Military-political situation the day before
As of the first half of the seventeenth century, Ukrainian lands belonged to Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Russia and Hungary. At the same time, under the rule of the first of them was the most most, which occupied the area from Poltava to the Carpathians and from Kamenets-Podolsky to Chernigov. Ukrainians tried to get rid of oppression Polish gentry, in connection with which, in the period from 1648 to 1654, a liberation war took place in the country, led by Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky. At this time he entered into several alliances and tried to maintain diplomatic relations with the Moscow Kingdom, Turkey and the Crimean Khanate. At the same time, it should be noted that the latter, even in the rank of an ally of Ukraine, was engaged in expansion into its territory. Long war and the constant betrayals of the “allies” led to the fact that at the end of the war entire regions of the country were devastated. As a result, the Pereyaslavskaya Rada largely changed this situation.
Preparation for concluding agreements
Bogdan Khmelnitsky was increasingly inclined to close relations with Moscow, and therefore repeatedly turned to the Russian ruler with a proposal to accept his citizenship Zaporozhian Army. As a result of all this, the Pereyaslav Treaty was signed. This event preceded by the adoption at the Zemsky Sobor in Moscow in the fall of 1653 of the decision to join to the Russian state territories located on the left bank of the Dnieper. As a result, an embassy was sent to the Ukrainian city of Pereyaslav, headed by the influential boyar Buturlin. The hetman himself arrived here. On January 18, 1654, he convened the Pereyaslav Rada, which stood out among other military meetings for its openness to the people. Thus, not only Cossacks took part in the meeting, but also merchants, villagers, artisans and even representatives of the Orthodox Ukrainian clergy. Those interested came from all parts of the country.
Holding a meeting
The Pereyaslav Rada was opened by Bogdan Khmelnitsky’s address to the assembled people. In his speech, he once again recalled the suffering and destruction that constant Tatar attacks and the war with the Polish gentry brought to the Ukrainians. The hetman also recalled the oppression that was carried out by the Poles throughout many years. He then noted the desire of the Russian sovereign for the unity of the two peoples and asked the opinion of those present on this matter, after which he heard numerous cries of agreement. Thus, the Pereyaslav Rada gave the hetman grounds to send his delegation to Moscow, whose representatives were to discuss the conditions for the inclusion of Ukraine into Russia. The results of this trip were reflected in a document that went down in history as the Articles of Bohdan Khmelnitsky.
Results
After signing documents with Russia, its representatives traveled to 177 Ukrainian settlements and cities and took an oath of allegiance to the tsar from local residents. Most of them agreed to this, with the exception of the Poltava, Uman, Kropivyansky and Bratslav Cossack regiments and several other cities. The Pereyaslav Rada of 1654 instantly dragged Russia into a war with Poland, which lasted until the Truce of Andrusovo was concluded in 1667. According to it, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth renounced its claims to Left-Bank Ukraine and recognized Russian rule here.
01/08/1654 (01/21). - Reunification of Little Russia with Russia at the Rada in Pereyaslav
Pereyaslavl Rada
The western lands of Rus', torn away from it by the Poles after, never ceased to consider themselves Russian. And as Polish and Jewish oppression intensified, their desire for reunification in Moscow resulted in an entire insurrectionary movement.
Ukraine - that is Little Russia, Carpathian Rus', Novorossiya(developed under Catherine II, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye, Kherson, Nikolaev, Odessa regions), Cossack lands Don Troops, Slobozhanshchina(Kharkiv region) , Crimea(part of the Old Russian Tmutarakan principality).
Most of this territory of present-day Ukraine, only by decision of the Bolshevik government, which fought against Russian great power, became part of this state that had never existed before (with the exception of fake independence under German occupation in 1918). The history of Ukrainian separatism, encouraged by the enemies of Russia (Poland, Austria-Hungary and Germany, the Vatican, the USA) is described in the book “The Secret of Russia”. Chapter III of this book [“To the Leader of the Third Rome”] also spoke about forced Ukrainization in the 1920s. After 1945, the Carpathian-Rusyns, who were annexed to the Ukrainian SSR, were also Ukrainized. .
The Yeltsin government unconditionally recognized the results of the Ukrainian referendum on independence on December 1, 1991, the ballots of which did not even mention the alternative possibility of unified statehood with Russia, but stated that it would pose a “mortal danger.” “Independent” Ukraine was allowed to renounce its part of the Soviet debt (20 billion dollars) and seize part of the armed forces of the USSR, which was a violation of even the conditions that Kravchuk initially did not intend to fulfill, but used only for destruction single state and seizure of power.
Even if separatists seized power in Ukraine, Russian authorities could have retained at least Russian Crimea in 1991 - there were sufficient international legal, democratic (plebiscite) and economic instruments for this. But the Yeltsin government recognized all Bolshevik borders. Moreover, for some reason, Ukraine was given even the remainder of the Tuzlinskaya Spit, which extended from the Taman Peninsula, and thereby the navigable fairway Kerch Strait, for the passage of which Russian ships now pay Ukraine tens of millions of dollars annually. The issue of separation remains controversial Azov waters, which the Russian Federation proposes to fraternally make a common inland sea, and Ukraine to divide on the basis of international law, turning it into international waters to open the Sea of Azov to NATO ships.
Of course, the United States is doing everything possible to make the separation of Little Russia from Russia irreversible. The CIA directive for 1994–1998 stated that the United States should not allow Ukraine and Belarus to reunite with Russia; this is determined by the American goal of “establishing and defending a new world order”, for which the use of force is not excluded .
The United States provides a guarantee of the integrity of Ukraine, provides assistance with money ($200 million annually), advisers (including Brzezinski’s son), and joint military exercises (in particular, to suppress the “separatist rebellion” in Crimea). The staff of the US Embassy in Kyiv is 15 times greater than the Russian one. Brzezinski Sr. praises the Ukrainian leadership: “To hinder Russia’s attempts to use the CIS as an instrument of political integration, by the mid-90s, a secretly Ukraine-led bloc was unofficially formed, including Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and sometimes Kazakhstan, Georgia and Moldova... Ukraine supported the efforts Georgia, aimed at ensuring that Azerbaijani oil is transported to the West through its territory. In addition, Ukraine has partnered with Turkey to weaken Russia's influence in the Black Sea and has supported its [Turkey's] efforts to divert oil flows from Central Asia to Turkish terminals." Pressure is increasing on the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, for which the Russian Federation pays Ukraine $100 million a year.
The leadership of Ukraine is speeding up its entry into NATO. President Kuchma announced the beginning of this process on May 23, 2002, on the eve of the US President’s visit to the Russian Federation. European countries NATO is not eager to take over the dilapidated economy of Ukraine (its GDP per capita, according to the CIA, is half that of Russia), but the United States will not fail to take advantage of this to advance its structures to the borders of Russia - the world behind the scenes does not need Ukraine in any other capacity.
Ukrainian emigrants, fed by the United States during the Cold War, play a huge influence in the propagation of anti-Russian ideology as advisers, journalists, and textbook authors. The head of the Ukrainian branch of the Soros Foundation said that it has published dozens of textbooks with an “anti-colonial orientation”, in which Ukraine is treated as a “colony” conquered by Russia during four Russian-Ukrainian wars. even encourages the Tatars, who are expanding their structures with Turkish money - just to reduce Russian influence.
For the Ukrainian ruling layer, the historiosophical alignment of forces in the world presented in our book is even less known than for the ruling layer of the Russian Federation. After all, independentists can justify their power only by starting from a common history with Russia. By distorting it in an anti-Russian spirit, closing Russian schools (in Kyiv in 1990 there were 150 schools, only 10 remain), limiting access to Russian-language media, independent leaders are replacing the true spiritual culture of their people with Ukrainianized Western pop culture. With this the independents are trying to complete that murder people's memory Little Russians, which the Austrians began in the 19th century, to create a new people. They tear Little Russia away from the mission, although it is its original part. (Let us recall the origin of the name: Little Russia means small, central core states Kievan Rus, in contrast to Great Rus', that is, expanding to the northeast.) This is the true tragedy of Ukraine: it is deprived of understanding the meaning of history and forced to participate in the world battle on the side of the “mystery of lawlessness.” Orthodox Little Russians are fully aware of this.
The population of Ukraine is mainly Orthodox, most of it belongs to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (9 thousand parishes, about 150 monasteries) - these are Little Russians who do not separate themselves from the all-Russian destiny. Therefore, they are subject to government pressure; about a thousand churches have been taken away from them. There are also non-canonical Ukrainian-speaking “churches”: the self-sacred autocephalous (about a thousand parishes mainly in Galicia) and the government-supported “Kiev Patriarchate” of the excommunicated Denisenko (3 thousand parishes).
The Russian language is considered native by 54% of the population of Ukraine, the rest speak it, but it is not only not recognized as one of the state languages, but is also being forced out official life, media and education systems. The Ukrainian language exists in two versions: Kiev-Poltava and Galician, the latter is imposed as the norm. Many speak a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian.
At the same time, the Russian government has done nothing to support the desire for reunification among a huge part of the Ukrainian population (and the corresponding political movements), not to mention the Russian Crimea. Moreover: in 1998, ratified (with the support of the opposition represented by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation) by the State Duma, it legalized anti-Russian tyranny on lands illegally owned by it and opened the way for it to join NATO.
In relation to Ukraine, the leader of the Third Rome will be faced with a dilemma: whether to show fundamental firmness in solving the listed problems, which will be associated with their aggravation by independentists, or to apply a patient and benevolent approach, working to awaken in the people of Ukraine conscience and pride in the Russian birthright of Kyiv , awareness of the need to resist the world behind the scenes and restore our joint holding role. From our point of view, one should not contradict the other, but the second approach is not only a means, but also the main goal. Even with honest ones Ukrainian nationalists one can find common interests in resistance to the New World Order, which threatens them much more than the “imperial machinations of the Muscovites.”
* The "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine at the end of 2004 was a coup d'état to promote US influence to the east - against Russia. Congressman Ron Paul emphasized that $65 million was illegally spent on American financing of the coup in Ukraine; blatant facts about the same were published by P. Buchanan and Western publications (eg: Guardian, 11/26/2004). To this, the US State Department said: “We did not finance Yushchenko, but the triumph of democracy.”
The new President of Ukraine Yushchenko and his associate Tymoshenko were previously accused of financial fraud; in the Russian Federation there is a lot of criminal dirt on them. However, both the “world community” and Putin recognized their power as legitimate. Yushchenko celebrated his victory by visiting a synagogue wearing a yarmulke, where he lit a Hanukkah candle, then began purges of “Muscovites” from government structures. Yushchenko's new wife, a US citizen, participated in the emigrant Bandera organization from a young age.
The coup was successful for three reasons:
1) the corrupt, and therefore vulnerable to blackmail, Kuchma’s regime (similar to Yeltsin’s) was unable to take legal measures to counter the revolutionaries (the Americans blackmailed Kuchma by exposing his unseemly acts); and in the eyes of a significant part of the people this regime turned out to be unworthy of protection;
2) the pro-Russian part of the population of Ukraine expressed their will spontaneously, without proper organizational structures, because they hoped for the actions of law enforcement agencies;
3) the Russian authorities, equally corrupt and vulnerable (Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Chernomyrdin again played a treacherous role) did not take advantage of the moment to support the attempt of the south-eastern regions of Ukraine, feeding it, to separate from the illegitimate coup d'etat. This could only be done by the people themselves, in person, which requires appropriate structures of self-government and mobilization action, which, unfortunately, was not created in advance (see Chapter VIII-3). Let's hope that this is still possible, since the majority of the Ukrainian population does not agree to be citizens of an anti-Russian state. – Approx. to the 2nd edition.
Discussion of the Ukrainian topic on our
Discussion: 14 comments
Where was it at that time? Principality of Moscow?
By this time, the Moscow principality had long ago turned into Muscovite Rus', a powerful state with the ideology of the Third Rome. This was the most healthy and Orthodox period in Russian history.
I approve, but it’s a bit soft, I need to be tougher
KATSAPS, KHOKHOLS, BULBASHES, WE ARE ONE RUSSIAN PEOPLE!!!
During the time of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, the name was Little Rus', but not Little Russia.
---Ukraine (Ukraine) is the popular name for Rus' (Kievan) (Before White, Lesser and Muscovy). Found in writing in the Kyiv Chronicle of the 12th century. what kind of outskirts or near the edge of what? What kind of Poland (16th century)? What kind of Tatars (14th century)? What is Russia like (18th century)? Derived from the ancestral foundation Land-Earth, Land-Country. The name Ukraine was used only to designate the native land. To the question where do you live? They answered U or In Krajina (Krayina). The prepositions U and V in the Ukrainian language are equivalent in meaning, so Ukraine - In the Native Land, Land, In the Native Country.
--- The Ukrainian SSR, like the RSFSR, had equal rights to leave the USSR through a referendum, which happened in 91. and only this made it possible to destroy the Jewish CPSU. What kind of separatism are we talking about?
--- There is gossip about Russian in Ukraine. Only there is not a single channel on the language and a book or magazine cannot be found, unfortunately (Mosizdat is everywhere). There are more Russian-language schools than Ukrainian-language ones. But separatists in Crimea and the South-East of Ukraine are not welcome in these regions, because do not reflect the opinion of the majority.
------Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians-Russian people.
Muscovy and Russia were never associated with Russia; in the 17th century, only the territory of Ukraine was understood, the Ukrainians were called Rusyns, Bogdan Khmelnytsky called himself Hetman Rus, and the lands of Ukraine (Chernigov, Kiev and Pereyaslavl) were the Russian Principality, which in 1654 became a protectorate of the Muscovite kingdom, French engineer Boplan clearly calls the Ukrainians Rusyns, and the people of Muscovy are Muscovites; Muscovy will begin to communicate with the Russian people only in the middle of the 18th century, so you are no fucking Russians!
Dear Sir. Where do you think Princess Olga came to Kyiv from? And where is Ilya Muromets from? And from which cities did the Grand Dukes come in accordance with the order? In other words: look at the map of Kievan Rus, which Russian lands were included in it - and do not demonstrate your ignorance. I would like to advise the Slavic Aryan the same regarding etymology and the so-called. "referendum" of 1991
Yes.. They have powdered the brains of the Little Russians. Such a mess in the head and chaos from the pseudo-historical nonsense of modern Ukrainian universities and pseudo-scientific brochures of amateurs who imagine themselves to be scientists. Slavic Aryan and “horizon” are typical examples of such reformatting of self-awareness. And there are more and more of them. The worst thing is that they believe in all this nonsense and nonsense written by sick people. What do they do to people? I feel sorry for them...
Slavic Aryan, “what outskirts or at the edge of what?” - at the edge of Kievan Rus (border territory), was first found in the chronicle of 1187 and designated the Pereyaslav principality, which bordered the lands of nomads in the south.
too tough and a lot of lies, the history has been rewritten many times, you don’t need to trust it, read the chronicles, and look at ancient maps, not from textbooks, and if you restored Kyiv as ancient capital then externally there could be rights to all the territories of Kievan Rus, and if according to nationality, then 75% of those who call themselves Great Russians come from Little Russia, look at the resettlement of peoples to the desert lands of the north and Siberia from Little Russia, and who in Russia indigenous people, and all the Cossacks come from Little Russia, and Muscovy was also founded by the same princes from the same Kyiv and other cities, and look, even in our time, more than every second person in Russia is related to Ukrainians, in our microdistrict I’m the only Russian, probably because I’m from an orphanage, all others who consider themselves Russian admit that their grandmothers and great-grandfathers came from Ukraine, during the Patriotic War since 1941, more than 50 million Ukrainians did not return to their indigenous lands, raised Siberia, therefore there is no division in the Russian people, all provocations - divide and conquer, and the current Russia was supposed to be fragmented into 150 specific states at the end of Yeltsin’s rule, and you won’t believe who we are grateful to that this did not happen - the Chinese - they lay claim to very large territories of Siberia right up to the Urals, well, they don’t want to give Siberia to the Chinese, that’s why They are afraid of ruining Russia, they hope to buy up all the real estate by the private sector. r.z. do not succumb to the provocations of national discord and enmity, you are being deceived, I was in Lvov and it was exactly there, the Rukh is not Ukraine, these are Poles and they are not real, and they are sowing enmity against Russia, and few people succumb, and you do not give in, maybe we will stand, there was something else.
New Russia (developed under Catherine II, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye, Kherson, Nikolaev, Odessa regions. But what about the Kirovograd region? After all, the development of the Black Sea steppes began with it. The fortress of St. Elizabeth was founded there, and later - the cities of Elisavetgrad and Alexandria, which before the revolution they were district centers of the Kherson province. Why are we always Russians when the borders of Novorossiya are mentioned?
And what, under Catherine they already knew and revered the name of the future Bolshevik Kirov?
“And what, under Catherine they already knew and revered the name of the future Bolshevik Kirov?” Sorry, but I still don’t understand this passage. I didn’t speak for Kirov, one of the authors of the law of 5 ears of corn. I mean that the Nine Korovograd region is a fragment of the Kherson lips, and therefore part of Novorossiya. Why this annoying tone?
The lands that you proudly call “Novorossiya” belonged to the Zaporozhye army for centuries. And then royal power liquidated the Zaporozhye Sich and created its own Novorossiya! Ukraine will not bend under you!
As the economy was restored in Russia after the Time of Troubles, government agencies locally and centrally, the country began to move from a passive, defensive foreign policy to active action beyond its borders. And these actions were largely successful.
As is known, since the time of Ivan III Moscow Rus' began to make claims to possession Orthodox lands, which were once part of Kievan Rus. The inhabitants of these western and southern ancient Russian lands in the 17th century. called themselves Russians. At the same time, from the 14th century. the process of formation of independent Belarusian and Ukrainian nationalities was underway, their independent languages, culture, customs, national character. In the XIII-XIV centuries. Belarusian and Ukrainian lands became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and with the formation of the former Western and Southern Rus' entered into this single Polish-Lithuanian state.
By the 17th century The Ukrainian and Belarusian population began to feel increasing triple pressure: national, social and religious. The entire set of rights and privileges belonged to the Catholic Polish and Lithuanian gentry (nobility), and especially to large landowners - aristocrats - magnates. Harsh Polish serfdom began to spread to Ukrainian and Belarusian lands with the appearance of estates of Polish lords there. Polish law allowed the lords to even kill their serfs. Catholicism in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the main religion; the Orthodox “Russian people,” like Protestants, were persecuted and forced to convert to Catholicism.
Naturally, in such conditions, the national-religious opposition of the “Russian people” to Polish-Lithuanian rule arose. Russian claims and Moscow's help constantly fueled the forces of the dissatisfied.
Zaporozhian Cossacks. FOR FAITH AND WILL
They themselves possessed significant armed force. It was Zaporizhian Cossacks, living on the southern outskirts, dangerously close to the Tatars. The capital of the Zaporozhye army, the Zaporozhye Sich, served as a permanent center where the Cossack freemen were located, ready for raids on the Tatars, Turks and the Poles themselves. Although the Cossacks, recorded in the royal list - register, were considered to be in the service of the king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and received a salary in money, bread, gunpowder and weapons, they often rebelled when they believed that their rights were infringed. Moreover, with the growth of serfdom in Ukraine, peasants and slaves fled to the Dnieper, beyond the thresholds. The unregistered Cossacks grew due to them. These new Cossacks lived by hiring themselves out to wealthy Cossacks, were engaged in fishing and hunting, but, like the golutvenny Cossacks of the Don, the unregistered Zaporozhye Cossacks more often hunted for military raids.
In 1630, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth suddenly realized that there was too much danger from these free border guards, and tried to keep the Cossacks in line. On the border with the Cossack lands, the Kodak fortress was built and a German mercenary garrison was placed there. The goal of the garrison was to prevent the fugitives from entering Zaporozhye and to restrain the activity of the Cossacks themselves, striving to the north.
The fortress didn't help much. It was soon destroyed along with the garrison by the rebel unregistered Cossacks, led by ataman Ivan Sulima. And 5 years before that, the uprising of the Cossacks of Taras Fedorovich died down. The Cossacks rebelled under the leadership of Pavlyuk and Ostryanin in 1637-1638. All these protests were suppressed, but suppressed with difficulty.
The authorities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth destroyed the election of the supreme Zaporozhye ataman - the hetman, as well as the election of other high Cossack positions. Now the king appointed Zaporozhye leaders. There was silence for ten years. It was a deceptive silence - the one that usually comes before a storm.
The storm struck in 1648, when another uprising of the Cossacks spilled out beyond the Zaporozhye Cossack region, engulfed the whole of Ukraine and turned into a national liberation war, the banner of which was the defense of Orthodoxy.
Bohdan Khmelnitsky led the fight. He came from Ukrainian gentry. Once upon a time, Bogdan occupied the second most important post of military clerk in the Zaporozhye army. The Poles deprived Khmelnitsky of this post. Bogdan had every reason to hate the lords: one Polish nobleman burned his estate to the ground and pinned his 10-year-old son to death.
Bogdan's army moved beyond the Sich. In May 1648, it twice defeated the crown army of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the battles of the Zheltye Vody tract and at Korsun. The news of the victories attracted rebels from all over Ukraine to Khmelnytsky. He created a massive people's Cossack army. The Crimean Khan acted as an ally of Khmelnitsky. After the battles of Pilyavets (September 1648) and Zborov (August 1649), the king was forced to raise the question of autonomy for part of the Ukrainian lands. Bogdan did not really want to go to these negotiations, but the khan, who received gifts from the Poles, insisted, threatening to take the side of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
According to the Treaty of Zborov, the number of registered Cossacks increased almost 4 times (up to 40 thousand people). Khmelnitsky ruled Zaporozhye and Eastern Ukraine.
But Bogdan was already dreaming of a great Ukrainian principality, which included all the southern Russian lands. The fugitive peasants who were not included in the new register did not want to return to serfdom. They longed to fight the lords for faith and will. The foreman and the Orthodox Ukrainian gentry were not averse to completely ousting the Polish and Lithuanian landowners from the Ukrainian lands; they did not want to limit themselves to equal rights with the Catholic gentry.
As a result, a new war between Ukrainians and Polish troops began. It was not as successful as the first one. IN decisive battle near Berestechko (in June 1651), the ally of the Ukrainians, the Crimean Khan, again failed. When it seemed that the people's army was about to win, he forcibly took Khmelnitsky from the battlefield and withdrew his cavalry. The Peace of Belotserkov, concluded in September 1651, reduced the territory covered by the hetman's rule; The register of Cossacks was reduced to 20 thousand people.
It is clear that this world was only a respite. Voices were heard in Poland demanding an end to the Zaporozhye robbers completely. Bogdan and the foreman understood that to continue the fight they needed a reliable ally. Khmelnitsky more than once sent messengers to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, whom he called only “ great king eastern", with a request to take the rebel territories under their own hands. In Moscow they hesitated because the disaster near Smolensk was still fresh in their memory, and making such a decision meant an inevitable new war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
In 1653 the decisive moment came. The Ukrainians again fought with the lords. Crimean Khan he betrayed them again at the most decisive moment of the battle of Zhvanets (1653). For a huge sum, the khan went over to the side of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Without Russian support, Khmelnitsky's troops had no chance of winning the war with the lords and Crimeans.
Collected in Moscow Zemsky Sobor. On October 1, 1653, he decided to annex Ukraine to Russia. On January 8, 1654, the Ukrainian Rada in Pereyaslavl also approved the reunification of Moscow and Southern (or, as they said then, Lesser) Russia.
DECISION OF THE ZEMSTY COUNCIL ON THE REUNIFICATION OF UKRAINE WITH RUSSIA
In the past, in the 161st year of May 25, by decree of the Great Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich of All Russia, the autocrat, the Lithuanian and Cherkasy affairs were discussed at the council. And this year, in the 162nd year of October, on the 1st day, the great sovereign king and Grand Duke Alexey Mikhailovich of All Russia, the autocrat, indicated about the same Lithuanian and Cherkasy affairs to hold a council, and at the council to be the great sovereign, His Holiness Nikon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, and the metropolitan, and the archbishop, and the bishop, and the black power, and the boyars, and the okolnichy , and Duma people, and steward, and solicitor, and Moscow nobleman, and clerk, and nobleman, and boyar children (elected) from the cities, and guests, and merchants and people of all ranks. And the sovereign instructed them to declare the Lithuanian king and lords happy about the past and present lies that they were doing to violate the eternal end, but from the king and from the lords glad there was no correction in that. And so that those of their lies were known to the sovereigns of the Moscow state of all ranks by people. Also, the Zaporozhye hetman Bogdan Khmelnytsky was sent to announce that they were seeking citizenship under the sovereign’s high hand. And that now the king and lords are happy with the sovereign’s great successions, they did not make corrections according to the agreement and let them go without doing anything.<…>
Yes, in past years, the Zaporozhye Hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the entire Zaporozhye Army sent many envoys to the Tsar and Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich of all Russia, so that the gentlemen are glad and the entire Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is Orthodox. Christian faith Greek law and the saints of God eastern churches They rebelled and caused great persecution. And them, Zaporozhye Cherkasy, from the true Orthodox Christian faith, in which they have long lived, they were taught to excommunicate and be forced to their Roman faith. And they sealed the churches of God, and inflicted hatred on them, and inflicted all sorts of persecutions, and insults, and un-Christian evils on them, which they do not inflict on heretics and Jews. And they, the Cherkasy, not even though the pious Christian faith had departed and saw the holy churches of God in ruin and seeing themselves in such evil persecution, involuntarily, calling upon them to help the Crimean Khan with the horde, taught for the Orthodox Christian faith and for the holy churches of God against theirs stand. And they ask the Tsar's Majesty for mercy, so that he, the great Christian sovereign, pitying the pious Orthodox Christian faith and the holy churches of God and their Orthodox Christians, innocent sheds of blood, have mercy on them, ordering them to accept the high hand of his Tsar's Majesty.<…>
And after listening, the boyars sentenced: for the honor of the blessed memory of the Great Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Mikhail Fedorovich of All Russia and for the honor of the son of his Sovereign, the Great Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich of All Russia, stand and wage war against the Polish king. And be patient moreover it is impossible, because for many years in the royal charters and in the border sheets their state names and titles were written, without ever ending and in the ambassadorial agreement, with many registrations.
“GOD ESTABLISH, GOD STRENGTHEN, SO THAT WE BE ONE FOREVER!”
“After such a zemstvo verdict, the tsar sent boyar Buturlin, the okolnichy Alferyev and the Duma clerk Lopukhin to Pereyaslavl to accept Ukraine under the high hand of the sovereign. These ambassadors arrived on December 31, 1653. The guests were received with due honor by Pereyaslavl Colonel Pavel Teterya.
On January 1, the hetman arrived in Pereyaslavl. All the colonels, the foreman and many Cossacks arrived. On January 8, after a preliminary secret meeting with the foreman, at eleven o’clock in the morning, the hetman went out to the square where the general council was assembled. Getman said:
“Gentlemen, colonels, captains, centurions, the entire Zaporozhye army! God freed us from the hands of the enemies of our Eastern Orthodoxy, who wanted to eradicate us so that the Russian name would not be mentioned in our land. But we can no longer live without a sovereign. Today we have convened a council that is open to all the people, so that you can choose a sovereign from among the four sovereigns. The first is the Turkish king, who many times called us under his rule; the second is the Crimean Khan; the third is the Polish king, the fourth is Orthodox Great Rus', king of the east. The Turkish king is an infidel, and you yourself know: what oppression our Christian brethren are suffering from the infidels. The Crimean Khan is also an infidel. Out of necessity, we made friends with him and through this we accepted unbearable troubles, captivity and the merciless shedding of Christian blood. There is no need to remember the oppression from the Polish lords; You yourself know that they revered the Jew and the dog better than our Christian brother. And the Eastern Orthodox Christian king has the same Greek piety with us: we, with the Orthodoxy of Great Rus', are a single body of the church, with Jesus Christ as our head. This great Christian king, taking pity on the unbearable bitterness of the Orthodox Church in Little Rus', did not disdain our six-year prayers, bowed his merciful royal heart to us and sent his neighbors to us with royal mercy. Let us love him with zeal. Apart from the royal high hand, we will not find the most gracious shelter; and if anyone is not in council with us now, he will go where he wants: a free road.”
Exclamations rang out:
“We will obey the king of the east! It is better for us to die in our pious faith than to fall to the hater of Christ, the filthy one.”
Then the Pereyaslavl colonel began to go around the Cossacks and asked: “Are you still doing this?” - All! - answered the Cossacks.
“God confirm, God strengthen, that we may be one forever!” The terms of the new contract were read. Its meaning was this: all of Ukraine, the Cossack land (approximately within the boundaries of the Zboriv Treaty, which occupied the current provinces: Poltava, Kyiv, Chernigov, most of Volyn and Podolsk), joined the Moscow state under the name of Little Russia, with the right to maintain its own special court, governance, the election of a hetman by free people, the latter’s right to receive ambassadors and communicate with foreign states, the inviolability of the rights of the gentry, clergy and bourgeois classes. Tribute (taxes) to the sovereign must be paid without the intervention of Moscow collectors. The number of registered ones increased to sixty thousand, but it was allowed to have more willing Cossacks.”
WAR WITH POLAND
Moscow troops entered the territory of Ukraine and Belarus. The latter also rebelled against the lords, but, not having Cossacks, was deprived of a backbone around which it could be created people's army. Tsar Alexei was with the troops. In 1654, Muscovites occupied Smolensk, 33 Belarusian cities, including Polotsk, and invaded Lithuania. The Russian-Ukrainian army operated successfully in the south. It seemed that the defeat of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was close. Moreover, she has another enemy. Sweden attacked Poland in the summer of 1655 and captured many Polish lands, along with the capital Warsaw.
In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a number of magnates and some lords began to believe that it was better to come to an agreement with Muscovy, maybe even unite with it in a personal union, electing Alexei Mikhailovich or his son Tsarevich Alexei to the throne of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. So the war with Russia can be ended, and the Swedish king Charles X can be defeated. These ideas were liked by the Moscow elite, despite the protests of Khmelnitsky, who did not want peace with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on any terms.
WAR WITH SWEDEN 1656-1658.
Expecting the death of the elderly Polish monarch and the election of a new king, Russia concluded a truce with Poland (October 1656) and began to fight with Sweden, hoping to regain access to the Baltic.
At first the war was successful. The Russians captured Dorpat, Dinaburg, Marienburg, and besieged Riga. However, the Moscow regiments were unable to take Riga. In Poland, meanwhile, opponents of orientation towards Russia triumphed. They made peace with Sweden and declared war on the Muscovite kingdom. The plans for union were thus buried, and Russia faced a war on two fronts, which it could not afford. The fatigue of both the troops and the people, crushed by taxes, the funds from which were absorbed by this long struggle, was already felt.
Russia had to make concessions to Sweden. In 1658 a truce was concluded, and in 1661 peace was concluded in Kardissa. Russia has not lost anything from it that it had before Russian-Swedish war, but didn’t buy anything. The Muscovites returned the captured Baltic fortresses to the Swedish king.
CONTINUATION OF THE WAR FOR UKRAINE
WITH with varying success Russia went to war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in Ukraine. Russian forces were driven out of Lithuania and Belarus. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth controlled the Right Bank part of Ukraine. And in Moscow the copper riot had already died down, there was restlessness on the Cossack Don and the outskirts.
Many Moscow governors and officials came to Left Bank Ukraine, where hetman rule was maintained. Muscovites did not really take Ukrainian identity into account, since they believed that Ukraine was already a part of Russia, like all the others. All this upset those who did not see the union of Ukraine with the “great eastern king” at all. Bogdan Khmelnitsky felt the discrepancy between his and Moscow’s views on relations between Moscow and Ukraine. When the hetman drank too much, he cried, became angry with the “Muscovites,” and said: “That’s not what I wanted!” Many of the hetman’s followers, in particular Bogdan’s son, Yuri Khmelnytsky, tried to “break away” from Moscow. Some of them hoped for autonomy (internal self-government) under Polish patronage (Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky), some - under Crimean or Turkish (Hetman Ivan Bryukhovetsky), but Muscovy, relying on its Ukrainian supporters, firmly held the newly acquired lands. The main advantage of Moscow in the eyes of ordinary Ukrainian people was the disappearance of the Polish lords and their serfdom from the Ukrainian land, subject to the Russian Tsar.
RESULTS OF THE WAR FOR UKRAINE
The war between Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth depleted the resources of both countries. Finally, they entered into lengthy negotiations with the Poles. They ended on January 30, 1667 with the Truce of Andrusovo, concluded for 13.5 years. Negotiations on the Russian side were successfully conducted by Ordin-Nashchokin. Russia received Smolensk and all Ukrainian lands along the left eastern bank of the Dnieper. Kyiv, located on the right bank of the Dnieper, was given to Russia temporarily, for 2 years. However, the Muscovite kingdom did not return Kyiv in due time, but secured it for itself. Zaporozhye was under the joint administration of Moscow and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but Moscow's influence was stronger there.
Postage stamp of the USSR, 1954
Stamp in honor of the 300th anniversary of the Pereyaslav Rada, 1954
As a result of the Pereyaslav Rada and the subsequent Russian-Polish war, part of the Orthodox population of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, having joined the Russian kingdom, got rid of national and religious oppression on its part.
For Russia, the agreement led to the acquisition of part of the land Western Rus'(including the city of Kyiv), which justified the title of the Russian tsars - sovereign of all Rus'. Russian tsars began to call themselves collectors of lands with a Slavic Orthodox population.
For the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, this agreement marked the beginning of the processes of disintegration and dismemberment, which ultimately led to the complete loss of independence in 1795.
The second Pereyaslav Agreement was concluded on October 27, 1659 between Yuri Khmelnitsky, the son of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, and representatives of the Russian Tsar. This agreement limited the independence of the hetmans and was a consequence of Vyhovsky’s transition to the side of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
From a 300-year distance, the Russian historian Gumilev, Lev Nikolaevich wrote about the events of that time:
...of primary importance was the single super-ethnic identity of Russia and Ukraine, the mass support of “our own”, co-religionists. The rational plans of strong-willed, intelligent seekers of power crashed against this feeling of unity, like waves against a rock. Two close ethnic groups - Russian and Ukrainian - united not thanks to, but in spite of the political situation, since the people's “we will” or “we will not” invariably broke down those initiatives that did not correspond to the logic of ethnogenesis. Lev Gumilyov, “From Rus' to Russia”.
March articles
In March 1654, after two weeks of negotiations, everything was agreed upon, the so-called “Articles of Bohdan Khmelnytsky”, also known as the “March Articles”, were approved and accepted by both parties.
Essentially, it was the constitution of an autonomous Ukraine, inextricably and forever, by the will of its people, which became part of the Russian State. These “Articles” determined the legal position of Ukraine in the Russian State. The original of these “Articles” has not survived, or rather, it has not yet been found anywhere, but based on the available drafts and notes, the contents of the “Articles” can be established.
The main points of these “Articles” (there are 11 in total) were as follows:
a) Preservation of Cossack administration throughout Ukraine, covering the entire population. This confirmed the replacement of the Polish administration with the Cossack one, carried out during the civil liberation struggle. Under the Poles, the jurisdiction of the Cossack administration extended only to the Cossacks.
b) Establishment of a register of 60,000 Cossacks.
c) A promise to defend Ukraine-Rus from the Poles and Tatars with all the forces of the Russian State.“If the Tatars attack,” says the “Articles,” Don Cossacks Crimea must be attacked immediately.” To continue the fight against the Poles, the Russian “military people” will continue to wage this fight together with the Cossacks of B. Khmelnitsky.
d) Confirmation by the tsar of the rights and privileges of the upper class of Ukraine-Rus: the highest clergy, monastery elders, gentry and assigning estates to them.
e) Providing the hetman with priority relations with other states. For relations with Poland and Turkey, the preliminary permission of the tsar was required, and when dealing with other states, the hetman was obliged to notify the tsar about everything and not make decisions without his consent. If proposals were received that were unfavorable for the Russian State, the hetman was obliged to detain the ambassadors and immediately notify the tsar.
f) All parishes collected in Ukraine-Rus by the local administration went to the “royal treasury.” From these parishes the maintenance of the local administration and registered Cossacks was to be paid. Since by the time the “Articles” were compiled it was not possible to determine the level of these incomes, the question of the level of “salary” for registered Cossacks remained open.
In addition to these main articles - provisions that determined the future joint life of the parts of the once united Russian reunited after several centuries of separate life Kyiv State, in the “Articles of Bogdan Khmelnitsky” there were many clarifying details, down to such trifles, what kind of “salary” a military clerk or an artillery “carrier” should receive.
A special clause in the “Articles” indicates the obligation of the Russian State to maintain and supply a permanent garrison of the Kodak fortress, which served as protection from sudden Tatar raids.
Also, a special clause introduced in the “Articles” was a royal confirmation for all the estates of the Orthodox high clergy and monasteries, which were not only large landowners, but also had peasants dependent on them. Khmelnytsky called for “obedience” to the monasteries even before the reunification, although serfdom was actually destroyed by voluntary order already in the first years of the liberation struggle.
From the contents of these “Articles” it is clear that they satisfied the foreman by preserving the Cossack administration and assigning it social status acquired during the liberation struggle. At the same time, they did not contradict the idea of a centralized state, which was the Russian State at that time. This is evident from the clauses of the “Articles”, which provide for the delivery “to the royal treasury” of all income collected by the administration. The broad masses of the population were also satisfied, since the obligation adopted by the Russian State to protect from the Tatars and Poles promised the opportunity peaceful life and guaranteed against the return of the hated order of the times of Polish rule.
The reunification and its Pereyaslav formalization were also consonant with the remembrance of the unity of Rus' Kyiv period, still living in popular memory in all parts of Rus', and therefore in the popular consciousness the Pereyaslav Act was precisely the reunification of parts of the single state of Kievan Rus, once torn apart by history, and not annexation, as pre-revolutionary Russian historians inaccurately called it, or conquest and occupation, as the chauvinists-separatists are trying to imagine reunification.
The absence of the signed original “Articles” in the archives made it possible to arbitrarily interpret their content and the very spirit and meaning of the Pereyaslav Act.
Chauvinist separatists portray this act of reunification as an agreement between two independent states - Russia and the “Cossack State” on joint military actions against Poland, and the agreement and alliance is forced. Khmelnitsky was in a difficult situation, they say, and therefore agreed to it, not at all striving for reunification and intending to disrupt it at the first opportunity.
By attributing double-dealing to Khmelnitsky, M. Grushevsky and his “historical school” are silent about the historically irrefutably proven spontaneous desire of the entire population of Rus'-Ukraine for reunification, in which they saw their salvation and a guarantee of a peaceful life in the future. The separatists pass off the lust of a small group of elders with a Polish-gentry upbringing and worldview as the sentiments of the entire population.
About Khmelnytsky himself, Grushevsky writes: “The Ukrainian people for him, as for the leaders of previous uprisings, were only a means to achieve Cossack desires.” (M. S. Grushevsky “Illustrated history of Ukraine” - Kyiv 1917, p. 302).
And about the Cossacks, the same Grushevsky writes in the same book on page 308: “they looked at the war as their craft and sold their service to the one who paid.”
This is how Grushevsky, and behind him his “school”, characterizes those who, through heroic struggle, defended their Orthodox faith and their nationality from Catholic-Polish aggression. Without Khmelnitsky, his predecessors and the Cossacks, about whom Grushevsky writes so insultingly and disparagingly, all of Ukraine would have been Catholicized and Polished.
Isn’t this what M. Grushevsky regretted when he created his “historical school” in the Catholic Austro-Hungarian Empire, and isn’t this what his followers, the faithful sons of the Catholic Church – the Galician Uniates, who claim to be the “bearers of the Ukrainian idea”, regret now?
Objective historical truth, and not distorted and adjusted to a predetermined task, separatist “history”, on the basis of documents and irrefutable facts, gives a completely different picture of the liberation movement of Ukraine-Rus, which led to reunification with the Russian State.
It was a nationwide spontaneous revolution, in which, intertwined, both social and religious and national impulses acted equally.
Fight against social oppression; the fight for the freedom of their great-grandfather's faith; the struggle for one’s national existence, against Polish-Catholic oppression. They were inseparable from one another and created the force that led to victory, although not final.
In this nationwide movement, there were probably also selfish people who sought only to satisfy their selfish aspirations, but to count the entire Cossacks and Khmelnitsky and his predecessors among the selfish people, as Grushevsky does in the above phrases, means to spit on the heroic, selfless and the glorious struggle of the population of Rus'-Ukraine for their liberation.
And to silence the spontaneous desire for reunification with the Russian State, in which the people saw their only salvation, and the same spontaneous hatred of the Uniates, which runs like a red thread through the entire history of the liberation struggle - this means resorting to that form of lie, which is called the worst and most vile : to lies by omission.
It is not only from the reports of numerous Moscow ambassadors to Khmelnitsky that one can see how enthusiastically they were received by the population of Rus'-Ukraine. The same is evidenced by many documents in the archives of Ukraine, such as, for example, entries in church chronicles of many cities through which Russian embassies passed (Pryluki, Konotop, Krasny Kolyadin, etc.); reports of the Cossack foreman who accompanied these embassies (letters from the centurion Vronchenko); descriptions of the enthusiasm of the population when taking the oath after the Pereyaslav Rada (in the church “official books”) and many others.
These documents were available for historical research, but the separatist “historical school” is silent about this. She is also silent about the fact that Polish embassies heading to Khmelnitsky in the same period (1649–1653) were attacked by partisans and their travels across Ukraine, despite a large convoy, were fraught with danger to life. For example, according to Polish documents, the embassy headed by the Kyiv governor Kisel only with difficulty and big losses in numerous skirmishes with partisans it reached Khmelnitsky.
All these facts, hushed up by the separatists, testify to the genuine sentiments of the people during the period of the liberation struggle. In the light historical facts The version of the separatist “historical school” that the Pereyaslav Act was an agreement between two sovereign states: the “Ukrainian Cossack State” and the Muscovite kingdom does not stand up to criticism.
Kyiv Metropolis in the 2nd half of the 17th century. and its reunification with the Moscow Patriarchate
The era that followed the death of two leaders of Little Russia: the spiritual - Metropolitan Sylvester Kossov - and the state - Hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky - was a time of endless tossing of the Cossack elders between the Russian Tsar and the Polish King. 2nd half of the 17th century. This period of Ukrainian history was full of wars, betrayals, rebellions and splits. The situation of chaos in which Little Russia found itself at that time was largely due to the fact that the vectors of most political and religious movements were directed in diametrically opposite directions. The short-term predominance of one of them, as a rule, caused deviations towards either Moscow or Warsaw, which constantly replaced each other.
The war waged by the Cossacks, led by Khmelnytsky, against Poland was a consequence of the extremely harsh policy of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in Ukraine. The Cossacks resolutely defended their rights, but also spoke out in defense of the Orthodox Church, oppressed by the Roman Catholics and Uniates after Union of Brest 1596 In this war, the Cossacks lacked own strength to win without outside help. Moscow provided Khmelnitsky with support, which ultimately decided the fate of at least Left Bank Ukraine. After the Pereyaslav Rada, most of the Little Russians were completely satisfied with the pacification that came in the region after the transition to the citizenship of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. However, the top of the Cossacks - the foreman, having won freedom and secured a leadership position in the country, feared that with the transition under the scepter of the autocratic Moscow sovereign, they would lose their previous liberties and their practically uncontrolled dominance in Ukraine. Most representatives of the Cossack elders preferred the freedoms and privileges that the gentry enjoyed in the semi-republican Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Hence the temptation arises to try to negotiate with the Polish king on the return of Little Russia to his rule, but only on the condition that the Cossack elite recognize the liberties of the gentry and abandon the former extremes in Ukrainian politics, including on the religious issue. This is what led to the sergeant major’s numerous attempts to reach a compromise with the Poles and defect from Moscow to Warsaw.
At the same time, the common people, tired of the master's willfulness, protracted wars, and Catholic extremism, for the most part did not share the aspirations of the elders and sincerely wanted to remain with Moscow of the same faith. Firm power Russian sovereign promised long-awaited peace, order, stability and relative well-being.
The clergy of the Kyiv Metropolis was also not homogeneous on the issue of unity with Moscow. Most of the clergy were quite approving of the semi-autonomous state status of Little Russia under the leadership of Moscow and were even ready to move into the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. This was directly stated in one of the articles of the reunification agreement adopted at the Pereyaslav Rada. At the same time, the highest hierarchs of the Kyiv Metropolis, like Metropolitan Sylvester, sought to maintain church independence from the Moscow Patriarch, remaining under the jurisdiction of the Church of Constantinople, which was almost formal in Ukraine. In many ways, the psychology of the Little Russian hierarchs of that time was close to the consciousness of the Cossack elders.
It was from the combination of all these sentiments that the extremely unstable political situation that was characteristic of Ukraine in the 2nd half of the 17th century was born.
After Metropolitan Sylvester Kossov of Kiev died in April 1657, Hetman Bohdan Khmelnitsky entrusted the temporary administration of the Kyiv Metropolis to Bishop Lazar Baranovich of Chernigov, who had been ordained shortly before in March 1657 and installed in this ancient see (it was restored after a long break in 1649). The choice of Khmelnitsky was explained by the fact that in the Left Bank lands of Little Russia, under his control, there was only one bishop left - Bishop Lazar, while all the other hierarchs of the Kyiv Metropolis were in areas under the control of the Polish king. However, they were all invited to Kyiv to participate in the election of a new metropolitan. The king allowed the bishops of Lvov, Lutsk and Przemysl to come to Kyiv for the council, which was to elect a new metropolitan of Kyiv. At the same time, Jan Casimir provided the hierarchs with instructions that ordered the bishops to agitate the hetman and the Cossacks for a return to the rule of the king. Khmelnitsky notified neither Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich nor Patriarch Nikon about the death of Sylvester Kossov. In this too, the Hetman sought to emphasize his autonomy in relation to Moscow, whose supremacy over Little Russia he considered formal. The election of a new metropolitan was to take place, as before, exclusively by a council of Little Russian bishops.
But Khmelnytsky died on July 27, 1657, before the metropolitan election took place. Now there was no time for that: the Cossack elders were much more concerned about the issue of electing Khmelnitsky’s successor. Under these conditions, Bishop Lazar Baranovich turned for assistance to the royal governor Buturlin, who was in Kyiv. Buturlin advised Lazar to raise the question of the transfer of the Moscow Patriarch to the clergy and elect a metropolitan with his blessing. During a meeting between Bishop Lazar and the clergy, it became clear that many clergy agreed to move to the Moscow Patriarchate. A significant part of the clergy wanted to see Archimandrite Innocent Gisel at the metropolis of Kiev-Pechersk. Moreover, the wish was often expressed that he would be blessed not by the Patriarch of Constantinople, but by the Moscow Patriarch.
Meanwhile, elections for a new hetman took place. On August 26, 1657, it was decided that upon reaching adulthood, Yuri, the son of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, would become hetman. But until this time, the duties of hetman were to be performed by Ivan Vygovsky. Vygovsky had long been nurturing the idea of transferring from under the protectorate of the Moscow sovereign again to the rule of the Polish king, provided that the latter recognized the rights of a sovereign prince for the hetman. For this reason, the hetman did not want a representative of pro-Moscow oriented circles to become the new Metropolitan of Kyiv. Vygovsky conducted the metropolitan elections in such a way that Innocent Gisel and his like-minded people from among the Kyiv clergy were excluded from participating in them. On the contrary, among the candidates for the metropolis with the support of Vygovsky were exclusively subjects of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: Bishop Dionysius Baloban-Tukalsky of Lutsk, Bishop Arseny Zheliborsky of Lvov and Archimandrite of the Vilna Holy Spiritual Monastery Joseph Nelyubovich-Tukalsky. The metropolitan elections ended in Kyiv on December 6, St. Nicholas Day. Dionysius Saker became the new Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Rus'.
The election of Dionysius came as a surprise to Moscow. When in January 1658, Hetman Vygovsky arrived to swear the oath to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the okolnichy Bogdan Khitrovo, to his surprise, the newly elected metropolitan, who was not yet known in Moscow, took part in the oath ceremony. Khitrovo honored Dionysius with rich gifts, which were originally intended for Lazar Baranovich as a locum tenens. On February 28, 1658, Dionysius Saker was confirmed to the metropolis by the Patriarch of Constantinople. Of course, it was impossible to negotiate with the Polonophiles Vygovsky and Dionysius about the transfer of the Kyiv Metropolis to the leadership of the Patriarch of Moscow. Nevertheless, Patriarch Nikon had already begun to be titled “Patriarch of All Great, Little and White Rus',” which, however, was a mirror image of the title of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, for which there were more compelling reasons.
Metropolitan Dionysius, however, promised to remain faithful to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and swore in the same oath to Hetman Vygovsky. However, already in February 1658, the Polish envoy Benevsky reported to King John Casimir that Metropolitan Dionysius could be extremely useful in returning Little Russia to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Soon Dionysius actually became an accomplice of Vygovsky, whose treacherous plans for a union with Poland he fully shared. In July 1658, Vygovsky, having defeated his opponents, decided to completely break away from Moscow. Metropolitan Dionysius openly supported the hetman and secretly left Kyiv to visit Vygovsky in Chigirin. He never returned to his cathedral city again.
Vygovsky openly took the side of the Poles. Having united with them and the Crimean Tatars, he besieged Kyiv in the same 1658, but to no avail. In September 1658, near Gadyach, the hetman concluded an agreement with the Poles. It listed the conditions under which the Cossack elders were ready to reconcile with the king and again recognize themselves as his subjects. The Treaty of Gadyatka contained articles according to which Orthodox bishops, along with Catholic ones, were to receive seats in the Senate. The estates taken by Catholics were to be returned to the Orthodox laity and the Church. All professing Orthodoxy were to receive the same rights in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as Roman Catholics, to have schools and printing houses. According to this agreement, the king received the right to elect the Metropolitan of Kyiv from four candidates. The Gadyat Treaty looked much more modest than the previous agreements between the Cossacks and the Polish Crown. Unlike the Khmelnitsky treaties, it does not contain any mention of the union, which the Cossacks had previously decisively demanded to be abolished. Dionysius Saker and the highest clergy of the Right Bank supported Vygovsky and approved the Gadyat Treaty. However, Innocent Gisel and the majority of the clergy of Left Bank Ukraine remained loyal to Moscow.
Vygovsky’s idea turned out to be very short-lived. Already in 1659, most of the Cossack elders lagged behind him. The Cossacks united around the new leader Yuri Khmelnitsky and returned to the hand of Moscow. In October 1659, in Pereyaslavl, with the participation of the boyar Prince A.N. Trubetskoy, who represented Moscow, another Rada was held, at which Yuri Khmelnitsky was elected the new hetman. Here, Colonel Doroshenko and other Cossacks drafted a number of articles, one of which provided for the preservation of the Kyiv Metropolis under the jurisdiction of Constantinople. But these articles were rejected by the Rada members. On the contrary, the articles of the first Pereyaslav Rada of 1654 were read again and confirmed, including the one that stated that the Metropolitan of Kiev should be in the blessing of the Patriarch of Moscow, subject to the church autonomy of Ukraine.
Metropolitan Dionysius was afraid to return to Kyiv after the collapse of Vygovsky’s conspiracy. But, living in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in the Slutsk Monastery, he continued to be called Metropolitan of Kyiv. His metropolitan status was also recognized on the Left Bank. However, for the real management of church affairs in the Moscow part of Ukraine, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, by his decree, appointed a locum tenens of the Kyiv Metropolis, who again became Lazar Baranovich. Lazar had even previously turned to the tsar with a request to confirm his bishopric in Chernigov and Novgorod-Seversky and expressed his loyalty to Moscow. Yuri Khmelnitsky tried to persuade Dionysius to return to Kyiv. For this purpose, the hetman in 1660 sent a special message to the metropolitan in Slutsk. However, Dionysius never came to Kyiv.
The Left Bank clergy very soon became tired of this abnormal situation in church affairs, and it was decided to petition Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich for permission to elect a new metropolitan. Trakhtemirovsky abbot Joasaph arrived in Moscow as an envoy from Bishop Lazar Baranovich and Archimandrite Innocent Gisel with instructions to work for the election of the Metropolitan of Kyiv instead of Dionysius. At the same time, on behalf of the entire Little Russian clergy, Abbot Joasaph announced that either the Patriarch of Moscow or the Patriarch of Constantinople could bless the new Metropolitan of Kyiv - as the Sovereign himself would indicate. The clergy of the Left Bank at this time was even more pro-Moscow, including thanks to the generous monetary and land donations of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich to Ukrainian monasteries and churches.
Unfortunately, Moscow at that moment had no time to organize the affairs of the Kyiv Metropolis, since the military-political situation in Ukraine was developing very dramatically. First, the army of Tsar Alexei suffered a crushing defeat from the Poles in Lithuania and White Rus'. Then the united Moscow and Cossack army under the command of Sheremetev and Yuri Khmelnitsky suffered several defeats from the Poles and Tatars. Khmelnitsky Jr. followed the example of Vygovsky and, having betrayed Moscow, also recognized the power of the King of Poland over himself.
After Moscow recovered from the first shock after the losses and betrayals in Little Russia, they nevertheless decided to start organizing affairs in the Kyiv Metropolis. Since it was impossible to install a new metropolitan while Dionysius Balaban was still alive, Moscow decided to limit itself to the appointment of a temporary locum tenens, who was supposed to manage the left bank parishes. Lazar Baranovich, quite loyal to Moscow, was still not entirely comfortable as a locum tenens, since Chernigov, where he constantly resided, was far from the epicenter of the most important political events in Little Russia. The Moscow authorities sought to place at the head of the church life of the Left Bank a hierarch who, while staying in Kyiv and remaining faithful to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, at the same time would be associated with the Cossack elders and would pursue a pro-Moscow policy among them. As decided in Moscow, Nezhinsky archpriest Maxim Filimonov, known both for his learning and loyalty to the Moscow sovereign, was most suitable for the role of such a locum tenens. Maxim regularly informed Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich about everything that was happening in Little Russia, and had a reputation in Moscow as one of the most zealous adherents of the Moscow autocrat among the clergy of the Kyiv Metropolis. Maxim was much more involved in the political life of Ukraine than the learned and pious, but completely apolitical and not associated with the Cossack elders, Bishop Lazar Baranovich. The government of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich hoped to derive considerable benefit from this circumstance.
Since both episcopal sees of the Left Bank - Kiev and Chernigov - were occupied at that time, it was decided to place Maxim in the Mstislav diocese, located on the territory of Belarus. On May 4, 1661, Maxim, who had previously been tonsured a monk with the name Methodius, was consecrated Bishop of Mstislav and Orsha. His ordination took place in Moscow. Methodius, with the royal permission, accepted the episcopal appointment from the locum tenens of the Moscow Patriarchal Throne, Metropolitan Pitirim of Krutitsa. This measure seemed unprecedented, since the Kyiv Metropolis was under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. However, in Moscow it was explained by the need to organize the church life of Left Bank Ukraine in conditions when Metropolitan Dionysius, solely for political reasons, withdrew from the care of this part of Little Russia.
The new locum tenens bishop was little involved in the affairs of his Mstislav diocese. Initially it was planned that the center of its activity would be Kyiv. Methodius arrived here in the summer of 1661 and took over the management of the affairs of the metropolis from Bishop Lazar. Unfortunately, Methodius was not busy organizing church affairs, but plunged headlong into the political passions that were seething in Ukraine.
In March 1662, Pereyaslav Colonel Samko was elected as the new hetman by part of the Cossacks. Methodius swore him in, but then arrived in his native Nizhyn, where he sided with Samko’s rival, Nizhyn Colonel Zolotarenko. Methodius sent a report to Moscow that Samko had been elected hetman by deceit and threats. In Moscow, however, they recognized Samko as a punishable hetman, but obliged him to live in peace with Bishop Methodius. Samko, in turn, also wrote complaints to Moscow about Methodius and asked to put Innocent Gisel or Lazar Baranovich in his place, saying that Methodius was not loved by the Cossacks. But in Moscow, both Samko and Methodius were left in their places, hoping that they would eventually reconcile. Alas, this never happened. Methodius completely left Kyiv and lived either in his native Nezhin, then in Zenkovo, then in Gadyach - each time, under the pretext of preparing for the election of a new hetman. Methodius justified his reluctance to stay in Kyiv by fear of reprisals from Samko. At the same time, the Bishop of Mstislavsky weaved intrigues against the punished hetman. Soon a whirlwind of political passions completely swirled the locum tenens of the Kyiv Metropolis.
Meanwhile, the canonical position of Methodius was questioned by many, especially after Metropolitan Dionysius Baloban, in defiance of Methodius, appointed Joseph Nelyubovich-Tukalsky to the same Mstislav see that Methodius occupied. Methodius's position became even more delicate after in 1662, on the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, Nikon, who had left the Moscow Patriarchal Throne, proclaimed an anathema against Metropolitan Pitirim and Methodius, who had been ordained by him. Moreover, Nikon directly pointed out the installation of Methodius in the Mstislav diocese among the sins of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Pitirim. And although the anathema of Nikon, who left the Patriarchate, could not be considered legal, nevertheless, given the dual position of Methodius as Bishop of Mstislav and his enmity with the appointed hetman, it became a serious nuisance for the locum tenens of the Kyiv Metropolis. Even more dangerous events for Methodius soon followed. In 1662, Metropolitan Dionysius and Yuri Khmelnitsky, who were on the Polish Right Bank, sent a message to the Patriarch of Constantinople to Istanbul. In it, they did not very truthfully present the flight of Dionysius from Kyiv as a consequence of the actions of Methodius, who allegedly, with the help of royal troops, forcibly expelled the metropolitan from Kyiv and usurped his power in the metropolis. The Patriarch of Constantinople did not go into much detail about what happened in Little Russia and, like Nikon, also subjected Methodius to anathema. A copy of the Patriarchal charter was brought from Istanbul to Kyiv and caused great confusion among the clergy and laity there, after which many of them stopped communicating with Methodius.
Soon, great changes took place on the Right Bank, both in political and church life. In 1662, Yuri Khmelnitsky renounced the hetmanship, and Metropolitan Dionysius tonsured him into monasticism with the name Gideon in the Korsun monastery. Pavlo Teterya became the new hetman of the Right Bank. Metropolitan Dionysius Baloban died on May 10, 1663 in Korsun on the Dnieper. Of the five years of his stay in the Kyiv Metropolitanate, he spent only less than six months in the cathedral of Kyiv. Nevertheless, the Left Bank clergy, politically loyal to Moscow, continued to consider Dionysius their legitimate metropolitan until his death. Even Lazar Baranovich lamented his death and composed an epitaph for Dionysius.
Almost simultaneously with the death of Dionysius on the Left Bank, it was again decided to gather the Cossacks at a rally in Nizhyn to elect a new hetman. On this occasion, the most prominent representatives of the left bank clergy: Kiev-Pechersk Archimandrite Innocent Gizel, rector of the Kiev-Mohyla College Archimandrite Ioanniky Golyatovsky, other archimandrites and abbots of the largest monasteries - sent a message to the appointed hetman Samko and the Zaporozhye Cossacks, in which they asked the Cossacks to participate in the upcoming Rada take care not only of electing a hetman, but also of spiritual affairs. In connection with the death of Dionysius Saker, the Kyiv clergy asked the Cossacks to work for the appointment of a worthy locum tenens who would head the Kyiv Metropolis until the election of a new metropolitan. The people of Kiev refused to recognize Methodius as a locum tenens, as he was anathematized by the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Moscow. Representatives of the Kyiv clergy even directly asked the Cossacks to petition Tsar Alexei for the appointment again of Lazar Baranovich, a distinguished and respected man, as locum tenens. The people of Kiev also wrote to Lazarus himself, asking him to again take control of the metropolis. However, Lazarus refused.
But the Cossack Rada in Nizhyn did not live up to the hopes of the people of Kiev. At the invitation of the Tsar’s representative, Prince Veliko-Gagin, who was present at the Rada, Methodius Filimonov also arrived at the Cossack congress, who took an active part in the struggle of the Cossack elders for the hetman’s mace. Largely thanks to the intrigues of the Bishop of Mstislav, the Cossacks were able to be diverted from consideration of church affairs and, above all, the question of a new locum tenens of the Kyiv Metropolis. As a result, the Rada elected Methodius’s longtime friend, Ivan Bryukhovetsky, as hetman. Methodius swore him in. Soon Samko, Zolotarenko and a number of other prominent Cossacks, on whom the Kiev clergy was counting on relying, were executed through the machinations of Bryukhovetsky and Methodius, who supported him.
Bishop Lazar Baranovich, although he refused locum tenens after the death of Dionysius Baloban, asked Hetman Bryukhovetsky and the Cossacks to petition Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich for the speedy election of a new Metropolitan of Kyiv. However, this was prevented by unrest among the Cossacks, many of whom were dissatisfied with the election of Bryukhovetsky. They did not fail to take advantage of the hitch in Right Bank Ukraine, which was under the rule of the Polish king. On November 9, 1663, the Right Bank clergy gathered for the election of a metropolitan in Korsun. But even here there was no unity among the clergy and laity who gathered for the council. Some of the participants in the cathedral elected Joseph Nelyubovich-Tukalsky, Bishop of Mstislavsky, as Metropolitan. Another group chose Bishop Anthony of Vinnytsia of Przemysl and Sambir for the metropolis. As a result of this difference of opinion, it was decided to hold repeat elections on November 19. The hetman also arrived to take part in them. Right Bank Ukraine Pavlo Teterya. However, new elections did not change the situation, the schism persisted: the majority of the bishops and the hetman were for Anthony, but many votes were also given for Joseph. As a result, the protocols of both conciliar groups with the names of two applicants for the Kyiv Metropolis were sent to the Polish king for approval. Jan Casimir acted like a true Catholic and the son of the creator of the Union of Brest, Sigismund III: first he confirmed both Anthony and Joseph to the metropolis, and then annulled the powers of both. The Poles again intended to sow confusion among the Orthodox, believing this would help them keep the Right Bank behind the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Hetman Teterya initially voted for Anthony of Vinnytsia, but later he recognized Joseph Nelyubovich-Tukalsky as his legitimate metropolitan. Having learned about this, the Poles managed to drive a wedge between Teterya and Joseph. They spread a rumor that Tukalsky, together with Vygovsky, allegedly planned to transfer Right Bank Ukraine under the authority of the Moscow sovereign. Tukalsky was also accused of allegedly conspiring with the former hetman, Yuri-Gedeon Khmelnitsky, with the goal of deposing Pavel Teterya. These rumors did not look very plausible, and, nevertheless, Ivan Vygovsky, Yuri Khmelnitsky and Joseph Nelyubovich-Tukalsky were arrested by the Poles as supporters of Moscow. In 1664, Vygovsky was shot by the authorities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and Joseph and Khmelnitsky Jr. were imprisoned in Marienburg Castle, where they spent about two years.
During the period of Nielubovich-Tukalsky’s imprisonment (1664-1666), the king introduced on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth the position of temporary administrator of the Kyiv Metropolis, who actually performed functions similar to those on the Left Bank assigned to the locum tenens of the Kyiv Metropolis. The king appointed Lviv Bishop Afanasy Zheliborsky as temporary administrator. Anthony of Vinnitsa, whom the king first recognized as a metropolitan along with Joseph, but then annulled his decision, returned to fulfill the duties of Bishop of Przemysl (although he continued to call himself metropolitan). In April 1665, Pavlo Teterya asked the king to still allow Anthony to take over the administration of the Kyiv Metropolis, but Jan Casimir refused the hetman. It was obvious that the Catholic authorities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were once again purposefully destroying the church life of the Orthodox Right Bank. In 1666, the new Right Bank Hetman Doroshenko also tried to get the king to approve Anthony of Vinnitsa as metropolitan, and when this failed, he asked the king to allow repeat elections of the metropolitan, but this was also refused. Soon, however, the Poles were forced to release Joseph Nelyubovich-Tukalsky from prison and he, finding himself under the protection of Doroshenko, announced that he was taking over the management of the Kyiv Metropolis.
The clergy of the Left Bank did not take part in the election of Joseph of Tukalsky and Anthony of Vinnitsa. In the Moscow part of Ukraine, the management of church affairs still remained in the hands of Methodius Filimonov. After Bryukhovetsky was elected hetman, he finally returned to Kyiv. His relations with the Kyiv clergy, who had previously refused to recognize him as a locum tenens as anathema, gradually normalized. Methodius asked Alexei Mikhailovich to intercede for him before the Patriarch of Constantinople, which the king did. The Moscow sovereign, in his message sent to Istanbul, informed the Patriarch that the installation of Methodius took place by his royal decree as an exceptional measure necessary in the conditions of church unrest in Little Russia caused by the betrayal and flight to Poland of Metropolitan Dionysius. The Patriarch lifted the anathema from Methodius, and the Kyiv clergy, who had previously shunned him, soon again recognized the Mstislav bishop as the legitimate locum tenens, entered into communication with him and began to raise his name during divine services.
On the Left Bank, as in the Polish part of Ukraine, the intrigues of the Cossack elders also continued, causing more and more troubles. Unexpectedly, enmity flared up here between Methodius Filimonov and Hetman Bryukhovetsky, who feared the excessively increased influence of the Mstislav bishop on the political life of Left Bank Ukraine. The bishop and the hetman accused each other of disloyalty to Tsar Alexei, which both regularly reported to Moscow. The hetman began to treat Bishop Methodius so hostilely that he allowed the Cossacks to plunder his church estates. In 1665, Bryukhovetsky, while in Moscow, asked the tsar to replace Methodius with a Great Russian metropolitan, motivating his request by the presence of pro-Polish sentiments among the Little Russian clergy and their unreliability. The sovereign promised the hetman that he would write off this matter with the Patriarch of Constantinople and, if he received a blessing, he would arrange everything as Bryukhovetsky asked. The news of the hetman's negotiations in Moscow led Methodius and the Kiev clergy to upset feelings. Bryukhovetsky was told that the metropolitan had recently been elected with the knowledge of the hetman, but exclusively in Little Russia, which they asked the sovereign to remind him of. Bryukhovetsky, on the contrary, pointed out to the clergy that even under Khmelnitsky it was agreed with Moscow that the Metropolitan of Kyiv would be appointed by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'. Naturally, during this dialogue with Bryukhovetsky about the future of the Kyiv Metropolis, anti-Moscow sentiments began to grow among the clergy of the Left Bank. Methodius, who was afraid of losing his position as a locum tenens, warmed them up even more, soon turning from an assistant to Moscow into a zealot for independence.
In February 1666, the Kyiv clergy, extremely excited by Methodius, had a conversation with the royal governor - boyar Sheremetev, who represented the sovereign in Left-Bank Ukraine. During the conversation with the boyar, the temperamental Little Russians initially made an extremely harsh statement: “If by the will of the sovereign we have a Moscow metropolitan, and not by our election, then let the sovereign order us all to be executed rather than we agree to it. As soon as the Moscow metropolitan arrives in Kyiv, we will lock ourselves in monasteries, and perhaps by the neck and They will drag us out of there by our feet, then the Moscow Metropolitan in Kiev will now be Archbishop Filaret, and he has taken away all the rights of the clergy, he calls everyone of other faiths, and they are Orthodox Christians. The Moscow Metropolitan in Kiev will also call all the inhabitants of Kyiv. Little Russia. It is better for us to accept death than for the Moscow Metropolitan to be in Kyiv.". But soon, on reflection, the Kyiv clergy, who were already quite tired of the church unrest in Ukraine, announced that they were ready to agree to the installation of a metropolitan of Moscow jurisdiction, but on the condition that the existing procedure for electing the metropolitan of Kyiv was preserved exclusively by the Little Russian clergy. The day after this conversation, Methodius even apologized to Sheremetev for his earlier vehemence.
But the situation in Moscow at that time was such that it was not possible to decisively deal with the church affairs of Ukraine. Despite the fact that 8 years have passed since Nikon left the Patriarchate, a new Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' has not yet been elected. In Moscow, preparations were underway for the Council, in which the Eastern Patriarchs were to take part - it was supposed to decide the fate of Nikon and take measures against the zealots of the old rite. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich needed the support of the Greeks, and above all, the Patriarch of Constantinople. In such conditions, raising the question of the transfer of the Kyiv Metropolis to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate meant complicating relations with Constantinople. Therefore, although at the Great Moscow Council of 1666-1667. and Bishops Methodius Filimonov and Lazar Baranovich were present (the latter was even elevated to the rank of archbishop at the Council), the issue of the transition of the Kyiv Metropolis to the supremacy of Moscow was never resolved.
Further political events in Little Russia further aggravated the turmoil in church affairs. In January 1667, hostilities between Russia and Poland ended with the signing of the Truce of Andrusovo for a period of 13 and a half years. According to this agreement, Moscow received the Chernigov-Seversk and Smolensk lands lost after the Time of Troubles, and also secured Left Bank Ukraine. According to the Treaty of Andrusovo, Kyiv, located on the right bank, remained with Moscow for only two years, although subsequently it was never returned to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. But power was again consolidated throughout the Right Bank Polish king. The recognition by the government of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich of the division of Little Russia into two parts, which had long become a reality, aroused fear among the Kievites that they would return to the citizenship of the Polish monarch and be subject to new repressions from Catholics. Methodius Filimonov used these sentiments in the Kiev clergy to continue agitation against the installation of a metropolitan under Moscow jurisdiction.
At the same time, great changes also occurred in the Right Bank of Ukraine. Hetman Petro Doroshenko changed the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and came under power Turkish Sultan, recognizing himself as his vassal. Doroshenko gained a foothold in Podolia and the Dnieper regions, where he became notorious for selling his fellow Ukrainians into slavery, who at that time flooded the slave markets Islamic East. As a result of Doroshenko's intrigues, Methodius Filimonov and the Left Bank hetman Bryukhovetsky also betrayed Moscow. Doroshenko promised Methodius that he would make him Metropolitan of Kyiv, and seduced Bryukhovetsky with a promise to renounce his Right Bank hetmanship and recognize Bryukhovetsky as the sole hetman of Little Russia. Both ambitious people took the bait and ran to the Right Bank. Here Bryukhovetsky was immediately executed at the beginning of 1668. Methodius was also cruelly deceived in his aspirations: Metropolitan Joseph Nelyubovich-Tukalsky declared him defrocked and imprisoned him in the Uman monastery. Methodius, however, soon escaped from the monastery prison to Kyiv. The local clergy greeted him with indignation, and the former Mstislav bishop, who had completely discredited himself, was sent by governor Sheremetev to Moscow, betrayed by Methodius. Here he was recognized as defrocked and sent to repentance at the Novospassky Monastery.
Peter Doroshenko declared himself the sole hetman of Little Russia. On the Right Bank he appointed hetman Demyan Mnogohrishny as his deputy, but he, through Tsar's voivode Prince Romodanovsky sent a request to Moscow to transfer to the citizenship of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Archbishop of Chernigov Lazar Baranovich acted as a mediator in Mnogohrishny’s negotiations with Moscow.
Doroshenko recognized Joseph Nelyubovich-Tukalsky, who was staying with the hetman in the city of Chigirin, as the Metropolitan of Kyiv. Most of the Orthodox on the Right Bank also obeyed him as their first hierarch. Constantinople also recognized Joseph as the legitimate head of the Kyiv Metropolis. Even on the Left Bank, Joseph was remembered as a metropolitan. He enjoyed great authority and respect among the Little Russian clergy. In particular, the future Saint Demetrius of Rostov had a very warm attitude towards Metropolitan Joseph. Voivode P. Sheremetev and boyar A. Ordin-Nashchokin proposed to officially recognize Joseph as Metropolitan of Kyiv and extend his power to the Left Bank. Negotiations were held with him regarding the transition to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, but they were never successful. However, Joseph at the end of his life, it seems, began to lean in favor of Moscow. CM. Solovyov reported on rumors circulating in Chigirin during Joseph’s dying illness that Doroshenko had stopped visiting the dying metropolitan, since he persistently called on the hetman to renounce the Turkish Sultan and become a citizen of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. After the death of Joseph (in July 1675), Doroshenko admitted that he was right and in 1677 decided to submit to Tsar Feodor Aleksevich. The hetman arrived in Moscow and, having received generous land grants from the sovereign, became a boyar and royal governor in Vyatka.
After the death of Metropolitan Joseph Nelyubovich-Tukalsky, neither the Right Bank nor the Left Bank Ukraine, a successor was elected to him. In the Moscow part of Little Russia, church power was once again transferred to Archbishop Lazar Baranovich, who remained locum tenens of the Kyiv Metropolis until 1685. In the Polish part of Ukraine, even before the death of Metropolitan Joseph in 1673, by decree of King Michael Vishnevetsky, a new administrator was appointed to govern the dioceses of Kyiv metropolis located on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, it became Bishop Joseph Shumlyansky of Lvov.
At this time, the situation in the western dioceses of the Kyiv Metropolis, located within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, became extremely difficult. After Kyiv and the main forces Ukrainian Cossacks found themselves outside Polish state, their influence on the church life of Western Orthodox dioceses weakened. The attitude of the Catholic authorities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth towards the Orthodox population after the Cossack wars mid-17th century V. has become even more intolerant. This led in the last quarter of the 17th century to new attempts by the royal administration to impose a union among the Orthodox Rusyns under its control. Initially, King John III Sobieski (1674–1696) had high hopes for the resumption of dialogue between the Orthodox and the Uniates, but the negotiation process did not bring the expected results. Then the king began to use a different tactic: he appointed clergymen inclined to convert to Catholicism to the Orthodox episcopal sees, intending through them to impose a union “from above.”
Joseph Shumlyansky secretly accepted the union in 1677 and took the oath to the Uniate Metropolitan Cyprian of Zhokhovsky (he headed the Uniate Metropolis of Kyiv in 1674-1693). The king brought another secret supporter of Uniateism, Slutsk Archimandrite Theodosius Vasilevich, to the Mstislav See. In 1679, at the instigation of Shumlyansky, Innocent of Vinnitsa (nephew of Anthony of Vinnitsa), who was also ready to unite with Rome, was appointed Bishop of Przemysl in 1679. In 1681, Shumlyansky and Vinnitsky confirmed their oath of allegiance to Rome in the presence of the papal nuncio and the Uniate metropolitan.
In the Left Bank part of Little Russia at this time, Archbishop Lazar of Chernigov continued to govern church life. Officially, he was listed under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, but at the same time he had to participate in events that increasingly testified to the growing influence of the Moscow Patriarchate on the affairs of the Kyiv Metropolis. In particular, this was clearly manifested in 1683, when in place of the deceased Innocent Gisel it was necessary to elect a new archimandrite of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, which had a stauropegy and was directly subordinate to the Patriarch of Constantinople. In this regard, Hetman Samoilovich turned to Moscow for permission to elect a new rector of the Lavra. In Kyiv, without relations with Constantinople, it was decided to install Varlaam Yasinsky in the Pechersk archimandry. However, Joseph Shumlyansky unexpectedly made claims to the Lavra. In such a situation, Varlaam, who appealed to the Patriarch in Istanbul and did not receive a response due to the war between Russia and Turkey, was forced to seek confirmation of his rights to the Lavra in Moscow. Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Joachim confirmed Varlaam at the Pechersk Archimandry.
Fatigue from the disorder in the church life of Ukraine was accumulating more and more, at the same time the conviction was growing that the transition to Moscow jurisdiction would solve the accumulated problems and streamline the affairs of the Kyiv Metropolis. In 1683, new negotiations began between Hetman Ivan Samoilovich and Patriarch Joachim on the possibility of installing a Metropolitan of Kyiv in Moscow. A major role in their initiation was played by information leaked to Kyiv and Moscow about the secret transition of Joseph Shumlyansky and Innokenty Vinnitsky to the union. The most likely candidate for the Kyiv metropolis was considered Bishop of Lutsk and Ostrog Gideon, who came from the ancient family of princes Svyatopolk-Chetvertinsky - a family that traced its origins to Rurik. Gideon, ordained bishop by Metropolitan Dionysius, occupied the see of Lutsk for a quarter of a century, but was then expelled from his diocesan city by Joseph of Shumlyansky, who intended to replace Gideon with his brother, Athanasius, who was again in favor of union. Gideon was forced to flee to Left Bank Little Russia. He arrived in the city of Baturin, where the residence of Hetman Ivan Samoilovich was, and asked him for protection. Samoilovich took part in the fate of the persecuted Orthodox hierarch. Soon Gideon and Samoilovich became even closer, agreeing on the marriage of one of them. junior princes Chetvertinsky with the hetman's daughter. Gideon’s candidacy was also viewed favorably in Moscow, where they saw him as a determined opponent of the union.
In 1684, Duma clerk Emelyan Ukraintsev met with Bishop Gideon, who was in Baturin, in the Krupetsky monastery, and negotiated his appointment to the Kyiv metropolitanate. At the same time, Samoilovich strongly spoke out for the transfer of the Kyiv Metropolis to the jurisdiction of Moscow, subject to the preservation of the ancient right of the Little Russians to independently elect their metropolitan. In February 1685, the okolnichy Neplyuev was sent to Baturin from Moscow, who announced the consent of the tsarist government to the election of the Kyiv Metropolitan in Little Russia, but with his subsequent installation in Moscow.
The council for the election of the Metropolitan of Kyiv was scheduled for July 8, 1685 in Kyiv. By the indicated time, representatives of the clergy, Hetman Samoilovich and the Cossack elders began to arrive here. Lazar Baranovich did not want to come to the Council, offended that behind the scenes the authorities were already inclined in favor of the election of Gideon. Archbishop Lazar, nevertheless, sent out his universals to the Little Russian clergy, which called on the clergy to take part in the elections of the metropolitan. Bishop Gideon also did not participate in the work of the Council. As a result, the Council decided to elect Gideon to the metropolis, and ambassadors were sent to him to notify him of this.
Not everyone was happy with the election of Metropolitan Gideon. Soon after the Council of 1685, a meeting of a number of opponents of the reunification of the Kyiv Metropolis with the Moscow Patriarchate and the election of Gideon as metropolitan took place in Kyiv, but this enterprise did not have any noticeable consequences.
Gideon Svyatopolk-Chetvertinsky, who was elected metropolitan, and Hetman Samoilovich wrote to Moscow about everything that happened in Kyiv addressed to the young Tsars John and Peter Alekseevich and the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Joachim. The kings and the Patriarch were asked to immediately send an embassy to the Patriarch of Constantinople in order to finally resolve the issue of transferring the Kyiv Metropolis to the jurisdiction of Moscow. At the same time, Metropolitan Gideon and Ivan Samoilovich asked to forever secure the autonomous status of the Kyiv Metropolis and the rights and privileges associated with it. In response, letters were sent to Kyiv, in which it was reported that all the previous rights of the Kyiv See would be preserved in everything except one: the Kiev Metropolitan would have to renounce the title of Exarch of the Patriarch of Constantinople, which, however, was quite natural.
On October 24, 1685, Gideon Svyatopolk-Chetvertinsky with a large retinue, consisting of 45 representatives of the clergy and Cossack elders, arrived in Moscow. In the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin, in the presence of Tsars Peter and John Alekseevich and Patriarch Joachim, Metropolitan Gideon swore allegiance to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Joachim Savelov. Following this, Gideon received letters from the kings and the Patriarch, with which he was confirmed in the Kyiv Metropolis. The letters obligated the Kyiv Metropolitan to communicate on the most important issues with the Hetman of Little Russia, who was under the citizenship of the Moscow Tsar. The charters also asserted the broadest autonomy of the Kyiv Metropolis in the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church: the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' was not to interfere with the judicial jurisdiction of the Metropolitan of Kyiv; the metropolitan himself, as before, was elected for life by the clergy and Cossacks of Little Russia, but from now on had to be blessed and appointed by the Moscow Patriarch, while retaining the right to independently govern all dioceses, monasteries and parishes of Ukraine, as well as the Kyiv theological school and printing house; The Kyiv Metropolis received the status of the first in honor among the departments of the Russian Church after the Patriarchate; The metropolitan, like the Patriarch, had the right to wear a standing cross on his miter, and within his metropolis - the right to present the cross. With these charters, all of his former land holdings, including those on the Right Bank, were assigned to the Kyiv Metropolitan. The documents did not mention anything about the non-jurisdiction of the Kyiv Metropolitan to the Moscow Patriarch, however, this literally corresponded to the previous legal status of the Kyiv First Hierarch in the Church of Constantinople (there are cases when the Patriarchs of Constantinople used this right to depose the Kyiv Metropolitans, for example, Patriarch Jeremiah II did this in relation to Metropolitan Onesiphorus of the Girl ).
However, after the installation of Metropolitan Gideon in Moscow, it was also necessary to obtain confirmation of this act from the Patriarch of Constantinople. The latter was already aware of what was happening - back in December 1684, the Greek Zacharias Sophir was sent to him for negotiations. But despite rich gifts, he was never able to achieve a letter that would recognize Moscow jurisdiction over Kiev: Patriarch Parthenius IV dodged the answer in every possible way and made an excuse by saying that he could not sign the required letter, fearing the wrath of the Ottoman vizier.
At that time, an oppressive atmosphere reigned in the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Vizier not only pushed around the Patriarchs, but also easily changed the Primates of the Church of Constantinople, eliminating those undesirable and issuing a firman for the Patriarchate to his proteges or simply to persons who bought from the Sublime Porte the right to occupy the Patriarchal See. Therefore, it is not surprising that in the year 1685 in question, three Patriarchs replaced each other in Istanbul, each of whom ruled the Church for only a few months. In 1685, Parthenius was briefly replaced by Patriarch Jacob, then Dionysius was appointed to the see of Constantinople.
It was to him that representatives of Moscow and Kyiv turned for the second time with a request to approve the transition of the Kyiv Metropolis to the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church. In November 1685, clerk Nikita Alekseev, representing the Moscow sovereigns, and Ivan Lisitsa, an envoy of Hetman Samoilovich, were sent to Istanbul. Letters were brought to the Patriarch of Constantinople from Tsars Peter and John Alekseevich and Patriarch Joachim, which set out in detail all the arguments in favor of the need to unite both halves of the Russian Church - Kyiv and Moscow. The letters also contained a request to recognize and approve the transition of the Kyiv Metropolis to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, to secure the rank of metropolitan for Prince Chetvertinsky and, recognizing his subordination to Joachim, to call on the Orthodox of the Left Bank of Ruthenia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to obey Metropolitan Gideon and his successors. Moscow letters, of course, were traditionally supported by sables and chervonets. Lisitsa brought Patriarch Dionysius a letter of similar content from Hetman Samoilovich.
On the way to Istanbul, the Russian ambassadors stopped in Edirne (Adrianople), where the Turkish Sultan and his grand vizier were then located. Patriarch Dosifei of Jerusalem, who was considered a great friend of Moscow, was also here at that time. Knowing this, the Russian ambassadors asked Dosifei to help them convince the Patriarch of Constantinople to give the necessary letter. Unexpectedly, Dosifei announced that not only would he not help the ambassadors, but, on the contrary, he would resolutely dissuade Dionysius from an agreement with Moscow regarding the transfer of the Kyiv Metropolis to the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'. Dosifei behaved in an unusually arrogant and friendly manner. He told the ambassadors that he would write to Moscow to the sovereigns and the Patriarch that the business they had started to resubordinate the Kyiv Metropolis to Moscow could do more harm than good. Dositheus, who, strictly speaking, was not concerned with Little Russian affairs, said without any reason that the transfer of the Kyiv Metropolis to the Moscow Patriarchate would be a violation of the canons of the Orthodox Church, and declared the installation of Gideon in Moscow illegal. Dositheos went so crazy that he called the solution to the problem of the Kyiv Metropolis only between the Moscow and Constantinople Patriarchs illegal, demanding a discussion of the Ukrainian issue with the participation of all the Eastern Patriarchs. Alekseev tried to calmly convince Dosifei that the Patriarch of Jerusalem was wrong, but did not succeed. Then Lisitsa, who had lost patience with communicating with the Greeks, told Dosifei that the matter had already been decided: the hetman and the Cossacks want the Kiev Metropolis to be under the blessing of the Patriarch of Moscow - which means that it will be so.
This was followed by a meeting of the ambassadors with the Patriarch of Constantinople Dionysius IV, who had recently once again been returned to the see. Initially, this meeting did not produce any results. However, Alekseev and Lisitsa were probably still very clever diplomats and quickly understood the situation. They met with the Grand Vizier and realized that they could not find a better ally in negotiations with the Greek Patriarchs. The fact was that the Turks at that time were firmly bogged down in the war in the Balkans with a coalition of European powers. Most of all, Istanbul feared that military action against Ottoman Empire Moscow will also begin. Therefore, the Turks were ready to make any concessions in order to please the government of Princess Sofia Alekseevna and convince the Russians to abandon the idea of opening a second front against the Ottomans.
Dionysius, who arrived in Adrianople to receive a firman from the Sultan and feared again losing the Patriarchal See, having learned about the position of the vizier, instantly changed his point of view. He quite sensibly reasoned that it was better to be a Patriarch over a smaller territory than not to be one at all, and agreed to the transfer of the Kyiv Metropolis to the Moscow Patriarchate. Dositheus of Jerusalem also, having learned that the vizier supported Moscow’s demands, quickly lost his recently so proud tone in communicating with the Russian ambassadors. Dosifei stated that he re-read the canonical rules more carefully and allegedly found one that allows the bishop, at his own discretion, to transfer part of his region to another bishop.
Soon, returning from Adrianople to Istanbul, Patriarch Dionysius convened a synod of the Church of Constantinople and approved at it the decision to transfer the Kyiv Metropolis to the Moscow Patriarchate for eternity, after which the corresponding letters signed by the Patriarch and members of the Synod were sent to Tsars Peter and John Alekseevich, Patriarch Joachim, Hetman Samoilovich and Metropolitan Gideon. Delighted by the quick resolution of the issue, the ambassadors presented Dionysius with 200 gold chervonets and three forty sables. Seeing this turn of events, Dositheus of Jerusalem also decided not to stand aside and send his own letters to Moscow approving the decision on the Kyiv See. And although this was not at all required from the First Hierarch of Jerusalem, the ambassadors decided to encourage Dosifei for his “miraculous” transformation from an opponent into a zealous supporter of the transfer of the Kyiv Church to Moscow. The Patriarch of Jerusalem also received his portion of sables for his diligence. After this, the Patriarchs became completely bolder. Dionysius suddenly remembered how Tsar Theodore Ioannovich, when establishing the Moscow Patriarchate, sent abundant alms in gratitude to the Greek hierarchs, and without undue embarrassment noted that it would be good to repeat this generous gesture on the occasion of Constantinople’s renunciation of rights to the Kyiv Metropolis.
Alekseev arrived from Istanbul to Moscow at the end of 1686, bringing with him the Patriarchal letters. In 1687, Dionysius sent another letter, which again emphasized the new order of church life in Little Russia. Following this, the corresponding letters from the tsars and Patriarch Joachim were sent from Moscow to Ukraine, Ivan Samoilovich, and the hetman notified the clergy of the Kyiv Metropolis about its final transition to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate.
The church reunification of Little Russia with Moscow was extremely important for the Kyiv Church: church life on the Left Bank was finally normalized and stabilized. However, in Right Bank Ukraine this was impossible due to its return to the rule of the Polish king. In 1686, an eternal peace was concluded between Moscow and Poland, while Article 9 of the peace treaty emphasized that believers belonging to the Orthodox dioceses - Lvov, Przemysl, Lutsk and Mstislav - should not be oppressed and forced to change the Orthodox faith to union and Latinity. But although the Polish government recognized the canonical dependence of these dioceses on the Kyiv Metropolitan of Moscow jurisdiction, a new offensive by Catholics on the rights of the Orthodox was inevitably to be expected, which soon happened.
In 1691, Innocent of Vinnytsia openly announced the acceptance of the union and subordinated his Przemysl diocese to Papal Rome. By 1694, Innocent managed to break the resistance of the last opponents of the union in his diocese. Joseph Shumlyansky, being a secret Uniate, did not soon announce his transfer to the jurisdiction of Rome. For a long time he continued to maintain relations with the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Adrian, hypocritically convincing him of his loyalty to Orthodoxy. Shumlyansky even came up with a project for the renewal of the Galician Orthodox Metropolis, which would be independent of the Kyiv one and be under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. In 1694, Shumlyansky convened a diocesan council in Lviv, at which he called on his flock to unite with Rome. But Joseph was given a decisive rebuff: the Orthodox monks and the gentry came out most sharply against the union. This had an effect, and Shumlyansky again postponed his intention to openly declare his Uniateism and began to maintain relations with the Orthodox Metropolitan of Kyiv Varlaam Yasinsky, the successor of Gideon, who died in 1690. In order to encourage Joseph to make a final transition to Uniateism, Catholics decided in 1697 to promulgate the act of Catholic confession of faith, signed by Shumlyansky. After this, many Orthodox believers turned away from him as a traitor. The authorities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth put an end to Joseph's hesitation by forbidding him to enter into the management of the parishes of Podolia, liberated from the Turks in the Peace of Karlovets, which was part of his diocese, but temporarily transferred under the authority of the Uniate of Innocent of Vinnytsia. In an effort to maintain his control over Podolia, Shumlyansky finally agreed to openly announce his transition to the union, which he did in Warsaw in 1700.
Soon after his conversion to the union, Joseph Shumlyansky forced most of the parishes of his Lviv and Kamenets-Podolsk diocese to follow him. However, the Lvov Assumption Staropigial Brotherhood and the monasteries of Galicia offered decisive resistance to the bishop. The Lviv brotherhood continued to fight the union until 1708, when the brothers were broken, mainly by economic measures. Even longer than the brotherhood, the Orthodox monasticism of Galicia resisted the introduction of the union. The monastery in Slovit remained faithful to Orthodoxy until 1718, the Krekhov Nikolaev monastery resisted the introduction of the union until 1721. The Manyava monastery in the Carpathian Mountains managed to hold out until 1786. This monastery was never seduced into the union - it was abolished by Emperor Joseph II by order after Galicia became part of the Habsburg Empire.
Following Lvov, the Lutsk Orthodox diocese also came under the jurisdiction of Papal Rome. Lutsk Bishop Afanasy, the brother of Joseph of Shumlyansky, also secretly accepted the union. However, until his death in 1694, he was never able to bring his diocese to unity with Rome (the fact that the Lutsk bishop himself remained faithful to the oath taken to the pope is evidenced by the fact of his dying confession to his brother, the Dominican monk Daniil Shumlyansky ). After the death of Afanasy Shumlyansky, the clergy and laity of the Lutsk diocese elected the volost clerk Dimitry Zhabokritsky as the new bishop. However, he had a canonical obstacle to ordination, being married to a widow. However, Demetrius divorced his wife and took monastic vows with the name Dionysius (his wife refused to become a nun). These personal circumstances of Zhabokritsky largely became one of the reasons for his evasion into the union.
Dionysius turned to the Orthodox Metropolitan of Kyiv Varlaam Yasinsky for ordination. The Metropolitan considered that, despite the obstacle, an exception could be made for Dionysius by ordaining him to the rank of bishop. But Varlaam, who ruled the Kyiv Metropolis entirely on his own, was still afraid to resolve this issue on his own. He turned to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Adrian for a dispensation for Dionysius. Kyiv theologians from the Mohyla Collegium sent to Moscow a canonical certificate they had compiled, which substantiated the possibility of Zhabokritsky’s consecration for reasons of extreme necessity - in view of the difficult situation of the Orthodox Church in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Moscow Ambassador to Warsaw, Boris Mikhailov, also advocated for Zhabokritsky before Patriarch Adrian. However, the Moscow Patriarch did not dare to independently determine whether the ordination of Dionysius was permissible. Adrian turned to the Eastern Patriarchs for advice. A negative answer came from Constantinople. Dositheus of Jerusalem also sent a message in which he spoke about the inadmissibility of Zhabokritsky’s consecration and advised to elect a new candidate for the Lutsk See. Dionysius did not want to come to terms with such a decision and turned for help to the Orthodox bishop from Transcarpathia - Bishop of Marmarosh Joseph Stoica, who was under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople and had the dignity of Exarch. In 1696, Joseph performed the deacon and presbytery ordination of Dionysius and elevated him to the rank of archimandrite, acting without the consent of Constantinople. Having learned about the ordination of Dionysius, Patriarch Adrian banned him from serving.
Resentment towards the Orthodox Patriarchs and the desire to become a bishop at any cost pushed Zhabokritsky onto the path of betrayal of Orthodoxy. Already in 1697, the son of Dionysius, who represented the Bratslav gentry at the Sejm in Warsaw, held secret negotiations with the papal nuncio regarding the transfer of the named bishop of Lutsk to the union and the possibility of his consecration in the Uniate Church. In 1700, Dionysius himself conducted similar negotiations with the nuncio. At this time, the Jesuit Vota, who had previously actively contributed to the establishment of the union in the Przemysl and Lvov dioceses, became involved in the matter of joining the Lutsk diocese to the union. At the beginning of 1701, Zhabokritsky ceased all relations with Metropolitan Varlaam Yasinsky, as well as with Tsar Peter and Hetman Mazepa. At the end of 1701, Dionysius convened a diocesan council in Lutsk, at which a decision was made to unite the Lutsk diocese with Rome. After this, Zhabokritsky held negotiations with the Uniate Metropolitan of Kyiv Lev Zalensky (1694–1708), who easily cooperated in resolving canonical difficulties with ordination. On April 9, 1702, Zalensky performed the episcopal consecration of Dionysius.
Thus, after the betrayal of Vinnitsa, Shumlyansky and Zhabokritsky, throughout the entire territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth there was only one Orthodox department left - Mstislav-Mogilev, the bishops of which, with great difficulties, continued to spiritually care for the flock, which remained faithful to Orthodoxy, the position of which in the 18th century. became truly catastrophic.
Literature: 1. Soloviev S.M. History of Russia from ancient times. Book VI (T.11,12) and VII (T.13,14). M., 1991; 2. Bogdanov A.P. Russian Patriarchs. T.2. M., 1999. P.254-266; 3. Velikiy A.G. From the lithopis of Christian Ukraine. Book V, VI. Rome-Lviv, 2000; 4. Grushevsky M.S. Illustrated history of Ukraine. M., 2001. P.323-359.
Runes, runic amulets and bone talismans (pagan and Slavic themes)
Complete set of runes (25, runed set). Wood burning. Runes for fortune telling (elder futarch). The Futharkian order is a natural and original system that reveals the process of creation of the Universe and the various qualities inherent in its manifestations, for it places emphasis on the activity of the Spirit.
The most popular and inexpensive runes for fortune telling are made of wood, followed by burning runic symbols on it. This is one of the most ancient ways of applying runes on plates, accessible even to primitive man. Later, the technique of applying runic symbols to bone appeared, and only relatively recently (from the point of view of human evolution) the technique of applying runes to hard stone (jade, quartz, chalcedony, obsidian) with or without subsequent coloring of the runes appeared.
The alphabetical order of the Futhark runes was intended to disguise their original magical sequence.
Thus, the runes reveal the very process of creation and the qualities originally inherent in nature and ourselves. Runic shamans have always treated the Futhark order with care and respect, motivated by Love and Harmony.
They contributed to the runic power; their overall intention was to bring harmony and order, to avoid intentional harm, no matter for what purpose the runes were used. Let's take a brief look at the Futhark order and its relationship to the worldview prevalent in old Scandinavia and Northern Europe.
Pereyaslavl Rada- a meeting of representatives of the Ukrainian people led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky, who decided to join Ukraine to Russia. It took place on January 18 (January 8, old style) 1654 in the city of Pereyaslavl (today Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky).
In the first half of the 17th century, Ukrainian lands were part of Poland, Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Russia. The largest part of Ukraine - from the Carpathians to Poltava and from Chernigov to Kamenets-Podolsk - remained under Polish rule. The struggle of the Ukrainian people against the power of the Polish gentry in 1648-1654 resulted in a real war, led by Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky.
During this period, the hetman's government maintained diplomatic relations and entered into military-political alliances with many states - the Crimean Khanate, Turkey, the Moscow State, Moldova, etc. At the same time, Ukraine not only experienced administrative and religious oppression from Poland, but was subject to expansion Crimean Khanate, which was formally considered an ally of Ukraine.
By the end of the sixth year of this war, as a result of continuous battles with Polish troops and treacherous raids by the Crimean Tatars, entire regions of Ukraine were devastated. The constant betrayals of the Crimean Khanate and unreliability on the part of other allies pushed the hetman to maintain close contacts with Moscow, which was interested in increasing its influence on Ukraine. Bogdan Khmelnitsky several times turned to the Russian sovereign Alexei Mikhailovich with a request to accept the Zaporozhye Army into Russian citizenship.
In the fall of 1653, the Zemsky Sobor, held in Moscow, decided to include the Left Bank territories of the Dnieper into the Moscow state. To conduct the negotiation process, a large embassy headed by boyar Buturlin left Moscow on October 9 (19), 1653. On December 31, 1653 (January 10, 1654) the embassy arrived in Pereyaslavl. Bogdan Khmelnytsky, together with the elders, arrived on January 6 (16), 1654.
The Ukrainian hetman convened a Rada on January 18 (January 8, old style), 1654, which differed from ordinary elders or military radas in that it was declared “explicit to all the people,” that is, open. It was attended by Cossacks, peasants, artisans, urban poor, merchants, Cossack elders, representatives of the Orthodox clergy and small Ukrainian gentry who arrived from everywhere.
Opening the Rada, Khmelnytsky addressed the assembled people with a speech in which he recalled the wars and bloodshed that ravaged the Ukrainian land for six years. The Hetman further described the extremely difficult situation of those peoples who found themselves under Turkish yoke, spoke with bitterness about the suffering caused to the Ukrainian people by the Tatar raids. He also reminded those gathered about the suffering that the Ukrainian people endured under the rule of the Polish enslavers.
At the conclusion of his speech, Khmelnitsky said that Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich sent an embassy to the Ukrainian people and called for unity with the fraternal Russian people. Representatives of the Ukrainian people greeted this call of the hetman with exclamations: “So that you may all be one forever!” In February 1654, an embassy of representatives of the highest Cossack elders was sent to Moscow to negotiate the conditions for Ukraine to join the Russian state. The results of the negotiations were expressed in the so-called Articles of Bogdan Khmelnitsky and letters of commendation from the Russian government.
After the Pereyaslav Rada, representatives of the Moscow embassy visited 177 cities and villages of Ukraine to take the oath of allegiance to the tsar from the population. According to their data, 127,328 males took the oath (women and peasants were not sworn in). A number of representatives of the Cossack elders, Bratslav, Kropivyansky, Poltava, Uman Cossack regiments, and some cities refused to swear allegiance
The conclusion of the Pereyaslav Treaty immediately put Russia before war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Russian-Polish war lasted until 1667, when the Truce of Andrusovo was concluded, according to which Poland renounced Smolensk and Chernigov and recognized Russian ownership over left-bank Ukraine. Kyiv was transferred to Russia for only two years, but Russia was able to retain it, which was secured by the treaty of 1686 (“Eternal Peace”).
The material was prepared based on information from open sources
