The Hetmanate

From 1663, Ukraine was roughly divided down the middle along the Dnieper River―the western half (confusingly called the Right Bank), and the eastern half (the so-called Left Bank, rowing downstream).

In 1686, the Russians and Poles formalized the situation with the “Treaty of Eternal Peace.” Everything changed as alliances shifted. Poland and Russia became allies (because of Sweden, but that’s another story!), but Poland felt as though it had been taken advantage of, and the situation on the ground in Polish-occupied Ukraine became volatile. Left Bank Ukraine invaded Right Bank Ukraine in 1672 in search of unity and independence, backed by the Ottoman Turks. Unsurprisingly, that resulted in Turkish control and exploitation for a quarter of a century, until Poland regained control in 1699. The next year, the Polish dissolved the Right Bank Hetmanate, opting for more reliable direct rule from Warsaw.

The Left Bank Hetmanate limped on with a flimsy illusion of Ukrainian autonomy. Tsar Peter I of Russia had summarily appropriated the “Russian” identity for his growing empire in 1721, by renaming his empire “The Russian Empire.” He did not consult the Ukrainians, the descendants of the Kyivan Rus’. The Tsar hand picked his own Hetman for Ukraine, and culturally, the architecture, music, and dance abandoned Poland and turned toward Moscow for inspiration.

Eventually, however, Ivan Mazepa, a Hetman picked by Tsar Peter I, tried to wage a war of independence against Russia (Sweden was involved again). The Russians crushed the revolution brutally and imposed complete control over the Hetmancy, reducing it to a mere ceremonial office, with no independent authority at all. Eventually, Catherine the Great, Russia’s longest-reigning empress, did away with the vestiges of the Hetmancy altogether, in 1764.

The merchants of the middle class survived and prospered on the chaos, as it often does—armies need supplies of food and arms, and traders continue to control such commodities. War always has its economic opportunities, after all. The merchants were an important anchor stopping the ship of state drifting into war too easily, or too far. Wars are fought to advance or secure prosperity, and it is the merchants who handle the flow of money and goods.