CHAPTER 8 THE BELORUSSIAN COSSACK REGIMENT, 1655-1659
Now we have to move outside the strict ethnic boundaries of Ukraine and get acquainted with its dependencies. In the first place we have to deal with the time of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, which was a period of upswing in Ukrainian political emancipation.
At first we have to look to the north of the Ukrainian lands, i. e. toward Belo- russia (or White-Ruthenia). We have in mind the Belorussian Cossack Regiment. In Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s time the situation of the Belorussian people differed from that in Ukraine. This people had preserved their old statehood in the form of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, where they constituted most of its population. After 1569, when a personal union with Poland was replaced by a real union, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania still continued to exist as a full-fledged state.This advantage of Belorussia over Ukraine was lessened by a rapid Polonization of her upper classes. Official acts and correspondence more and more often were written in Polish. The conditions that helped to create a new form of socio-political organization in the free steppes of Ukraine did not exist here. Life in the old villages and towns of Belorussia passed according to the old customs and traditions of the forefathers. In some respects that protected the Belorussian people from the tragedy, tears and sorrow associated with fierce and violent struggles? On the other hand, there were no prospects for a national popular uprising.
This situation changed in the time of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. In this period the Grand Duchy of Lithuania fought against Ukraine on the side of Poland. But large groups of the Belorussian population sympathized with the Ukrainian struggle for independence. Documentary sources show us that Ivan Vyhovsky, the Secretary-General and later the Hetman of Ukraine, who was married to a Belorussian woman, had maintained constant contacts with these Belorussian groups.
After the beginning of the joint war of Russia and Ukraine against Poland in 1654, when Belorussia became the theatre of military operations, the anti-Polish groups started their action. They were led by Constantine Paklonski, a nobleman from Mogilev (Mo- hiliou) district, who joined the Russo-Ukrainian coalition. He started to organize the ’’Belorussian Cossack Regiment” in Mogilev district under the Russian occupation. This regiment was organized according to the pattern of Ukrainian Cossack regiments. But its composition was different. There was no hereditary class of the Cossacks in Belorussia. Consequently we find in the Regiment members of other social groups — the nobility, townspeople and peasantry. Mogilev on the Dnieper River and Lupolovo, a suburb of this city, became the centre of this organization. The documentary materials of that time show us that Constantine Paklonski, who accepted the position of the Colonel of the Belorussian Cossack Regiment, sought to establish, along with the Ukrainian Cossack state, a Belorussian Cossack state allied with and protected by Russia. This was difficult, as a large part of eastern Belorussia was occupied by Ukrainian forces, commanded by Colonel Ivan Zolotarenko. Paklonski could not control this part. And in his own Mogilev district he was hindered in his quest for power by Russian statesmen who were not inclined to permit the creation of a Belorussian Cossack state, even if it was to be dependent on Russia. They preferred to incorporate the conquered and occupied territory outright into Russia. That is why the Russian Government always considered the Belorussian Cossack Regiment not to be a state-type organization but an auxilliary military detachment of Belorussian volunteers.
A clash between these two different conceptions was unavoidable. At first is showed in Paklonskfs protests against commanders of Russian military units who acted as the masters of Belorussia. It became clear later that the conflict could be resolved only by force.
For such a solution the several thousand Belorussian Cossacks — most of whom had no previous military experience and who were based on an area partly occupied by the Russian armed forces — were not sufficiently strong. As a result in 1655 Paklonski and a large part of his Cossacks went over to the armed forces of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.But the problem of a Belorussian Cossack state did not fade away. Some Belorussian Cossacks did not follow Paklonski. They remained in their region and decided to continue their struggle. Now they turned their eyes toward Ukraine, expecting to attain their goal in alliance with the Ukrainian Cossack state. The Ukrainian Government gave its support to their plans. In May 1655 these Belorussian Cossacks joined the Ukrainian armed forces and the Belorussian Cossack Regiment was revived. The city of Chausy (in the presentday Mogilev Province of the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic) became its centre. The Belorussian Cossack Regiment was led by Ivan Nechai, a Ukrainian officer and the brother of Daniel Nechai, the Colonel of the Regiment of Bratslav, and the favoured hero of Ukrainian historical folk songs. The Nechai brothers were bom in the Ukrainian region of Podilia as members of the Shliakhta class.
As originally planned by C. Paklonski, the Belorussian Cossack Regiment became a military as well as a territorial unit. Its territory was governed only by its commander and there was no intrusion into his prerogatives by any foreign force. It did not become involved in Ukrainian military operations or internal affairs. Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky many times stressed this fact when answering the requests of the Russian Government to disband the Belorussian Cossacks, and stated that he had no direct authority over their region. Therefore we can conclude that the Belorussian Regiment was a state-type organization. But this peculiar polity was dependent on the Ukrainian Hetman, even if this was in name only. That meant that its relation to Ukraine was of the same type as Ukraine’s relation to Russia: it was a form of vassalage.
As a matter of fact there was a pyramid of vassal-suzerain relations — the political dependence of Ukraine on Russia and of Belorussia (properly speaking, the Belorussian Regiment) on Ukraine. It was not an unusual form of the unequal political alliance of peoples. The vassalage was born in the period of feudalism, when such pyramids were a rather common form of state organization.The territory of the Belorussian Cossack Regiment extended to the larger part of the present-day Mogilev (Mahiliou) and Mozyr (Mazyr) provinces of the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. It was divided into Hundreds, which also were the military as well as territorial and administrative units. It was led and governed by its Colonel, who, stressing the special nature of this organization, called himself the ’’Belorussian Colonel” (and not just the ’’Colonel of Chausy”). The colonel was assisted by regimental officers; the Hundreds were led and governed by hundred (company) commanders.
Adjacent to the Belorussian Cossack Regiment, the other Belorussian regions (Minsk and Oshmyany [Ashmyany] to the west; Vitebsk and Smolensk to the north and north-east; and Roslavl to the south-east) were also occupied by some Belorussian Cossack units. These were the guerrilla forces led by Lisouski, Mindvil, Murashka, Theophil Babrovich, and others. Located in the Moscov Archives of
the Ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs are rich collections of documentary materials relating to the activities of these Belorussian Cossack units which fought against the Russian Army. Some data show their contacts with Chausy but it is difficult to determine the nature of these contacts and relations. We can only conjecture that, in the event of a victory over Poland and Russia, the Belorussian Cossack Regiment would be a centre which could unite the regions under the control of the Belorussian guerrillas. But there was no such victory.
Ivan Nechai’s Belorussian Cossack Regiment fought against Russia in 1659 shoulder to shoulder with Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky’s army. Then the Russian armed forces carried this struggle into the territory of the Belorussian Cossack Regiment. The Belorussian Cossacks stubbornly defended the strong Staryi Bykov (Stary By- khau) fortress but were defeated. The Belorussian Cossack Regiment, an ally of the Ukrainian Cossack state, ceased to exist.
This was an end to a short but very interesting page from the history of Belorussian-Ukrainian relations, and from the history of Ukrainian and Belorussian constitutional law. We shall find the same form of political dependence in the relations of the Zaporozhian Host with Hetman Ukraine.
In the last months of Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s rule the district of Pinsk also accepted the protection of Ukraine, but it preserved the old forms of its administration and its shliakhta’s self-government which it had under the rule of Poland. The protection of Ukrainian hetmans over Pinsk district was very short-lived.