Cossack Ukraine and the Turco-Islamic World

To say that the attitude of the inhabitants of Cossack Ukraine toward the Turco-Islamic world was generally negative is to state the obvious. Every Ukrainian has heard at one time or another, in proverbs, songs or folktales, about the ancient antagonism between the Cossacks and the Turks and Tatars.

It is worthwhile to recall the importance of the Turkic element in Ukrainian history. Would Cossackdom have existed without it? If it were not for the Tatars, could Khmelnytsky have succeeded in 1648? Simply in demographic terms, the Tatar impact was staggering. Between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries Ukraine lost many thousands of people because of their raids. The land would not be called Ukraine (“border territory”) if it had not been on the frontier of the Turkic steppe. Indeed, Cossack Ukraine emerged because of the Turkic presence, and as this presence faded in Europe, so too did Ukrainian Cossackdom. In view of

the close relationship between the two societies, it is, therefore, necessary to consider how one viewed the other.

From the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries the Turkish threat was probably the single greatest cause of concern in Europe.¹ In many ways, the confrontation of the Christian and Muslim worlds—Europe’s first global conflict—was analogous to the present confrontation of democratic and Communist societies. In Western Europe the conflict was perceived not only as a religious war, but also as one of two competing political and socio-economic systems. Western writers were quick to draw comparisons between the two societies. And the fact that they often found Ottoman ways to be more praiseworthy than their own is convincing proof of how far objective, critical thinking had advanced in the West.² One can argue that the extent to which the Turk was perceived accurately in the various lands of Europe was a revealing indication of the given country’s political and intellectual sophistication. With this in mind, we may begin to observe how Europe’s growing curiosity and knowledge about Turks and Tatars was reflected in Ukraine.³

To deal with the Ukrainian perceptions of the Turco-Islamic world one must first distinguish the various types of viewers. There was, first of all, “public opinion” on this subject, that is to say, the views held basically by the Ukrainian peasantry. A second, distinct perspective was that of the Kievan knyzhnyky or scholastics. Finally, there were the attitudes of the Ukrainian political elite toward the Ottomans and Tatars.

“Public Opinion”

The primary source for gauging the popular views and attitudes toward the bisurmeny (Muslims) are the dumy, but to rely on these historical songs is to expose oneself to problems of exaggeration, fabrication and stylization. There is, however, little choice in the matter, especially as the dumy are also our only source of public opinion on the topic and despite the various problems associated with their use, are a bountiful source of information. They are, after all, a direct by-product of the confrontation between Turkic and Ukrainian societies and various aspects of this confrontation constitute their most important theme.

There are three basic contexts in which the Turks and Tatars appear in the historical songs. First, the Tatar raid—this event is always pictured as something unexpected, furious and cruel. For example, a well-known verse reads:

Sei nochi V opivnochi Shche kury ne pily,

Iak Tatary v nashi hory Z vitrom naletily.

Sei nochi V opivnochi Zla hodyna stala,

Oi turetska dyka banda Krai nash zvoiuvala.⁴

Those villagers who are not killed are herded off to Kaffa, the emporium of the slave trade, which a contemporary described as “the vampire that drinks the blood of Rus’.”⁵. The Tatars themselves are seen as a natural disaster similar to lightning, flood or famine. Yet they receive little attention in the dumy. The songs’ purpose is to describe the moment of shock that a prey feels when struck by a predator, without dwelling on the predator himself.

Second, the songs which deal with the Cossack-Tatar duel in the steppe (example: “Kozak Holota”) have a more confident, sometimes even humorous tone, probably because the Cossack often emerges as the victor in the struggle. But although the duel involves two opponents, the Cossack receives most of the attention. The Tatar’s role is primarily that of a foil for the Cossack’s heroics. The main message of the duma is to praise the Cossack because he acts as a defender of the land.

Third, a prevalent theme in the dumy is Turkish slavery, which is always represented as a condition of slow, prolonged anguish. We usually have a picture of the physical conditions of slavery, invariably followed by a lament about the emotional anguish of separation from home and one’s loved ones. What is striking here, especially in situations where the captive spends ten, twenty or thirty years in captivity, is how little is said about the Turks and their land. The “turetskaia zemlidⁿ is seen as a barrier which separates the captive from his homeland.

Turkish slavery is never indefinitely prolonged. It is resolved in one of several ways. Often it ends with the death of the captive far from home. Another resolution is escape. Two well-known dumy which deal with such an event are “Ivan Bohuslavets” and “Samuil Kishka.” The latter is based on an actual escape of a large number of Ukrainian and Russian captives in the 1640s.⁶

Finally, another way out of slavery is to become a renegade. In general, the dumy condemn renegades, but there is a good deal of ambiguity on this score, since escape from Turkish slavery is almost always accomplished with their aid. The most famous duma which describes an episode of this type is that of “Marusia Bohuslavka,” the heroine of which is modelled on the famous Roxolana.⁷ Because she has accepted Islam, she has the trust of her master and she takes advantage of it to free seven hundred Cossack captives. But she does not join them in returning home because "... vzhe ia poturchylasia, pobisurmenylasia, dlia rozkoshi tu- retskoi, dlia Iakomstva neshchasnoho.”* We might note in this connection an episode from Velychko’s chronicle. In 1675 the famous Zaporozhian koshovyi, Ivan Sirko, made an especially daring raid on the Crimea, during which he freed over seven thousand captives. To his astonishment, he learned that about three thousand of them did not want to return to their homes, but preferred to stay among the Muslims. His reaction was an example of Christian commitment; he ordered all three thousand to be slaughtered to a man, and, as he looked at the piles of corpses, he sorrowfully proclaimed: “Brothers, forgive me, but it is better that you should lie here awaiting the terrible judgment of God than go back to Crimea to help them increase in numbers and risk the eternal damnation of your souls.”⁹ Episodes such as these indicate that apostasy, while condemned, was more widespread than commonly thought.

To summarize, although the major themes of the dumy deal with Muslims, there is surprisingly little information about or attention given to the Turks and Tatars themselves. This contrasts sharply with German historical songs of this period which are replete with historical details about the infidel.¹⁰ How then can this myopic vision of the dumy be ex­plained? It seems that a large part of the explanation lies in what an older generation of anthropologists called the primitive or peasant mind. According to his theory, a peasant always thinks in personal and concrete terms. His vision is limited to his own immediate environment. It is this mentality that prevents the formulators and audience of the dumy from l∞king beyond the effects of raids and slavery to the people who were the cause of these calamities.

The Galician and Kievan Scholastics

One might expect an absence of curiosity and broader knowledge about the Turks and Tatars among the general Ukrainian populace. But what was the attitude toward and knowledge about the Turks among the scholastics of early seventeenth-century Galicia and of Kiev, which in the latter part of the seventeenth century became the centre of Orthodox scholarship? In general, as might be expected, the attitude was negative. More surprisingly, the knowledge was not very deep. However, in the case of Galicia, there was a rare and brief moment when some Orthodox polemicists took a positive view of the Ottoman empire.

It is not difficult to find the reason for this passing Turcophile interlude. As a result of the Union of Brest of 1596 the Orthodox Ukrainians were exposed to the increasingly militant and oppressive Catholicism of the dominant Poles. Reacting to this oppression, Orthodox polemicists loved to point out that even the “heathen” Ottomans treated their Orthodox subjects more fairly than did the Poles.

As the seventeenth century came to an end, the Turkish threat again became a predominant theme in Europe. One would expect that Ukrainians, who had experienced a great Ottoman invasion in 1672, would have taken a deep interest in their invaders. But while in the West a veritable flood of books, pamphlets and accounts about the Ottomans continued to appear, relatively little was written on the topic in Ukraine. In fact, only three churchmen—all products of the Kiev Collegium—were known for their works on Islam: Simeon Polotsky, who moved to Moscow where he wrote several attacks against Islam; Lazar Baranovych, who preached fiery sermons against the Muslims and wrote anti-Turkish and anti-Tatar poems, which urged Poles and Ukrainians to forget their differences and unite against the common Ottoman threat;¹³ and his pupil, Ioannikii Galiatovsky, who was a rector of the Collegium and who, of the three, was the best known “specialist” on Islam. It is to the works of the last-mentioned that we must turn to find the most extensive commentaries by the Kievan scholastics on Islamic religion and society.

Galiatovsky’s first book on this topic, entitled Labedz (The Swan) and written in Polish, appeared in 1679, soon after the Ottoman invasion of Podillia.¹⁴ The purpose of the book, which, incidentally, was dedicated to Hetman Ivan Samoilovych, was to “rouse Christians to war against the Muslims and to show the devices and means whereby they might defeat Muslims in war and erase the foul Muslim name from the earth.” Islam, rather than the Ottomans or Tatars, was the focus of the author’s attack. Galiatovsky presented what he considered to be the key issues of Islam and then proceeded to respond to them.

The first question the author poses is why Islam has lasted longer than any other heresy. Among the explanations which he proposes are the fol­lowing: it is God’s way of testing the Christians; it is a punishment for their sins; it is the result of Christian disunity. As for the question of why people accepted Islam in the first place, he suggests: because of the threat of death; due to the temptations of carnal pleasure; as a result of the dev%irme system (the so-called “blood tribute”: forcible recruitment of Christian boys into the Ottoman establishment); because hell must be filled up in some way and Muslims can best be used for this purpose. Galiatovsky maintains that the Turks managed to rouse their faithful to war against the Christians by means of threats and by the promise of carnal rewards. He ends his polemic on a practical note. In an effort to encourage Christians, he enumerates a series of ruses that may be used to defeat the bisurmeny. Among the more effective tactics, he suggests the use of the Trojan horse and Princess Olha’s trick with the burning pigeons.

Galiatovsky⁵S other book on an Islamic topic was Alkoran (The Koran, 1683), which he dedicated to Tsars Ivan and Peter. The purpose of this book, which was written in the form of a debate between a Muslim and a Christian, was “that Christians reading my arguments against the Koran might know how to reply to inquiring Muslims and teach them the truth.”¹⁵ Although Alkoran is hardly a model of objectivity, it probably contains more factual data about Islam and Islamic society than any other work written in Ukraine during the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries. In attacking the basic tenets of Islam—the genuineness of Mohammed as a prophet, the divine origin of the Koran, the need to fast during Ramadan, the duty to pray five times daily, the abstinence from wine, the dervish orders—Galiatovsky inadvertently informed his readers about the actual content of Islam.

Most revealing is the question of Galiatovsky’s sources. There is no attempt on his part to obtain first-hand information from returning captives, travellers or Greek ecclesiastics who were constantly on the move between Constantinople, Kiev and Moscow. Paradoxically, this scholastic living on the borders of the Islamic world learned about Islam primarily from Polish written sources (the chronicles of Stryjkowski, Bielski) which, in turn, depended on Italian sources. His most reliable and informative source is the work of the English traveller, Paul Rycaut, entitled The Present State of the Ottoman Empire, of which a Polish translation was made in 1678.“ Thus, Ukrainians, who were constantly exposed to Muslims, depended on Western works to learn about various aspects of Islamic society. The fact is that Galiatovsky and his milieu had no objective interest in information about Islam or Muslims; their primary objective was to use this information for polemical purposes. Galiatovsky clearly states that his interest in Islam goes only so far as it can be related to Christianity, for “like grain among chaff, one can find truth about Christianity among the falsehoods of Islam.” Little beyond their own im­mediate religio-cultural environment—and certainly not Islam—could have relevance for the Kievan scholastics. In this sense, although more sophisticated in the sense of book learning, their vision was not much broader than that of the creators of the dumy.

There is a tendency for Ukrainians to be self-congratulatory when they compare the cultural level of Ukraine with that of Muscovy in the seventeenth century. Undoubtedly, the cultural level in Ukraine was higher; Galiatovsky’s works, for example, were quickly and enthusiastically translated into Russian as the last word on the subject of Islam. However, if we compare his works with those which appeared in the West on the same topic, then Galiatovsky’s inability to break out of the theological framework, to take an interest in a different culture and to value knowledge for its own sake contrasts sharply with the well-informed, first-hand and often objective and probing accounts about Islam and Islamic society which had been appearing in the West since the fifteenth century. Closer to home—in Poland—two decades before the appearance of Galiatovsky’s works, the periodical journal, Merkuriusz Polski, carried accurate, up-to-date information about developments in the Ottoman empire and the Crimea.¹¹ In Moldavia, a few decades after Galiatovsky wrote, Cantemir began writing his history of the Ottoman empire which would not be superseded until the nineteenth century.¹’ The narrowness of the Kievan scholastics’ world-view stemmed from the fact that the culture of seventeenth-century Ukraine was non-secular, its orientation —theological, and its learning—purely scholastic. The intellectual curiosity which had been the hallmark of the Renaissance in Europe was still missing in Kiev.

There were, finally, important political implications to these views on the Muslims. Because the Kievan scholastics saw the conflict with the Muslim strictly in religious terms (Europe had long since abandoned this view), they turned to the leading Orthodox ruler, the Muscovite Tsar, for political and military leadership. Thus, their view of the Muslims encouraged Ukrainian ecclesiastical circles to focus their political loyalties on the tsars rather than on the hetmans.

The Political Elite

It should come as no surprise that the primary characteristic of the approach of the Ukrainian political elite to the Turco-Islamic world was pragmatism. By the political elite we mean here the political decision-makers in Cossack Ukraine: the hetmans, polkovnyky (colonels) and heneralna Starshyna (general staff officers). Indeed, there existed an interesting correlation between pragmatism in dealings with the Muslims and the level of political sophistication and individualism on the part of the elite. The more conscious the Cossack leadership became of its political role, the closer and more intimate became its ties with the Ottoman porte and the Crimean khanate. Conversely, when Ukrainian Cossackdom did not play a prominent political role, as was the case in the sixteenth or eighteenth centuries, relations with the Muslims were, of necessity, strictly antagonistic.”

In 1624, at the time when the Zaporozhian Host assumed patronage over the Orthodox church and the bratstva (fraternities) and became in ef­fect the defender of Ukrainian rights against Polish-Catholic pressure, Hetman Mykhailo Doroshenko intervened for the first time in an internecine struggle in the Crimean khanate at the request of one of the claimants to the throne.²⁰ What this event signified was that, simultaneous­ly with the expansion of the Zaporozhians⁵ political role at home, there was a corresponding growth of their political sophistication abroad. Henceforth, the Tatar was no longer seen as an implacable, uncompromising enemy, but rather as an entity with which it was possible to come to a political understanding. For the history of Cossack Ukraine, this was a crucial psychological breakthrough.

Without this realization, it is unlikely that Khmelnytsky’s uprising would have succeeded. Khmelnytsky, however, carried this idea even further. Rather than viewing the relationship of Cossacks to Tatars and Turks as a prolonged conflict punctuated by occasional moments of co-operation, Khmelnytsky began to negotiate Ukraine’s acceptance of Ottoman suzerainty.²¹ This was a daring and innovative step. For a Christian society which was formed to a large extent out of the conflict with the Muslim infidels, to accept voluntarily the suzerainty of the latter was unprecedented. What prompted Khmelnytsky to take such a step? No doubt, at the time he negotiated with the porte, his options were limited and this was a way of bringing pressure to bear on the tsar. Nevertheless, the hetman was quite serious about his talks with the Ottomans. He saw the relative freedom of action which Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania enjoyed under Ottoman tutelage, and concluded, despite the traditional prejudice, that a similar arrangement would best serve Ukraine’s interests. Thus, it was Realpolitik that dictated his policy toward the Muslims. However, because of the inability of the rest of Ukrainian society to think in these terms, the hetman’s plans could not be pursued any further.

Petro Doroshenko was probably the most altruistic of the Cossack hetmans. He had a well-earned reputation for placing the general welfare of Ukraine above narrow, personal interests, and it was the conviction of this experienced leader that his land’s political interests could best be served as an Ottoman protectorate.²² Like Khmelnytsky, he found the arrangement that Moldavia had with the porte to be the most attractive option open to the Ukrainians. In general outline, the terms of such an agreement which Doroshenko and later Orlyk concluded were as follows: the hetman was to have supreme and exclusive authority over the Cossacks; the Cossacks and the entire Ukrainian population were to be guaranteed their freedom; the hetman was to be freely elected; the porte was to be obligated not to interfere in Cossack affairs; Ukraine was to pay no taxes or tribute to the porte.

On the other hand, the duties and obligations of the Cossacks to the porte were the following: the porte was to have the hetman’s and the Cossacks’ constant loyalty; the Cossacks were to partake in the defence and military campaigns of the Ottoman empire; the hetman, Cossacks and all inhabitants of Ukraine were to acknowledge the protectorate of the sultan.²³

The desire of pro-Ottoman hetmans for an accommodation with the porte was not one-sided. The Ottomans and Tatars were very much interested in the establishment of a Cossack principality which they hoped would act as a barrier to Muscovite expansion. In fact, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, the establishment of such a Ukrainian principality became one of the major goals of their foreign policy and provided the impetus in 1672 for their great campaign to the north. Thus, consciousness of common interests was very strong on both sides. One could argue that, in terms of political goals, most Ukrainian hetmans could come to an un­derstanding with the Muslim Tatars or Turks much more easily than with the Polish Szlachta or the Muscovite tsars.

In view of these pro-Ottoman tendencies, we might wonder how much the hetmans actually knew about their Muslim allies. In general, the political elite was better acquainted with the Ottomans and Tatars than with any other segment of the population. Several of the hetmans—Bohdan and Iurii Khmelnytsky and Pylyp Orlyk—were Ottoman captives for extended periods of time. At this point, we might note that the members of the Starshyna who were taken into captivity were often ransomed and could later make use of their knowledge of the Muslims. This was seldom the case with peasants. Kievan scholastics, on the other hand, rarely fell into captivity. Bohdan Khmelnytsky was supposed to have known Turkish and studied Islam. His son knew the lan­guage and culture of the Ottomans well. Orlyk was personally acquainted with many of the leading Crimean and Ottoman statesmen. Doroshenko had about twenty years of experience in dealing with the Ottomans and Tatars. Moreover, there were a number of leading Starshyna families of Tatar origin—for example, the Kochubei and Dzhalalii families. Many of the Starshyna spent much time in Istanbul or the Crimea as members of embassies and delegations. Finally, a hetman like Ivan Mazepa had an elaborate system of spies in Crimea and in the principalities (Moldavia and Wallachia) and these regularly informed him in great detail of what was taking place in the khanate and the empire. Thus, we see that the political elite had vast personal experience and a steady flow of informa­tion about the Muslims at its disposal.

This is not to say, of course, that hetmans who wanted to establish Ukrainian independence or autonomy were ipso facto Turcophiles. Indeed, even those who were most familiar with the Ottomans and Tatars and co-operated most closely with them often harboured feelings of deep personal antagonism toward them. A revealing example of this tension be­tween political interests and personal convictions was the case of Pylyp Orlyk.²⁴

Orlyk’s view of the Turks and Tatars was influenced by two assumptions: that the khans and the porte were the only powers capable of supporting the cause of an independent or autonomous Ukraine, and that the Ukrainians and the Ottomans and Tatars faced a common enemy. This theme of co-operation was strongly emphasized in the hetman-in-exile’s first political statement, the so-called Bender Constitution. Article three of that document reads:

Whereas we always need the neighbourly friendship of the Crimean realm, whose aid the Zaporozhian Host requested more than once for its defence, it should be possible now as formerly, for His Excellency the Illustrious Crimean Khan, through his envoys to renew the ancient bond of fraternity, military alliance and to confirm eternal friendship with the Crimean realm.²⁵

Thus, the very constitution of the Mazepist emigres acknowledged and encouraged the need for a positive approach to the Tatars and Ottomans.

To dramatize to the porte and to the khans the danger which they shared with the Ukrainians, Orlyk participated in the fabrication of the so-called “Project of Peter I” which, as we have shown elsewhere, was the forerunner of the famous “Testament of Peter the Great.”²⁴ Essentially, this fabricated document, which Orlyk submitted to the porte on several occasions, argued that Moscow had a systematic plan for absorbing Ukraine, the Crimea and, finally, the Ottoman empire itself. Orlyk proposed a measure to counter these aggressive ambitions of the Muscovites that has a surprisingly modern ring to it. He pointed out that the tsar’s Turkic subjects, primarily the Kazan Tatars, presented a serious problem for Moscow. Because there existed a consciousness of community among all Turkic Muslims both within the tsarist realm and beyond it, Orlyk urged the porte to consider forming a grand coalition of Turco-Islamic peoples stretching from the Bucak to the Urals.²⁷ In emphasizing the problem of the Ukrainians and bringing to the attention of the porte the plight of the tsar’s Turco-Islamic subjects, the emigre hetman was one of the first political figures to stress the diverse ethnic composition of the nascent Russian empire and to urge exploitation of this fact.

But this widespread coalition of Turco-Islamic peoples was to be only a part of an even broader coalition of forces including Sweden and Poland, with Ukraine in the pivotal position. This inclusion of other Christian powers into Ukraine’s dealings with the Tatars and Ottomans is very characteristic of Orlyk. He was willing to co-operate with the Muslim but only if he had other Christian states for company. Here he differed from Doroshenko and Khmelnytsky who were willing to accept Ukraine’s relationship with the Ottoman porte on a one-to-one basis.

Such were the views which Orlyk espoused when he felt that the Ottomans and Tatars might be helpful in achieving his maximum goal—the establishment of a Ukrainian principality. But what were his views on his erstwhile Muslim allies when, as often happened in his career, such maximal goals seemed hopeless? In moments such as these Orlyk retreated into his minimal programme, that is, he attempted to reach an accommodation with the Poles or, less eagerly, with the Russians that would grant him and his Zaporozhians an appropriate socio-economic—but not political—position in Ukraine.

During these times of flagging confidence, Orlyk’s attitudes toward the Muslims changed drastically. He continued to perceive the Ottomans and Tatars in a broad context, but now he operated not on a geopolitical level, but on a religious one. (We might recall at this point that Orlyk was a product of the Mohyla Academy and had been exposed to the works of Baranovych and Galiatovsky.) The basic conflict was no longer between an aggressive Russia and a defensive alliance of all her neighbours, but be­tween two irreconcilable religions—Christianity and Islam—and their respective secular representatives. In this context, Orlyk felt that the greatest danger to him and his Zaporozhians was not the liquidation of their rights and privileges, but rather the damnation of their souls for associating with the infidel. In 1713, when the Ottomans no longer seemed to be interested in supporting the Mazepist emigres, Orlyk wrote to the Zaporozhians of the Turks that “from the very inception of their accursed [Islamic] religion, they have been the primary enemies of Christendom and seek nothing more than to destroy the Christian people.”²⁸ Several months later, after hearing a rumour that his patron, Charles XII of Sweden, might make peace with Peter I, the hetman-in-exile asked:

What could be more pleasing to God and simultaneously agreeable and de­sirable to the general expectations of all Christianity than if His Royal Majesty concluded peace with Moscow, combined his armies with hers and together turned against the major enemies of the Christian peoples [i.e., the Ottomans] ?²’

Further, in 1728, while trying to receive a pardon from the Russian court, Orlyk wrote to St. Petersburg:

I openly proclaim that it is more because of religious zeal and remorse than hope of private gain that I wish to return to the faithful obedience of His Imperial Majesty, with my very numerous army, so that I will not be implicated in the Turkish war and in the spilling of Christian blood.³⁰

We see that in cases when Orlyk was free of the political obligations, which had forced him to deal with the Muslims rationally, he quickly reverted to his blind antagonism toward them—an antagonism which characterized so much of Ukrainian society. We may therefore conclude that the Ukrainian elite was forced by political necessity to be innovative in its approach to the Muslims, to view them objectively and to deal with them in a rational manner.

Notes

1. Cf. R. Schwoebel, The Shadow of the Crescent: The Renaissance Image of the Turk (Nieuwkoop, 1967).

2. A good example of such attitudes is the work by O.G.de Busbeq (1522-92), Travels in Turkey, a Translation from the Latin Containing the Most Accurate Account of the Turks and Neighbouring Nations, the Manners, Customs, Religions, etc. (London, 1744).

3. For an overview of Ukrainian Oriental studies see J. Reychman₁ “Z dziejow Ukrainskiej Orientalistyki ³ Stosunkow kulturalnych Ukrainy ze Wschodem," Przeglad Orientalistyczny 49 (1964): 53-60.

4. Istorychni pisni, ed. I. P. Berezovsky, et al. (Kiev, 1961), 63, 100. In literal translation: “This night at midnight/ Before the cocks crew/ The Tatars raided our mountains/ Coming like the wind./ This night at midnight/ An evil hour has struck:/ The savage Turkish band/ Has conquered our land.”

5. A first-hand account of the plight of these captives is given by M. Lytvyn (Lituanus), De moribus Tartarorum, Litvanorum et Moschorum (Basel, 1615). A discussion of this source and a good treatment of the fate of Ukrainian captives in the Ottoman empire is found in A. Krymsky, Istoriia Turechchyny (Kiev, 1924), 167-70, 174-83. The question of the number of captives taken by Tatars and Turks in Ukraine has not been properly elucidated as yet. Traditionally, Ukrainian historians have given figures as high as 20-30,000 taken in a single raid (see Krymsky, Istoriia Turechchyny, 174). However, A. A. Novoselskii (Borba Moskovskogo gosudarstva s tatarami v pervoi polovine XVII veku, Moscow-Leningrad, 1948, 434-5) states that the average number of captives taken in a single Tatar raid was between 2-3,000 people, of which less than twenty lost their lives in the process. These lower figures are corroborated by A. Fisher (lecture at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, April 1978, entitled “The Ottoman Crimea in the Sixteenth Century”) who states that the highest number of captives all the Crimean cities handled in one year was about 2,200.

6. Cf. B. P. Kyrdan, Ukrainskie narodnye dumy (XV-nachalo XVII v.) (Moscow, 1962), 122, 129.

7. A detai^led discussion of Suleiman the Magnificent's famous wife, Roxolana (d. 1558), a priest’s daughter from Rohatyn₁ may be found in Krymsky, Istoriia Turechchyny, 184-96.

8. Kyrdan₁ Ukrainskie narodnye dumy, 101. “... I have turned Turkish and infidel, for the sake of Turkish luxury, and because of miserable greed.” English translation from Ukrainian Dumy, trans. G. Tarnawsky and P. Kilina (Toronto-Cambridge, Mass., 1979), 41.

9. Krymsky, Istoriia Turechchyny, 184-96.

10. See R. Wolkan₁ “Zu den Tiirkliedern des XVI Jahrhunderts," Festschrift zum VlII Allgemeinen Deutschen Neuphilologentage (Vienna-Leipzig, 1898).

11. For a full text of the “Perestoroha,” see M. Vozniak₁ Pysmennytska diialnist Ivana Boretskoho na Volyni ³ è Lvovi (Lviv, 1954).

12. Cf. ^wPalinodia⁵⁵ in Pamiatniki polemicheskoi Iiteratur v Zapadnoi Rusi 4, part 1 (St. Petersburg, 1878). Excerpts from the work may also be found in O. I. Biletsky, comp., Khrestomatiia davnoi ukrainskoi Iiteratury (do kintsia XVIII st.) (Kiev, 1967).

13. For the texts of Baranovych⁵S poems see R. Lu2ny, Pisarze kregu Akademii Kijowsko-Mohylahskiej a Iiteratura polska (Cracow, 1966), 150-6. Some of the poems bear the following titles: “Aby kozacka Iodka ê Turkom a piyla pobudka,” “Nie bedzie, jako swiat swiatem, Rusin Polakowi bratem,” and “Na jak masz cere obrocic cholere!”.

14. D. Waugh in his dissertation has summarized Galiatovsky⁵S works on Islamic topics: “Seventeenth Century Muscovite Pamphlets with Turkish Themes: Towards a Study of Muscovite Literary Culture in its European Setting” (Ph. D. thesis, Harvard, 1972), 161 ff.

15. Ibid., 162.

16. Ibid., 165.

17. For the deep interest in Islam and other Oriental topics evoked in seventeenth-eighteenth century Poland, see J. Reychman, Orient w kulturze polskiego Oswiecenia (Wroclaw-Warsaw-Cracow, 1964). On the other hand, the Ottomans also had people who evinced an interest in Christian lands and specifically in Ukraine. Cf. Evliia Chelebi, Kniga Puteshestviia (Moldaviia ³ Ukraina), vyp. 1 (Moscow, 1961).

18. The first printed version of Cantemir⁵S (1673-1723) work, The History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire, was published in London posthumously in 1734-5. However, manuscript copies of the work were in circulation earlier and on the basis of this work Cantemir was made a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences.

19. For a study of Cossack-Muslim conflicts in the sixteenth century, see C. Lemercier-Quelquejay, “Un condottieri Lithuanien du XVIe siecle Ie Prince Dimitrij ViSneveckij et Torigine de la SeC zaporogue d⁵apres les archives ottomanes,” in Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovietique 10 (1969): 258-79. A study which deals with the Ukrainian Cossack wars with the Tatars and Turks in the eighteenth century is O. M. Apanovych, Zbroini syly Ukrainy pershoi polovyny XVIII st. (Kiev, 1969).

20. A detailed study of these events is B. Baranowski, Polska a Tatarszczyzna w Iatach 1624-1629 (Lodz, 1948). Also see M. Hrushevsky, Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy 7 (New York, 1956), 513 ff.

21. The general question of Cossack-Muslim relations during the seventeenth century is treated by V. Dubrovsky, “Pro vyvchennia vzaiemyn Ukrainy ta Turechchyny u druhii polovyni XVII st.,” Skhidnyi svit, no. 5 (1928): 172-82. On the specific topic of Khmelnytsky’s relations with the Ottomans and Tatars see N. Kostomarov, “Bogdan Khmelnitsky, dannik Ottomanskoi Porty,” Sobranie sochinenii, Book 5, vol. 14 (St. Petersburg, 1905); M. Hrushevsky, Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy 9, passim; O. Pritsak, “Das erste tiirkisch-ukrainische Biindnis, 1648,” Oriens 6 (1953): 266—98;

B. Baranowski₁ “Geneza sojuszu kozacko-tatarskiego z 1648 r.,” Przeglgd Historyczny 37 (1948): 276-87; J. Rypka₁ “Z korespondence Vysoke Porty z Bohdanem Chmelnyckim₁" Bidliiv Sbornik (Festschrift Jaroslav Bidlo) (Prague, 1928)₁ 482-98.

22. A thorough analysis of Doroshenko’s relations with the Ottoman porte is D. Doroshenko and J. Rypka’s “Hejtman P. DoroSenko a jeho turecka polityka₁" Casopis Narodniho Musea, nos. 1-2 (1933): 1-55. Also see O. M. Apanovych₁ Zaporizka Sich è borotbi proty turetsko-tatarskoi ahresii (Kiev, 1961) and Z. Wδjcik^,s two studies Traktat andruszowski ³ jego geneza (Warsaw, 1959) and Miedzy traktatem andruszowskim a wojna turecka (Warsaw, 1968). A Polish translation of Ottoman chronicles dealing with their invasion of Ukraine in 1671-2 is I. S. Sekowski’s Collectanea z dziejopis∂w tureckich 2 (Warsaw, 1825).

23. For a summary of Doroshenko’s treaty see Sbornik statei ³ materialov po istorii Iugo-Zapadnoi Rossii (Kiev, 1916), 75 (hereafter: Sbornik).

24. For a more detailed discussion of Orlyk’s relations with Ottomans and Tatars, see O. Subtelny₁ “The Unwilling Allies: The Relations of Hetman Pylyp Orlyk with the Ottoman Porte and the Crimean Khanate, 1710-1742” (Ph. D. thesis, Harvard, 1973). Also see Subtelny₁ “Political Cooperation and Religious Antagonism: Aspects of Pylyp Orlyk’s Relations with Turks and Tatars,” in Zbirnyk na poshanu Oleksandra Ohloblyna (New York, 1977), 454-65, and “From the Diary of Pylyp Orlyk,” Ukrainskyi istoryk 8 (1971): 95-105.

25. Cf. A. O. Bodiansky₁ ^uPerepiska ³ drugiia bumagi Shvedskogo korolia Karla XII...,” in Chteniia v Imperatorskom Obshchestve istorii ³ drevnostei rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom Universitete, no. 1 (Moscow, 1847), 6.

26. O. Subtelny₁ “Peter Γs Testament: A Reassessment,” Slavic Review 33 (1974): 663-78.

27. Sbornik, 60. Also see Subtelny₁ “Unwilling Allies,” 133 ff.

28. Orlyk to the Zaporozhians, 30 March 1713, Biblioteka Czartoryskich (Cracow), fol. 5907, no. 28530.

29. Orlyk to Miillern₁ 11 October 1711, in B. Krupnytsky₁ Hetman Pylyp Orlyk (1672-1742) (Warsaw, 1938), 212.

30. Orlyk to Sztenflict₁ 26 June 1726, in his ^uDiariusz podroiny...,” located in Archives du Ministere des Affaires etrangeres (Paris), Memoires et Documents. Pologne₁ 9, fol. 204.