Russian-Polish War At the beginning of the Russian-Polish War, Ukrainian troops took part in military operations in two directions: Ukrainian and Belarusian. B. Khmelnytsky’s brother-in-law, Ivan Zolotenko, was sent to Belarus as a designated hetman at the head of a 20,000-strong corps. 18th

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had a large number of Orthodox inhabitants, but all of them were discriminated against because of their faith, as well as their origin, if we were talking about Russians.

In $1648$ Cossack Bohdan Khmelnitsky began an uprising against the Poles. Khmelnitsky had personal reasons - a family tragedy due to the arbitrariness of Polish officials and the impossibility of establishing justice through King Vladislav. While leading the uprising, Khmelnitsky appealed to the Tsar several times Alexey Mikhailovich with a request to accept the Cossacks as citizenship.

In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Russian Tsardom, territorial disputes lasted a long time and were always painful, an example of this is Smolensk War$1632-1634$, an unsuccessful attempt by Russia to return the lost city to the rule of Moscow.

Therefore, in 1653, the Zemsky Sobor decided to enter the war and accept the Zaporozhye Cossacks as citizenship. In January $1654, a Rada was held in Pereyaslavl, at which the Cossacks expressed agreement with joining Russia.

Progress of hostilities

With Russia's entry into the war, Bogdan Khmelnitsky ceased to play a leading role. The beginning of the war for the Russian and Cossack armies was quite successful. In May $1654 the army marched to Smolensk. At the beginning of June, Nevel, Polotsk, and Dorogobuzh surrendered without resistance.

At the beginning of July, Alexey Mikhailovich set up camp near Smolensk. The first clash occurred on the Kolodna River at the end of July. At the same time, the tsar received news about the capture of new cities - Mstislavl, Druya, Disna, Glubokoe, Ozerishche, etc. In the battle of Shklov, the army managed to retreat J. Radziwill. However, the first assault on Smolensk on August 16 failed.

The siege of Gomel lasted for $2$ months, and finally on August 20$ it surrendered. Almost all the Dnieper fortresses were surrendered.

At the beginning of September, negotiations took place on the surrender of Smolensk. The city was surrendered on the 23rd. After this, the king left the front.

From December $1654, Janusz Radziwill launched a counter-offensive. In February, a long siege of Mogilev began, whose residents had previously sworn allegiance to the Russian Tsar. But in May the siege was lifted.

In general, by the end of $1655, Western Rus' was occupied by Russian troops. The war moved directly to the territory of Poland and Lithuania. At that stage, seeing a serious weakening of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sweden entered the war and occupied Krakow and Vilna. Sweden's victories puzzled both the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russia, and forced the conclusion of the Vilna Truce. Thus, from $1656, hostilities stopped. But the war between Russia and Sweden began.

In $1657, Bogdan Khmelnytsky died. The new hetmans did not seek to preserve his affairs, so they repeatedly tried to cooperate with the Poles. In $1658, the war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth continued. The fact is that the new hetman Ivan Vygovsky signed an agreement according to which the Hetmanate was included in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Russian army was driven beyond the Dnieper during several victories of the Polish army with the joining Cossacks.

Soon there was an uprising against Vygovsky, and Khmelnitsky’s son Yuri became hetman. The new hetman at the end of 1660 also went over to the side of Poland. After this, Ukraine was divided into Left Bank and Right Bank. The Left Bank went to Russia, the Right Bank to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

In $1661-1662$. fighting took place in the north. The Russian army lost Mogilev, Borisov, and after a year and a half of siege Vilna fell. In $1663-1664$ the so-called "The Long March of King John Casimir", during which Polish troops, together with the Crimean Tatars, attacked Left Bank Ukraine. $13 cities were captured, but in the end Jan Casimir suffered a crushing defeat at Pirogovka. After this, the Russian army began the destruction of Right Bank Ukraine.

Then, until $1657, there were few active hostilities, because the war dragged on too long, both sides were exhausted. Peace was concluded in $1667.

Results

In January $1667$ was concluded Truce of Andrusovo. The division into Right- and Left-bank Ukraine was approved, Russia returned Smolensk and some other lands. Kyiv was transferred to Moscow temporarily. Zaporizhzhya Sich came under joint management.

The new Russian-Polish war began in 1654 after the annexation of Ukraine to Russia under the Pereyaslav agreements. Moscow declared war on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on the eve of this event, on October 23, 1653. In June - August 1654, Russian troops entered the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and captured the Smolensk and Seversk lands and eastern Belarus. Smolensk fell after a two-month siege on September 23.

The new Russian-Polish war began in 1654 after the annexation of Ukraine to Russia under the Pereyaslav agreements. Moscow declared war on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on the eve of this event, on October 23, 1653. In June - August 1654, Russian troops entered the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and captured the Smolensk and Seversk lands and eastern Belarus. Smolensk fell after a two-month siege on September 23.

Polish troops launched a counteroffensive in Ukraine, which ended in failure. In the summer of 1655, Russian troops captured Minsk, Grodno, Vilna and Kovno, occupying almost the entire territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. At this time, Sweden declared war on Poland. Swedish troops occupied almost all Polish lands including Warsaw and Krakow. The army of King John Casimir was able to hold only a small bridgehead in the southwest of the country, including the sacred city of Czestochowa for the Poles, which the Swedes unsuccessfully besieged for several months.

The position of the Poles was eased by the fact that on May 17, 1656, Moscow declared war on Sweden, seeking to liberate the Livonian lands. The Swedish king Charles X Gustav, in turn, hoped to tear away from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth not only Prussia and Courland, which the Swedes had to return in 1635, but also Danzig, Lithuania and Belarus. At first, Russian troops managed to occupy Oreshek (Noteburg), Dinaburg and Dorpat, but the campaign against Riga failed. Charles X was forced to transfer part of his forces from Poland to the Baltic states. A de facto truce was established between Moscow and Warsaw.

Meanwhile, the position of the Russian troops in Ukraine worsened after in 1657, his closest ally, the clerk general (in European - chancellor) Ivan Vyhovsky, became hetman instead of the deceased Bohdan Khmelnytsky. In 1658, he concluded the Gadyach Treaty with Poland, according to which Ukraine again became part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth under the name of the Grand Duchy of Russia. The Greek-Catholic union in the Ukrainian lands was abolished, and the Cossack elders were completely equal in rights with the Polish and Lithuanian gentry. The Poles were forced to make such broad concessions because they really needed the help of the Cossack army to fight the Russians and Swedes.

Near the village of Varka, a battle took place between the Russian army under the command of governor Yu.A. Dolgorukov and the Polish-Lithuanian army under the command of Hetman A. Gonsevsky. At first, the Polish cavalry acted successfully and were able to push back the Russian infantry. To help the faltering infantrymen, Dolgorukov sent two regiments of the new formation. The blow of fresh Russian forces decided the outcome of the battle, putting the Polish-Lithuanian army to flight. Many Poles were captured, including their commander, Hetman Gonsevsky. However, the Russian commander was unable to build on his success due to tensions that arose between Russian governors over subordination. When Dolgorukov asked to send reinforcements to another commander, Prince Odoevsky, he did not want to do this because of disputes about who should obey whom. Nevertheless, the defeat at Varka cooled the ardor of the Poles, encouraged by the transition of Hetman I.E. to their side. Vygovsky This defeat did not allow the Poles to immediately move troops to help Vygovsky.

In the spring of 1659, the army of the governors of princes Alexei Trubetskoy and Semyon Pozharsky entered Ukraine, which on May 1 besieged the Ukrainian colonel Grigory Gulyanitsky with 4 thousand Nizhyn and Chernigov Cossacks in Konotop. The besieged fought off several attacks with heavy losses for the Russian army. From the ramparts, Cossack cannons and muskets fired much more accurately at the attackers, while the Moscow archers and gunners, according to Trubetskoy, “wasted the sovereign’s potion.” The governor ordered the ditch around the fortress to be covered with earth, but the Cossacks made forays at night and took the earth from there, and during the day they interfered with the diggers with well-aimed shots.

Meanwhile, at the end of May, Russian troops took the Borzna fortress, defeating its garrison under the command of Bogdan Khmelnitsky's brother-in-law, Colonel Vasily Zolotarenko. Some of the city's inhabitants were exterminated, some were driven away to Russia. Later, 30 of them were exchanged for 66 Russians captured after the defeat of Prince Pozharsky near Konotop.

Near Nizhyn, the army of Trubetskoy’s subordinate Prince Romodanovsky on May 31 defeated the Cossack-Tatar army of the assigned hetman Skorobogatenko, who was captured. But Romodanovsky did not dare to pursue the retreating troops, fearing that they would lure him into a trap. Not deciding to besiege Nezhin, Romodanovsky returned to Konotop. Trubetskoy had no information about where Vygovsky and the army were.

On June 1, 1659, the Polish Sejm approved the Gadyach Treaty. The Ukrainian hetman, meanwhile, with 16 thousand Cossacks and several thousand mercenaries from among the Poles, Wallachians and Serbs, was waiting for his ally - the Crimean Khan Makhmet-Girey. At the beginning of July, the khan appeared with 30 thousand Tatars. Together they moved to Konotop. On the way, they defeated a small Moscow detachment and learned from the prisoners about the condition and number of Russian troops near Konotop, and also that Trubetskoy did not expect the enemy to approach quickly. Vygovsky decided to lure the Russian army to the bank of the swampy Sosnovka River, 15 versts from Konotop, where he hoped to suddenly attack it with pre-covered cavalry and destroy it. The hetman gave command of the part of the army left at Sosnovka to Colonel Stepan Gulyanitsky, the brother of Grigory Gulyanitsky, who was besieged in Konotop. Vygovsky himself, with a small detachment of Cossacks and Tatars, went to Konotop to lure the enemy out of there. Khan with the main part of the Tatars settled in the Torgovitsa tract, 10 versts from Konotop, in order to hit the Russian troops from the rear when they approached Sosnovka.

On July 7, Vygovsky suddenly attacked Trubetskoy’s troops. The Cossacks took advantage of the surprise and captured many horses, which the Moscow horsemen did not have time to jump on. But soon Trubetskoy’s cavalry, using their multiple superiority, drove Vygovsky’s detachment beyond Sosnovka. The next day, a 30,000-strong cavalry army led by Prince Semyon Pozharsky crossed Sosnovka and chased the Cossacks, and about the same number of infantrymen under the command of Trubetskoy remained at Konotop.

Vygovsky allowed the enemy to form a battle formation. At this time, 5 thousand Cossacks under the command of Stepan Gulyanitsky secretly dug a ditch towards the bridge over which Pozharsky’s army crossed. The hetman attacked, but after the first shots from the Russian camp he began to retreat, feigning panic, provoking the enemy to pursue. Pozharsky's army left their camp and gave chase. Meanwhile, Gulyanitsky's Cossacks brought the ditch to the bridge, captured the bridge and, having destroyed it, made a dam on the river, flooding the coastal meadow. Seeing the enemy in his rear, Pozharsky turned his horsemen against Gulyanitsky. Then Vygovsky’s Cossacks, with the support of mercenary infantry, in turn attacked the “Muscovites” from the front, and a horde of the Crimean Khan attacked them from the left flank. Pozharsky began to retreat and ended up in a flooded meadow. The guns got stuck in the resulting swamp and the horses could not move. The noble cavalry dismounted, but there was no way to walk. Almost the entire 30,000-strong army died or was captured.

Prince Semyon Pozharsky was captured by the khan and was executed. The son of one of the leaders of the First Militia, Lev Lyapunov, two princes Buturlins and several regiment commanders were also beheaded or later died in Tatar captivity. The death of the noble cavalry decisively undermined the combat effectiveness of the Russian army. During the Russian-Polish War, it was unable to carry out a single successful major offensive operation.

On July 9, Vygovsky and the khan lifted the siege of Konotop. By that time, only 2.5 thousand people remained in the city garrison. Trubetskoy began to retreat, and a significant part of the archers and soldiers drowned while crossing the river. The remnants of the Russian army took refuge in Putivl. There Vygovsky did not pursue them, still hoping to come to an agreement with the Moscow Tsar. The Poles, who were with the Ukrainian hetman, were eager to fight, hoping to avenge the capture of the Lithuanian hetman Vincent Gonsevsky, who, in violation of the truce, was captured by deception along with his people by the army of the Russian prince Khovansky in Vilna. But Vygovsky forbade them to operate from Ukrainian soil. He still had naive hopes that Tsar Alexei would recognize the independence of Ukraine under Polish protectorate and the matter would end in peace.

The Ukrainian army retreated to Gadyach, which they were never able to take. There, a supporter of the Moscow orientation, Colonel Pavel Okhrimenko, stubbornly defended himself. Khan and the main part of the army left for Crimea. Individual Tatar and Cossack detachments plundered the Russian border lands, populated mainly by immigrants from Ukraine. Vygovsky returned to the hetman's capital Chigirin and was going to expel the governor Sheremetyev from Kyiv. But Sheremetev and a fellow governor, Prince Yuri Boryatinsky, burned all the towns around Kyiv, mercilessly exterminating the population.

But by that time the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was already turning into the “sick man of Europe.” Royal power was very weak. She could not protect her Orthodox subjects either from the excesses of Catholic magnates or from the threat of church union, which the Cossacks rejected. Therefore, in practice, the Polish-Ukrainian alliance was as fragile as the Russian-Ukrainian one. The hetmans of Ukraine with their troops have visited both the side of Russia and the side of Poland more than once, and Hetman Petro Doroshenko has been an ally of Turkey for a long time.

Vygovsky’s position, even after the victory at Konotop, remained precarious. Many Cossack colonels, under the influence of Russian agitation, remained oriented towards Moscow. They were joined by Nizhyn Colonel Vasily Zolotarenko, who himself hoped to become hetman. Together with Archpriest Filimonov, they led an uprising against Vygovsky and at the end of August invited Trubetskoy, who was busy setting up cordons against a possible Cossack-Tatar invasion of Russian lands, with an invitation to return to Ukraine again with the Moscow army. In Pereyaslavl, Colonel Timofey Tsytsura exterminated more than 150 Vygovsky supporters and freed several hundred Russian prisoners.

On September 11, Tsytsura’s Cossacks, with the support of Zolotarenko and the local population, suddenly attacked five Polish banners stationed in the city and killed almost all the Poles. In other cities and villages of Left Bank Ukraine, Polish troops were also beaten. The local population did not want to endure the hardships associated with the stationing of Polish soldiers, and suspected the Poles of intending to establish a union. Almost all the cities of the Left Bank broke away from Poland and again swore allegiance to the Russian Tsar.

At the end of September, after much hesitation, the Moscow army finally returned to Ukraine. On September 21, at the parliament near Germanovka, not far from Chigorin, the Ukrainian foreman rejected the Gadyach Treaty. Vygovsky fled under the cover of a detachment of a thousand Poles under the command of Andrei Pototsky. A few days later, at the new parliament near Bila Tserkva, Vygovsky renounced the hetmanship. The son of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Yuri, was elected the new hetman of Ukraine.

For a short time, all of Ukraine returned to Moscow's rule. But this did not last long. In 1660, after the conclusion of the Polish-Swedish peace in Oliva, Polish hetmans Stefan Charnetsky and Pavel Sapieha defeated the troops of princes Dolgoruky and Khovansky in Belarus, forcing them to retreat to Polotsk and Smolensk, respectively.

In Ukraine, in September, a large Moscow army of governor Vasily Sheremetev, with the support of Khmelnitsky’s Cossacks, launched an attack on Lviv. With his arrogance and open contempt for the Cossacks, Sheremetev irritated the Cossack elders and the hetman. The governor confidently said that with such an army as the tsar gave him, it would be possible to turn all of Poland into ashes and deliver the king himself to Moscow in chains. Sheremetev passionately asserted: “With my strength, it is possible to deal with the enemy without God’s help!” The army, indeed, was large - 27 thousand people, and in 11 Cossack regiments, subordinate directly to the governor, there were approximately 15 thousand people. But the Cossacks were not eager to shed their blood along with the “Muscovites.” In addition, the Cossacks’ salaries were paid in Moscow copper kopecks, which depreciated before our eyes, which the following year became the cause of the famous Copper Riot in Moscow. Yuri Khmelnitsky, with the main part of the Cossack army numbering up to 40 thousand people, set out on a campaign against Poland along the Goncharny Way. Sheremetev, together with the Russian army and the attached Cossacks, walked along the Kyiv Way.

The Poles became aware of the discord in the enemy camp. Polish crown hetman Stanislav Potocki and full hetman Yuri Lyubomirsky suggested that Yuri Khmelnytsky return to the king’s authority. Potocki stood with his army at Tarnopol, and Lyubomirsky hurried to his aid from Prussia. The united Polish army had 12 infantry and 10 cavalry regiments - a total of more than 30 thousand people. Sheremetev expected to meet only Pototsky in Volyn and was very surprised to meet Lyubomirsky’s army here as well.

In the camp near Chudnov, the Russian army was besieged by the Poles and the 40,000-strong Tatar horde that came to their aid. Sheremetev hoped only for the approach of Khmelnitsky, who was taking a different road than the Moscow army.

The Poles knew the route of the Cossack army. Pototsky remained with Chudnov with the infantry, and Lyubomirsky moved with the cavalry against the Cossacks. With him was the former hetman Vygovsky, who bore the title of governor of Kyiv. At Slobodishche, not far from Chudnov, the advanced units of Khmelnytsky were defeated on October 17, after which the hetman and foreman went over to the side of the Poles along with the entire army on the 19th.

Sheremetev, who received news of the Polish attack on Khmelnitsky and not knowing about the hetman’s treason, came to his aid on October 24, but stumbled upon Polish trenches. Being attacked from three sides by the Poles and the Tatar detachments that came to their aid, the governor lost his convoy and artillery and took refuge in the forest with the remnants of his army.

On October 27, a new agreement was concluded between the hetman of Ukraine and Poland in Chudnov, repeating the Gadyachsky one, but without mentioning the Russian Principality, which limited the autonomy of Ukraine in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. After this, the Cossacks who were in Sheremetev’s besieged camp went over to the Poles.

After the defeat at Chudnov, Sheremetev was captured by the Tatars and stayed there for 22 years. Ukraine was subject to Tatar raids, and the Cossacks were forced to fight these Polish allies. Prince Baryatinsky held Kyiv. Russian troops remained on the left bank of the Dnieper. But after the Chudnovsky disaster, Russian troops were limited to defense until the end of the war. Polish troops subsequently launched several raids on the Left Bank, but could not hold out in the devastated country. It was impossible to take fortified cities, since there was not enough forage and food for a long siege. The last of these raids, led by King John Casimir and Right Bank Hetman Pavel Teterey, was carried out at the end of 1663 - beginning of 1664.

At the beginning of 1663, Yuri Khmelnytsky renounced the hetmanship, after which the Left Bank and Right Bank of the Dnieper began to elect separate hetmans. Thus, the division of Ukraine between Russia and Poland was actually consolidated.

In Belarus and Lithuania, less affected by the war than Ukraine, Moscow's armies lost one position after another. The Tatars did not reach here, and the Cossacks did not appear often. The gentry, who initially abandoned the king, under the influence of oppression from the Moscow governors, again took the side of Jan Casimir. In 1661, the Russian garrison in Vilna was besieged, capitulating in November of the following year. In the fall of 1661, the Poles defeated the Russian army at the Battle of Klushniki. Soon Polotsk, Mogilev and Vitebsk, the last Russian strongholds in Belarus, came under Polish control.

On January 30, 1667, a Russian-Polish truce was concluded in the village of Andrusovo near Smolensk. The Smolensk and Chernigov lands and Left Bank Ukraine passed to Russia, and Zaporozhye was declared under a joint Russian-Polish protectorate. Kyiv was declared a temporary possession of Russia, but according to the “eternal peace” on May 16, 1686, it finally passed to it. In exchange for Kyiv, the Russians ceded several small border towns in Belarus to the Poles.

The cessation of the Russian-Polish wars was facilitated by the threat to both states from Turkey and its vassal Crimean Khanate. As a result of the Russian-Polish wars, Poland lost a significant part of its possessions with a predominantly Orthodox population. These wars, as well as the wars between Poland and Sweden, contributed to the weakening of the Polish state. This process ended during the Great Northern War. The divisions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772-1795 between Russia, Prussia and Austria took place without major wars, because the state, weakened due to internal turmoil, could no longer provide serious resistance to its more powerful neighbors.

Source: Sokolov B.V. One Hundred Great Wars - Moscow: Veche, 2001

Russian Civilization

The new Russian-Polish war began in 1654 after the annexation of Ukraine to Russia under the Pereyaslav agreements. Moscow declared war on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on the eve of this event, on October 23, 1653. In June - August 1654, Russian troops entered the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and captured the Smolensk and Seversk lands and eastern Belarus. Smolensk fell after a two-month siege on September 23.

The new Russian-Polish war began in 1654 after the annexation of Ukraine to Russia under the Pereyaslav agreements. Moscow declared war on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on the eve of this event, on October 23, 1653. In June - August 1654, Russian troops entered the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and captured the Smolensk and Seversk lands and eastern Belarus. Smolensk fell after a two-month siege on September 23.

Polish troops launched a counteroffensive in Ukraine, which ended in failure. In the summer of 1655, Russian troops captured Minsk, Grodno, Vilna and Kovno, occupying almost the entire territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. At this time, Sweden declared war on Poland. Swedish troops occupied almost all Polish lands including Warsaw and Krakow. The army of King John Casimir was able to hold only a small bridgehead in the southwest of the country, including the sacred city of Czestochowa for the Poles, which the Swedes unsuccessfully besieged for several months.

The position of the Poles was eased by the fact that on May 17, 1656, Moscow declared war on Sweden, seeking to liberate the Livonian lands. The Swedish king Charles X Gustav, in turn, hoped to tear away from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth not only Prussia and Courland, which the Swedes had to return in 1635, but also Danzig, Lithuania and Belarus. At first, Russian troops managed to occupy Oreshek (Noteburg), Dinaburg and Dorpat, but the campaign against Riga failed. Charles X was forced to transfer part of his forces from Poland to the Baltic states. A de facto truce was established between Moscow and Warsaw.

Meanwhile, the position of the Russian troops in Ukraine worsened after in 1657, his closest ally, the clerk general (in European - chancellor) Ivan Vyhovsky, became hetman instead of the deceased Bohdan Khmelnytsky. In 1658, he concluded the Gadyach Treaty with Poland, according to which Ukraine again became part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth under the name of the Grand Duchy of Russia. The Greek-Catholic union in the Ukrainian lands was abolished, and the Cossack elders were completely equal in rights with the Polish and Lithuanian gentry. The Poles were forced to make such broad concessions because they really needed the help of the Cossack army to fight the Russians and Swedes.

Near the village of Varka, a battle took place between the Russian army under the command of governor Yu.A. Dolgorukov and the Polish-Lithuanian army under the command of Hetman A. Gonsevsky. At first, the Polish cavalry acted successfully and were able to push back the Russian infantry. To help the faltering infantrymen, Dolgorukov sent two regiments of the new formation. The blow of fresh Russian forces decided the outcome of the battle, putting the Polish-Lithuanian army to flight. Many Poles were captured, including their commander, Hetman Gonsevsky. However, the Russian commander was unable to build on his success due to tensions that arose between Russian governors over subordination. When Dolgorukov asked to send reinforcements to another commander, Prince Odoevsky, he did not want to do this because of disputes about who should obey whom. Nevertheless, the defeat at Varka cooled the ardor of the Poles, encouraged by the transition of Hetman I.E. to their side. Vygovsky This defeat did not allow the Poles to immediately move troops to help Vygovsky.

In the spring of 1659, the army of the governors of princes Alexei Trubetskoy and Semyon Pozharsky entered Ukraine, which on May 1 besieged the Ukrainian colonel Grigory Gulyanitsky with 4 thousand Nizhyn and Chernigov Cossacks in Konotop. The besieged fought off several attacks with heavy losses for the Russian army. From the ramparts, Cossack cannons and muskets fired much more accurately at the attackers, while the Moscow archers and gunners, according to Trubetskoy, “wasted the sovereign’s potion.” The governor ordered the ditch around the fortress to be covered with earth, but the Cossacks made forays at night and took the earth from there, and during the day they interfered with the diggers with well-aimed shots.

Meanwhile, at the end of May, Russian troops took the Borzna fortress, defeating its garrison under the command of Bogdan Khmelnitsky's brother-in-law, Colonel Vasily Zolotarenko. Some of the city's inhabitants were exterminated, some were driven away to Russia. Later, 30 of them were exchanged for 66 Russians captured after the defeat of Prince Pozharsky near Konotop.

Near Nizhyn, the army of Trubetskoy’s subordinate Prince Romodanovsky on May 31 defeated the Cossack-Tatar army of the assigned hetman Skorobogatenko, who was captured. But Romodanovsky did not dare to pursue the retreating troops, fearing that they would lure him into a trap. Not deciding to besiege Nezhin, Romodanovsky returned to Konotop. Trubetskoy had no information about where Vygovsky and the army were.

On June 1, 1659, the Polish Sejm approved the Gadyach Treaty. The Ukrainian hetman, meanwhile, with 16 thousand Cossacks and several thousand mercenaries from among the Poles, Wallachians and Serbs, was waiting for his ally - the Crimean Khan Makhmet-Girey. At the beginning of July, the khan appeared with 30 thousand Tatars. Together they moved to Konotop. On the way, they defeated a small Moscow detachment and learned from the prisoners about the condition and number of Russian troops near Konotop, and also that Trubetskoy did not expect the enemy to approach quickly. Vygovsky decided to lure the Russian army to the bank of the swampy Sosnovka River, 15 versts from Konotop, where he hoped to suddenly attack it with pre-covered cavalry and destroy it. The hetman gave command of the part of the army left at Sosnovka to Colonel Stepan Gulyanitsky, the brother of Grigory Gulyanitsky, who was besieged in Konotop. Vygovsky himself, with a small detachment of Cossacks and Tatars, went to Konotop to lure the enemy out of there. Khan with the main part of the Tatars settled in the Torgovitsa tract, 10 versts from Konotop, in order to hit the Russian troops from the rear when they approached Sosnovka.

On July 7, Vygovsky suddenly attacked Trubetskoy’s troops. The Cossacks took advantage of the surprise and captured many horses, which the Moscow horsemen did not have time to jump on. But soon Trubetskoy’s cavalry, using their multiple superiority, drove Vygovsky’s detachment beyond Sosnovka. The next day, a 30,000-strong cavalry army led by Prince Semyon Pozharsky crossed Sosnovka and chased the Cossacks, and about the same number of infantrymen under the command of Trubetskoy remained at Konotop.

Vygovsky allowed the enemy to form a battle formation. At this time, 5 thousand Cossacks under the command of Stepan Gulyanitsky secretly dug a ditch towards the bridge over which Pozharsky’s army crossed. The hetman attacked, but after the first shots from the Russian camp he began to retreat, feigning panic, provoking the enemy to pursue. Pozharsky's army left their camp and gave chase. Meanwhile, Gulyanitsky's Cossacks brought the ditch to the bridge, captured the bridge and, having destroyed it, made a dam on the river, flooding the coastal meadow. Seeing the enemy in his rear, Pozharsky turned his horsemen against Gulyanitsky. Then Vygovsky’s Cossacks, with the support of mercenary infantry, in turn attacked the “Muscovites” from the front, and a horde of the Crimean Khan attacked them from the left flank. Pozharsky began to retreat and ended up in a flooded meadow. The guns got stuck in the resulting swamp and the horses could not move. The noble cavalry dismounted, but there was no way to walk. Almost the entire 30,000-strong army died or was captured.

Prince Semyon Pozharsky was captured by the khan and was executed. The son of one of the leaders of the First Militia, Lev Lyapunov, two princes Buturlins and several regiment commanders were also beheaded or later died in Tatar captivity. The death of the noble cavalry decisively undermined the combat effectiveness of the Russian army. During the Russian-Polish War, it was unable to carry out a single successful major offensive operation.

On July 9, Vygovsky and the khan lifted the siege of Konotop. By that time, only 2.5 thousand people remained in the city garrison. Trubetskoy began to retreat, and a significant part of the archers and soldiers drowned while crossing the river. The remnants of the Russian army took refuge in Putivl. There Vygovsky did not pursue them, still hoping to come to an agreement with the Moscow Tsar. The Poles, who were with the Ukrainian hetman, were eager to fight, hoping to avenge the capture of the Lithuanian hetman Vincent Gonsevsky, who, in violation of the truce, was captured by deception along with his people by the army of the Russian prince Khovansky in Vilna. But Vygovsky forbade them to operate from Ukrainian soil. He still had naive hopes that Tsar Alexei would recognize the independence of Ukraine under Polish protectorate and the matter would end in peace.

The Ukrainian army retreated to Gadyach, which they were never able to take. There, a supporter of the Moscow orientation, Colonel Pavel Okhrimenko, stubbornly defended himself. Khan and the main part of the army left for Crimea. Individual Tatar and Cossack detachments plundered the Russian border lands, populated mainly by immigrants from Ukraine. Vygovsky returned to the hetman's capital Chigirin and was going to expel the governor Sheremetyev from Kyiv. But Sheremetev and a fellow governor, Prince Yuri Boryatinsky, burned all the towns around Kyiv, mercilessly exterminating the population.

But by that time the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was already turning into the “sick man of Europe.” Royal power was very weak. She could not protect her Orthodox subjects either from the excesses of Catholic magnates or from the threat of church union, which the Cossacks rejected. Therefore, in practice, the Polish-Ukrainian alliance was as fragile as the Russian-Ukrainian one. The hetmans of Ukraine with their troops have visited both the side of Russia and the side of Poland more than once, and Hetman Petro Doroshenko has been an ally of Turkey for a long time.

Vygovsky’s position, even after the victory at Konotop, remained precarious. Many Cossack colonels, under the influence of Russian agitation, remained oriented towards Moscow. They were joined by Nizhyn Colonel Vasily Zolotarenko, who himself hoped to become hetman. Together with Archpriest Filimonov, they led an uprising against Vygovsky and at the end of August invited Trubetskoy, who was busy setting up cordons against a possible Cossack-Tatar invasion of Russian lands, with an invitation to return to Ukraine again with the Moscow army. In Pereyaslavl, Colonel Timofey Tsytsura exterminated more than 150 Vygovsky supporters and freed several hundred Russian prisoners.

On September 11, Tsytsura’s Cossacks, with the support of Zolotarenko and the local population, suddenly attacked five Polish banners stationed in the city and killed almost all the Poles. In other cities and villages of Left Bank Ukraine, Polish troops were also beaten. The local population did not want to endure the hardships associated with the stationing of Polish soldiers, and suspected the Poles of intending to establish a union. Almost all the cities of the Left Bank broke away from Poland and again swore allegiance to the Russian Tsar.

At the end of September, after much hesitation, the Moscow army finally returned to Ukraine. On September 21, at the parliament near Germanovka, not far from Chigorin, the Ukrainian foreman rejected the Gadyach Treaty. Vygovsky fled under the cover of a detachment of a thousand Poles under the command of Andrei Pototsky. A few days later, at the new parliament near Bila Tserkva, Vygovsky renounced the hetmanship. The son of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Yuri, was elected the new hetman of Ukraine.

For a short time, all of Ukraine returned to Moscow's rule. But this did not last long. In 1660, after the conclusion of the Polish-Swedish peace in Oliva, Polish hetmans Stefan Charnetsky and Pavel Sapieha defeated the troops of princes Dolgoruky and Khovansky in Belarus, forcing them to retreat to Polotsk and Smolensk, respectively.

In Ukraine, in September, a large Moscow army of governor Vasily Sheremetev, with the support of Khmelnitsky’s Cossacks, launched an attack on Lviv. With his arrogance and open contempt for the Cossacks, Sheremetev irritated the Cossack elders and the hetman. The governor confidently said that with such an army as the tsar gave him, it would be possible to turn all of Poland into ashes and deliver the king himself to Moscow in chains. Sheremetev passionately asserted: “With my strength, it is possible to deal with the enemy without God’s help!” The army, indeed, was large - 27 thousand people, and in 11 Cossack regiments, subordinate directly to the governor, there were approximately 15 thousand people. But the Cossacks were not eager to shed their blood along with the “Muscovites.” In addition, the Cossacks’ salaries were paid in Moscow copper kopecks, which depreciated before our eyes, which the following year became the cause of the famous Copper Riot in Moscow. Yuri Khmelnitsky, with the main part of the Cossack army numbering up to 40 thousand people, set out on a campaign against Poland along the Goncharny Way. Sheremetev, together with the Russian army and the attached Cossacks, walked along the Kyiv Way.

The Poles became aware of the discord in the enemy camp. Polish crown hetman Stanislav Potocki and full hetman Yuri Lyubomirsky suggested that Yuri Khmelnytsky return to the king’s authority. Potocki stood with his army at Tarnopol, and Lyubomirsky hurried to his aid from Prussia. The united Polish army had 12 infantry and 10 cavalry regiments - a total of more than 30 thousand people. Sheremetev expected to meet only Pototsky in Volyn and was very surprised to meet Lyubomirsky’s army here as well.

In the camp near Chudnov, the Russian army was besieged by the Poles and the 40,000-strong Tatar horde that came to their aid. Sheremetev hoped only for the approach of Khmelnitsky, who was taking a different road than the Moscow army.

The Poles knew the route of the Cossack army. Pototsky remained with Chudnov with the infantry, and Lyubomirsky moved with the cavalry against the Cossacks. With him was the former hetman Vygovsky, who bore the title of governor of Kyiv. At Slobodishche, not far from Chudnov, the advanced units of Khmelnytsky were defeated on October 17, after which the hetman and foreman went over to the side of the Poles along with the entire army on the 19th.

Sheremetev, who received news of the Polish attack on Khmelnitsky and not knowing about the hetman’s treason, came to his aid on October 24, but stumbled upon Polish trenches. Being attacked from three sides by the Poles and the Tatar detachments that came to their aid, the governor lost his convoy and artillery and took refuge in the forest with the remnants of his army.

On October 27, a new agreement was concluded between the hetman of Ukraine and Poland in Chudnov, repeating the Gadyachsky one, but without mentioning the Russian Principality, which limited the autonomy of Ukraine in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. After this, the Cossacks who were in Sheremetev’s besieged camp went over to the Poles.

After the defeat at Chudnov, Sheremetev was captured by the Tatars and stayed there for 22 years. Ukraine was subject to Tatar raids, and the Cossacks were forced to fight these Polish allies. Prince Baryatinsky held Kyiv. Russian troops remained on the left bank of the Dnieper. But after the Chudnovsky disaster, Russian troops were limited to defense until the end of the war. Polish troops subsequently launched several raids on the Left Bank, but could not hold out in the devastated country. It was impossible to take fortified cities, since there was not enough forage and food for a long siege. The last of these raids, led by King John Casimir and Right Bank Hetman Pavel Teterey, was carried out at the end of 1663 - beginning of 1664.

At the beginning of 1663, Yuri Khmelnytsky renounced the hetmanship, after which the Left Bank and Right Bank of the Dnieper began to elect separate hetmans. Thus, the division of Ukraine between Russia and Poland was actually consolidated.

In Belarus and Lithuania, less affected by the war than Ukraine, Moscow's armies lost one position after another. The Tatars did not reach here, and the Cossacks did not appear often. The gentry, who initially abandoned the king, under the influence of oppression from the Moscow governors, again took the side of Jan Casimir. In 1661, the Russian garrison in Vilna was besieged, capitulating in November of the following year. In the fall of 1661, the Poles defeated the Russian army at the Battle of Klushniki. Soon Polotsk, Mogilev and Vitebsk, the last Russian strongholds in Belarus, came under Polish control.

On January 30, 1667, a Russian-Polish truce was concluded in the village of Andrusovo near Smolensk. The Smolensk and Chernigov lands and Left Bank Ukraine passed to Russia, and Zaporozhye was declared under a joint Russian-Polish protectorate. Kyiv was declared a temporary possession of Russia, but according to the “eternal peace” on May 16, 1686, it finally passed to it. In exchange for Kyiv, the Russians ceded several small border towns in Belarus to the Poles.

The cessation of the Russian-Polish wars was facilitated by the threat to both states from Turkey and its vassal Crimean Khanate. As a result of the Russian-Polish wars, Poland lost a significant part of its possessions with a predominantly Orthodox population. These wars, as well as the wars between Poland and Sweden, contributed to the weakening of the Polish state. This process ended during the Great Northern War. The divisions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772-1795 between Russia, Prussia and Austria took place without major wars, because the state, weakened due to internal turmoil, could no longer provide serious resistance to its more powerful neighbors.

Source: Sokolov B.V. One Hundred Great Wars - Moscow: Veche, 2001

Russian Civilization

Plan
Introduction
1 Background
2 Progress of the war
2.1 Campaign of 1654-1655
2.2 Russo-Swedish War
2.3 Campaign of 1658-1659
2.4 Campaign of 1660
2.5 Campaign of 1661-1662
2.6 Campaign of 1663-1664. The Great March of King John Casimir
2.7 Campaign 1665-1666

3 Results and consequences of the war
4 Other conflicts at the same time

References
Russian-Polish War (1654-1667)

Introduction

The Russian-Polish War of 1654-1667 was a military conflict between the Russian Kingdom and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for control of the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Zaporozhian Army. It began in 1654 after the decision of the Zemsky Sobor to support the Khmelnitsky uprising, which experienced another failure as a result of the Polish-Tatar conspiracy in the battle of Zhvanets. Having declared war on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian Kingdom and Khmelnitsky's Cossack detachments began a successful campaign, which resulted in control over almost the entire territory of Ancient Rus' up to the ethnic Polish borders. The simultaneous invasion of Sweden into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Swedish-Lithuanian union led to the conclusion of the temporary Vilna Truce and the beginning of the Russian-Swedish War of 1656-1658. After the death of Khmelnytsky, part of the Cossack elders went over to the side of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which is why the Hetmanate plunged into civil war, and hostilities between the Russian and Polish-Lithuanian armies soon resumed. The successful Polish counter-offensive of 1660-1661 fizzled out in 1663 during the campaign against Left Bank Ukraine. The war ended in 1667 with the signing of the Truce of Andrusovo by both weakened parties, which consolidated the existing split of the Hetmanate along the Dnieper. In addition to Left Bank Ukraine and Kiev, Smolensk also officially became part of the Russian Kingdom.

1. Background

The Russian Orthodox population living in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania) was subjected to national and religious discrimination by the Polish gentry. Protest against oppression resulted in periodic uprisings, one of which occurred in 1648 under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. The rebels, who consisted mainly of Cossacks, as well as townspeople and peasants, won a number of victories over the Polish army and concluded the Zboriv Peace Treaty with Warsaw, which granted autonomy to the Cossacks.

Soon, however, the war resumed, this time unsuccessfully for the rebels, who suffered a heavy defeat at Berestechko in June 1651. In 1653, Khmelnitsky, seeing the impossibility of winning the uprising, turned to Russia with a request to accept the Zaporozhye Army into its composition. The hetman's ambassadors spoke in Moscow in the spring of 1653: “If only the royal majesty deigned to receive them soon and sent his military men, and he is the hetman, he will immediately send his sheets to Orsha, Mogilev and other cities, to the Belarusian people who live beyond Lithuania, that the royal majesty deigned to receive them and the military sent his people. And those Belarusian people will learn from the Poles; and there will be 200,000 of them" .

In October 1653, the Zemsky Sobor decided to satisfy Khmelnitsky's request and declared war on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In January 1654, a Rada was held in Pereyaslav, which unanimously supported the entry of the Zaporozhye Cossacks into Russia. Khmelnitsky, in front of the Russian embassy, ​​took the oath of allegiance to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.

In March-April 1654, Polish troops occupied Lyubar, Chudnov, Kostelnya and were “exiled” to Uman. 20 cities were burned, many people were killed and captured. The Cossacks tried to attack the Polish army, but the Poles went to Kamenets. The question of urgent military assistance to the Cossacks became acute. Vasily Sheremetev went to Khmelnitsky for help. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich wrote to the hetman: “And if the Polish and Lithuanian people decide to attack our Tsar’s Majesty’s Cherkasy cities with war, and you, Bogdan Khmelnytsky, hetman of the Zaporozhye army, will hunt over the Polish and Lithuanian people, as much as the merciful God will give help, and to help you against those enemies of our Tsarist Majesty's boyar and governor and governor of Belozersk Vasily Borisovich Sheremetev and his comrades are ready" .

On May 18, 1654, the Sovereign's regiment under the command of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich set out from Moscow. A ceremonial parade of troops took place in Moscow. The army and artillery detachment paraded through the Kremlin. Especially for this event, “Khmelnitsky sent the Polish banner with several pairs of drums and three Poles, whom he had recently captured while traveling.”

When setting out on a campaign, the troops were given a strict order from the king to “Belarusians of the Orthodox Christian faith who will not teach to fight”, in full do not take and do not ruin.

2. Progress of the war

Song about the capture of Smolensk
17th century

The eagle shouted to the white glorious one,
The Orthodox Tsar is fighting,
Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich,
Eastern Kingdom of Dedich.
Lithuania is going to war,
Cleanse your land...
(excerpt)

The fighting began in June 1654. The Polish-Russian War is divided into a number of campaigns:

1. Campaign 1654-1655

2. Campaign 1656-1658

3. Campaign 1658-1659

4. Campaign of 1660

5. Campaign 1661-1662

6. Campaign 1663-1664

7. Campaign 1665-1666

2.1. Campaign of 1654-1655

The start of the war was generally successful for the combined Russian and Cossack forces. At the theater of military operations in 1654, events developed as follows.

On May 10, the king inspected all the troops that were supposed to go with him on the campaign. On May 15, the governors of the advanced and guard regiment went to Vyazma, the next day the governors of the large and guard regiment set out, and on May 18 the tsar himself set out. On May 26 he arrived in Mozhaisk, from where two days later he set out towards Smolensk.

On June 4, news reached the tsar about the surrender of Dorogobuzh to Russian troops without a fight, on June 11 - about the surrender of Nevel, on June 29 - about the capture of Polotsk, on July 2 - about the surrender of Roslavl. Soon the leaders of the gentry of these districts were admitted “to the hand” of the Sovereign and awarded the ranks of colonels and captains of “His Tsar’s Majesty”.

On July 20, news was received about the capture of Mstislavl by attack, as a result of which the city was burned, on July 24 - about the capture of the cities of Disna and Druya ​​by the troops of Matvey Sheremetev. On July 26, the advanced regiment had its first clash with the Poles on the Kolodna River near Smolensk.

On August 2, news of the capture of Orsha reaches the sovereign. On August 9, boyar Vasily Sheremetev announced the capture of the city of Glubokoye, and on the 20th - about the capture of Ozerishche. On August 16, the attack on Smolensk ended in failure. On August 12, in the battle of Shklov, the “ertoul” of Prince Yuri Baryatinsky from the regiment of Prince Jacob of Cherkassy forced the army of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania under the command of Janusz Radziwill to retreat. On August 20, Prince A. N. Trubetskoy defeated the army under the command of the Great Hetman Radziwill in the Battle of the Oslik River (behind the village of Shepelevichi, 15 versts from the city of Borisov), on the same day, the assigned hetman Ivan Zolotarenko announced the surrender of Gomel by the Poles.

In Mogilev, the townspeople refused to let Janusz Radziwill's troops in, saying that “We will all fight with Radivil as long as we can, but we won’t let Radivil into Mogilev.”, and on August 24 “people greeted Mogilev residents of all ranks honestly, with holy icons and allowed them into the city” Russian troops and the Belarusian Cossack regiment of Yu. Poklonsky. On August 29, Zolotarenko announced the capture of Chechersk and Propoisk. On September 1, the tsar received news of the surrender of Usvyat by the Poles, and on September 4 of the surrender of Shklov.

On September 10, negotiations took place with the Poles about the surrender of Smolensk and on September 23 the city surrendered. On September 25, a royal feast took place with the governors and hundreds of heads of the Sovereign's regiment, the Smolensk gentry were invited to the royal table - the defeated, numbered among the winners. On October 5, the sovereign set out from near Smolensk to Vyazma, where on the 16th, on the road, he received news of the capture of Dubrovna. On November 22, boyar Sheremetev announced the capture of Vitebsk in battle. The city defended itself for more than two months and refused all requests for surrender.

In December 1654, the counter-offensive of the Lithuanian Hetman Radziwill against the Russians began. On February 2, 1655, Radziwill, with whom there were “20 thousand fighting men, and 30 thousand with baggage men,” in fact, together with the Polish contingent of no more than 15 thousand, besieged Mogilev, which was defended by a 6 thousand-strong garrison.

In January, Bogdan Khmelnitsky, together with the boyar Vasily Sheremetev, met with Polish and Tatar troops near Akhmatov. Here the Russians fought off an enemy who outnumbered them for two days and retreated to Belaya Tserkov, where another Russian army was located under the command of the okolnichy F.V. Buturlin.

In March, Zolotarenko took Bobruisk, Kazimir (Royal Sloboda) and Glusk. On April 9, Radziwill and Gonsevsky made an unsuccessful attempt to take Mogilev by storm. On May 1, the hetmans, after another unsuccessful attack, lifted the siege of Mogilev and retreated to the Berezina.

In June, the troops of Chernigov Colonel Ivan Popovich took Svisloch, “They put all the enemies in it under the sword, and they burned the place and the castle with fire.”, and then Keidany. Voivode Matvey Sheremetev took Velizh, and Prince Fyodor Khvorostinin took Minsk. On July 29, the troops of Prince Jacob of Cherkassy and Hetman Zolotarenko, not far from Vilna, attacked the convoy of hetmans Radziwill and Gonsevsky, the hetmans were defeated and fled, and the Russians soon reached the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Vilna, and took the city on July 31, 1655.

In the western theater of military operations in August the cities of Kovno and Grodno were also taken.

At the same time, in the southern theater of military operations, the combined troops of Buturlin and Khmelnitsky set out on a campaign in July and freely entered Galicia, where they defeated Hetman Pototsky; Soon the Russians approached Lvov, but did nothing to the city and soon left. At the same time, the army under the command of Danila Vygovsky swore in the Polish city of Lublin.

In September, Prince Dmitry Volkonsky set out on a campaign from Kyiv on ships. At the mouth of the Ptich River, he destroyed the village of Bagrimovichi. Then, on September 15, he took Turov without a fight and the next day defeated the Lithuanian army near the city of Davydov. Next, Volkonsky went to the city of Stolin, which he reached on September 20, where he defeated the Lithuanian army and burned the city itself. From Stolin Volkonsky went to Pinsk, where he also defeated the Lithuanian army and burned the city. Then he sailed on ships down the Pripyat, where in the village of Stakhov he defeated a detachment of the Lithuanian army, and swore in the residents of the cities of Kazhan and Latvia.