RISING TENSIONS BETWEEN ORLYK AND THE OTTOMANS
First of all, the Ottomans attempted to bring the Ukrainian Hetman into line. Along with a document granting him the Right Bank, an Ottoman aga brought Orlyk “eight bags full of money” to cover the Cossacks’ initial expenses in occupying the area.2 But, when the Hetman continued to raise objections about the Ottoman plans, the Crimean Khan began to apply pressure by approaching other Cossack leaders behind the Hetman’s back.3 The most susceptible to these advances was Kost Hordienko, the Zaporozhian koshovyi.
Hordienko was a favorite of Devlet Girei who considered him, in contrast to Orlyk, to be a brave and capable soldier.4 The close contacts between Hordienko and the Khan were demonstrated during the course of the talks in Constantinople when, in midJanuary, the koshovyi prematurely left the talks to accompany the Khan in his departure from the capital. Hordienko maintained close contact with Devlet Girei throughout February and, near the end of March 1713, he and fifty other Zaporozhians deserted from the Cossack camp in Bender. Soon afterwards, he began to agitate among the Zaporozhians who stayed with Orlyk, urging them to move into the Right Bank without waiting for the Hetman’s orders. Moreover, the Khan, bypassing the Hetman and the normal chain of command, ordered Horlenko, the colonel of Pryluky, to lead a detachment of Cossacks into the Right Bank.5The primary reason for the Khan’s pressure on Orlyk to lead his men into the acquired area as soon as possible was his hope of disarming the expected Polish protests by confronting them with a fait accompli, i.e., establishing control of the area by means of Orlyk’s Cossacks. Some time in early May, an apparent modus vivendi was reached between the Khan and the Hetman. The details of this understanding are unknown, but, in mid-May, the Khan sent a series of manifestoes into the Right Bank proclaiming the sole authority of Orlyk over the area.
The initial manifestoes were carried by Tatar emissaries whose prime task was to assess the condition of the land and to report on it to the Khan and the Porte.6 Afterwards came the Khan’s manifesto on 15 May 1712 which stated:The Porte, by means of its victorious armies, freed Ukraine, your homeland, from Muscovite repression and placed it in the possession of none other than Pylyp Orlyk, Hetman of the Ukrainian and Zaporozhian Cossacks, and ratified this grant with its diploma. Therefore, we send to you with our letter, our faithful mirzas and agas so that they themselves may explain to you in the name of the Porte and in our own name that henceforth neither Poles nor Muscovites will have any authority over you. As far as the Prut, all authority will belong to your Hetman, Pylyp Orlyk.7
The Hetman may have allowed his name to be used in these declarations, but he was not about to support actively the Porte’s and the Khan’s plans for the Right Bank. The fact that, in June, Horlenko, with whom the Hetman also came into conflict, was persuaded by the Khan to occupy several towns in the Right Bank, convinced Orlyk that not only were the Porte and Khan to be suspected in their plans for Ukraine, but also, in view of the Khan’s tactics, that his personal position was not completely secure.
In late spring of 1712, Orlyk found himself in a difficult situation. He was convinced that no good could come of the Porte’s grant of the Right Bank to him and yet he could not reject it outright because it was still in keeping with his goals. Therefore, the Hetman decided to maintain correct relations with the Khan and the Porte while avoiding commitment to their immediate plans for occupying the Right Bank.
There was another reason why the Hetman decided to back away from closer cooperation with the Porte: while the (Dossack-Ottoman negotiations did not bring the Cossacks what they had hoped for, they did go further than Charles XII and his Polish allies would have preferred.
Public announcements that Orlyk, the protege of the Swedish King, was about to assume control of the Right Bank and reports that some Zaporozhians were already moving into the area were harmful to Charles XIΓs interests because they aroused the anger and suspicion of all Poles whose favor the King was so eagerly courting. Thus, Orlyk felt that he had not only to satisfy his Muslim allies, but also to placate the anger of his Swedish protector and to dispel the suspicions of the Poles.During an audience with Charles XII on 13 June 1712, the Hetman attempted to excuse his ties with the Ottomans by explaining that his delegates had overstepped their instructions in accepting the hatti-sherif of the Sultan.8 He also agreed to inform the Porte that he would not enter the Right Bank until the Ottomans negotiated a settlement of this matter with the Commonwealth. In this manner, Orlyk backed away (but did not openly disavow) from what he felt to be an overcommitment to the Ottomans and returned to the safer if less promising fold of the Swedish King.