The agreement concluded at Pereiaslav in 1654 resulted in an extension of Mus­covy’s borders to include the Zaporozhian Cossacks and

the Ukrainian-inhabited Polish palatinates of Chernihiv, Kiev, and Bratslav, as well as the Zaporozhian steppe farther south on both sides of the bend in the Dnieper River. The agree­ment, however, did not bring peace to Ukrainian lands.

The years 1657 to 1686 at times witnessed an almost complete breakdown of order. All or some of these years have been characterized in Ukrainian history as the Period of Ruin (Ruma), whose very beginning (1655-1661) is known in Polish history as the Deluge (Potop). These characterizations represented the eastern var­iant of a series of political and social convulsions that at the time were racking all of Europe, from England and Ireland in the west to Russia in the east, and from Scandinavia in the north to Italy and Spain in the south, referred to by historians as ‘the crises of the seventeenth century.’ In a sense, these crises represented the culmination of a struggle which had been taking place for several centuries within many European states, between a centralized authority, usually vested in a king, on the one hand, and rival political centers, often noble and urban estates, on the other. The struggle has also been viewed as a phase in European history in which the political power of representative assemblies (the English Parliament, the French Etats Generaux, the Muscovite Zemskii Sobor, etc.) was either substan­tially reduced or entirely eliminated and replaced by governing systems in which all power rested in the hands of monarchs who, with their closely controlled administrations, attempted to rule in a more efficient and, so they pretended, enlightened manner.

In this new era of enlightened absolutism, states like the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which maintained the tradition of diffused power, seemed fated to lose ground against more highly centralized and absolutist neighbors - whether Brandenburg in the west, Sweden in the north, Muscovy in the east, or the Austrian and Ottoman empires in the south. Moreover, the age did not augur well for those elements on the periphery of established states, such as the Cos­sacks, whose desires for local autonomy and the maintenance of an estates system in which they would have special privileges were out of step with the general trend in European society. After the seventeenth century, this trend favored the devel­opment of strongly centralized and bureaucratized state structures. In this sense, it might be argued that the efforts of the Cossacks to preserve their autonomy in Ukraine represented an anomaly doomed from the start - unless, of course, they could create an independent and centralized state structure of their own.

Indeed, there were some Cossacks, especially from among the registered and officer class (the starshyna), who tried to create a distinct and viable state struc­ture. But they were continually opposed by unregistered and other independent- minded peasants-turned-Cossack farther south in Zaporozhia, whose only goal seemed to be to maintain a society free of any kind of control beyond their own traditional and rudimentary democratic local order. Faced with these contradic­tions within Cossack society, the only reasonable solution for those Cossacks seek­ing social stability was to attempt to obtain autonomy within some existing state. In the short run, this solution proved feasible, although in the long run loss of autonomy and absorption by the controlling state structure turned out to be inev­itable. The process, of course, which now appears inevitable in historical hind­sight, was neither apparent nor complete for at least another century. The Period of Ruin between 1657 and 1686 can be seen as the first stage in this long process.

The Period of Ruin in Ukrainian history is marked by such complexity that it will be possible to discuss only its basic outlines here. Briefly, the period began with the death of Bohdan Khmel'nyts'kyi, by which time Poland and Muscovy were already engaged in a war as a result of Ukraine’s placing itself under the sov­ereignty of the tsar in 1654. The period ended in 1686 with an agreement between Poland and Muscovy to recognize each other’s sphere of influence over Ukraine, which they divided roughly along the Dnieper River.

Changing international alliances

The agreement of Pereiaslav in 1654 prompted an immediate change in the alli­ance structure in eastern Europe. The new Muscovite-Cossack alliance forced the Crimean Tatars, who were traditional enemies of Muscovy, to break with the Cos­sacks and to form an alliance with the Poles instead. Tsar Aleksei, feeling confi­dent in the military potential of his new subject, Bohdan Khmel'nyts'kyi, decided to launch a preemptive attack on Poland as early as April 1654. His goal was not only to acquire the long-disputed territories along the Muscovite-Lithuanian border, but also to detach the Belarusan lands from the Polish-Lithuanian Com­monwealth and to include them in the recently created Muscovite-Ukrainian federation. In fact, the Belarusan peasants rebelled against their Polish and Lithuanian landlords, welcomed the tsar as liberator, and helped make possible Muscovy’s conquests in 1656 as far as Vilnius and Kaunas. At that point, Aleksei even changed his title once again, this time from Tsar of All Great and Little Rus' to Tsar of All Great and Little and White Rus' (vseia Velikiia i Malyia i Belyia Rusii). Aleksei seemed about to realize the age-old Muscovite dream of uniting all the Orthodox lands that had once been part of Kievan Rus'.

Meanwhile, the Poles and their new Tatar allies were ravaging the Bratslav palatinate in Ukraine, until Khmel'nyts'kyi, with Muscovite help, finally fought them to a military stalemate in January 1655 (the Battle of Dryzhypole).

It was precisely at this moment, when Poland was at its nadir, that a wave of patriotism spread through the country, inspired by accounts of the defense of the Catholic monastery of Czestochowa. The otherwise politically contentious and militarily passive nobility was moved by a new-found sense of patriotism and united behind their king. With support from Poland’s nobility, assistance from the Tatars, and the signing of a truce in November 1656 with Muscovy (who now feared the expansion of Swedish influence), King Jan Kazimierz was able to restore his authority.

Khmel'nyts'kyi, meanwhile, was disturbed by Muscovy’s truce with Poland. Since he considered himself a free political agent (notwithstanding the agree­ment of Pereiaslav), he took the opportunity to renew diplomatic alliances with Moldavia, Walachia, and Transylvania in the south and with Lithuania, Branden­burg, and Sweden in the north. This move reflected a basic change in his diplo­matic orientation, from dependence on the Islamic world (the Ottoman Empire and the Crimea) to alliance with Protestant northern and southern Europe (Swe­den, Brandenburg, and Transylvania), which he hoped might bring independ­ence for Cossack Ukraine.

These plans all hinged on the military success of Sweden. Charles X, however, was for the moment interested in the Brandenburg theater of operations. More­over, the Swedish king faced political difficulties at home which forced him to withdraw his troops from Poland during the second half of 1656. In the end, the grand alliance was limited to Transylvanian troops under the Hungarian Protes­tant prince Gyorgy II Rakoczi (reigned 1648-1660) and Khmel'nyts'kyi’s Cossacks. But instead of cooperating, the Zaporozhians and Transylvanians clashed over what each considered their rightful share of territorial spoils in Galicia and Volhy- nia. Thus, Khmel'nyts'kyi’s grandiose diplomatic plans - this time based primarily on an alliance with Protestant countries - failed once again to result in the destruction of Poland. Moreover, the Cossack hetman’s new diplomatic ventures alienated the Muscovites and his recently acquired sovereign, Tsar Aleksei, who in response tried to weaken Khmel'nyts'kyi’s authority by sowing discord within the Zaporozhian army. At this critical moment, in August 1657, the hetman died.

The pattern for Ukrainian politics set by Khmel'nyts'kyi was to be followed by his successors. Unable to create an independent state structure of their own, and desirous of acquiring an advantageous position within some existing state, the Zaporozhian leaders decided that their future and the future of Ukraine lay with Orthodox Muscovy. Nonetheless, almost from the outset Khmel'nyts'kyi consid­ered himself independent of the tsar and was not averse to following an independ­ent foreign policy. Also, the long-standing friction between the so-called Cossack starshyna (i.e., the hetman, his officers, and the well-to-do registered Cossacks) on the one hand and the mass of more socially undifferentiated Cossacks in Zaporo- zhia on the other - a friction which was evident under Polish rule during the first half of the seventeenth century and which surfaced on more than one occasion during the 1648 revolution - was now being used by the Muscovite government for its own purposes.

The Cossack turn toward Poland

Khmel'nyts'kyi’s successor, Hetman Ivan Vyhovs'kyi, chose the Polish orientation. Vyhovs'kyi was elected hetman in 1657 by the starshyna, but he was immediately challenged by Cossacks in the Zaporozhian Sich. The reason was simple. Even the universally respected Khmel'nyts'kyi had gotten his revolutionary start by going to the Sich and being chosen hetman by its members. Hence, when Vyhovs'kyi tried to go around the Sich by dealing directly with the starshyna, the Zaporozhians rebelled. The rebellion, led by lakiv Barabash and joined by Cossacks in the Poltava region under Martin Pushkar, was aided by Muscovy.

In the end, Vyhovs'kyi was able to defeat the Zaporozhian rebels as well as their allies, although he remained disenchanted with Muscovy’s interference in Cos­sack affairs. While not breaking entirely with the tsarist government, he signed a treaty with Sweden in October 1657 (at Korsun'), which promised the creation of an independent Cossack state that would include Galicia and Volhynia as well as eastern Ukrainian lands. When the Swedish alliance failed to produce concrete results, and when it became clear that Muscovy would lend its support to the anti- starshyna Cossack rebels, Vyhovs'kyi, with the counsel of his talented advisor lurii Nemyrych, decided to try once again to reach an accord with the Poles. Nemyrych was a Rus' magnate who before 1648 had converted to Protestantism and become one of Protestantism’s intellectual mentors in Poland. He subsequently served with the Polish army against Khmel'nyts'kyi and later favored the election of a Protestant king to the throne of Poland, from either Transylvania or Sweden. Finally, in 1657 Nemyrych entered the service of Hetman Vyhovs'kyi, and soon afterward he returned to the fold of Orthodoxy.

Nemyrych promoted the idea that for Poland to survive it should be trans­formed into a federation of three states - Poland, Lithuania, and the Grand Duchy of Rus'. Although the Cossack negotiators originally demanded that Gali­cia and Volhynia be part of the new state, in the end the Grand Duchy of Rus' was to consist of the Ukrainian palatinates of Kiev, Chernihiv, and Bratslav. Rus', together with the two other members of the tripartite federation, Poland and Lithuania, would sign a mutual defense pact which also set as its goal the conquest of the shores of the Black Sea. Muscovy could become part of the confederation should it so desire. As for Rus', it would have its own judicial system, treasury, and mint and a Cossack register of 30,000 men to be paid by the government as well as a standing army of 10,000 men under the Zaporozhian hetman. The officers of these forces would be elected by their own members and, most important, the Cossack starshyna would be recognized as a social estate equal to the Polish gentry. In that context, each year the hetman would recommend to the king 1,000 Cos­sacks to receive the hereditary patent of nobility. Moreover, all Cossack and Polish landholdings confiscated after 1648 would be returned to their original owners. Finally, the Uniate church would be abolished within the Grand Duchy of Rus'; the Orthodox church would be made fully equal to the Roman Catholic church throughout Poland-Lithuania; Kiev’s Orthodox Collegium would be raised to the status of an academy; and a second Orthodox higher institution of learning would be established. Nemyrych’s final version of the treaty was put forward to the Poles in the small town of Hadiach in September 1658. Notwithstanding the opposition of Poland’s Roman Catholic nobility to many of the terms, the plan, which became known as the Union of Hadiach, was approved by the Polish Diet in 1659·

The Union of Hadiach could be viewed as an attempt by a far-sighted political thinker to create a framework for federation among eastern Europe’s warring Christian political powers: Poland, Lithuania, Muscovy, and the Zaporozhian Host. Conversely, it could be viewed as yet another attempt by the Cossack elite, the starshyna, to gain legal entry into the Polish nobility and thereby become part of the ruling stratum of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. After all, the Union of Lublin, which in 1569 had created the Commonwealth, was basically the union or equalization of two dominant estates, the Polish and the Lithuanian nobility. The proposal at Hadiach was to add a third component, the Rus' nobility of Cossack origin. In this sense, the Union of Hadiach could be considered another attempt by one segment of Orthodox Ukrainian society to assure itself of a legally and socially recognized place within the ruling structure of what was to be known as the Grand Duchy of Rus' within a Polish-Lithuanian-Rus' Common­wealth. In the end, the Hadiach proposal was an ingenious attempt to satisfy the