The Period of Ruin

The agreement concluded at Pereiaslav in 1654 resulted in an extension of Mus­covy’s borders to include the Ukrainian-inhabited former 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 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 (Ruina), whose very beginning (1655-61) 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 - collectively 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, that trend favored the development of strongly centralized and bureaucratized state structures. It might therefore 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 can be seen as the first stage in this long process.

The Period of Ruin in Ukrainian history began with the death of Bohdan Khmel’nyts’kyi in 1657, 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 three years before. 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. Because the Period of Ruin is marked by such complexity, only its basic outline will be presented here.

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, Hetman 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 together with their new Crimean Tatar allies were ravag­ing the Bratslav palatinate in Ukraine. This continued 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 Crimean 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 Crime­an Khanate) 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 Volhynia. 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 Zaporozhi- ans 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 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 stand­ing army of 10,000 men under the Cossack hetman, who would automatically become palatine of Kiev and hold a seat in the Polish Senate. The hetman, togeth­er with high-ranking Cossack military leaders, were to receive large grants from the king’s, or crown lands, and most important, members of 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 100 Cossacks from each regi­ment 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 powers: Poland, Lithuania, Muscovy, and the Zaporozhian Host. Con­versely, it could be viewed as yet another attempt by the Cossack elite, the star- shyna, 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 social 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

The Union of Hadiach

The original treaty was signed on 6 September 1658 near Hadiach by two com­missioners of the king and commonwealth, and by Ivan Vyhovs’kyi, hetman of the Zaporozhian armies. The text was subsequently emended and ratified by the Polish-Lithuanian Diet in May 1659, although it continued to carry the original date. The following excerpts are based on an unpublished translation by Andrew Pernal of the emended text.

The Zaporozhian Army, being burdened by various oppression, took up its defense not out of its own free will, but out of necessity; since His Majesty [the king of Poland] has forgiven with His Fatherly Heart all that which took place during the turmoil and calls for unity, they [the Zaporozhians]... take part in this Commission and afterwards in common counsel to achieve a sincere agreement.

That the Old Greek [Orthodox] religion, the same one with which the Old Rus’ joined the Crown of Poland, be retained by its own prerogatives and free exercise of church services, as far as the language of the Ruthenian nation extends. To this Greek religion is granted the authority of freely erecting new churches, chap­els, and monasteries as well as maintaining and repairing the old ones. With regard to the churches formerly founded for and properties [formerly donated to] the church of the Old Greek religion, these shall be retained by the Old Greeks, the Orthodox, and restored [to them]....

The [Orthodox] metropolitan of Kiev, the present one and his successors in the future, [together] with the four Orthodox bishops [from the Crown], [those] of Luts’k, L’viv, Przemysl, and Chelm, and the fifth from the Grand Duchy of Lithua­nia, [that] of Mstsislatt, [and their successors in the future] shall sit in the Senate, according to their own order [of seniority], with such privileges and free vote as are enjoyed in the Senate by the Most Reverend Spiritual Lords of the Roman rite.... In the Palatinate of Kiev, senatorial dignities shall be conferred only upon nobles of the Greek rite; whereas, in the palatinates of Bratslav and Chernihiv, senatorial honors shall be conferred by alteration; thus, after the death of a senator of the Greek rite, he is succeeded by a senator of the Roman rite..

Also, in order that mutual affection may spread within the towns of the crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, wherever churches of the Greek rite are to be found, the Roman [Catholic] burghers shall enjoy, equally with those of the Greek religion, common liberties and freedoms..

His Majesty and the estates of the crown grant permission for the building of an academy in Kiev, which is granted the same prerogatives and liberties as the acad­emy of Cracow, only... that there be no professors, masters, [or] students of the Uni­tarian, Calvinist, [or] Lutheran sects. In order that [in the future] there be no occa­sion for altercation among the students, His Majesty shall command that all other schools which were [established] hitherto in Kiev be transferred elsewhere.

His Majesty, Our Gracious Lord, and the estates of the crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania also consent to [the establishment of] another academy, wher­ever a suitable place for it shall be found, which shall enjoy the same rights and lib­erties as the Kievan [academy].... Wherever this academy shall be set up, no other schools shall be founded there for all times.

Grammar schools, colleges, [other] schools, and printing houses, as many as will be necessary, shall be permitted to be established without difficulty....

Since the honorable Hetman and the Zaporozhian Army, [hitherto] separated from the commonwealth, are returning and renouncing all foreign protection.. security shall be provided [by an amnesty] to persons of all social positions, from the lowest to the highest [rank] and excluding no one;... in short, all those who served or are serving in any capacity under the honorable hetmans, both the former one and the one at present..

The entire commonwealth of the Polish, grand ducal Lithuanian, and Rus’ nations, as well as the provinces belonging to them shall be restored as they existed before the war [of 1648]; that is, these three nations shall retain, as before the war, their own intact boundaries and liberties, and in accordance to the stipulation of the law; [their right to participate] in the councils, the courts, and the free elections of their lords, the kings of Poland and the grand dukes of Lithuania and Rus’. If, as a result of war with foreign states any agreement be reached that is detrimental to the boundaries or liberties of these nations, the above-named nations shall stand by their liberties as a commonwealth one and indivisible, without discord among themselves over the [differences between the two] faiths....

The Zaporozhian Army shall number ten thousand [men], or whatever [figure] the honorable Zaporozhian hetman shall enter in the register.

The mercenary army shall number thirty thousand [men], which just as the Zapo­rozhian [Army] shall remain under the command of this same Hetman. [The funds] appropriated for these troops shall come from the taxes voted at the Diet by the com­monwealth [and levied] in the palatinates of Kiev, Bratslav, Chernihiv, and others.

The quarters for the Zaporozhian Army are assigned in the [same] palatinates and estates in which they were stationed before the war [of 1648]. All of the liber­ties granted to this Army by the charters of the most illustrious kings of Poland are confirmed: they [the Cossacks] shall retain their former liberties and practices....

No tenant of the estates of His Majesty or prefect, nor any hereditary or annuitant lord, nor their sub-prefects, officials, or any other servants shall collect, for whatever pretext, any taxes from Cossack farms, villages, towns, or homes. As [befits a] knight­ly people, [the Cossacks] shall be exempt from the heaviest and the lightest burdens [of taxation], including duties and tolls throughout the crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Also, they shall be free [from the jurisdiction] of various courts of the prefects, tenants, lords, and [those of] their deputies, and be subject only to the jurisdiction of their own hetman of the Rus’ armies. Moreover, the Cossacks shall be permitted to retain [such rights as the making of] all kinds of beverages, hunting on the land, fishing in the rivers, and other benefits according to [their] old customs....

The honorable Hetman of the Rus’ armies shall recommend to His Majesty as being worthy of [having conferred upon them] the coats of arms of nobility; all with­out difficulty shall be ennobled and accorded all the liberties [enjoyed] by the nobil­ity [of the commonwealth]... one hundred [persons] shall be ennobled from each regiment.

No one shall lead any Polish, Lithuanian, or foreign armies [without the consent of the hetman] into the palatinates of Kiev, Bratslav, and Chernihiv..

The three united nations shall endeavour, by all possible means, that there be free navigation on the Black Sea for the commonwealth.

Should His Tsarist Majesty [of Muscovy] refuse to return to the commonwealth the provinces [He occupied], and [should He] invade the commonwealth, then all the forces of the crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, as well as the Rus’ Zaporozhian armies under the command of their Hetman, shall unite and wage war [against the tsar].

Real estates, personal properties, crown lands, and sums of money confiscated from the nobles of the Rus’ territories, even [from those] who served in the Zapo­rozhian Army and who at present are rejoining the fatherland, shall be returned [to them]..

[The hetman] shall not receive any legations from foreign states, and if any should arrive, he shall send them on to His Majesty.

To all property owners from both sides shall be afforded the possibility of safe return to and repossession of [their former holdings], including the [right of the secu­lar] Roman-rite clergy to the bishoprics, parishes, canonries, rectories, and properties belonging to them that are located in the palatinates of Kiev, Bratslav, Chernihiv, and Podolia, as well as in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in Belarus, and Severia....

Since the hetman, the Zaporozhian Army, and the [hitherto] separated palatinates [from the commonwealth] are repudiating all protection of other foreign nations and are returning of their own free will as freemen to freemen, equals to equals, and hon­orable to honorable; therefore, for better security and for more certainty that this cur­rent agreement be adhered to, His Majesty and the commonwealth shall permit the Rus’ nation their own chancellors, marshals, and treasurers, with the rank of senator.

Stanislaw Kazimierz Bieniewski, Castellan of Volhynia, Prefect of Bohuslav, Commissioner

Ivan Vyhovs’kyi,

Hetman of the Zaporozhian armies, by his own hand, in the name of the entire army

Ludwik Kazimierz Jewlaszewski, Castellan of Smolensk, Commissioner

demands of the Cossack starshyna as well as to achieve peace among the region’s warring states.

Unfortunately for the plan’s proponents, the problem of the semi-independent Zaporozhian Cossacks was not resolved, since at best only a few of their elite might have been ennobled. Much more difficult to overcome was the heritage of ani­mosity toward the Poles among broad segments of Ukraine’s population, who still remembered the wars of the Khmel’nyts’kyi period. Finally, the disenfranchised Zaporozhians distrusted Hetman Vyhovs’kyi and continued to look toward Mus­covy, which in any case was not about to join the Hadiach confederation. Thus, the Union of Hadiach died a stillborn death.

Despite its failure, Hadiach warrants attention for two reasons. It was the last attempt to resolve the Ukrainian or Rus’ problem as a whole within a Polish frame­work. Moreover, it was used by later apologists for Poland as an example of the supposed tolerant nature of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. More impor­tant, Hadiach revealed how much less interested were the leading social strata in Ukraine, the Cossack starshyna, in attaining independence for their homeland than in retaining or expanding their own social and political privileges within an exist­ing state. If their own interests could not be furthered in Poland, then perhaps Mus­covy might offer a better chance. In essence, the whole Period of Ruin in Ukrainian history can be viewed as a time when the Cossack starshyna continually shifted its allegiance from Poland to Muscovy and sometimes even to the Ottoman Empire in a desperate attempt to find a strong ally that would guarantee its leadership role within Ukrainian society. The starshyna was hampered in its efforts, however, by two forces: (1) the governments of Poland and Muscovy, each of which had its own preferences as to how “peripheral” areas within its realm should be governed; and (2) the lower-echelon Cossacks from Zaporozhia and the peasants, who from the outset were opposed to the idea of replacing rule by a Polish or polonized Rus’ aristocracy with rule by their “own,” but a no less oppressive, Cossack aristocracy.

Anarchy, ruin, and the division of Ukraine

During this era of continual civil war and foreign invasion, the Cossack starshy- na had little effective control over events. The proposed Union of Hadiach, for instance, was viewed by Muscovy as a declaration of war, and in the spring of 1659 Tsar Aleksei sent an army of 100,000 troops to invade Ukraine. Although the Mus­covites were defeated by a combined Polish-Tatar-Cossack force near Konotop (8 July 1659), Hetman Vyhov’kyi’s position was not improved. Revolts, especially on the Left Bank and in Zaporozhia, led by Cossacks who were discontent with the starshyna’s pro-Polish orientation resulted in the demise of Vyhovs’kyi in Septem­ber 1659.

Following the Battle of Konotop in 1659, a new stalemate developed between Muscovy and Poland. What evolved was a situation whereby the Cossack state was divided between a Polish sphere of influence on the Right Bank and a Muscovite sphere of influence on the Left Bank (including Kiev and the region west of the city). Within each of these spheres, periods of cooperation were counterbalanced by periods of conflict involving various factions: the governments of Poland or Mus­covy; the Cossack starshyna; the lower-echelon Cossacks, led by the sich; and the peasantry. There were efforts made by a few Cossack hetmans like Khmel’nyts’kyi’s second son lurii Khmel’nyts’kyi (in office 1659-1663) and, especially, Petro Doro­shenko (in office 1665-1676) to unify these diverse factions and to restore the prestige of the Cossack state that existed after the 1648 revolution, but none were successful.

MAP 19

UKRAINIAN LANDS AFTER 1667

Copyright © by Paul Robert Magocsi

The possibility of an independent Ukrainian Cossack state became even more remote after Poland and Muscovy, exhausted by their inconclusive wars, decided to reach a modus vivendi. In 1667, both states signed the Treaty of Andrusovo, which was to last thirteen years and which delineated their de facto spheres of influence in Ukraine. In other words, Ukraine’s Right Bank went to Poland, its Left Bank to Muscovy. The city of Kiev was placed under Muscovite suzerainty for two years, although this initially temporary time period was extended. In the end, Ukraine’s historic center would remain permanently within Muscovy. As for Zapo­rozhia, it was placed under the joint protection of Poland and Muscovy.

Within this new political constellation, Ukraine had two hetmans, one for the Polish Right Bank and one for the Muscovite Left Bank. The two hetmans often clashed with their own protectors - Poland and Muscovy - as well as with each oth­er, especially when some dynamic leader tried to reunite both halves of Ukraine. The career of Hetman Petro Doroshenko epitomizes the confusion of the time. In 1665, he began as hetman in Poland’s Right Bank, but subsequently he turned against Poland, signed a treaty with the Ottoman Empire and the Crimea, and, in 1668, invaded Muscovy’s Left Bank. His pro-Turkish orientation - which revived a policy established two decades before by Bohdan Khmel’nyts’kyi - seemed to be the only policy that might bring some change in Ukraine’s status at a time when Muscovy and Poland preferred to remain at peace. Ukraine turned out to be the greatest loser, however, since an Ottoman army arrived and, with its Crimean allies, ravaged the Right Bank. Finally, after defeating Poland in 1672, the Ottomans annexed a huge swath of territory in Right Bank Ukraine (Podolia, Bratslav, and southern Kiev palatinates). Meanwhile, Doroshenko scrambled wildly, changing his allegiance several times among Poland, the Ottoman Empire, and, finally, Mus­covy, where he was forced to settle (with honors) after his defeat and abdication from the hetmanate in 1676.

With the Ottomans in control of at least one-third of Ukraine, Muscovy and Poland preferred to maintain peace with each other. Right Bank Ukraine, mean­while, remained a theater of war. There, Ottoman forces courted the local Cos­sacks (Hetman lurii Khmel’nyts’kyi was made Prince of Ukraine, 1677-1681, by the sultan) and together they clashed with the Muscovite army and their allies, the local Cossacks on the Left Bank. In what seemed to be perpetual conflict, the peasants on the Right Bank, who had already begun to emigrate in large num­bers while Doroshenko was still hetman, continued to flee eastward across the Dnieper River to the Left Bank and Sloboda Ukraine. Consequently, much of the Right Bank became deserted. Finally, in 1681 Muscovy and the Ottoman Empire signed a peace treaty (the Treaty of Bakhchysarai) whereby both parties agreed to a twenty-year armistice. Although the Ottomans continued to hold Podolia and Bratslav, they agreed that a buffer zone, or no-man’s-land without settlers, would be maintained in the heart of Ukrainian territory, that is, in eastern Bratslav and central and southern Kiev between the Southern Buh and Dnieper Rivers.

For its part, Poland could never acquiesce to Ottoman control of Podolia or any other part of what it considered the historical Polish patrimony. Moreover, Poland was now ruled by Jan Sobieski (reigned 1674-1696), famous for his suc­cessful defense of Habsburg Vienna and crusade against the Ottoman Turks. Joined by Habsburg Austria, Venice, and the Papacy, Sobieski formed the so-called Holy Alliance against the Ottoman Empire. In order to continue his military ven­tures, he needed peace along Poland’s long eastern boundary. For this reason, in 1686 Poland decided to strike a new agreement with Muscovy. The pact became known as the “eternal peace” which, in effect, simply rendered more permanent the arrangement reached two decades earlier at Andrusovo. Poland renounced all claims to Left Bank Ukraine, as well as to the cities of Kiev, Starodub, and Smolensk, which had been retaken during the seventeenth century by Muscovy. Poland also acknowledged the supremacy of the tsar alone over the Cossacks in Zaporozhia, and it guaranteed all rights to the Orthodox Ukrainian population in its own sphere of influence on the Right Bank. Thus, by 1686 the two principal Christian states in eastern Europe, Poland and Muscovy, had agreed to a partition­ing of Ukrainian territory more or less along the Dnieper River. The palatinates of Podolia, Bratslav, and southern Kiev were to stay under Ottoman control until the end of the century, whereas the rest of southern Ukraine and Crimea were to remain even longer within the Ottoman Empire, either under the direct authority of the sultan (Bujak and Yedisan) or under his vassal, the Crimean Khanate.

The Period of Ruin, which for Ukraine started in 1657 and ended three decades later with the signing of the so-called eternal peace in 1686, witnessed great chang­es in the political status of the country. The period began with Hetman Bohdan Khmel’nyts’kyi and his successors controlling much of Ukrainian territory. In their efforts to maintain autonomy, however, Khmel’nyts’kyi and his successors continu­ally transferred their allegiance among Ukraine’s three powerful neighbors. The result, by 1686, was a Ukraine ravaged by civil war and foreign invasion, with little hope of independence or even full autonomy, and with its territory divided among Poland, Muscovy, and the Ottoman Empire.