THE UKRAINIAN-OTTOMAN NEGOTIATIONS

Although the Hetman did not comply with the repeated requests of Devlet Girei and Mehmet Baltaci to come to the capital, the delega­tion which represented him included the most experienced and important men among the Ukrainian emigres, such as Dmytro Horlenko, colonel of Pryluky and the leader of the delegation, Klym Dovhopolyi the Judge-General, Ivan Maksymovych, the Chancellor-General (these three men had also been in the delegation which concluded the treaty with the Tatars) and Hryhor Hertsyk, the Adjutant-General.

Orlyk provided his representatives with a detailed set of instruc­tions dealing with these two major aspects of the ensuing negotia­tions.⁸

Regarding the Russian withdrawal from Ukraine, the Hetman’s desiderata were:

—that the Russians forever abandon Ukraine on both sides of the Dnieper and renounce all future pretensions to rule over it;

—that Ukraine be ruled by Hetman Orlyk, his government and his successors, with no outside intervention;

—that all prisoners taken in the previous war (pre- and post­Poltava) and banished to the depths of Muscovy be returned (this refers especially to the Zaporozhian envoys arrested in Moscow just before the battle of Poltava and to the Cossacks sent to work in St. Petersburg);

—that the families of those who opposed the Russians and were arrested be allowed to return to their homes in Ukraine;

—that fortresses formerly occupied by the Russians be handed over intact to the Cossacks and that no attempt be made to remove the inhabitants from the area;

—that Ukraine’s boundaries with Poland and Russia “which are known to all” be guaranteed by the Porte;

—that the artillery found in Ukraine be left behind;

—that the Tsar pay the Zaporozhian Host reparation payments for damages suffered in the last war;

—that the Russians publicly retract the propaganda they circu­lated to the effect that Orlyk and his Muslim allies planned to establish Islam in Ukraine and collect harac (Ottoman poll-tax) from the inhabitants.

This rather ambitious and optimistic list of desiderata was based on the assumption that, first, the Tsar actually intended to live up to the terms he signed at the Prut, and secondly, that these terms included both Right and Left Bank Ukraine. The subsequent ne­gotiations would show that both assumptions had been made much t∞ hastily.

The second major matter to be negotiated was the terms which were to regulate Ukraine’s relationship with the Porte. What the Cossacks wanted to bring back from Constantinople was a state­ment similar to Charles XIΓs Diploma Assecuratorum. They were to propose that the Porte guarantee the following points:⁹ —that “Ukraine on both banks of the Dnieper together with the

Zaporozhian Host and the Little Russian people always remain free of foreign domination” and that its allies associated with it under the Crimean Treaty “should not under the pretext of liberation or protection attempt to establish absolute dominion, vassalage or subjugation (over Ukraine);”

—that forts in Ukraine should not be occupied by Ottoman garri­sons;

—that there be no religious oppression applied by the allies of Ukraine and that the Orthodox religion, under the primacy of the Patriarch of Constantinople, dominate in Ukraine;

—that the Porte not infringe upon Ukraine’s rights, privileges and boundaries;

—that the Porte not interfere in the election of the Hetman nor seek to replace the Hetman who is the highest authority in Ukraine; furthermore the Hetman need not go personally to the capital for his investiture;

—that the Zaporozhians' ancient rights to fish and hunt as far as Ochakiv be guaranteed;

—that Ukrainian merchants have equal rights in the Ottoman Empire with their Muslim counterparts;

—that the Porte acknowledge Swedish protection over Ukraine. Should the Porte accept these points, the delegates were to request that it then inform the populace of Ukraine of the terms by means of manifestoes.

These desiderata were quite similar to those presented to the Tatars in 1710-1711.

To a certain extent, this commitment of the Ukrainians to the Swedish King can be explained by the fact that it was not yet clear that the Swedes had lost their struggle with the Russians. And Charles XII had formally committed himself to the Ukrainian cause through his Diploma Assecuratorum. Nor should the per­sonal magnetism of the Swedish King, to which Orlyk was espe­cially susceptible, be discounted. But, on the other hand, it was obvious that the Tatars and Ottomans had a vital interest in keep­ing Ukraine (or at least a part of it) out of Russian control. It was also evident that the Khan and the Porte were willing and appar­ently able to help Orlyk push the Russians out. In any case, by including the stipulation about Charles XIΓs protection over Ukraine, Orlyk showed that he considered Swedish assurances a more tangible and concrete basis for his plans than he did Ottoman and Tatar motives.¹⁰ Obviously, this attitude would hinder the Hetman from developing a viable working relationship with the Porte.

Another point in the desiderata provides an insight into some of the broader implications involved in these negotiations. As was already mentioned, in the Tatar talks, the problem of iasyr loomed large. This issue was important not only in the specific political situation which obtained in 1711, but also because it reflected a basic and unresolved problem in the relations between the seden­tary Ukrainian and the nomadic Tatar societies. Similarly, the question of Ottoman garrisons and forts in Ukraine, aside from its obvious military and political ramifications, was also extremely sensitive because it involved a confrontation between the Muslim and Christian religions and cultures.

An indication of the Hetman’s religious interests was the request that the Patriarch of Constantinople be recognized by the Porte as the nominal head of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. This point not only repeated desires expressed in the “Bender Constitution,” but it also reflected precedents set in Doroshenko’s treaty with the Ottomans ³ 11672. The logic behind this request was that if Ukraine was about to enter into a political arrangement with the Porte, then it followed that the Patriarch of Constantinople or Jerusalem, and not the Patriarch of Moscow, should exercise ecclesiastical authority in Ukraine. Orlyk was so taken by this idea that, after establishing close personal contacts with the Patriarch of Constan­tinople, he pushed the matter to the extent that, according to Shafi- rov, the Patriarch of Jerusalem “was already nominated as the Patriarch of the Cossacks.”¹¹ As it happened, Shafirov’s report was based on unsubstantiated rumors that he heard in the Ottoman capital.

Finally, it is interesting to note that the Ukrainian Hetman did not repeat his request, which he had presented to the Tatars in 1711, namely, that the Porte recognize his authority over the Don Cossacks. A possible reason for this may have been that the nega­tive reaction of Devlet Girei in this matter discouraged the Hetman from presenting this point again. Or perhaps it was due to the disastrous results of the 1711 campaign in which plans for coopera­tion between the Zaporozhians and the Don Cossacks came to nought. Even without this point, however, the delegation which set out for Constantinople did not have an easy task before it. And just as the delegation was approaching the capital, major changes in the Ottoman government occurred which further complicated its task.

Due to the Tsar’s procrastination in living up to the terms of the Prut Treaty, the agitation of Charles XIΓs agents against Mehmet Baltaci, and the opposition of his personal rivals, on 20 November, the Grand Vizir was removed from office. The former Aga of the Janissaries, Yusuf Pasha, was nominated as his successor.¹² While the removal of Mehmet Baltaci might have been a matter of great personal satisfaction for Charles XII, it did not greatly improve his position since the new Grand Vizir could not be counted among the friends of the Swedish King or his Polish allies.

Like his predecessor, the new Grand Vizir was anxious to ameli­orate the unstable situation on the Ottoman Empire’s northern frontier. And like Mehmet Baltaci, Yusuf Pasha felt that the safety of the northern frontier could be safeguarded by using the Ukrain­ian Cossacks as a bulwark against Russian expansion.¹³ To attain this goal, the new Grand Vizir hoped to entice the Russians into a trade-off most advantageous for the Ottomans: he was prepared to eject the troublesome Swedish King from Ottoman territories if the Russians would be willing to make concessions in Ukraine.

However, there was a more militantly anti-Russian party in the Porte, led by Devlet Girei and supported, when his interest was aroused, by the Sultan himself. This group was also backed by the French diplomats at the capital who, on orders from Louis XIV, worked for the outbreak of a new Ottoman-Russian conflict. It might be noted that it was at this juncture that French statesmen acquired a closer acquaintance with the Ukrainian issue which would play a brief but prominent role in their Eastern policy several decades later.

Shortly before the arrival of the Cossack delegates, negotiations between the Porte and the Tsar, represented by Peter Shafirov and Boris Sheremetev, began. Their purpose was to ratify or, more pre­cisely, to renegotiate the treaty signed at the Prut. Thus, the Porte was about to conduct two sets of negotiations simultaneously; on the one hand, it would discuss the evacuation of Ukraine with the Russians and, on the other hand, the terms on which Orlyk and his staff were to take control of the land were to be established. Obvi­ously the progress made in one set of talks would affect the course of the other negotiations. This became evident when the Sultan, in reaction to Peter Γs refusal to return Azov, destroy Taganrog and the Dnieper forts, declared that: “I will not sign a peace with him (Peter I) until I take from him the entire Cossack land.”¹⁴ Peter’s obstinacy played into the hands of the anti-Russian party which scored a victory when Yusuf Pasha, somewhat unwillingly, was led to declare war on the Tsar on 10 December 1711.

Anti-Russian activity in Constantinople increased sharply with the arrival of the Cossack delegates. They wasted no time in agitat­ing against the Russians. Soon their influence was so noticeable that Shafirov reported to the Tsar that, “The Little Russian traitors arouse the Turkish court against Russia and they are the main obstacle impeding the conclusion of peace.”¹⁵

The main line of the Cossacks’ argumentation was that Ukraine was ripe to be plucked from the hands of the Tsar because its inhabitants were on the verge of revolt against him. Proof of this was the widespread support of Orlyk during the recent campaign. This theme, played on various occasions and to various audiences, would later become the major motif of Orlyk’s political propa­ganda. Other arguments, probably invented or elaborated by the Hetman and his staff, were presented to the Porte in the form of secret Russian plans which purportedly had fallen into Orlyk’s hands and which exposed the Tsar’s blueprint for the incorpora­tion of Ukraine, subjugation of the Tatars and expansion to the Black Sea.¹⁶

So disturbed was Shafirov by the activity of the emigres that he urged the Tsar to take punitive action against their families in Ukraine. As a result, on 8 April 1712, the Tsar’s chancellor, Golov­kin, issued an ukaz which stated that:

Because the apostate and traitor Orlyk and many others with him live to this day in the territory of the Turkish Sultan and some are even in Constantinople, which gives good grounds for suspecting—and there is no other way to explain this— that they receive support there from their relatives in Ukraine... who maintain a correspondence with them which is diffi­cult to observe and control as long as they (the emigres’ rela­tives) continue to live in Ukraine. Therefore, the Great Gosu- dar has ordered that the families of all traitors who are today in the Turkish land and who did not return to the fatherland after the publication of all the gramotas exhorting them and providing hope of forgiveness, their names are attached here­to, (these emigres’) wives and children, mothers and brothers are to be sent to Moscow for interrogation and they are to live there until the Turkish danger passes.¹⁷

Furthermore, the emigres’ relatives were forced to write letters to them urging them to return home or to refrain from rebellious activity, for otherwise their families would be condemned to death. This tactic, long a Russian favorite in dealing with recalcitrant emigres, had little effect, because most of the families had long since been arrested and banished deep into Russia.¹⁸

Despite these measures, Shafirov continued to warn that, “First of all, it is necessary to be extremely careful in Ukraine lest it revolt once the Turkish troops enter it.”¹⁹ Golovkin was also worried about the loyalty of the Ukrainians. In case of an Ottoman incur­sion, he advised that the following steps should be taken in Ukraine: if possible, taxes should be lightened in the land; Ukrainians could be used for garrison duty but only if the other half of the garrison consisted of Russians; an important Russian should constantly accompany Skoropadskyi “for the sake of advice and for other pre­cautions”; if any of the Ukrainian notables acted suspiciously, they should be taken under surveillance and “held politically”; and if outright treason occurred, the miscreants should be punished in a manner that would frighten the other Ukrainians.²⁰ Apparent­ly, such measures were effective for almost twenty years later, when Orlyk was discussing another possible invasion of Ukraine, he advised that the Starshyna be secretly informed of the impending invasion,

“So that they might bring their families to this side of the Dnieper, into Polish Ukraine or to Bender in time and so that Moscow itself, in its effort to hinder a revolt, might not have the chance to take their families and move them to the lands beyond (Ukraine’s) borders in the same way as it did a year after Prut in 1712 when the Porte twice declared war against it.”²¹