On the Eve of the Great Revolt

Although the magnates did much to encourage the colonization or, as 19th-century Polish historians liked to put it, the “civilization” of Ukraine, they were also responsible for the instability and tension that had become endemic in that society.

Formerly unburdened peasants were suddenly forced to provide their lords with three or four days of labor a week. In addition, they had to furnish noblemen landowners with assorted personal services, while at the same time continuing to pay a tax on their homes and farm animals to the royal treasury. To make matters worse, the magnates in Ukraine frequently resorted to the hated practice of arenda, or leasing, in which the leaseholder (arendar) agreed that anything he could squeeze out of the peasants above a set figure was his profit. Forbidden to own land, but allowed to lease it, Jews often became leaseholders. Thus, on the vast lands of the Ostrorog family, for example, there were about 4000 Jewish leaseholders, and in 1616, over half the crown lands in Ukraine were leased out to Jewish entrepreneurs. Because they had to make good their investment in a relatively short period of two or three years, they exploited the properties and peasants mercilessly, without regard for future consequences.

Another form of leaseholding was the leasing out of an estate’s monopoly on the production and sale of alcohol and tobacco to a leaseholder, who then charged the peasants whatever price he wished for these prized commodities. Needless to say, such practices did not make Jews popular with the Ukrainian population. As the English historian Norman Davies puts it, Jewish participation in the oppressive practices of the noble/Jewish alliance “provided the most important single cause of the terrible retribution which would descend on them on several occasions in the future.”¹

Among other segments of Ukrainian frontier society, discontent also ran high. The specific nature of the frontier made many of the small, recently established towns vulnerable to magnate pressure. In Kiev and Bratslav provinces, about 50% of the population lived in towns, proportionately three times more than anywhere else in the Commonwealth. Although they possessed town status and, in some cases, even Magdeburg Law, most of the new towns were little more than forts built to protect their inhabitants (many of whom were engaged in agriculture) from the Tatars. This semi-agrarian nature of the towns, plus the fact that many were on magnate-owned territory, provided the oligarchs with a pretext to question the status of the burghers and to demand from them onerous obligations and dues. Even the petty nobility, most of whom were still Orthodox, were liable to mistreatment and expropriation by the magnates. But as frustration and resentment mounted, the usual outlets that had helped alleviate them were being shut off. With the progress of colonization, it became more and more difficult for peasants to find empty lands to run away to, while, after 1638, Cossackdom, which had traditionally attracted the most discontented elements, was severely repressed.

Unlike peasants in other parts of the Commonwealth and even in Western Ukraine, the inhabitants of the Dnieper basin were not only unaccustomed to the burdens of serfdom, but also unwilling to accept them. Regardless of what the magnates contended, many considered themselves to be freemen. Among the Cossacks, for example, it was an article of faith, if not of fact, that in 1582 King Batory had granted Cossacks privileges that made them almost equal to noblemen. For their part, the numerous townsmen argued that, by definition, they were self-governing and free. And after decades on a sloboda, it was difficult to convince a frontier peasant that he was not his own master. It was irrelevant how legally justifiable these perceptions were. The point was that most of the inhabitants of the frontier believed that freeman status was rightfully theirs and this belief greatly increased their willingness to resist the Liakhy, as they called the Poles. The Polish Catholic persecution of Orthodoxy only heightened Ukrainian recalcitrance.

Combined with the frontier-Ukrainians’ inclination to revolt was their general aptitude for fighting. Mass uprisings in early modern Europe were usually characterized by a lack of organization and military expertise. In this regard, the Ukrainian case was different. Foreign travelers frequently noted that life on the dangerous frontier forced even common peasants and townsmen to become proficient in the use of firearms. Moreover, the Cossacks provided the discontented with a core of well-organized, highly skilled fighting men. Even their recent defeats provided Ukrainian Cossacks with experience in fighting regular armies and pitched battles. Thus, as the magnates intensified their exploitation, Ukrainian frontier society increased its willingness and ability to withstand it. Only a spark was needed to set off a vast conflagration.