Bohdan Khmelnytsky - commander, hetman of the Zaporizhzhya Army, statesman and political figure. He headed the national liberation movement, the result of which was the accession to the Russian state of the Zaporizhzhya Sich and the Left-Bank Ukraine.
The figure of Hetman Bogdan Khmelnytsky is rather contradictory. Some see him as a hero, others as a traitor to Ukraine. Who is right and who is wrong is for historians to judge. But we must remember that back in the days of the USSR, four military orders were established, among which was Bogdan Khmelnitsky. In independent Ukraine, there is also an order named after him. Many pictures have been taken about him, musical works have been created, dozens of monuments have been erected throughout the country. His portrait adorns a banknote of five hryvnias, one of the regional cities bears his name. And, nevertheless, his family disappeared without a trace back in the 17th century, along with the grave of the hetman himself, which was never found.
Childhood[]
Historians managed to find out that Bogdan Khmelnytsky was born on December 27, 1595 (January 6, 1596 according to the new calendar) in the village of Subotovo. The parents of the future hetman belonged to a noble family. Father – Mikhail Khmelnytsky, was a Chigirinsky elder, mother – Cossack Agafya, although according to another version her father was a nobleman Bogdan Ruzhinsky.
At first, the boy was sent to study at the Kiev fraternal school. This became known from the cursive writings of Bogdan himself. After graduating from this school, Khmelnytsky entered the Jesuit College in Lviv. The main attention was paid to the study of Polish, Latin, rhetoric and composition. Firmness of spirit and inflexibility of character helped him not to submit to new trends, and to remain Orthodox.
Many years later, the hetman will say that the Jesuits could not touch the hidden strings of his soul. Khmelnytsky admits that loyalty to the Orthodox faith was not easy for him.
Serving the king[]
With the beginning of the Polish-Turkish war in 1620, the biography of Bogdan Khmelnytsky also changed. He went to war. In the battle of Tsetsora, his father was killed, and the hetman himself was captured. He had to endure slavery for two whole years, but he did not sit idle. He mastered the Turkish and Tatar languages perfectly, and relatives were collecting ransom at that time. Returning home, Khmelnytsky continued his service in the registered Cossacks.
A little time passed, and Bogdan became a participant in sea trips to Turkish cities. In 1629, the hetman and his troops captured the outskirts of Constantinople. Immediately after a successful campaign, he returned to Chigirin, where he received a new position – centurion Chigirinsky.
After Vladislav IV appeared on the Polish throne, a war broke out between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Moscow state. Bogdan led his army to Smolensk, where he took a direct part in the siege of this city. In 1635, the hetman helped the Polish king escape from captivity, and for this he was awarded a prestigious award – a golden saber.
Since then, he has won the respect of the royal court. When the Polish king decided to get involved in a war with the Ottoman Empire, Khmelnytsky was the first to be privy to his plans. The ruler trusted him so much that he initiated him into his plans. Bogdan, in turn, tried to protect the common people, told Vladislav IV about how the Cossacks were humiliated.
Little reliable information about the military actions of those years has reached our days, so we often have to operate with ambiguous information. There is an opinion that Bogdan Khmelnytsky took part in the war between France and Spain, that he was at the head of a two-thousandth detachment of soldiers and laid siege to the Dunkirk fortress. According to Ambassador de Brezhi, Khmelnytsky had an incredible generalship talent.
However, there is another opinion expressed by historians Vladimir Golobutsky and Zbigniew Wujcik, who believe that Polish mercenaries led by Colonels Przyemski, de Siro and Cabre participated in the siege of Dunkirk. Each side disputes its point of view, and the disputes have been going on for a very long time. According to historical documents, it is clear that negotiations with the French were conducted in the direct presence of the hetman, but whether he participated in the siege, no one knows for sure.
The Polish king decided to fight with the Ottoman Empire, however, he turned for support not to the Sejm, but to the Cossack elders, in particular to Khmelnytsky. It was they who were supposed to launch a military campaign against Turkey. Bogdan was presented with a royal charter restoring the rights of the Cossacks. Now they enjoyed the same privileges as before.
The Sejm received information about the ongoing negotiations with the Cossacks, and all members of the Polish parliament expressed their negative attitude to this agreement. The king was forced to abandon his idea. However, Cossack foreman Barabash managed to keep the certificate issued to the Cossacks. Some time later, Khmelnytsky tricked him out of this document. One version says that the letter was forged by Bogdan Mykhailovych himself.
Wars[]
Khmelnytsky was a participant in many military battles, but became a legendary figure after the National Liberation War. The uprising was provoked by the forcible seizure of land, despotism on the part of Polish magnates.
The official version says that on January 24, 1648, Bogdan Mykhailovych was recognized as a hetman in Sochi. Khmelnytsky became the head of a small army that dealt with the Polish garrison. This victory added confidence to the Cossacks, the ranks of his troops were replenished almost daily by recruits.
Those who had just joined the army were offered to take so-called preparatory courses. The newcomers studied military tactics, fencing, shooting, and hand-to-hand combat. Bogdan only regretted that he did not have cavalry, but this problem was solved thanks to the assistance of the Crimean Khan.
The Cossacks found out about the uprising very soon, so Polish nobles under the leadership of Nikolai Potocki's son acted against Khmelnytsky and his troops. The first battle happened near the Yellow Waters, and the Poles lost the battle. However, this was not the end of the war.
Then it was Korsun's turn. The Poles were the first to get there, who rushed to rob the treasury and kill the local population. At a distance of several kilometers from the city, Khmelnytsky organized an ambush. This was the beginning of the Battle of Korsun. The number of Polish troops was 12,000 people, but they failed to defeat the Cossack-Tatar army.
As a result of the national liberation war in Ukraine, the struggle against Jews and Poles began. However, it soon became clear that Khmelnytsky no longer controls the rebellious masses, and has no influence on the Cossacks.
The death of the Polish King Vladislav IV showed that it was simply pointless to continue fighting. Khmelnytsky decided to ask for help and patronage from the Russian tsar. He conducted endless negotiations, not only with Poles and Russians, but also with the Swedes, but he did not achieve the desired result.
The second stage of hostilities began in May 1649. Polish troops were the first to violate previously concluded agreements. Khmelnytsky has always been distinguished by the ability to strategically calculate all actions, so soon the Polish military found themselves surrounded. At the same time, the army of Cossacks made endless raids on them. The authorities agreed to the signing of the Zborovsky Peace.
1650 was the year of the beginning of the third stage of hostilities. The Cossacks gradually lost their former power, and began to suffer the first fiasco. I had to go to the conclusion of the Belotserkovsky Peace with the Poles, although this agreement absolutely contradicted the previously signed Zborovsky peace. Despite the existing agreement, in 1652 the Cossacks start the war again, although they had no chance of winning. Khmelnytsky realized that the war was almost lost, and that he could not get out of it on his own. Therefore, he decides to settle with the Russian state. It was he who led the Cossacks to swear an oath to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.
Death[]
The hetman's health was shaken in 1657. At that time, he was just solving an incredibly difficult problem with whom to conclude an alliance, with the Russians or the Swedes. Khmelnytsky felt that his days were numbered, so he decided to transfer power to his successor. He gathered the Rada in Chigirin and named his sixteen-year-old son Yuri as his successor.
For a long time historians did not know when Bogdan Khmelnytsky died. It should have been a long time before it turned out that the hetman died on August 6, 1657. The cause of death was a brain hemorrhage (stroke).
The resting place of the famous Ukrainian hetman was the village of Subbotovo. He himself asked his entourage about this on the eve of his death. He was buried in the Ilyinsky Church, which the hetman himself built, next to his son Timosh. However, now the exact location of the remains of Khmelnytsky is unknown. Seven years after the hetman's burial, in 1664, by order of the Pole Stefan Charnetsky, the village was burned, the ashes of the father and son of Khmelnytsky were dug up and thrown out of the grave for abuse.
The name of Bogdan Khmelnytsky is well known to Ukrainians, Russians, Belarusians. They are named not only cities and district centers, but also squares, streets and avenues. His memory is preserved in numerous artistic and documentary projects.