Russian Expansion

Russian expansionism has been a dominant fact in the history of Eastern Europe and of Ukraine in particular since the 15th century. From 1462, when the nascent Muscovite state encompassed a mere 24,000 sq.

Map 14 Russian expansion in Ukraine in the late 18th century

The destruction of the Zaporozhian Sich

Upon their return under Russian sovereignty in 1734, the Zaporozhians regained their former lands and built a new Sich close to its previous site. From the viewpoint of the imperial government, this return was a mixed blessing. In the ensuing wars against the Ottomans, the Zaporozhians performed so well that Catherine II showered them with medals and praise. Yet, they also caused her much concern. Because there was no serfdom and much open land on its territory, the Sich became a haven for runaway peasants. Moreover, whenever antinoble uprisings flared up, Zaporozhians were invariably involved.

Among the Zaporozhians themselves, violence and social upheaval were common. As the Zaporozhian lands became more settled (by 1770, they contained about 200,000 inhabitants, most of whom were not Cossacks), large-scale farming, trading, and livestock raising developed. These activities were largely dominated by Zaporozhian officers. The last Zaporozhian leader (koshovy), Petro Kalnyshevsky, for example, owned over 14,000 head of livestock. Most of his fellow officers were as wealthy. As in the Hetmanate, sharp socioeconomic distinctions developed between the Zaporozhian starshyna and the propertyless rank and file (holota) and conflicts often broke out between the rich and poor at the Sich. In 1768, for instance, an especially violent clash forced the starshyna to flee to the nearby Russian garrisons, disguised as monks. Order was restored only after the intervention of imperial troops. The constant unrest at the Sich, coupled with the Zaporozhians’ stubborn obstruction of Russian efforts to colonize the Black Sea littoral, convinced Catherine II that the problem called for a radical solution. Therefore, as soon as the 1768–75 war was over and the Tatars no longer posed a threat, she ordered the Sich destroyed a second time.

On 4 June 1775, when most of the Zaporozhians were still at the Turkish front, a returning Russian army commanded by General Tekeli surrounded the Sich and razed it to the ground. Despite the fact that Kalnyshevsky and the starshyna had followed a pro-Russian line, they were arrested and eventually exiled to Siberia. The largest segment – about 5000 men – sought refuge on Ottoman-held territory near the mouth of the Danube. About half the Zaporozhian lands were distributed among Russian grandees and the remainder were assigned to German and Serbian colonists.

There is a postscript to the Zaporozhian story. The 5000 Zaporozhians who fled to the Ottoman Empire were allowed to settle at the mouth of the Danube River. In 1784, to counterbalance their presence, the Russian government settled the remaining ex-Zaporozhians between the Buh and Dnister rivers. In 1792, these Buh Cossacks were renamed the Black Sea Host and transferred to the Kuban. Under the leadership of Iosyp Hladky, a part of the Danube Cossacks returned to the Russian Empire in 1828 and eventually joined their brethren in the Kuban. From 1864 until 1921, they were known as the Kuban Cossacks. The absorption of the Crimean Khanate

For almost a century after the disastrous campaign of 1687, the Russians had attempted to conquer the Crimea. Between 1734 and 1739, Russian and Ukrainian troops managed to fight their way into the peninsula, but lack of provisions and epidemics forced them back. In 1774, they occupied the entire peninsula and, in the treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji (1774), forced the Ottomans to renounce their sovereignty over the khanate. Finally, in 1783, at the same time that the last vestiges of the Hetmanate were being obliterated, Catherine II announced the absorption of the khanate into the Russian Empire. For Ukrainian history as well as for that of Eastern Europe as a whole, this was an epochal event. The Turkic nomads, whose last bastion in Europe had been the Crimean Khanate and whose last major raid into Ukraine, involving tens of thousands of Tatars, had occurred in 1769, were finally trammeled. The steppe, which for millennia had been a source of danger for the sedentary populations that ringed it, had at last been made accessible to the peasant’s plow. The partitions of Poland-Lithuania

Even the Commonwealth, with a population of 11 million and a territory of 733,000 sq.

For about a century, the Hetmanate had been the focus of Ukrainian political life. Although Russians controlled its foreign contacts and military campaigns, and constantly interfered in its internal affairs, the administration, courts, finances, army, and socioeconomic policies of the Hetmanate had been created and maintained by Ukrainians. Self-government encouraged the rise of a Ukrainian noble elite that was attached to and proud of its traditions. As late as 1767, the starshyna delegates to the Legislative Commission rejected Catherine’s reforms and confidently declared: “Our laws are best.” It was in the Hetmanate that, prior to the 20th century, the precedent for Ukrainian self-government had been set.

More than a half-century after the Hetmanate was abolished, Taras Shevchenko wrote:

Once there was a Hetmanate It passed beyond recall. Once, it was, we ruled ourselves But we shall rule no more. Yet we shall never forget The Cossack fame of yore.¹⁶

Not only was the Hetmanate not forgotten, but its memories helped to create a new era in Ukrainian history, for it was from among the descendants of the starshyna that many of the intellectuals who later formulated modern Ukrainian national consciousness hailed. The history of the Hetmanate became a key component of national history and the nation-building myth. The example of self-rule that it set helped to arouse the desire of modern Ukrainians for their own nation-state.