UKRAINIAN-TATAR COOPERATION: THE PRECEDENTS
In turning to the Crimean Tatars for aid against the Russians, the Ukrainian emigres followed a well-established pattern. But it was a pattern not without its paradoxes. Ukrainian Cossackdom had developed some of its most distinctive features of self-government as a result of its constant struggle with the Tatars in the steppe.
And yet, when the Ukrainians sought to defend their political individuality, it was to the Tatars that they came most often for support. Thus, two societies which were inherently antagonistic in socio-economic and cultural terms, often found themselves facing common political enemies in the form of the Muscovite Tsars or, earlier, in the 17th century, in that of the aggressive Polish szlachta. Indeed, it may be argued that the occasions on which the Ukrainians were able to overcome their deeply rooted anti-Muslim prejudices and cooperate with the Tatars and Ottomans, represented the high point of their desire for political self-expression.4This relationship between Ukrainian political individualism, on the one hand, and cooperation with the Muslims, on the other hand, was evident from the outset of Tatar-Ukrainian political relations. In 1620, at a time when the Zaporozhian Host assumed patronage over the Orthodox Church in Ukraine and thereby became the defender of the rights of all Ukrainians against the Polish- Catholic szlachtaf Hetman Mykhailo Doroshenko intervened for the first time with Cossack troops in the internecine struggle for the Crimean throne at the request of one of the Tatar claimants. What this event signified was a broadening of the Cossacks’ political horizons abroad as well as at home.
When this process of political maturation reached its climax in Khmelnytskyi’s creation of the Hetmanate, it occurred with the direct support of Khan Islam Girei III and the Crimean Khanate.
As mentioned above, the major reason why Hetman Vyhovskyi was able to defy Moscow in 1658 was because of the military aid provided by the Tatars. The era which epitomized the cooperation of the Ukrainian Cossacks with the Tatars and especially with the Ottoman Porte, was that of Hetman Petro Doroshenko (1665-1676). Petro Doroshenko aligned himself completely with the Porte on the condition that Ukraine be granted even more autonomy than the considerable freedom that the Moldavian and Wallachian principalities enjoyed. This attempt to incorporate a Christian land voluntarily into the Ottoman Empire was undertaken by Doroshenko only because it represented the best possibility of preserving Ukraine’s position as a distinct and truly autonomous political entity.In the early years of Mazepa’s hetmancy, the tendency to search for an understanding with the Crimean Khanate against Moscow was very much alive among certain groups of Ukrainian Cossacks. While Mazepa himself loyally adhered to Moscow’s anti-Crimean policy, leading members of the Starshynaf like Kochubei and Iskra, who had lands in exposed southern regiments, like that of Poltava, surreptitiously argued for closer ties with the Crimean Khanate. There was also a strong party among the Zaporozhians that advocated friendly relations with the Tatars.5 A major reason for these pro-Tatar attitudes was the budding trade which had begun to develop between the Ukrainians and the Crimeans in the latter part of the 17th century. Ukrainians exported furs and textiles to the Crimea and to the Ottoman Empire in return for salt, rugs and luxury g∞ds. For Ukrainian merchants and Starshyna who were involved in the transit trade with the Ottoman Empire, the good will of the Crimean Tatars was an absolute necessity. Even rank- and-file Zaporozhians counted heavily on trade with the Tatars in order to obtain such necessities as salt, weapons, etc. Thus, when by launching its Crimean campaigns of 1687 and 1689, Moscow undermined the budding commerce with the Crimea, it sorely irritated many of the Cossacks, especially in the southernmost regiments, and led to the potentially dangerous episode associated with the mysterious figure of Petro Ivanenko-Petryk.6
In 1692, Petryk, a member of Mazepa’s chancellery and a distant relative of Kochubei, secretly left his post and fled to the Zaporo- zhian Sich.
Well-educated and politically experienced, he was soon elected chancellor of the Zaporozhians. Promptly thereafter, Petryk began to agitate for an alliance of the Zaporozhians and all the Ukrainian Cossacks with the Khanate aimed against Moscow. With the secret support of I. Husak, the Zaporozhian koshoυyif he made his way to the Crimea. There, on 26 May 1692, as the selfproclaimed representative of the “Principality of Kiev and Chernihiv, and of the entire Zaporozhian Host and the Little Russian people,”7 he signed a treaty of mutual aid with the Crimean Khanate.While it was not very clear who Petryk’s supporters were, it was quite clear why he thought that an alliance with the Tatars was necessary. In a letter to the Zaporozhians, Petryk argued that the Ukrainians could expect only harm and oppression from their former — Polish — and especially their current — Russian — over- lords. The only way in which Ukrainian interests could be preserved was if the Ukrainians were to rule themselves. And this was possible only with the aid of the Tatars. In concluding his long missive to the Zaporozhians, Petryk again warned them to beware of the Muscovites:
The Muscovite Tsars did not take us by force. Our forefathers voluntarily accepted them for the sake of the Orthodox faith. [The tsars]... surrounded themselves with our people as if by a wall.... And whenever the enemy attacked, it was our towns and villages which were burned and our people who were taken captive. Meanwhile, Muscovy, protected on all sides by our people, escaped damage. And not being content with this, [Moscow] attempts to make all of us its serfs and slaves.8
Initially, it seemed that the Zaporozhians were completely behind Petryk. In the summer of 1692, they agreed to join the alliance against the Muscovites. However, when Petryk and about 20,000 of his Tatar allies moved into Ukraine, the Zaporozhian leaders reneged on their offers of aid. Only several hundred young and p∞r Zaporozhians (holota) went over to Petryk, primarily because of the opportunity to avenge themselves against the land-grabbing Starshyna in the Hetmanate and only secondarily because of antiRussian feelings.
The presence of these anti-starshyna elements and the inevitable pillaging and captive-taking by the Tatars precluded the possibility of any meaningful support for Petryk in the Hetmanate. Clearly, the southern starshyna, a number of whom were almost certainly involved in Petryk’s adventure, did not consider this to be an appropriate time to come out against the Tsar and Mazepa. Thus, Petryk’s raid into the Hetmanate failed. Several other raids which he initiated in subsequent years with Tatar support also failed. However, the entire episode indicated that, as the Northern War began, the possibility of a well-formulated alliance was still attractive to certain Cossack groups and that Orlyk had numerous precedents to guide him as he entered into negotiations with the Tatar Khan.