount at that time. However, realistically assessing the balance of power between Moscow, which had barely emerged from the period of bloody Troubles, and the Commonwealth, one of the superpowers of Europe at that time, the tsar diplomatically refused Sahaidachny. After 4 years, the Kyiv Metropolitan Job Boretsky sent a petition to Mikhail Fedorovich for the acceptance of the entire Little Russian people into Russian citizenship, which he also followed polite refusal. In 1630, the head of the Orthodox Church in Southwestern Rus' repeated his request - and again with the same result.

Meanwhile, without giving Warsaw a reason to resume the war, Moscow actively helped fellow believers and half-brothers, as they would now say, in the humanitarian field. For example, the Orthodox eparchies of Little Rus' regularly received financial resources from Belokamennaya, and the Cossacks and peasants who participated in the uprisings against the Polish crown found refuge and a new homeland within the Russian state. Moreover, when a long drought struck Little Russia in the summer of 1648, which led to crop failure, only the permission of the tsarist government to export grain, salt and other products duty-free from the Moscow state to the Russian regions of the Commonwealth saved the local population from starvation. And on January 21, 1650, at the height of the uprising led by Khmelnitsky, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich issued a special letter, according to which goods from Little Russia were exempted from state duty in Russian border cities.

Moreover, in the interests of the rebels, Moscow violated the terms of the Polyanovsky (1634) peace treaty with the Commonwealth, as a result of which the Polish ambassadors put forward quite reasonable claims to the Russian government that it was helping Khmelnitsky "with many salaries, and cannon, and grain reserves" ("History Ukrainian SSR". K., publishing house of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, 1953, vol. 1, p. 228). These are the indisputable facts, which the falsifiers of history cannot undo, no matter how resounding titles they hide behind.

“There is not the slightest doubt that Bogdan Khmelnytsky, in his confrontation with the Polish gentry, from the very beginning counted primarily on the help of Russia,” states a world-famous historian, director of the Institute of Archeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, academician Pyotr Tolochko (“Before whom and what is the fault of the Pereyaslav Rada?”, “Voice of Ukraine”, 3.08.2002). In fact, already at the end of 1648, the hetman sent an embassy to the Mother See, headed by Colonel Siluan Muzhilovsky, who was instructed to ask Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich to provide military assistance to the rebels, as well as to accept the Zaporizhian Army into Russian citizenship. A year later, Old Man Khmel once again sets out his request to the Russian monarch: “And we, as the first ones, still wish that Your Royal Majesty, our lowest servants and subjects, would become our Sovereign.” However, to meet the hetman halfway meant automatically breaking the already fragile peace with Poland. Therefore, this time Khmelnitsky did not achieve his goal.

To force Moscow to necessary solution, the hetman went to a diplomatic trick, pretending that out of hopelessness he was ready to recognize the power of the Turkish Sultan Mehmed IV over himself (treaties of 1650 and 1653). This had an effect, and already on March 14 (24) March 1653, the Boyar Duma, headed by the tsar himself, finally decided to accept the Hetman's Power "under the high Sovereign's hand" - but only on condition that the Commonwealth did not stop oppressing its own Russian Orthodox subjects. The embassy of Prince Boris Repnin-Obolensky and boyar Boris Khitrovo, who arrived in Lvov the same year, informed King Jan Kazimir and the Sejm about this. The ambassadors, among other things, demanded that the king and the senators grant autonomy to the Zaporizhia Host on the terms of the Zboriv Treaty. In response, Repnin and Khitrovo heard that they would soon have no one to stand up for, since in the autumn the king would exterminate all the Cossacks in Rus'.

REFERENCE. The Zborov Treaty of August 10, 1649 was signed by Bogdan Khmelnitsky and King Jan Kazimierz in the camp of Polish troops after a successful battle for the Cossacks near the town of Zborov (08/4-5/1649). According to the treaty, the Kiev Polissya, part of Novgorod-Severshchina, Podolia and Volhynia remained under the full authority of the Commonwealth. The sovereignty of the Zaporozhye Host extended to the Kiev, Bratslav, Chernihiv voivodeships. The roster of the troops increased to 40 thousand people. Crown troops did not have the right to appear on the territory of the Troops, and all government posts were to be held only by Orthodox people. All rebels received a full amnesty. Jesuits were forbidden to live on the territory of the Army. The Kyiv Metropolitan was given a seat in the Senate. Chigirin became the hetman's capital. Thus, by signing the Treaty of Zboriv, ​​Poland de facto recognized the Cossack state "Zaporozhian Army", which in later Ukrainian historiography was called "Hetmanate".

After that, the Russian diplomatic mission immediately left for Moscow, and in August the huge Polish army "destroyed" against the rebels. Khmelnytsky came out to meet the enemy, at the same time equipping the embassy of Gerasim Yatskovich, then Lavrin Kapusta with letters addressed to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and Patriarch Nikon, which set out the current situation and the ninth request to accept the Hetmanate under the sovereignty of Moscow. This time the Russian government did not hesitate. As soon as Repnin and Khitrovo returned to the capital at the end of September, the Zemsky Sobor was immediately convened, which on October 1 (11) October 1653 unanimously decided "to accept Hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the entire Zaporizhian Army with cities and villages as subjects" . Three weeks later, on October 23 (November 2, O.S.), in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin - the main temple of Russia at that time - the Sovereign personally announced the war with Poland "for his friends" in a solemn atmosphere. At the same time (October 9), in order for the people to take the oath of allegiance to the Russian Tsar, an honorary embassy was sent to the Hetmanate, headed by the close boyar Vasily Buturlin, the devious Ivan Alferyev and the Duma clerk Larion Lopukhin.

In Pereyaslav and around

In order to retroactively belittle the significance of the fateful event of 01/08/1654, and at the same time cast a shadow on the great hetman, the opportunists from history focus on the fact that Khmelnitsky convened a "clear Rada" not in Kyiv - "the mother of the Russian city", not in his own capital Chigirin, and in the regimental city of Pereyaslav. Thus, they say, the leader transparently hinted: the January Rada is "a completely ordinary, passing event, the meaning of which should not be exaggerated." Before us is a typical example of how cheesy, vile people try to attribute their own meanness to others.

In fact, the choice fell on Pereyaslav because it was a large trading city capable of providing Rada members with housing and food. In addition, he was far from the theater of operations. The city was defended by a powerful fortress and a professionally trained garrison. All this ensured the safety and success of the most important political event, which, of course, was the oath of the Cossack elders and elected from the cities and villages of the Hetmanate to loyalty to the Russian autocrat. This circumstance is obvious not only for the authors of the “History of the Ukrainian SSR” (pp. 256-257), but also for modern Ukrainian authors who want to maintain objectivity (Yury Chizhenok. “Draw about the Cossack hours in Ukraine”. Zaporizhzhia, TOV “LIPS” LTD , 2005, p.173).

But back to 355 years ago. The Little Russian population met Vasily Buturlin’s embassy traveling to Pereyaslav and the archery detachment of 200 people accompanying him under the command of the archer’s head Artamon Matveev with bell ringing, rifle and cannon salutes, processions, solemn services in churches for the prosperity of Rus' the Great and the health of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. According to the hospitable Russian custom, the ambassadors were handed bread and salt everywhere, strove to feed and drink until they dropped. In short, it was a triumph of national unity.

On the morning of January 8, Bohdan Khmelnytsky convened the Starshinskaya Rada, the authorized participants of which unanimously voted in favor of taking the oath of allegiance to the Moscow Tsar. After that, at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, to the sounds of the timpani, on the central square in front of the Assumption Cathedral, a “clear to everyone” (i.e., unlike the confidential foremen’s, open universal people’s) Rada gathered, where representatives of the Little Russian Orthodox gentry, Cossacks, philistines and peasants were present . A large circle formed, in the center of which stood the hetman with the general foreman and the Russian embassy. Stepping forward, Bogdan Mikhailovich delivered his famous speech, known to us in the retelling of the then chroniclers (Acts of South-Western Russia, vol. 10, pp. 217-227). At the same time, it is important to note that the hetman gave the participants of the Rada freedom of choice, outlining unenviable alternatives to the entry of Little Rus' into the citizenship of the "Orthodox Great Russia of the Tsar Sovereign." “And if someone does not agree with us, now the free road wants to go where,” Khmelnitsky summed up his speech.

According to the chronicler, “the people cried out to these words: we will, under the tsar of the east, the Orthodox, with a strong hand in our pious faith die, rather than get a hater of Christ’s filth!” Then Pereyaslavsky Colonel Pavel Teterya, walking in a circle, asked the audience: “Do you all agree to this?” They answered: "All with one accord!" Then the hetman said: “Be taco! May the Lord our God strengthen under his royal strong hand. The people “cryed out” to this: “God confirm, God strengthen, so that we may all be one forever!” After that, the general clerk of the Zaporizhzhya Army, Ivan Vygovskoy, stated that “the Cossacks and philistines all bowed to the sovereign’s high hand.”

Unable to refute the nationwide rejoicing at the entry of the Hetman's power into a military-political alliance with the Romanov monarchy, the enemies of all-Russian national unity pass over in silence facts that are inconvenient for them. At the same time, the falsifiers interpret a number of circumstances very wrongly, hoping to zombify the unprepared public with their persistent talk.

Among these circumstances is the fact that Vasily Vasilyevich Buturlin refused to return the oath on behalf of the “autocrat of all Russia” of allegiance to the Zaporozhye Host. Say, thus the boyar plunged the Cossacks - these "bearers of European democratic traditions" - into a real shock, and even nearly disrupted a responsible event. Allegedly “dissatisfied and offended by the refusal of V. Buturlin, B. Khmelnytsky proudly left the cathedral, threatening to annul the agreement altogether,” claims (of course, without reference to sources) a certain “teacher of the Department of Ukrainian Studies of ZSU” (newspaper “Zaporozka Sich”, 12.05. 1994). “Negotiations almost reached a dead end,” state, for their part, the anonymous authors of the Analytical Assessments “Pereyaslav’s Pleasure of 1654 Rock: Historical Lessons for the Ukrainian People”, published by the National Institute for Strategic Studies (K., State Enterprise “Drukarnya DUS”, 2004, p.14). “Nevertheless, the Cossack foreman, led by the hetman, decided not to break off relations that were so hard to establish (? - Author), and relied on the “word” of the king transmitted by Buturlin, that he confirms all the agreements.” What other “negotiations” are there on the 8th? On that day - only a formal legitimization of earlier decisions.

Actually, this is what happened. According to Kostomarov ("Bogdan Khmelnitsky", pp. 473-474), after return speech Buturlin “the hetman got into the carriage with the ambassadors and went to the cathedral church to take the oath to the new Sovereign. The elders followed him. On the porch of the cathedral stood Gregory (the Pereyaslav archpriest - author) with all the Pereyaslav clergy and clergy of all churches; next to him stood the Moscow ecclesiastics, who had come with ambassadors; of these, the chief was Archimandrite Prokhor of the Transfiguration Monastery. On the lectern, in the middle of the temple, lay a bureaucratic book sent by the king. The Moscow ecclesiastics wanted to begin the rite of oath, but the hetman stopped them and said: “You should first swear on behalf of His Royal Majesty that His Majesty the Great Sovereign will not violate our rights, will grant us letters and certificates for our rights and property and will not extradite us to the Polish the king."

“We will never swear an oath for our Sovereign,” the ambassadors answered, “yes, it’s obscene for a hetman to talk about it: subjects must give faith to their sovereign, who will not leave them with a salary, will defend them from enemies, will not deprive your rights and estates.”

“We will talk about this with the colonels and with all the people,” the hetman answered and left the church. After some time, two colonels entered the church: Teterya from Pereyaslav and Lesnitsky-Sakhnovich from Mirgorod. They demanded an oath. “This is an unprecedented thing,” the ambassadors objected, “some subjects swear allegiance to the Sovereign, and it is indecent for the Sovereign to swear allegiance to subjects.” “However, the Polish kings always swore allegiance to us,” the colonels said. “Polish kings are unfaithful and not autocrats: they do not keep their oath, and the sovereign’s word does not change,” the ambassadors answered. “The hetman and we, the entire foreman,” the Cossacks said, “we believe this, but the simple Cossacks do not believe and seek without fail an oath for the Sovereign.” “His Royal Majesty,” the ambassadors objected, “for the sake of the Christian Orthodox faith and the holy churches of God, deigned to accept you under his high hand according to your petition, and you should remember the mercy of the Great Sovereign, you should serve him and want every good thing, bring the Zaporizhian Army to faith and keep ignorant people away from obscene speeches.

The colonels went to the hetman, and soon Khmelnytsky and the foremen arrived at the church and, on the Gospel, swore eternal allegiance to the tsar on behalf of all of Ukraine within the boundaries in which it was established under the Zboriv Treaty.

If you think about it, the above fragment does not give the slightest reason for speculation and gloating. Khmelnytsky could not have done otherwise, if only because in the Letters of Alexei Mikhailovich dated June 22 and September 6, 1653, announcing the tsar's readiness to accept the hetman and the Zaporozhian Host into his citizenship, there is not a word that the autocrat undertakes to recognize all previous rights and the freedoms of the people of Little Russia, which he achieved from the Polish royalty at the cost of many years of armed struggle, innumerable victims and human losses. This, of course, is a serious shortcoming of the officials of the Ambassadorial Order, who prepared the drafts of the royal Letters to Khmelnitsky.

Here one can also suspect a flaw in the foreign policy department of the Zaporizhian Army. If not a conscious provocation on the part of the general clerk Ivan Vyhovsky, in the future - the first in a series of hetman-perjurers (this version is indirectly supported by the fact that the "lists" of Khmelnitsky prepared by Vyhovsky's department for Alexei Mikhailovich were signed as expected, i.e. approximately like this: “Your Royal Majesty is prepared in everything and the lowest servants and footstool” (“sheet” from Chigirin dated March 23, 1653). the difference in the relationship between the subjects of an absolute monarch and the subjects of an elected “krul” (essentially, the lifelong president of the magnate-gentry oligarchic parliamentary republic, which the Commonwealth was de facto). incompatibility”, allegedly inherent in “Ukrainians and Muscovites” back in the 17th century.

In fact, as we see, there was a purely technical problem, although, perhaps, with some far-reaching political overtones, clear only to Vygovsky and a narrow circle of his associates. After all, the Cossacks swore allegiance to the tsar even before the Great Russian ambassadors “gave an oath promise on behalf of the monarch that the Sovereign would keep all of Little Russia with the entire Zaporizhzhya Host under his protection, with the inviolable preservation of all its ancient rights, and protect the troops, and help the treasury from any enemy attacks” (op. cit., p. 474).

Thus, to the mutual satisfaction of both parties, the misunderstanding was quickly cleared up. Immediately, a rite of affirmation of Khmelnitsky in his hetman dignity took place, as a token of which Buturlin presented him with gifts from Alexei Mikhailovich: a banner, a mace, a feryaz (boyar outerwear - author) and a hetman's hat. Then the ambassadors presented the military and regimental foremen, as well as ordinary Cossacks who arrived at the Rada. In addition to them, on the same day, the inhabitants of Pereyaslav swore allegiance.

As for the rest of the regiments, cities and villages of the Hetmanate, the ambassadors sent Moscow stewards and solicitors there to swear them in, and they themselves chose three most important cities for themselves - Kyiv, Nizhyn and Chernigov. This procedure took two months. Summary data from the Notebooks on the swearing in of the liberated territories of Little Russia is contained in the Posolsky Prikaz fund (Moscow, TsGADA).

Who was against and why

Nevertheless, to assert that "under the high Sovereign's hand" they wanted everything at once, would mean to sin against the truth. “In Ukraine, far from everywhere they agreed to swear allegiance to the Moscow Tsar,” the authors of the Analytical Assessments of the National Institute for Strategic Studies (“Pereyaslav’s Pleasure of 1654: Historical Lessons for the Ukrainian People”, K., 2004, p.14-15) state with pleasure. There are known facts of armed uprisings that took place in Kyiv, in the Kiev region, in the Poltava, Kropivyansky, Uman and Bratslav regiments. N. I. Kostomarov, for his part, argues that the idea of ​​a protectorate of Moscow over the Hetman State was not accepted by such heroes of the War of Liberation of 1648-1654 and Bogdan’s associates as the Vinnitsa colonel Ivan Bohun, who “renounced the oath with all the Bug region”, and the future ataman of the Zaporizhzhya Sich, Ivan Sirko, who took away “to Zaporozhye” a gang of those dissatisfied with the Pereyaslav choice (decree cit., p. 487). At the same time, the Russian historian refers to the Polish chronicle (in particular, to Historia panowania Jana Kazimierza), the factual reliability of which in this case, in my opinion, raises doubts.

Indeed, what should have been the motives for Bohun and Sirko's opposition to the uncontested choice made by their comrades-in-arms, led by the hetman? According to Kostomarov, “Bogun was afraid of Moscow” (is this fearless Bohun? - ed.). Not a word about the motives of the "Urus-Shaitan" Sirko. Moreover, all further actions of these two glorious chieftains refute the version of their supposedly “principled Moscow phobia”. Already in the early spring of 1654, the Cossacks of Ivan Bohun gave the Poles a noble beating near Uman. “Khmelnitsky informed about the act of Bohun Alexei Mikhailovich, who sent praise to the Vinnitsa colonel for constancy, firmness and steadfastness, and instructed Khmelnitsky to take him to the oath,” writes the author of the monograph. However, “whether Bohun swore allegiance to the Sovereign is unknown” (decree cit., p. 488).

As for Ivan Sirko, he, together with Bohun, opposed hetman Vyhovsky when he signed the Gadyach Treaty, and did not support the right-bank hetman Pavel Teterya (1663), when he proposed to Jan II Casimir a joint campaign on the Left Bank in order to restore the power of Poland and there. On the contrary, as soon as the Poles invaded the Left Bank, Ivan Dmitrievich began to beat the invaders in their rear, in Bratslav and Uman. In the same 1663, only a little earlier, the ataman led the campaign of the Cossacks and Russian dragoons of the governor Grigory Kosachov to Perekop. And although the relationship of the legendary Cossack leader with the tsarist government was really difficult, and sometimes dramatic (disgrace, arrest and a year-long exile to Tobolsk in 1672), it should still be recognized that unequivocally writing him down as opponents of an alliance with Great Russia is, to put it mildly speaking, an unsubstantiated exaggeration.

Who really didn’t fully accept the very idea of ​​\u200b\u200bPereyaslav was the Kyiv Metropolitan Sylvester Kosov, and with him Archimandrite of the Holy Dormition Monastery (Pechersk Lavra) Joseph Tryzna and a considerable part of the capital’s clergy. Despite the fact that on January 14 he was forced to take a personal part in the solemn meeting of the Great Russian embassy, ​​and also to utter the appropriate welcoming speech, serve a prayer service in St. Sophia Cathedral and sing many years to the royal family, the Primate of the South Russian Church tried in every possible way to evade the oath. The clergy did not take the oath that day either. In addition, it did not allow the gentry, clerks and yard people who served under the Metropolitan and other clergy, monastic servants and laity from church estates, to take the oath, as a result of which on the 18th Vladyka Sylvester had an extremely unpleasant conversation with the Duma clerk Lopukhin. In view of the threat of running into royal disgrace and the hetman’s wrath, His Eminence had to give in, and the very next day “the gentry, servants, courtyards, Cossacks and petty bourgeois, who lived behind the metropolitan and the Archimandrite of the Caves, were sworn in” (decree cit., p. .475-476). The only question is how sincere and voluntary she was.

And the metropolitan’s March trick became completely scandalous, during which he dared to threaten the royal governors, Prince Fyodor Kurakin and Prince Volkonsky, sent with the task of building a fortress on a mountain near Hagia Sophia. “If you build against my will, I will fight you!” - he threw in the face of the dumbfounded nobles. And then, turning in the heat of the argument to Polish language, the usually restrained and cautious Sylvester shouted: “Pocheka, pokayte! You will be finished soon!" “We see from you, Metropolitan, bad and treason,” the governors answered him, about which they reported to the Kyiv appointed colonel Pavel Yanenko, and then to the Mother See.

At the same time, the haters of Russia in every way hush up the fact that the unheard-of impudence of S. Kosov got away with it. “Moscow considered that for the time being, for the time being, it was necessary to a certain extent to condescend to the unaccustomedness of the new royal subjects to their position, and sent a royal decree to the governors of Kyiv to announce to the metropolitan so that he would not be upset ...” (decree cit., p. .489). Moreover, with his separate Letter of Complaint, Alexei Mikhailovich soon confirmed the right of ownership of the Metropolitan and all other clergy of the Hetmanate to "their possession." This is about the alleged “initially totalitarian, tyrannical nature of the Muscovite state, inherited from the Mongol empire of Genghisides”, which other Ukrainian “scientists”, politicians and publicists love to rant about (see, for example, “Analytical assessments ...”, p.12).

What, however, is the reason for such a sharp opposition of the clergy of the South Russian Church to the same faith and consanguineous Great Rus'? According to Kostomarov, “it looked at the Moscow Russians as a rude people, and even about the identity of their faith with the Moscow faith, they had misunderstandings and doubts. They even got the idea that they were ordered to cross themselves ... Detractors even spread rumors that Muscovites would force Little Russians to adopt Moscow customs, forbid them to wear boots and lace shoes, and order them to wear bast shoes ... It is necessary to take into account the fact that spiritual, the most educated class in Ukraine, from an early age they were brought up on the Polish model, they got used to Polish concepts and the Western way of thinking” (op. cit., p. 476).

In other words, the hierarchs of the Kyiv Metropolis were a typical product of the ethnic degeneration of a subject people under the pressure of a dominant nation. Previously, the process of ethnic chimerization turned many former Russian Orthodox princes and gentry into fanatical Poles and Catholics, clearest example why - the bloody executioner and sadist Jeremiah Vishnevetsky. Moreover, the speed of the chimeric rebirth is the replacement of one generation by a new one (only 34 years have passed from the petition of Metropolitan Job Boretsky to accept Little Rus' into the citizenship of the Russian Tsar to the refusal of Sylvester Kosov from this citizenship). We seem to be witnessing the final stage of this process today.

As for the desire of the hierarchs of the Kyiv Metropolis to remain in canonical unity with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, such unity continued for another half century. This desire is also understandable. On the one hand, the Ecumenical Patriarch was already in fact a hostage of the Ottoman invaders, and therefore, as an administrator, he was very limited in his abilities. As a result, the Kievan Metropolis was de facto an independent Church, which, of course, suited its episcopate and clergy quite well. The only center of power on which it really depended was the General Chancellery of the Zaporizhian Army (the Hetman's government). Such dependence played into the hands of Khmelnitsky himself, who, of course, hardly wanted the total subordination of his state to another, even if union state. It is from here that Bogdan intercedes for the metropolitan to the tsar as for “a man of holy life, who suffered much for his devotion to the Orthodox Eastern Church” (decree cit., p. 490). At the same time, it is curious to note that at the end of 1649, the hetman himself warned this “man of a holy life” that “you, Father Metropolitan, will be in the Dnieper” (“History of the Ukrainian SSR”, p. 245), if you behave incorrectly at the upcoming Sejm in Warsaw...

Conclusions are clear

Another favorite topic around which the enemies of all-Russian national unity like to dance is the so-called. "Pereyaslav Treaty". In fact, no one was going to sign any agreements on January 8. On March 21, 1654, the tsar and the Boyar Duma approved the so-called “Articles of Bohdan Khmelnitsky” (they are also “March” or “Moscow”), which determined the status of the Hetman state within the Russian state. And although out of the 23 “Pleading articles on the rights of the entire Little Russian people” submitted to Alexei Mikhailovich by Hetman ambassadors Pavel Teterei and Judge General Samoil Bogdanovich (Bogdanov)-Zarudny on March 13, the Sovereign and the boyars approved only 11, most of them fundamentally important for Zaporizhian Cossacks moments. The main one is that the Hetman state became part of the Russian state as an autonomy with very broad rights, while the register of the Troops increased to 60 thousand people. But that’s not all: “And even if there were more of that number, and the Sovereign de would not have a loss in that, because they will not ask the Sovereign for a salary.”

REFERENCE. In addition to the new register, the March Articles established that: 1) officials in Little Russian cities should be appointed only from among local natives; 2) the Little Russian administration and the court are not subordinate to the Great Russian; 3) the hetman and foreman are elected at the Rada, while the tsar is postfactum informed of the results of the vote; 4) the hetman has the right to maintain diplomatic relations with all foreign states, except for Poland and Turkey; 5) the tsar confirms the former, including the property rights of all estates of Little Russia, and in addition, the right of large cities to self-government (the so-called “Magdeburg law”). For its part, the hetman's administration undertook to send to the sovereign's treasury the taxes collected on its territory ( this item never carried out with the tacit consent of Moscow); the tsar received the right to place his garrison in Kyiv, and also assumed the obligation to start a war against the Commonwealth (“Country of Cossacks”, pp. 184-186). At the same time, the provisions of the March Articles were additionally confirmed by the Diploma of Aleksey Mikhailovich Bogdan Khmelnitsky dated March 27 of the same year (ibid., pp. 188-189).

Summing up all the above, we can safely say: the period from January 8, 1654 to July 27, 1657 (the day of the death of the great hetman) is highest point the heyday and power of the proto-Ukrainian Cossack state "Zaporozhian Host". Never before or since has it enjoyed such broad sovereignty and included such a vast territory on both banks of the Dnieper as in these three and a half years. Even the Gadyachsky agreement of September 16, 1658, between Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky and Poland, according to which the Hetmanate was to become part of the federal Commonwealth under the name "Grand Duchy of Russia", did not greatly expand the degree of freedom of the Country of the Cossacks compared to the March Articles. In addition, as it turned out, the Seim did not even think of approving the Gadyach Treaty - at least in that part of it, in which it was about the autonomy of the Russian principality, about its equality with the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Being under the protectorate of Moscow, the Hetmanate not only did not lose its natural individuality, formed over more than 300 years of Little Rus' being part of Lithuania, and then the Polish-Lithuanian Union, but also continued to communicate with Belokamennaya through the Posolsky Prikaz (then Russian Foreign Ministry) . Moreover, the serf system was abolished in the state of Khmel’s father, and if the following hetmans continued the work of his life, it is possible that soon the Zaporizhzhya Army would not only become the most economically developed part of Europe, but would also be able to include Galicia, Bukovina, Transcarpathia, Volhynia, Podlasie and Kholmshchina, thus completing the process of collecting the original Russian Lands. The blame for the fact that in history, alas, a completely different scenario of the development of events has been implemented, lies entirely with the son of Khmelnytsky Yuriy, with Vyhovsky, Teter, Ivan Bryukhovetsky and Petr Doroshenko - the fighting comrades-in-arms of the Great Bogdan, who, having taken the hetman's mace in their hands, spawned only a bloody Ruin. Part of the blame lies with tsarist government, which in September 1656, in a form offensive to the Cossacks, removed their representatives from participation in the Vilna negotiations with Poland, which directly concerned the interests and fate of the Hetmanate. Moreover, this humiliating "not letting" the hetman's ambassadors to such an important diplomatic meeting served as a pretext for the further growth of anti-Moscow sentiments in Little Rus'.

But the main lesson of Pereyaslav is that two Russian states with different social systems - autocratic and republican - were able, complementing and strengthening each other, to coexist under the rule of one monarch. A similar relationship scheme was later applied in the British Commonwealth, where the mother country and the dominions have a common king or queen. In any case, the Pereyaslav precedent should be taken into account when building relations between Ukraine and Russian Federation. Especially if one day Kyiv and Moscow consider that it is time to make these relations allied again.

And this is what is completely unbearable for the current adherents of Ukraine's entry into NATO and the European Union: in a thank-you sheet to Moscow, written by him on January 8, 1654 in Pereyaslav, Khmelnitsky for the first time calls Alexei Mikhailovich "autocrat of all Great and Lesser Russia." And only after that “leaf” did the Moscow Tsar begin to title himself in exactly the same way (Charter to the townspeople of Pereyaslav dated March 4, 1654, “Country of Cossacks”, p. 183). Thus, Bogdan should rightfully be considered one of the creators of that grandiose national-powerful project, the triumph of which was the Russian Empire, hated by some to this day.

Podsaul Sergey Grigoriev,
head of the press service of the Cossack Army of the Zaporizhzhya Grassroots,
Member of the Board of the Union of Russian Writers and Journalists of Ukraine

Zaporozhye. city ​​portal

The Pereyaslav Rada is a meeting of representatives of the Ukrainian people headed by Bohdan Khmelnytsky, who decided to join Ukraine to Russia. It took place on January 18 (January 8 according to the old style), 1654 in the city of Pereyaslavl (today Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky).

Ukrainian lands in the first half of the 17th century were part of Poland, Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Russia. Largest part Ukraine - from the Carpathians to Poltava and from Chernigov to Kamenetz-Podolsk - remained under the rule of Poland. The struggle of the Ukrainian people against the power of the Polish gentry in 1648-1654 turned into a real war, led by Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky.

During this period, the hetman's government maintained diplomatic relations and entered into military-political alliances with many states - the Crimean Khanate, Turkey, the Muscovite State, Moldova, etc. At the same time, Ukraine not only experienced administrative and religious oppression from Poland, but was which was formally considered an ally of Ukraine.

By the end of the sixth year of this war, as a result of continuous battles with Polish troops and treacherous raids by the Crimean Tatars, entire regions of Ukraine were devastated. Constant betrayals of the Crimean Khanate, unreliability on the part of other allies pushed the hetman to maintain close contacts with Moscow, which was interested in growing influence on Ukraine. Bogdan Khmelnitsky several times appealed to the Russian sovereign Alexei Mikhailovich with a request to accept the Zaporizhzhya Army into Russian citizenship.

In the autumn of 1653, the Zemsky Sobor, held in Moscow, decided to include the Left-Bank Territories of the Dnieper into the Moscow state. On October 9 (19), 1653, a large embassy headed by the boyar Buturlin set off from Moscow to conduct the negotiation process. December 31, 1653 (January 10, 1654) the embassy arrived in Pereyaslavl. Bogdan Khmelnitsky, together with the foremen, arrived on January 6 (16), 1654.

The Ukrainian hetman convened a Rada on January 18 (January 8 according to the old style), 1654, which differed from the usual senior or military councils in that it was declared "explicit to all the people", that is, open. It was attended by Cossacks, peasants, artisans, urban poor, merchants, Cossack elders, representatives of the Orthodox clergy and small Ukrainian gentry who arrived from everywhere.

Opening the Rada, Khmelnytsky addressed the assembled people with a speech in which he recalled the wars and bloodshed that devastated Ukrainian land for six years. Hetman further described the extremely difficult situation of those peoples who were under the Turkish yoke, spoke bitterly about the suffering inflicted on the Ukrainian people by the Tatar raids. He also reminded the audience of the suffering that the Ukrainian people endured under the rule of the Polish enslavers.

At the end of his speech, Khmelnytsky said that Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich sent an embassy to the Ukrainian people and called for unity with the fraternal Russian people. Representatives of the Ukrainian people met this call of the hetman with exclamations: "May we all be one forever!" In February 1654, an embassy of representatives of the highest Cossack officers was sent to Moscow to negotiate the conditions for Ukraine's entry into the Russian state. The results of the negotiations found expression in the so-called Articles of Bohdan Khmelnitsky and letters of commendation from the Russian government.

After the Pereyaslav Rada, representatives of the Moscow embassy visited 177 cities and villages of Ukraine to take the oath of allegiance to the tsar from the population. According to them, 127,328 males took the oath (women and peasants were not sworn in). A number of representatives of the Cossack elders, Bratslav, Kropivyansky, Poltava, Umansky Cossack regiments, some cities refused to take the oath

The conclusion of the Pereyaslav Treaty immediately put Russia in front of a war with the Commonwealth. The Russian-Polish war continued until 1667, when the Andrusovo truce was concluded, according to which Poland abandoned Smolensk and Chernigov and recognized Russian possession over the left-bank Ukraine. Kyiv was transferred to Russia only for two years, but Russia was able to keep it, which was secured by the treaty of 1686 ("Eternal Peace").

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

Plan
Introduction
1 Historical background
2 Decision of the Zemsky Sobor
3 Preparation of the Pereyaslav Rada
4 General Military Council in Pereyaslav
5 Consequences of the Pereyaslav Rada

Bibliography
Pereyaslav Rada

Introduction

Ancient history of Ukraine

Pereyaslav Rada - a meeting of representatives of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks, headed by Bogdan Khmelnitsky, held in January 1654 in Pereyaslav.

1. Historical background

The Russian Orthodox population living in the Commonwealth was subjected to national and religious oppression by Catholic Poles. Protest against oppression resulted in occasional uprisings. Under these conditions, Russia looked like a natural ally of the rebels. For the first time, the hetman of the registered Cossacks, Kryshtof Kosinsky, who led the uprising against the Polish gentry in 1591-1593, turned to Russia for help. Later, after the refusal of Sigismund III to satisfy the demands for an increase in the register, the embassy of Hetman Petro Sahaydachny, headed by Peter Odinets, asked to accept the Zaporizhzhya Host into Russian citizenship.

In 1622, Bishop Isaiah Kopinsky proposed to the Russian government to accept the Orthodox population of Ukraine into Russian citizenship.
In 1624, Metropolitan Job Boretsky asked for the same.

In 1648, a major uprising broke out under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnitsky. The rebels consisted mainly of Cossacks, as well as of the townspeople and peasants. A number of victories over the Polish army allowed them to conclude the Zborowski peace treaty with Warsaw, which granted autonomy to the Cossacks.

Soon, however, the war resumed, this time unsuccessfully for the rebels, who suffered a heavy defeat near Berestechko in June 1651. In 1653, Khmelnytsky, seeing the impossibility of winning the uprising, turned to Russia with a request to accept the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks into its composition.

In the autumn of 1653, the Zemsky Sobor, which was held in Moscow, decided to accept the Zaporizhzhya Cossack Host as a citizen of the Russian Tsar, and on October 23 (November 2), 1653, the Russian government declared war on the Commonwealth.

2. The decision of the Zemsky Sobor

The decision of the Zemsky Sobor in 1653

<…>And about the hetman about Bogdan Khmelnitsky and about the entire Zaporizhzhya Host, the boyars and duma people sentenced that the great sovereign, the tsar and the great prince Alexei Mikhailovich of all Russia, deigned that hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the entire Zaporizhzhya Host with their cities and lands to take under his sovereign high hand for Orthodox Christian faiths and the holy churches of God, because the lords of the Commonwealth and the whole Commonwealth rebelled against the Orthodox Christian faith and the holy churches of God and want to eradicate them, and for the fact that they, Hetman Bohdan Khmelnitsky and the entire Zaporizhian Army, sent to the great sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich beat the weight of Russia with his forehead many times, so that he, the great sovereign, uproot the Orthodox Christian faiths and ruin the holy churches of God by their persecutor and perjurer, and had mercy on them, ordered them to be accepted under his sovereign high hand. But if the sovereign does not grant them, he will not be accepted under his sovereign high hand, and the great sovereign for the Orthodox Christian faith and the holy churches of God interceded in them, ordered them to reconcile through his great ambassadors, so that that world would be reliable for them.

And according to the sovereign’s decree, and according to their petition, the sovereign’s great ambassadors in response to the pan council said that the king and pans of the council would calm the civil strife, and reconcile with the Cherkasy, and the Orthodox Christian faith would not be persecuted, and the churches of God would not be taken away, and captivity would not be in what they didn’t repair, but taught the world according to the Zboriv Treaty.

And the great sovereign, his royal majesty for the Orthodox Christian faith, Jan Casimer, will commit such an act to the king: those people who, in his sovereign name in registrations, showed up, those of their guilt orders them to give. And Jan Kazimer, the king and the pans of the Rada, and that matter was put into nothing and in the world with Cherkasy they refused. Yes, and therefore to accept them: in the oath of Jan Casimer to the king it is written that he, in the Christian faith, will protect and protect, and by no measures for faith himself should be oppressed, and no one should be allowed to do so. And if he does not keep his oath, and he makes his subjects free from all loyalty and obedience.

And he, Jan Casimer, did not take his oath, and he rose up against the Orthodox Christian faith of the Greek law, and ruined many churches of God, and inflicted a union on others. And so that they would not be released into citizenship of the Turkish Saltan or the Crimean Khan, because now they have become the royal oath of free people.

And for this, they were sentenced for everything: Hetman Bohdan Khmelnitsky and the entire Zaporizhian Army with cities and lands to accept ...

Russian legislation of the X-XX centuries: in 9 volumes.
T.3. Acts Zemsky Sobors. M., Legal Literature, 1985.

3. Preparation of the Pereyaslav Rada

On October 9 (19), 1653, a large embassy headed by the boyar V. Buturlin was sent to Pereyaslavshchina from Moscow to conduct the negotiation process between the Russian state and the rebellious Cossacks. The Moscow embassy also included the roundabout I. Alferyev, the clerk L. Lopukhin and representatives of the clergy.

The city of Pereyaslav was chosen as the venue for the general military council, where the embassy arrived on December 31, 1653 (January 10, 1654). B. Khmelnitsky, together with the general foreman, arrived on January 6 (16), 1654.

4. General Military Council in Pereyaslav

On January 8 (18), 1654, the senior council of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks was held in Pereyaslav, and over time - the general military council. Representatives of Kyiv, Chernigov, Bratslav and 5 other Cossack regiments and residents of Pereyaslav took part in it. There were no representatives from the townspeople (except Pereyaslav) and the clergy.

And at the second hour of the same day, “a great multitude of all sorts of ranks of people gathered, made a lengthy circle about the hetman and about the colonels, and then the hetman himself went out under the bunchuk, and with him the judges and yasauls, the clerk and all the colonels. And the hetman stood in the middle of the circle, and the military yasaul ordered everyone to be silent. Then, when everyone was silent. The hetman began to speak to all the people:

Pans colonels, captains, centurions and all the Zaporizhzhya Army and all Orthodox Christians! You all know how God freed us from the hands of enemies who are persecuting the Church of God and embittering all Christianity of our Eastern Orthodoxy. That for six years we have been living without a sovereign in our land in incessant warfare and bloodshed, persecutors and enemies of ours, who want to uproot the Church of God, so that the Russian name is not remembered in our land. What has already bothered us all, and we see that it is impossible for us to live without a king. For this purpose, now I have gathered a Rada, which is manifest to all the people, so that you and I will choose a sovereign from four, whom you want. The first king is the Turks, who many times, through his ambassadors, called us under his region; the second is the Crimean Khan; the third is the king of Poland, who, if he pleases himself, can now accept us in his former caress; the fourth is the Orthodox Sovereign of Great Russia, Tsar and Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich, autocrat of all Eastern Russia, whom we have been asking ourselves for six years with our unceasing prayers. Choose which one you want! The Tsar of Tours is a busurman: you all know how our brethren, Orthodox Christians, Greeks endure misfortune and what is the essence of oppression from the godless. The Crimean Khan is also an infidel, whom we, out of need and in friendship, accepted, what intolerable misfortunes we accepted. What a captivity, what a merciless shedding of Christian blood from the Polish pans of oppression - you don’t need to tell anyone, better a Jew and a dog than a Christian, our brother, they revered. And the Orthodox Christian great sovereign, the Tsar of the East, is with us the same piety of the Greek law, the same confession, we are one body of the Church with the Orthodoxy of Great Russia, the head of the property of Jesus Christ. That great sovereign, the Christian king, taking pity on the unbearable anger of the Orthodox Church in our Little Russia, not despising our six years of unceasing prayers, now bending his merciful royal heart to us, his great neighbors to us with his royal mercy, deign to send, whom there are with let us love with diligence, except for the royal high hand, we will not find the most benevolent haven. And there will be someone who does not agree with us now, where he wants - a wave road.

Reunification of Ukraine with Russia. Documents and materials in three volumes. T. 3, M., 1954. S. 373.

To these words, all the people cried out: “Let us free under the Tsar of the East, the Orthodox, with a strong hand in our pious faith to die, rather than a hater of Christ, get the trash!” Then the colonel of Pereyaslavskaya Teterya, walking in a circle, asked us on all sides: “Do you all agree like that?” All the people shouted: "All with one accord." Then the hetman said: “Be tacos! May the Lord our God strengthen under his royal strong hand! And the people on him, all unanimously, cried out: “God, confirm! God strengthen! So that we may all be one forever!”

After the hetman read the royal charter, the foreman and the ambassadors went to the Assumption Cathedral, where the clergy were to swear them in. B. Khmelnitsky expressed the wish that the ambassadors would be the first to take the oath on behalf of the tsar. However, V. Buturlin refused to take the oath on behalf of the tsar, saying that the tsar does not swear allegiance to his subjects.

After that, the Cossacks took the oath. In total, on the day of the Pereyaslav Rada, 284 people took the oath. On behalf of the king, the hetman was presented with a letter and signs of hetman power: a banner, a mace and a hat.

After Buturlin's departure, the Cossack sergeant-major and the hetman set about working out the conditions on which they would like to become allies of Muscovite Rus'. In the form of a petition (“petition”), a list of 11 points (March Articles) was written to the tsar, which was brought to Moscow in March 1654 by Pavel Teterya and military judge Samoilo Bogdanovich and his comrades. In Moscow, the ambassadors announced additional items. As a result, an agreement was considered, including 23 articles.