Conducting Pereyaslav Rada. Reunification of Little Russia with Russia at the Rada in Pereyaslav

In the history of every nation there is a certain fateful time that determines its further path of existence for many years to come.

For Ukraine, no doubt, such turning point there was the Pereyaslav Rada, which became a great event that saved the Ukrainian people from spiritual, economic and national enslavement.

In the 16-17 centuries, Ukrainian lands were in the possession of the Commonwealth. They were completely owned by who cruelly exploited indigenous people calling them scumbags.

Economic slavery was closely intertwined with the spiritual: in those years, Orthodoxy was underground, since Poland's plans included the Catholicization of all Ukraine.

Not wanting to endure such a situation any longer, the Pereyaslav Rada was convened by Hetman Khmelnytsky in 1654, which became the final stage of the liberation movement of Ukrainians.

The hetman delivered a speech in which he once again recalled the numerous victims suffered by his people during the liberation wars. He stressed that for the Ukrainians, the only way to consolidate their gains would be the recognition of Russia.

Khmelnytsky's proposal was met with approval, the foremen, Cossacks and townspeople took the oath. The Pereyaslav Rada of 1654, which practically reunited the Ukrainian and Russian people, was of great importance in further development both states, which jointly repelled foreign attacks.

What did each side get from this union?

The Pereyaslav Treaty provided the Ukrainian peasants with freedom and deliverance from the national and religious oppression of the Commonwealth, the Ukrainian elders and the gentry dreamed of strengthening their privileges with the help of the Russian throne, turning into the ruling class in Ukraine. And all this they could get only after the adoption of political autonomy within Russia.

The tsarist government recognized the election of the Ukrainian hetman, but with its subsequent approval. All states, except Turkey and the Commonwealth, could have diplomatic relations with Ukraine.

The Pereyaslav Rada retained the entire administrative and military apparatus formed during the anti-Polish war, as well as its electivity. The judicial system was supposed to work according to local traditions and customs.

At the same time, the tsarist government was supposed to control the collection of taxes, part of which was to go to its treasury.

The adoption of such a decision was greatly facilitated not only by the commonality of religion, but also by the existence of political, cultural and economic ties, the age-old closeness of peoples and languages.

However, the Pereyaslav Agreement defined relations between Russia and Ukraine only in very general terms. Many of its provisions were interpreted by the parties in their own way, unequally, which in the future created internal strife and conflicts with the Russian tsarist autocracy.

The adoption of this agreement led to a war that began between Russia and Poland, and lasted three years.

Brochure dedicated to analysis historical facts associated with one of the most important events in the history of our country - the unification of Ukraine and Russia ("Pereyaslav Rada") in January 1654. The topic seems relevant, especially in connection with the attempts of some historians and politicians to interpret this historical event in a negative light. The publication is addressed to everyone who is interested in the history of our country.

1. Relations between Ukraine and Russia at the beginning of the liberation war of the Ukrainian people in 1648–1654
The beginning of Ukrainian-Russian official relations, which eventually became the main direction foreign policy The troops of Zaporozhye (the official name of the Ukrainian Hetmanate) were established by a letter from Hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich dated June 8, 1648. And at the beginning of 1649, the first Cossack embassy headed from Kyiv to Moscow, headed by Colonel Siluyan Muzhilovsky, announced the letter of the hetman with a request “Take all the Zaporizhia Host under your sovereign hand and help inflict with your sovereign military people ...”. In total, more than 30 appeals of the hetman to the tsar with a request for military assistance and unification with Russia are known.
The tsarist government for a long time rejected, referring to the Treaty of Polyanovsky with the Commonwealth (1634), the requests of the hetman, limiting themselves to economic and diplomatic assistance to the Zaporozhian Host. Perhaps, in Moscow, despite the great activity of Khmelnitsky, they did not believe in the seriousness of his intentions, since there were no concrete proposals from the Ukrainian side on the ways and forms of unification.
Only at the end of January 1651, in connection with preparations for the consideration of the issue of unification with Ukraine at the Zemsky Sobor, the Russian government for the first time tried to find out from the Ukrainian embassy M. Sulich, in what forms and under what conditions B. Khmelnytsky wishes to unite Ukraine with Russia. The embassy did not give a direct answer, referring to the lack of instructions from the hetman. However, according to some Russian researchers, “even if Bogdan in 1648-1649. applied with a serious practical (and not just tactical) offer of Russian citizenship, he most likely would have been refused”1.
It should be borne in mind that the development of events in Ukraine in initial period liberation war 1648–1654 turned out to be a complete surprise for the Russian leadership. In addition, the tsarist government, bound with Poland by a defensive agreement of 1647 against the Crimean Khanate, was preparing for a joint struggle with it against the invasion of the Tatar horde. But the very first messages about the deployment of the Cossack uprising, received by Moscow in February 1648, attracted close attention of the Russian government and frontier (border) governors, who were instructed to collect information about the events in Ukraine, the actions of the rebels, Polish and Tatar troops.
March 18, 1648 political and statesman The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, at that time the Bratslav governor, the nobleman of the "Greek faith" Adam Kisel officially notified the Russian authorities about the uprising in Zaporozhye under the leadership of B. Khmelnitsky. In early April, it became known in Moscow about the alliance of the Cossacks with the Tatars. This news alarmed the tsarist government, and it instructed the border governors to prepare to repulse the Horde.
During April-May, more and more disturbing and often contradictory reports were received in Moscow. The tone of letters from representatives of the Polish authorities also became more and more concerned. On May 2, 1648, Putivl voivode Nikifor Pleshcheev received a letter from the Polish constable of the city of Krasnoe Konstantin Malyashinsky, who reported that Khmelnitsky with Cossacks and a horde besieged the Polish camp in the upper reaches of the Saksagan River, and the number of Tatars was constantly increasing. Ten days later, the Polish magnate Jeremiah Vishnevetsky, who had already written about 40 thousand Tatars and called on the Russian authorities to joint performance against them. On May 18, 1648, Moscow received another letter from A. Kisel, who reported on the encirclement of the 30,000th Tatar horde in the Zhovti Vody tract of the Polish army and insisted on the immediate action of the Russian army on Ukraine.
A day after receiving this letter, the tsar instructed to prepare a military campaign against the Tatars, but it was to begin only when the "most authentic news" about the attack of the Horde was received.
Polish-Russian unity did not last long. Already on May 31, 1648, A. Kisel, in a letter to Gnieznin Bishop Matvey Lubensky, the ruler of Poland in the “interroyal period” that came after the death of Vladislav IV on May 20, 1648, reported with alarm that, although he managed to achieve with his letters to the tsarist government that a 40,000-strong Russian army was concentrated near Putivl, intended against the Tatars, but the news of the defeat of the Poles and the death of the king preceded the arrival of the army, and now no one can guarantee that Moscow will not support the Cossacks: “Who can vouch for them? One blood, one religion. Save the Lord, so that they do not plan something against our fatherland ... ".
In late May - early June, the Russian border governors, on the instructions of the central government, concerned about the appearance of Tatars in Ukraine, sent their representatives with letters to Kisel and Vishnevetsky. Several messengers were intercepted by the Cossacks and delivered to the hetman. On June 8, 1648, Bogdan Khmelnitsky handed over his letter to the tsar to one of them, Grigory Klimov. Already on June 19 it was delivered to Moscow.
In his letter, the hetman noted that the Cossacks were dying for the ancient Greek faith, reported on their victories and the death of the Polish king, and also asked that “if your royal majesty hears that the Poles want to attack us again, hurry up at the same hour from our side attack them. In addition, the letter contains a phrase that has long been the subject of a dispute among scholars: “We want an autocratic owner in our land, like your grace, an Orthodox Christian king, if the eternal prophecy from Christ our God were fulfilled, that everything is in the hands of his holy mercy” .
Some researchers see this as a desire for “Ukraine to be under the rule of the tsar”, that is, to unite with Russia, others see it as an offer to the Russian tsar to take the Polish throne that was vacant after the death of Vladislav IV. According to I.P. Kripyakevich, Khmelnytsky's call to Alexei Mikhailovich to take the Polish throne in those specific conditions meant a desire for "reunification of Ukraine with Russia"2.
For a long time the tsarist government avoided direct and official contacts with the hetman. Only in December 1648, six months after the hetman's first appeal, did the messenger deliver the royal charter to him, which marked the beginning of a new stage in relations between Russia and Ukraine. The letter meant, in fact, the recognition of the hetman as the ruler of Ukraine. In the spring of 1649, an embassy headed by G. Unkovsky was sent to Ukraine to clarify the situation. In general, from 1649 to the beginning of 1654, 13 embassies from Moscow visited Ukraine.
G. Unkovsky came to the conclusion that in Ukraine “people of all ranks” are in favor of unification with Russia and rely on the hetman in everything, “however his will for such a thing will be, and they will not lag behind him.” The ambassador also drew attention to how the Cossack elite imagined their relationship with Russia in the event of unification: the foremen praised the royal “mercy” to the Don Cossacks and expressed the hope that when Ukraine united with Russia, the same attitude would be towards the Zaporizhian Host.
This information gives grounds to believe that the hetman's elite intended to build relations with Moscow following the example of the Don Cossacks. The Don Cossacks recognized their overlord in the person of the tsar, but they considered serving him as a voluntary matter and on this basis for a long time refused the royal oath. All relations between Moscow and the Don Army were conducted through the Posolsky order, that is, as with a foreign state.
The Russian government understood the great importance of unification with Ukraine, linking this with the return of the Smolensk region and other lands lost by Russia under the Polyanovsky peace of 1634. However, Moscow feared the inevitable military conflict with the Commonwealth in this case, the previous clashes with which ended unsuccessfully for the Russians as a whole. . According to V.O. Klyuchevsky, “Little Russia was still far beyond the horizon of Moscow politics, and the memory of the Circassians of Lisovsky and Sapieha was still quite fresh”3.

The main reason for the indecision of the tsarist government was the difficult internal situation in Russia in the middle of the 17th century. At this time, the Moscow kingdom was just beginning to recover from the catastrophic consequences of a 14-year period. civil war and foreign military intervention(1604–1618). During this period, Russia lost, according to some estimates, up to half of the population and was a crippled country whose economy was destroyed. Minimum necessary funds extracted by the hardest extraordinary methods. In general, the restoration of the country's agricultural production was achieved only in the middle - third quarter of the 17th century.
As a result of the wars, Poland pushed Russia back to the borders of the 15th century, and Sweden pushed it back from the shores of the Baltic Sea, and the Russian border moved 100–200 km to the east. The attempt made by the Russian government during the Smolensk War (1632-1634) to return the territories occupied by the Poles ended in failure. Its course was directly affected by the attacks Ukrainian Cossacks and the Crimean Tatars to the southern lands of Russia, forcing the Russian command to transfer a considerable part of its forces to the southern front. Crimean Tatars even reached the Moscow district.
In general, for the first half of the XVII century. the Tatars took 200 thousand people into captivity. For the ransom of captives in the Russian budget there was even a special expense item of 150 thousand rubles annually. At the same time, huge sums were spent on gifts to the Crimean khans. According to the calculations of the Russian scientist V.V. Kargalov, only in the first half of the XVII century. the treasury spent about a million rubles on them - an amount equal to the cost of building four new cities.
Military failures forced the Moscow government to start updating the armed forces and restoring the system of defensive fortifications. On the eve of the Smolensk War, the second major military reform since the time of Ivan the Terrible began in the country, and immediately after the war, in 1635, the creation of the Belgorod border line, stretching for 800 km from Akhtyrka to the Tambov region, began. All these measures required the attraction of large resources and the utmost effort of the forces of the whole country.
Only after solving the most acute domestic political problems was the tsarist government able to move on to solving foreign policy problems. In 1651 was convened Zemsky Sobor to discuss the issue of Ukraine. There are no records of his work. And the opinions of the clergy that have come down to us say that no unequivocal decision was made.
The very fact of the preparation and holding of the Zemsky Sobor testified to the emerging changes in the policy of the Russian government towards Ukraine. However, the situation after the council did not become radically different. According to the modern Russian researcher L.V. Zaborovsky, “until August 1653 (the failure of the embassy led by B.A. Repnin-Obolensky to the Commonwealth4), when the general line wavered, the Moscow court sought to act more as an intermediary in achieving peace in Ukraine”5.
Requests for citizenship by the hetman of the Zaporizhian Army became more frequent, but Moscow reacted to them with extreme restraint. In January 1652, Bogdan Khmelnitsky sent Colonel Ivan Iskra to Moscow. The hetman asked for help in the war, and in case of defeat, permission to move with the entire army to Russian territory, to Putivl. The Moscow government agreed to the resettlement and even marked the lands along the rivers Khopra and Medveditsa, where the Cossacks could settle.
In April 1653, Ukrainian ambassadors K. Burlyai and S. Muzhilovsky again asked the tsar to unite and provide assistance to military men. At the same time, they pointed out that even for the mediation of the tsarist government in reconciling the Zaporizhian Army with Poland, the hetman's government would be very grateful, since the king with troops was preparing to attack Ukraine.
In fact, only since 1653, under the influence of the aggravation of the situation in Ukraine, political changes were outlined in Moscow: instead of trying to resolve the conflict by diplomatic means, the tsarist government proceeded to direct preparations for a war with Poland.
The course of events was accelerated by information received in Moscow on June 20 from the border governors, about the arrival of a Turkish envoy to B. Khmelnitsky with a proposal to the hetman and the entire Zaporozhye Host to become subjects of Turkey. This not only threatened the international prestige of Russia, but also meant the appearance of the borders of the Ottoman Empire near Kursk, which had views of Kazan and Astrakhan. Having learned about this, on June 22, 1653, the tsar ordered to officially notify B. Khmelnitsky of his consent to accept the Zaporizhian Host under his “high hand”6.
After that, the negotiation process noticeably intensifies, as evidenced by the lively exchange of embassies, with the initiative passing to Moscow. In just two and a half months, three Russian embassies visited Ukraine one after another, which testified to the seriousness of the tsar's intentions.

2. Completion of negotiations on the unification of Ukraine with Russia. Pereyaslav Rada
On May 25, 1653, the Zemsky Sobor opened in Moscow, and the issue of Ukraine was brought up for discussion. Representatives of all the estates that took part in the council expressed a unanimous opinion on the need to accept the Zaporizhian Army into Russia. On this issue, a draft decision of the council was prepared. However, its adoption was postponed until the return of the embassy of Prince B.A. from the Commonwealth. Repnin-Obolensky. The embassy returned to Moscow at the end of September, and on October 1, the Zemsky Sobor approved the decision to admit Ukraine to Russia7.
On October 2, 1653, a royal letter was sent to the embassy headed by R. Streshnev and M. Bredikhin, who was in Ukraine at that time, with an order that they inform B. Khmelnitsky about the decision of the Zemsky Sobor. The letter ended with the words that the hetman and all the Zaporizhzhya Army should rely on the royal mercy "without any thought."
To implement the decision of the Zemsky Sobor, the tsarist government sent a large plenipotentiary embassy to Ukraine, headed by the close boyar Vasily Buturlin. The embassy also included the devious Ivan Alferyev and the Duma clerk Larion Lopukhin. The embassy was accompanied by a large retinue of 40 dignitaries and an honorary escort of 200 archers, led by archery head Artamon Matveev.
Bogdan Khmelnitsky met in Chigirin on December 26 with R. Streshnev and M. Bredikhin. The hetman thanked for the letter dated October 2 and stated that he ordered all the colonels, centurions and yesauls to come to Pereyaslav, where the embassy headed by V.V. Buturlin.
Initially, the ceremony of the unification of Ukraine with Russia was supposed to be held in Kyiv, but B. Khmelnitsky, for a number of reasons, moved it to Pereyaslav. It is possible that this decision was influenced by the anti-Moscow sentiments of the highest Ukrainian Orthodox hierarchs who were in Kyiv. In addition, Kyiv was threatened by a military danger from Lithuania.
Pereyaslav at that time was a large city and an old Cossack regimental center. Located far from the Polish, Lithuanian and Tatar borders, the city was well fortified. Cossack artillery and gunpowder stocks were also located here.
On December 31, the Russian embassy was solemnly greeted far beyond Pereyaslav by Cossacks led by local colonel P. Teterya.
On January 6, 1654, Bogdan Khmelnitsky arrived in Pereyaslav. The next day he met with Russian ambassadors led by Buturlin. They exchanged welcoming speeches, agreed to hold a meeting and an oath. Bogdan Khmelnitsky thanked the Russian government for agreeing to the unification and here he gave the justification for the unification itself: Little Russia by his mercy.
On the morning of January 8, the foremen's council took place, approving the decision to go "under the sovereign's high hand." Then, on the square in front of the Assumption Cathedral, “people of various ranks” gathered for a general (general) council. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, Bogdan Khmelnitsky appeared on the square with a general foreman. As recorded in the report of the Russian embassy, ​​the hetman, standing in the center of the circle, addressed the participants of the council with a short speech, which is reproduced below in full:
“Panov colonels, yasauls, centurions and the entire army of Zaporozhye, and all Orthodox Christians! You all know how God freed us from the hands of enemies who persecute the church of God and embitter all the Christianity of our Eastern Orthodoxy, that for 6 years we have been living without a sovereign in our land in incessant warfare and bloodshed with our persecutors and enemies, who want to uproot the Church of God, so that the Russian name is not mentioned in our land, which has already bothered us all, and we see that we can no longer live without a king. For this purpose, now I have gathered a council, which is manifest to all the people, so that you can choose with us a sovereign from four, whom you want.
The first king is the Turks, who many times, through his ambassadors, called us under his region; the second is the Crimean Khan; the third is the king of Poland, whom, if you like, and now he can still accept us in the same caress; the fourth is the Orthodox Tsar of Great Russia and Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich of All Russia, Autocrat of Eastern Russia, whom we have been asking ourselves for 6 years with our unceasing prayers - here whom you want to choose.
The Tsar of Tours is a busurman: we all know how our brethren, Orthodox Christian Greeks, endure misfortune and what is the essence of godless oppression. The Crimean Khan is also a Busurman, whom we accepted out of need and in friendship, what intolerable misfortunes we accepted. What a captivity, what a merciless shedding of Christian blood from the Polish from the lords of oppression - you don’t need to tell anyone. You yourself all know that it is better to honor a Jew and a dog than a Christian, our brother.
And the Orthodox Christian great sovereign, the Tsar of the East, is with us one piety of the Greek law, one confession, one body of the Church with the Orthodoxy of Great Russia, the head of the property of Jesus Christ. That great sovereign, the Christian tsar, taking pity on the unbearable anger of the Orthodox churches in our Little Russia, not despising our six years of unceasing prayers, now, having bowed his merciful royal heart to us, his great neighbors to us with his royal mercy, deign to send, whom there are with let us love with zeal, we will not find the most beneficent refuge to his royal high hands. And there will be someone who does not agree with us now, where the free road wants.
In response to the call of the hetman, as recorded in the article list of the Russian ambassador, “all the people cried out: we will let the tsar of the east, the Orthodox, die with a strong hand in our pious faith, rather than get the hater of Christ’s trash!”10.

Then Pereyaslav Colonel P. Teterya, going around the circle, asked those present: “Do you all agree to this? All the people said: all with one accord ... God, confirm, God, strengthen, so that Thou art forever and ever be one. Then the hetman said: “Wait tacos”11.
After that, Bogdan Khmelnitsky, together with representatives of the Cossack regiments, went to the Russian ambassadors. Vasily Buturlin solemnly presented the hetman with a royal letter of consent Russian state accept Ukraine. Khmelnitsky and Buturlin exchanged welcoming speeches.
Then the hetman, foremen and Russian ambassadors went to the Cathedral Church of the Assumption, where the clergy were to take the oath. Here Bogdan Khmelnitsky asked the ambassadors to swear on behalf of the king that all estates would retain their rights and liberties. The ambassadors refused to take the oath under the pretext that the autocrat could not swear allegiance to his subjects. After the meeting of the hetman with the foremen, it was decided to swear allegiance, and about their deeds "beat the brow of the great sovereign." V. Buturlin, on behalf of the tsar, assured those present that all the rights and liberties of Ukraine would be confirmed. The hetman, and after him the foremen (clerk, baggage officer, judges, army captains and colonels) publicly took an oath of allegiance to Russia, “what will they be with the lands and cities under the sovereign’s high hand forever unrelenting”12.
After the oath, Vasily Buturlin, on behalf of the Russian government, handed over to Bogdan Khmelnitsky the signs of hetman power - a banner, a mace, a feryaz, a hat, and gifts for the foremen.
On the same day, the hetman reported to Moscow about the decision of the Pereyaslav Rada and asked the tsar "to grant us mercy and great generosity to his sovereign direct and faithful servants and subjects of his favor and mercy"13. It is noteworthy that in the letter the hetman changed the royal title, calling the tsar the autocrat not of "all Russia", but "all Great and Lesser Russia". The redaction of the royal title proposed by B. Khmelnitsky was positively received by the Russian government, and a month later, on February 9, 1654, in a letter announcing the birth of an heir, Alexei Mikhailovich called himself the autocrat of all Great and Little Russia14.
The next day, January 9, in the Assumption Cathedral "they brought to faith both centurions and captains and clerks and Cossacks and philistines ..., honored colonels, and other initial people and Cossacks who radiated in Pereyaslav, and burghers and all sorts of ranks of people"15. In total, 284 members of the Pereyaslav Rada were sworn in these days.
Only after that, on January 10, negotiations began on the conditions for the entry of the Ukrainian hetmanate into the Muscovite kingdom. At the first stage, the hetman and clerk Ivan Vyhovsky participated in them from the Ukrainian side. Initially, the parties discussed the relationship of the Zaporizhian Army with the Polish king and the Crimean Khan, as well as plans for a war with the Commonwealth.
The hetman then announced to the ambassadors that the taxes previously collected for the Polish king would be transferred to the royal treasury. Khmelnytsky asked to confirm the rights to the estates owned by Orthodox monasteries and churches. Buturlin replied that the tsar would confirm these rights. He also reminded the hetman of the request of his ambassador L. Kapusta, who, on behalf of B. Khmelnitsky, raised the issue of sending Moscow governors with warriors to Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. Buturlin said that the army led by the governors F.S. Kurakin and F.F. Volkonsky will arrive soon and he should be provided with everything necessary. The hetman took this message positively and said that the Muscovite army would be met at the border by a Cossack colonel who would lead them to Kyiv. The hetman also asked that by the spring the tsar ordered to send more military men "as many as the sovereign wills", than "more, then better".
On the same day, the second stage of the negotiations took place, in which, in addition to the hetman and the clerk, the Ukrainian side was attended by "and the convoy, and judges, and colonels, and military judges." This time, the Ukrainian side raised a wider range of issues for discussion and put forward a number of wishes. In particular, the hetman raised the question of the need to preserve the foundations of the estate structure in Ukraine and secure special rights for the Cossacks, stating: “in the Zaporozhye de army, who in what rank was in this place, and now the sovereign would have come, ordered to be in order that the gentry was a gentry, and a Cossack was a Cossack, and a tradesman was a tradesman; and the Cossack would have judged the colonels and the centurions”16. The hetman also asked for 60,000 Cossacks. Cossacks do not need to pay salaries, but do not take “washing, and bridgework, and transportation” from them.
The ambassadors declared that all these requests would be granted by the Russian government. In addition, B. Khmelnitsky expressed a wish that the Chigirinsky starostvo be transferred to him (for a mace). I. Vyhovsky also asked to confirm his right to own his estates, and “besides, welcome ... and other estates” and give the Zaporizhzhya Army a royal seal, because the old seal “is not good, because the royal name is written on that seal” 17.
On January 13, Bohdan Khmelnytsky went to Chyhyryn, and the next day, representatives of the Russian embassy, ​​having received from the hetman a list of 177 cities and towns of the Zaporizhian Army, began to leave to swear in the population. A contemporary of these events, the chronicler Samovydets wrote that the whole people “made it willingly ... all over Ukraine”, and “considerable joy came among the people.”
The oath covered, according to various estimates, from 40% to the majority of the adult population of the hetmanate, which in terms of its scale was an unprecedented affair not only for Ukraine, but for all of Europe at that time. A total of 127,338 people swore allegiance: 62,949 Cossacks, 62,454 philistines, 188 gentry and 37 monastic servants. In January - March 1654, only men were sworn in - the owners of yards, estates, Cossacks. The peasants, as a feudal dependent population, were not sworn in.
The oath clearly showed the divergence of attitudes of various sections of the Ukrainian people towards the issue of unification with Russia. Most of the Cossacks and townspeople reacted positively to this act. Extremely wary - the foremen's elite and the gentry. The elite of the Ukrainian Orthodox clergy refused to take the oath, fearing a transition from nominal dependence on the Patriarch of Constantinople to real subordination to the Moscow Patriarchate. The second reason, apparently, was that after the Pereyaslav Rada, four dioceses of the Kyiv Metropolis (Belarusian, Lvov, Lutsk and Przemysl) remained in the Commonwealth and only two (Kyiv and Chernihiv) remained in the Muscovite kingdom.

3. Legal registration of the entry of Ukraine into Russia
For the legal registration of the agreements reached in Pereyaslav on the conditions for the entry of the Zaporizhian Army into the Russian state on February 17, 1654. the Ukrainian embassy (61 people) headed by Judge General S. Bogdanovich-Zarudny and Pereyaslav Colonel P. Teterya left for Moscow.
On March 12, the embassy was solemnly welcomed in Moscow, and the next day he had an audience with the tsar. In addition to gifts, members of the embassy gave the tsar a letter from the hetman. Bohdan Khmelnitsky, on his own behalf, the Zaporizhzhya Army and the entire people of the "Orthodox Russian" raised the issue of confirming the oral promises given in Pereyaslav by V.V. Buturlin on behalf of the tsar during negotiations with the hetman and the foreman. However, the letter contains only a part of the Ukrainian side's proposals. The rest, as indicated in the letter, the ambassadors had to state orally: “The multiplier in the letter is not written: our envoys will tell you everything to the great sovereign”18.
On the same day, negotiations between the Ukrainian delegation and representatives of the tsarist government began in the Ambassadorial Prikaz, during which the embassy leadership verbally stated its wishes, recorded by the Russian side in two editions (of sixteen and twenty articles without a systematic presentation). However, the boyars, after consulting, suggested that the embassy state them in writing: “and ordered the boyar to send their speeches in writing as an envoy”19.
On March 14, 1654, the ambassadors, on behalf of "the hetman and the entire Zaporizhia Army," submitted their proposals in writing, consisting of 23 points. The original of this document, called the "March Articles", or "Articles of Bogdan Khmelnitsky", has not been preserved and has not been published. Back in 1709, Peter I ordered to search for him in the Moscow archives, but he was informed that he was not there. In the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts in Moscow, there is only a translation of the "Articles" from Ukrainian into Russian under the title "A petition on the points of Bohdan Khmelnitsky to confirm their former rights and liberties and about the courts and about the last year, there is no and nothing has been signed."
The "Articles" consist of a short introduction and 23 paragraphs covering a wide range of topics:
- on the confirmation of all Cossack rights and privileges (clauses 1, 7, 13);
- about the 60,000th Cossack register (clause 2);
- on the rights of the Orthodox nobility (p. 3);
- on payment to the foreman and funds for the maintenance of the troops (clauses 8-12, 21, 23);
- on the free election of the hetman and the transfer to him of the Chigirinsky starostvo (p. 6, 5);
- on the preservation of local administration and the collection of taxes in Ukraine by the tsarist government (p. 4, 15);
- on the non-interference of tsarist officials in the internal affairs of the hetmanate (p. 16);
- on the issuance by the tsarist government of letters of liberties to the Cossacks and the Orthodox gentry, with the granting of the right to the hetman's government to determine who is a "Cossack" and who is a "plowed peasant" (paragraph 17);
- about the Kiev Metropolitan and the confirmation of the rights of the clergy (p. 18, 13);
- about sending Russian troops to Smolensk (p. 19), joint actions against the Crimea (p. 22) and the deployment of tsarist garrisons in Ukraine (p. 20);
- on the right of the hetman's administration (with the knowledge of the tsarist government) to diplomatic relations With foreign states(p. 14).
There is no consensus on this document in the historical literature. Some historians see in the "Articles" a draft treaty between B. Khmelnytsky and the tsar, others - an instruction to the ambassadors, reworked by them into a petition. Indeed, in form the text of the "Articles" strongly resembles the hetman's instruction to the embassy of Philo Garkusha, which was accidentally preserved. In addition, the text lacks elements required for official hetman forms: signature (or subcription), place and date of writing.
These facts, unfortunately, have not yet been adequately reflected in historical research. At the same time, the opinion has taken root in the historical literature that the Articles "were behind the hetman's hand and seal." As for the seal, there are no indications in this regard in the postscript to the text, but it is doubtful that, when addressing the tsar, the hetman used a seal with the name of the Polish king. Moreover, in fact, it has become the norm that in modern editions of the Articles, publishers arbitrarily enter the date and place of writing in their text: 1654, February 17, Chigirin.
At the same time, the only indication of the presence of a signature and a seal is the mention of this by the royal clerks during negotiations with the embassy of P. Teteri in August 1657, who reproached the hetman for not fulfilling the clause of the Articles on paying salaries to the Cossacks from the Ukrainian budget.
The reliability of this information was called into question by M.S. Grushevsky, who suggested that the Moscow government deliberately, in order to give the "Articles" more significance, referred "instead of the articles to the letter of the hetman to the tsar, brought by his ambassadors"20, which was indeed executed properly.
Most of the points submitted by the ambassadors of the Zaporizhian Army on March 14 were accepted and confirmed with some changes by letters of commendation from the tsar, and the decision on the issue of salaries to the Cossacks, which was to be paid from taxes collected in Ukraine, was postponed. According to researchers, if a salary of 30 gold coins was established for ordinary Cossacks, with a registered number of 60 thousand, annual payments to the entire army would amount to 1.8-1.9 million gold pieces, or more than half of Poland's annual budget, or 8-10% of the budget Russia. The tsar postponed the solution of this issue until the amount of income from Ukraine was clarified, which should have been mainly used to support it itself.
This decision was justified by the fact that the tsar had already spent large amounts of money on the maintenance of the troops to protect Ukraine "from the Latins." In addition, at the negotiations in Pereyaslav, the hetman announced that he would not ask for payment to the army.
The ambassadors immediately responded to this resolution by filing a special petition. In it, they asked “for every Cossack a salary of thirty gold pieces, but when this is not possible, at least something to reduce; however, so that I don’t have anything to turn around before the army”21.
The king ordered that taxes be collected in his favor under the control of his representatives. And already from the treasury, funds were to be allocated for the maintenance of the army, the Cossack administration, foreign policy activities, etc.
On March 17, the ambassadors handed over to the tsarist government whole line documents they brought with them (extracts from city books) as evidence of their rights, the confirmation of which they asked for in Moscow22.
On March 19, Ukrainian ambassadors were invited to a farewell audience with the Tsar. After the audience, another meeting of the ambassadors with the boyars took place, at which some questions were clarified: about the number of judges and gunners in the Zaporozhye Host; about the funds needed to maintain the garrisons in Kodak and Zaporozhye, etc. In addition, the ambassadors were acquainted with the royal resolutions on the "Articles" and with decisions that were not in the resolutions. In particular: 1. On the issuance of salaries to the Cossacks from the funds of the king, until a census of Ukrainian taxes is carried out, from which the army will receive salaries in the future; 2. On the ban on relations between the hetman and the Polish king and the Turkish sultan; 3. About the presence of the royal governors in Kyiv and Chernigov; 4. On the extradition of Russian fugitives to the tsarist government; 5. On the readiness of the Russian troops to defend Ukraine, etc.
Despite the farewell audience on March 19, the Ukrainian embassy remained in Moscow until March 27, awaiting the issuance of royal charters and other acts. On this day, the embassy was handed over a number of documents: the royal charter to Hetman Bohdan Khmelnitsky and the entire Zaporizhzhya Army on the preservation of their rights and liberties; "Articles of Bogdan Khmelnitsky" of 11 points; a royal charter to the Ukrainian Orthodox gentry and four charters to the hetman: for Chigirinskoe (for a mace) and Gadyachskoe elders confirming his ownership of “patrimonial estates” - Subbotov and Novoselki, as well as Medvedovka, Borki and Kamenka, which made Bogdan Khmelnitsky the richest magnate in Ukraine.
All these acts, together with letters received later (in April-September), confirming the rights of the Zaporizhzhya Army, the burghers of Pereyaslav, Kyiv and Chernigov, as well as the Ukrainian clergy, constitute a set of documents that determined the position of the Zaporizhzhya Army in the Muscovite kingdom.
Closely adjoining this complex and, perhaps, royal awards to the Ukrainian foreman are part of it. Already on March 27, 1654, on the basis of written requests, royal letters for estates “from the peasants and from all land” were received by the heads of the Ukrainian embassy S. Bogdanovich-Zarudny and P. Teterya. These awards were kept secret, as their owners were afraid of the revenge of their recent associates - ordinary Cossacks.
In August 1657, P. Teterya asked the Moscow government that the tsar in the army “didn’t order to announce what someone from the tsar’s majesty granted, ... but only de in the army they know that he, the clerk and his comrades, asked themselves from the tsar majesties are such great majesty, and they will all be killed immediately. And he also filed his petition, which indicated that the royal charter issued to him for Smela was "buried in the ground, fearing ruin and deteriorated," and therefore asked for a new charter on the charter.
The legal registration of the decisions of the Zemsky Sobor and the Pereyaslav Rada was carried out taking into account the different legal status of the parties. By that time, the Muscovite kingdom had been acting as an independent state for centuries. The Zaporozhian army was legally part of the Commonwealth and did not represent a legitimate state. In this regard, the entry of the hetmanate into Russia was formalized not in the form of a (bilateral) agreement, but as an act of granting the sovereign to his subjects.
There is no doubt that not only the Moscow boyars, but also the hetman himself understood the difference between a treaty and an award. However, no protest was expressed. Moreover, the Ukrainian side not only did not oppose this form of agreement, but in every possible way initiated and even thanked for these acts. So, in a letter to the tsar dated July 28, 1654, Bogdan Khmelnitsky noted: “... All of Malaya Russia unanimously rejoiced that your royal majesty would now, and henceforth, promise your sovereign mercy”23.
Of course, the parties understood citizenship in different ways. The Ukrainian side saw it as a protectorate, which did not exclude the possibility of exit, the Russian side saw it as direct citizenship with broad autonomy, but the impossibility of secession, which it interpreted as treason. The form and procedure for formalizing the relationship between the Zaporozhye Host and the Moscow State corresponded to the norms of diplomatic practice of that time and were not something unique in this sense. Similarly, the tsarist government in 1654-1655. a number of agreements were concluded with the Smolensk and Belarusian gentry.
The peculiarity of the Pereyaslav political act was that initially the relevant decisions were made at the Zemsky Sobor on October 1, 1653 and the Pereyaslav Rada on January 8, 1654, then confirmed by an individual oath of the inhabitants of the hetmanate, and then the parties agreed on their relations and formalized them legally in the form set of documents. Moreover, the most important rights of the main estates of the hetmanate - the gentry, the Cossacks, the townspeople and the clergy were issued with special letters of commendation. This circumstance, according to some researchers, calls into question the very fact of bilateral relations between the tsar and the hetman and speaks not so much about the Cossack statehood, but about the existence of agreements between the tsar and the estates of a certain territory.
The main components of the aforementioned set of documents are: "Charter to Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the All Zaporizhzhya Army on the preservation of their rights and liberties"; "Articles of Bogdan Khmelnitsky" of 11 paragraphs with royal resolutions. The content of these acts exhaustively covers the "Pleading Articles" of 23 points. Both documents are a single whole, but the main one, according to M.S. Grushevsky, was originally "Charter of Letters ...", "Articles ..." were an additional act, as its continuation and addition. Later, the "Articles ..." became the main document regulating relations between Ukraine and Russia.
During the life of B. Khmelnitsky, both of these documents were not made public. They were announced only in 1657 at the council, which approved the election of I. Vyhovsky as hetman, and then they were completely lost.
The originals of the "Letter of Letters ..." and "Articles of Bogdan Khmelnitsky" have not been found to this day. The Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts contains only their drafts in Russian. It is possible that the originals, compiled in the form of royal awards, i.e. unilateral acts, were made by Moscow clerks in one copy, intended only for the Ukrainian side, and died or were deliberately destroyed during the Ruin. It is possible that they were taken out by the Hetman of the Right-Bank Ukraine Pavlo Teterya in 1665, together with the Kleinods and the treasury of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, to Poland.
Fifteen years after the Pereyaslav Rada, the Ambassadorial Order turned to Demyan Mnogohrishny, Hetman of the Left-Bank Ukraine, to send to Moscow all agreements between Ukraine and Poland and Russia, starting from 1648. The Hetman sent copies of some documents, but the Articles did not

Summary
From the above facts, the following conclusions can be drawn:
The unification of Ukraine with Russia was voluntary, and the initiative came from the Ukrainian side.
The Zaporizhzhya Army became part of the Russian state on a contractual basis and on the basis of the widest autonomy, retaining its state structure practically unchanged.
It provided for the free election of the hetman, whose power was actually for life. The hetman was given symbols of power: banner, mace, seal. The Hetmanate retained its own armed forces, which increased to 60 thousand Cossacks, local authorities, administrative division, judicial and financial systems.
Taxes from Ukraine practically did not enter the Moscow treasury and went to own needs.
In fact, there was no tsarist administration on the territory of the Zaporozhye Host, not counting the governor in Kyiv, who commanded only the Russian garrison.
The restrictions on the independence of the hetmanate boiled down to the following: the tsar was recognized as the supreme sovereign of the country, and the hetman was accountable to Moscow in financial and foreign policy activities (relations with the Polish king and the Turkish sultan were allowed only by decree of the tsar).
The territory of the Zaporozhian Army is not recorded in the documents. An indirect indication of its borders can only be the mention in the 9th paragraph of the final version of the "Articles of Bohdan Khmelnitsky" of the Zboriv Treaty, in which they are outlined very accurately. In addition, the territory of the Hetmanate can be judged from the list of regiments and settlements Troops of Zaporizhia, transferred to the Russian embassy by B. Khmelnitsky to bring its inhabitants to the oath. Judging by this information, the area covered by the jurisdiction of the hetman's administration was approximately 200,000 square meters. km, that is, about a third of the territory of present-day Ukraine (604 thousand sq. km). The formation of the modern territory and the formation of national statehood took more than three hundred years of Ukraine's stay in the Russian state and the USSR.
References:
1 Petrukhintsev N., Smirnov A. Marriage of convenience. Crisis of the 17th century. // Motherland. - 2004. - No. 1. - From 15.
2 Krip'yakevich I.P. Bogdan Khmelnitsky. - K., 1954. - P. 419.
3 Klyuchevsky V.O. Works. - T. 3. - M., 1988. - P. 109.
4 In April 1653, the tsarist government sent an embassy to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, headed by Prince B.A. Repnin-Obolensky, which was supposed to achieve reconciliation between Poland and the Zaporozhye Host on the terms of the Zboriv Treaty and the liquidation of the union. In addition, the embassy was entrusted with studying the internal state of the Commonwealth. An agreement was not reached, and negotiations were broken off on 7 August. At the same time, the embassy became convinced of Poland's internal weakness.
5 Zaborovsky L.V. Pereyaslav Rada and the Moscow Agreements of 1654: Research Problems // Russia-Ukraine: History of Relationships. – M., 1997. – P.41–42.
6 Cit.: Reunification of Russia. Collection of documents and materials for teachers and teachers of history. - K .: Kievan Rus, 2008. - P. 40.
7 Ibid. - P.52.
8 Ibid. – P.61.
9 Ibid. – P.62–63.
10 Ibid. - P.63.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid. - P.70.
13 Ibid. - P.114.
14 Ibid. – P.118.
15 Ibid. – P.73–74.
16 Ibid. - P.79.
17 Ibid. - P.82.
18 Ibid. - P.133.
19 Ibid. - P.140.
20 Grushevsky M. Pereyaslavskaya umova of Ukraine from Moscow // Pereyaslavskaya Rada of 1654. - K., 2003. - P.13.
21 Ibid. - P.151.
22 In total, the ambassadors handed over 10 documents to the boyars: 1. Privileges of King Jan Casimir to the Zaporozhian Army, given near Zborov on August 18, 1649; 2. Articles of the Zborovsky treaty of January 12, 1650; 3. Royal privileges to the Cossacks on the Trakhtemirovsky monastery of January 12, 1650; 4. Royal confirmation of the Zborowski privilege of January 12, 1650; 5. Royal privileges on the grant of Chigirin to the hetman's mace of January 12, 1650; 6. Royal charter granted to B. Khmelnitsky for Medvedovka, Zhabotin and Kamenka with forests dated March 27, 1649; 7. Royal charter granted to Bogdan Khmelnitsky for the settlement of Novoselki dated January 12, 1650; 8. Letter of grant from King Vladislav IV to the centurion of the gentry Bogdan Khmelnitsky for the settlement of Saturdays dated July 22, 1646; 9. Royal charter granted to Bogdan Khmelnitsky for the steppe beyond Chigirin dated May 14, 1652; 10. Royal privileges to Bogdan Khmelnitsky, confirming the charter on Saturdays of August 15, 1650.
23 Acts related to the history of Southern and Western Russia. - T. 10. - St. Petersburg, 1878. - S. 721-722.

Pereyaslav Council. "May we all be one forever"

<...>On October 1, a Zemsky Sobor of all the ranks of the Moscow state was convened in Moscow. In the Palace of Facets, where the cathedral was held, it was announced "about the untruths of the Polish king and about the sending of Hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky with a petition for citizenship." The participants were informed about the results of the mission of Prince Repnin-Obolensky and previous embassies to Warsaw, about the refusal of the Poles to punish those responsible for belittling the titles of royal majesty (Alexei Mikhailovich himself and his father Mikhail Fedorovich). The Duma clerk also said that the sovereign was ready to forgive those responsible for insulting the royal honor in exchange for the destruction of the union in Ukraine and the renunciation of the persecution of the Orthodox, but the Poles did not agree to this either. Finally, it was reported that Hetman Khmelnytsky with the Zaporizhzhya Host had been asking for many years to accept him under the royal hand and that it was impossible to delay further with the solution of this issue, since the Turkish sultan had sent ambassadors to the hetman and was calling the Cossacks under his authority.

After that, the council was asked to answer the question: to accept or not to accept the Zaporizhzhya hetman with the entire army under the royal hand?

The cathedral (actually its boyar part) accepted next solution:

Guests and merchants volunteered to provide funds for a future war, servicemen promised to fight against the Polish king, not sparing their heads. The patriarch and the clergy blessed the sovereign and the entire state for the upcoming war with Poland for the faith.

On December 24, after the well-known events near Zhvanets, the Zaporozhye hetman returned to Chyhyryn. Here, the tsar's envoys, the stolnik Streshnev and the clerk Bredikhin, were already waiting for him, who announced to him that the tsar was taking the Cossacks with all cities and lands under his hand. Russian people harness for a long time, but they drive fast: on December 28, Khmelnitsky only sent a letter of thanks to Moscow, and on December 31, the new tsarist ambassadors boyar Buturlin, the devious Alferyev and the duma clerk Lopukhin arrived in Pereyaslavl with the main goal of taking the oath from the hetman and the entire Cossack army. In Little Russia, they already knew why the tsarist ambassadors were traveling, and along the entire route they were met with bread and salt. Pereyaslavl Colonel Pavel Teterya with 600 Cossacks met them five miles from the city and, getting off his horse, delivered a speech befitting this occasion. He also explained that the hetman wanted to be in Pereyaslavl before the ambassadors, but it was impossible to cross the Dnieper, so he and Streshnev were still in Chigirin.

On January 1 (according to N.I. Kostomarov, or on January 6, according to S.M. Solovyov), the hetman arrived in Pereyaslavl. The next day, the military clerk Vygovsky arrived, along with colonels and centurions. Late at night on January 7 or early in the morning of January 8, a secret council was held at the hetman with the foreman, at which it was decided to pass under the royal hand.

However, not all elders agreed with this decision. Ivan Bohun at the beginning of 1653 sharply opposed the transfer to Moscow citizenship, pointing out that by doing so the Cossacks would find themselves in an even more difficult situation than they are now. Bogun reminded that in Moscow even the boyars officially call themselves the tsar's slaves, and what can we say about the common people? His words made a great impression not only on the young Cossacks, but even on the representatives of the "signed" Cossacks. At the same time, on January 8, 1654, Ivan Bohun also spoke out against the transfer to citizenship of the Russian Tsar and, together with his Buzhans, refused to take the oath. True, this did not prevent him from honestly fulfilling his duty to protect the fatherland from the Poles until the death of Khmelnitsky. Refused to swear allegiance to the Moscow Tsar and Colonel Ivan Serko (Sirko), the future famous Koschevoi Zaporozhye grassroots army, who went straight from Pereyaslavl to Zaporozhye.

After the secret Rada, a public Rada was appointed on the same day. From early morning, the Dovbyshs beat the drum for an hour so that the people would converge on the central square. Finally, surrounded by the foreman, the hetman appeared, addressing the audience with a speech. Khmelnytsky recalled that the war for the faith had been going on for six years, the Cossacks did not have their own king, and it was impossible to live like this any longer. Therefore, a council was assembled to choose a sovereign from four candidates: the Turkish Sultan, the Crimean Khan, the King of Poland or the Orthodox Great Russia, the Tsar and Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich.

The people in the square yelled: "We will free under the tsar of the Eastern Orthodox!". Colonel Teterya, going around the square in a circle, once again clarified whether this opinion was unanimous. "All with one accord," came the answer.

Then the hetman said: "Be it so, may the Lord our God strengthen us under his royal strong hand." To these words, the people replied: "God, confirm! God strengthen! So that we will all be one forever."

Then the articles of the treaty proposed by the tsarist ambassadors were announced. Its meaning boiled down to the fact that all of Ukraine, within the boundaries of the Zboriv Treaty, that is, approximately, including the current Poltava, Kyiv and Chernihiv regions, as well as part of Volyn and Podolia, joined under the name of Little Russia to the Muscovite state, that is, it was part of it .

The agreement provided for the granting of some autonomy to this administrative-territorial formation with rather broad powers of the hetman's power. Subsequently, these territories and the very era of the hetmans' reign were given the name of the Hetmanate by historians. Local administration, a special court, and the choice of the hetman by free people were preserved. The hetman had the right to receive ambassadors and communicate with foreign powers. The rights of the gentry, clergy and petty-bourgeois estates were preserved. Officially, a register was introduced in the amount of 60,000 Cossacks, but the limit of eager Cossacks was not limited. Little Russia had to pay the sovereign an annual tribute, but without the intervention of the royal collectors. Looking ahead, it should be noted that until the end of his days, Khmelnitsky did not pay Moscow a single ruble in the form of tribute, and used all the money coming from taxes and fees for his own needs, in particular, for recruiting troops, which he had much more, than the registry.

Having taken the oath of allegiance to the tsar, the hetman and the foreman, in turn, insisted that the ambassadors also take the oath for the tsar (as was customary among the Poles), but the ambassadors refused to do this, pointing out that "Polish kings are unfaithful, not autocratic, not keep their oath, and the word of the sovereign is not variable.

From Pereyaslavl, the ambassadors went to the cities to swear in clergy and philistines. Despite the fact that Metropolitan Sylvester Kosov himself met them before reaching Kyiv, a mile and a half before the Golden Gate, he had no particular desire to swear allegiance to Moscow. Other representatives of the clergy not only did not take the oath themselves, but did not let the gentry subject to them, monastic servants and, in general, people from all monastic possessions to take the oath.

Such a cool attitude of the clergy to the results of the Pereyaslav Rada is easily explained. Sylvester Kosov, himself a gentry by birth, was elected Metropolitan of Kyiv at a time when Khmelnitsky liberated Ukraine from Poles and oppression Orthodox faith was not in Kyiv. The Poles did not let him participate in the work of the Sejm, but on the other hand, in Kyiv, he did not obey anyone - the Patriarch of Constantinople was far away. With the citizenship of Little Russia to the Moscow sovereign, it was not possible to avoid the power of the Patriarch of Moscow, and it was necessary to say goodbye to the former independence. For the same reasons, the local clergy also did not experience harassment in the administration of the service, and they treated the Great Russian priests with condescension, considering the entire Moscow people in general to be rude and ignorant.

The Cossack foremen and the Russian gentry who had molested the Cossacks, for the most part, were in solidarity with Ivan Bohun, fearing that they would be deprived of their newfound rights and privileges. Their ideal was an independent Cossack state, and many of them took the oath, reluctantly, only in extreme need.

As for the majority of the population, the people swore allegiance to the king without coercion, although not without distrust. Many were afraid that the Muscovites would begin to introduce their own rules in Ukraine, forbid wearing boots and slippers, and change everyone into bast shoes.

Ultimately, in early March 1654, envoys of Hetman Khmelnytsky, Judge General Samoilo Bogdanovich Zarudny and Pereyaslav Colonel Pavel Teterya, arrived in Moscow with a request to approve the mentioned articles of the treaty. They were approved without delay, and the city of Gadyach was presented to the hetman as hereditary possession.

Evtushenko Valery Fyodorovich

January 8, 1654 (January 21). - Reunification of Little Russia with Russia at the Rada in Pereyaslav

Pereyaslav Rada

The western lands of Russia, torn away from it by the Poles after, never ceased to consider themselves Russian. And as the Polish and Jewish oppression intensified, their desire for reunification in Moscow resulted in a whole insurrectionary movement.

Ukraine - that is Little Russia, Carpathian Rus, New Russia(mastered under Catherine II Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye, Kherson, Nikolaev, Odessa regions), Cossack lands Don troops, Sloboda(Kharkov region) , Crimea(part of the ancient Russian Tmutarakan principality).

Most of this territory of present-day Ukraine, only by the decision of the Bolshevik authorities, who fought against Russian great power, turned out to be part of this never-before-existing state (with the exception of sham 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"] spoke about the forced Ukrainization in the 1920s. After 1945, the Carpatho-Russians-Rusyns attached to the Ukrainian SSR were also Ukrainianized. .

The Yeltsin government unconditionally recognized the results of the Ukrainian independence referendum on December 1, 1991, the ballots of which did not even mention the alternative possibility of a unified statehood with Russia, but stated that it threatened " deadly danger". "Independent" Ukraine was allowed to abandon its part of the Soviet debt (20 billion dollars) and seize part of the USSR armed forces, which was a violation of even the conditions that Kravchuk initially did not intend to fulfill, but only used to destroy the united state and seize power.

Even if separatists seized power in Ukraine, the Russian government could have retained at least the Russian Crimea in 1991 - there were sufficient international legal, democratic (plebiscite) and economic instruments for this. But the Yeltsin government recognized all the Bolshevik borders. Moreover, for some reason, even the remainder of the Tuzla Spit, which branched off from the Taman Peninsula, was given to Ukraine, and thus the navigable fairway Kerch Strait, for the passage of which Russian ships now annually pay Ukraine tens of millions of dollars. There is still a controversial issue with the division of the 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 US should not allow the reunification of Ukraine and Belarus 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 dollars annually), advisers (including Brzezinski's son), joint military exercises (in particular, to suppress the "separatist rebellion" in Crimea). The staff of the US embassy in Kyiv is 15 times larger than the Russian one. Brzezinski Sr. praises the Ukrainian leadership: “To thwart Russia’s attempts to use the CIS as an instrument of political integration, by the mid-1990s, a covertly Ukrainian-led bloc was formed unofficially, 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 entered into cooperation with Turkey to reduce Russian influence in the Black Sea, and supported its [Turkey's] efforts to direct oil flows from Central Asia to Turkish terminals. Increasing pressure on Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, for which the Russian Federation pays Ukraine $100 million a year.

The leadership of Ukraine is speeding up its accession to NATO. President Kuchma announced the beginning of this process on May 23, 2002, on the eve of the US President's visit to Russia. The European NATO countries are not eager to take on the maintenance of the dilapidated economy of Ukraine (its GDP per capita, according to the CIA, is half of Russia), but the United States will not fail to take advantage of this to move its structures to the borders of Russia - the world backstage does not need Ukraine in any other capacity .

A huge influence in the planting of anti-Russian ideology is played by Ukrainian emigrants lured by the United States during the Cold War as advisers, journalists, and authors of textbooks. The head of the Ukrainian branch of the Soros Foundation said that he had published dozens of "anti-colonial" textbooks, in which Ukraine is treated as a "colony" conquered by Russia during the four Russian-Ukrainian wars "., is honored as a national hero;. Against the Russians in Crimea, the Kyiv authorities encourages even the Tatars, expanding their structures with Turkish money - just to reduce Russian influence.

For the Ukrainian ruling stratum, the historiosophical alignment of forces in the world presented in our book is even less known than for the ruling stratum of the Russian Federation. After all, independentists can justify their power only on the basis of a common history with Russia. Distorting it in an anti-Russian spirit, closing Russian schools (in Kyiv in 1990 there were 150 schools, 10 remained), restricting access to the media in Russian, independent leaders replace the genuine spiritual culture of their people with Ukrainianized Western pop culture. With this, the independentists are trying to complete the murder of the memory of the Little Russians, which the Austrians began in the 19th century, in order to create new people. They tear Little Russia away from the mission, although it is its original part. (Recall the origin of the name: Little Russia means a small, central core of the state of Kievan Rus, in contrast to Great Rus, that is, expanded 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 "secrets of iniquity". Orthodox Little Russians are fully aware of this.

The population of Ukraine is mainly Orthodox, most of it belongs to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church The Moscow Patriarchate (9 thousand parishes, about 150 monasteries) are Little Russians who do not separate themselves from the all-Russian fate. Therefore, they are subjected to state pressure, about a thousand churches have been taken away from them. There are also non-canonical Ukrainian-speaking "churches": self-consecrated autocephalous (about a thousand parishes, mainly in Galicia) and the government-supported "Kyiv Patriarchate" of excommunicated Denisenko (3,000 parishes).

The Russian language is considered native by 54% of the population of Ukraine, the rest speak it, but not only is it not recognized as one of the state languages, but it is also being squeezed out of official life, media and education systems. The Ukrainian language exists in two versions: Kiev-Poltava and Galician, the latter being 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 population of Ukraine (and related political movements), not to mention the Russian Crimea. Moreover: in 1998, ratified (with the support of the opposition in the person of the Communist Party) by the State Duma legalized anti-Russian arbitrariness on the lands illegally belonging to 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 exacerbation by independentists, or whether to apply a patient and benevolent approach, working to awaken conscience and pride in the Russian birthright of Kyiv among the people of Ukraine , 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 Ukrainian nationalists, one can find common interests in resisting the New World Order, which threatens them much more than the "imperial intrigues of Muscovites."

* The "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine at the end of 2004 was coup d'état to promote US influence to the east - against Russia. Congressman Ron Paul stressed that $65 million was illegally spent on US funding for the coup in Ukraine; glaring facts were published about the same 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 they have a lot of criminal compromising evidence. However, both the "world community" and Putin recognized their authority as legitimate. Yushchenko celebrated his victory by visiting the synagogue wearing a yarmulke, where he lit a Hanukkah candle, and then began to purge state structures of "Muscovites." new wife Yushchenko, US citizen, young age participated in the emigrant Bandera organization.

The coup succeeded for three reasons:

1) the corrupt, and therefore vulnerable to blackmail, Kuchma's regime (similar to Yeltsin's) failed to take legal measures to counter the revolutionaries (the Americans blackmailed Kuchma by exposing his unseemly acts); and in the eyes of a considerable part of the people this regime proved unworthy of defense;

2) the pro-Russian part of the population of Ukraine expressed its will spontaneously, without due organizational structures because she hoped for the actions of law enforcement agencies;

3) the authorities of the Russian Federation, 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 southeastern regions of Ukraine, feeding it, to separate from the illegitimate coup d'état. This could be done only by the people themselves on an ad hoc basis, for which appropriate structures of self-government and mobilization action are needed, which, unfortunately, was not created in advance (see Chapter VIII-3). Let's hope that this is still possible, since the majority of the population of Ukraine 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

And where was the Moscow principality at that time?

By this time, the Moscow principality had long turned into Moscow Russia, a powerful state with the ideology of the Third Rome. It was the most healthy and Orthodox period in the history of Russia.

I approve, but it's soft, it needs to be tougher

KATSAPS, KHOKHOLS, BULBASH, WE ARE ONE RUSSIAN PEOPLE!!!

At the time of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, the name was Little Russia, but not Little Russia.
---Ukraine(Ukraine) vernacular name Russia (Kyiv) (Before White, Lesser and Muscovy). It is found on a letter in the Kyiv Chronicle of the 12th century. what outskirts or at the edge of what? What Poland (16th century)? What are the Tatars (14th century)? What is Russia (18th century)? Descended from the forefathers of the Land of Land, Krayina-country. The name Ukraine was used only to designate native land. When asked where do you live? answered U or In Krajina (Krajina). The prepositions U and V in the Ukrainian language are equivalent in meaning, so Ukraine is In the Native Land, Land, In the Native Country.
--- The Ukrainian SSR, like the RSFSR, had equal rights to withdraw from 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 Move, and unfortunately you can’t find a book or magazine (everywhere mosizdat). There are more Russian-speaking schools than Ukrainian ones. And the separatists in the Crimea and the South-East of Ukraine are not favored in these regions, because. do not represent the opinion of the majority.
------ Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians-Russian people.

Muscovy with Russia was never associated under Russia in the 17th century, only the territory of Ukraine was understood, Ukrainians were called Rusyns, Bogdan Khmelnitsky called himself Hetman Rusky, and the lands of Ukraine (Chernigov Kyiv and Pereyaslav) were the Russian Principality, which in 1654 came under the protectorate of the Moscow kingdom, a 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 not fucking Russian katsaps!

Your Majesty. Where do you think Princess Olga came from? And where is Ilya Muromets from? And from what cities did the Grand Dukes come in accordance with the order? In other words: look at the map of Kievan Rus, what Russian lands were included in it - and do not demonstrate your ignorance. I would like to advise the Slavic Aryan about the etymology and the so-called. "referendum" in 1991

Yes .. The Little Russians were brainwashed. Such a mess in the head and chaos from the pseudo-historical nonsense of modern Ukrainian military and pseudo-scientific brochures of amateurs who imagine themselves to be military. The Slavic Aryan and the "horizon" are typical examples of such a reformatting of self-consciousness. 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 with people? Pity them...

Slavonic-Aryan, "what outskirts or at the edge of what?" - at the edge of Kievan Rus (border territory), is first found in the annals of 1187 and denoted the Principality of Pereyaslav, which bordered on the lands of nomads in the south.

too harsh and a lot of lies, they rewrote it many times, you don’t need to trust it, read the annals, and look at ancient maps, and not from textbooks, and if Kyiv was restored as an ancient capital, then there could be rights to all territories Kievan Rus, and if according to the national, then 75% of those who call themselves Great Russians come from Little Russia, look at the migration of peoples to the desert lands of the north and Siberia from Little Russia, and who are the indigenous population in Russia, 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 in Russia in relatives with Ukrainians, in our microdistrict I am the only Russian, probably because the orphanage, all others who consider themselves Russian admit that their grandmothers, great-grandfathers come from Ukraine, during the Patriotic War since 41, more than 50 million Ukrainians have not returned to their native lands, they have raised Siberia, so there is no division into the Russian people, all provocations - divide and conquer, and today's Russia should have been fragmented into 150 specific states at the end of Yeltsin's rule, and you won't believe it to whom we are grateful that this did not happen - the Chinese - they claim very large territories of Siberia right up to the Urals, well, no way they don’t want to give Siberia to the Chinese, that’s why they are afraid to ruin Russia, they hope to buy up all the real estate by the private sectors. r.z. do not succumb to the provocations of national hatred, and enmity, they deceive you, you were in Lviv and it was exactly, Rukh is not Ukraine, these are Poles, and even then they are not real, and enmity is sowed against Russia by deported people, and few people give in, and you don’t give in, maybe we will stand, there was something else.

New Russia (Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye, Kherson, Nikolaev, Odessa regions, mastered under Catherine II. But what about the Kirovograd region? After all, the development of the steppes of the Black Sea region began with it. The fortress of St. before the revolution they were county centers of the Kherson province. For some reason, when mentioning the borders of Novorossiya, the Kirovograd region is always forgotten. Why are we worse? We are also Russians!

And what, under Catherine already knew and revered the name of the future Bolshevik Kirov?

"And what, under Catherine already knew and revered the name of the future Bolshevik Kirov?" I'm sorry, but I still don't understand this passage. I didn’t speak for Kirov, one of the authors of the law of 5 spikelets, at all. I'm talking about the fact that the current Korograd region is a fragment of the Kherson lips, and therefore part of Novorossia. what is that annoying tone?

the lands that you proudly call "Novorossia" belonged to the Zaporozhian army for centuries. And then the tsarist authorities liquidated the Zaporizhzhya Sich and made their own New Russia! Ukraine will not bend under you!

On January 18, 1654, a meeting of representatives of the Ukrainian Cossacks, headed by Hetman Bogdan Khmelnytsky, took place in Pereyaslav. On this day, the Cossacks decided to unite the territories of the Zaporizhian Army with the Russian kingdom and swear allegiance to the king.

The armed struggle of the Ukrainian people against the power of the Polish gentry in 1648-1654 resulted in a broad liberation war under the leadership of Hetman Bogdan Khmelnytsky. Then, as military allies, he considered the Ottoman Empire, the Crimean Khanate, the Commonwealth, Moscow State.

On October 1, 1653, the Zemsky Sobor in Moscow decided to accept the Zaporizhzhya Army "under the sovereign's high hand." For the legal registration of this act, the embassy of a Russian diplomat left for Ukraine. Already at the beginning of 1654, in Pereyaslav, it was decided that the Hetmanate would pass under the protectorate of the Russian kingdom, while maintaining the basic rights and liberties of the Zaporizhian Army.

In Pereyaslav itself, only 284 people swore allegiance to the Moscow sovereign. Despite the fact that representatives of the embassy of the Moscow kingdom eventually visited 117 cities and towns of Ukraine, where, according to their data, 127.5 thousand people swore allegiance to the king, there was a large-scale opposition to the agreement. Refused to swear allegiance to Moscow Bratslav, Poltava, Uman and Kropivyansky Cossack regiments, Colonel Ivan Bohun, part of the townspeople of Kyiv, Pereyaslav, Chernobyl. There was no unanimity about the union with Moscow in the church hierarchy of the then Ukraine.

What did the unification with the Russian kingdom give the Zaporozhian Host, was this event out of the ordinary, and how many times did the Ukrainians actually fight the Russians? 362nd anniversary of the Pereyaslav Rada on air Radio Krym.Realii discussed with a historian, an employee of the Institute of National Memory of Ukraine Vasily Pavlov.

– What is the Pereyaslav Rada really? How accurate is our information?

- In fact, this is a set of real facts and facts that have turned into myths. The Pereyaslav Rada is a rather ordinary event, which in fact was quite a lot both before and after. It was the date of January 18, 1654 that became canonical, but for Ukrainian historical science it is unremarkable, because Bogdan Khmelnitsky fought from 1648 to 1657. The events of January-March 1654 are just one of the episodes of that war. As for the allies, in addition to those named, Sweden, Wallachia, and Transylvania should also be mentioned - this is modern Hungary. That is, the Pereyaslav Rada was an important, but not a single event, although it entailed a whole chain of events.

– Why, then, did it become such an important historical point for Soviet historiography? In Soviet times, they taught like this: Ukrainians have always dreamed of living together with Russians, and main goal liberation war Bogdan Khmelnitsky was reunited with the fraternal Russian people.

- Bogdan Khmelnitsky never set such a goal. He wanted to create a state entity in which the supremacy of the Cossacks could be established as social group with their rights and obligations. Relations with the Moscow kingdom for the Cossacks were no less dramatic than with the same Commonwealth. These are constant border wars in the area of ​​the Seversky Donets, conflicts in the area of ​​Kursk and Belgorod serif lines. We should not forget the campaigns led by the hetman Sagaidachny in 1617-1618, when the suburbs of Moscow were captured by the Ukrainian Cossacks, when they, together with the Poles, stood in front of the gates of the Kremlin.

– Interestingly, after the 1917 revolution, the colonial past of tsarist Russia was perceived negatively. From the standpoint of Marxism, the Pereyaslav Rada was an act of colonial conquest. And only then did the theory of the lesser evil appear, which said that it was better to subordinate the Slavic peoples to tsarist Russia than to other colonizers. In 1954, the 300th anniversary of the Pereyaslav Rada was already celebrated with pomp, and, as we understand, many myths arose around it. One of them said that the Ukrainians fought with anyone, but not with the Russians.

- This is one of the most mythologized events, no matter how you look at it: from the side of Ukrainians - with a "minus" sign, from the side of Russians - with a "plus" sign. Ukrainians fought with the Russians both before and after the Pereyaslav Rada - just like with the Poles, like with Crimean Tatars. It was a state of permanent peace flowing into permanent war. The only caveat: I would not use the terms "Russians" and "Ukrainians" here in modern meaning. Firstly, the nations have not yet been formed, and secondly, the Cossacks who participated in the conflicts are only a social stratum. On the part of the Moscow state, service children, boyar children, fought. There were also border conflicts between the Zaporizhian Nizov Army and the Don Cossacks. The territory of modern Donbass was a zone of constant conflicts over land, trade routes, and so on. For example, the aforementioned Colonel Ivan Bogun, who refused to swear allegiance to the Muscovite state, was one of the regular participants in the raids on the border areas of modern Kursk and Belgorod regions.

- Was the fact that not everyone swore allegiance to Moscow an ordinary phenomenon or something out of the ordinary?

- The concept of a collective oath did not exist at all then, there was only a personal oath. Even in the inner circle of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, not everyone swore allegiance to the Muscovite state. The arguments against this oath were no different from the arguments against the oath to the Polish king - this is the loss of self-government, the loss of independence. The same Ivan Bohun was dissatisfied with the fact that the Moscow governors came - for him they were no different from the Polish ones.

- Those lands on which people did not swear allegiance to Moscow continued to be considered independent?

– Here we move on to the now beloved term “hybrid warfare”. Everything is very difficult. The Muscovites are trying to win over the same Ivan Bohun to their side, the Poles are trying to manipulate him. At the same time, the Moscow regiments enter the territories of the Dnieper and Hetman regions and, together with the Cossack troops, enter the territory of the Commonwealth. During 1654-1655, the Cossacks and Muscovites will fight together against the Poles. There will be resounding victories and crushing defeats. Finally, this union will be broken in 1656, when the Moscow prince Alexei Mikhailovich signs the Treaty of Vilna with the Commonwealth. The Cossacks will consider themselves betrayed and from that moment on they will begin to fight the Poles themselves and more and more conflict with the Muscovites. Already after the death of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, under Ivan Vyhovsky, this conflict will result in an absolutely open war.

- But the Muscovite state still helped the Cossacks since 1648?

– It is very difficult to answer this question unambiguously. Documents from the Cossack archives were destroyed several times, so we cannot confirm or deny something based on our data. We have to use data or Turkish, or Polish, or Moscow. military aid Muscovites as such, we can see only once - in the battle of Berestechko. During archaeological sites there they found elements of equipment of the regular Moscow army - archers and Don Cossacks. But in the same way, German mercenaries and Crimean Tatars also participated in the battle.

- How possible were the options for other military-political alliances of Bogdan Khmelnitsky?

- If you follow the chronology, then back in 1648 he entered into an alliance with the Crimean Khanate. Bohdan Khmelnytsky at that time receives tremendous help - about 40 thousand high-class cavalry. In 1649, the Zborovsky peace treaty was concluded with the Poles, although the parties violated it from time to time. Again "hybrid war". Since 1650, Bogdan Khmelnitsky has been trying to negotiate with Wallachia - modern Moldova, since 1649 - with the Ottoman Empire. In 1653, negotiations began with Transylvania, from 1655 with Sweden. This, mind you, is already after the Pereyaslav Rada. Bogdan Khmelnitsky as a diplomat was constantly on the move, his policy was multi-vector.

- That is, today we remember only the Pereyaslav Rada only because Ukraine was under the control of Muscovy for more than 300 years, and then Russia?

- I would single out here not even the Pereyaslav Rada, but the visit of the Ukrainian Cossack delegation to Moscow in March 1654, when the parties signed the so-called March Articles. It was they who became the document that determined the position of the Ukrainian lands within the Muscovite state, or the Russian kingdom. In the future, the March articles will be rewritten a huge number of times.

- Did Ukraine just join, became a vassal or a full-fledged ally?

- In my opinion, it was an agreement on a military-political protectorate. “I took it under the sovereign’s high hand” is a very clear diplomatic expression. It did not mean that the Ukrainian lands automatically became part of the Muscovite state and became its property. It was only about the sphere of influence of Moscow. All subsequent adjustments to the March articles will reduce the role of Ukrainian hetmans, but not abolish them as such. Just like we have Minsk-1 and Minsk-2 regarding the Donbass, according to the St. Petersburg researcher Tatyana Yakovleva, was Pereyaslav-1 Bohdan Khmelnitsky and Pereyaslav-2, already signed by Yuri Khmelnitsky on completely different conditions. In the future, there will be Korsun articles by Ivan Vygovsky, Moscow articles by Ivan Bryukhovetsky, Glukhov articles by Demyan Mnogohrishny, and so on.

- In these articles, the rights of Ukrainians were steadily narrowed?

Yes, but not canceled at all. Little is said about this, but, for example, until 1750 there was a state border between the Zaporozhye Host and the Moscow State, and then the Russian Empire. Customs worked, collected duties.

- Could the Zaporizhzhya Army even get out from under this intrusive protectorate? How tough were the conditions?

- Let's put it this way: it had no right to have diplomatic relations with the Commonwealth, with the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate. All the rest were not mentioned there, because the Muscovite state simply did not consider other players as rivals. Therefore, Bogdan Khmelnitsky was able to negotiate with Sweden and Transylvania without formally violating the March Articles.

- I understand that in history there is no subjunctive mood, but nevertheless: could events have developed differently if Bogdan Khmelnitsky had not concluded an alliance with Moscow?

- Already in 1654, the Zaporizhzhya Army would have had a pretty hard time. The Cossack army then could not alone resist the Polish.

- But after all, for 6 whole years, since 1648, the Cossacks resisted the Poles quite successfully. And they took Lublin, and they were near Lvov. How did it happen?

– It must be understood that this campaign was not uniform. Every year we clearly see spring and winter hikes. For the Cossacks, February-March were the most difficult. The Poles struck blows in February-March 1649, and in the same period of 1651, and in 1653. Exactly the same blow Bogdan Khmelnitsky expected in 1654. These were massive punitive expeditions of the Poles in the border areas. Their main task was to destroy the military forces of the Cossacks and intimidate the civilian population. The Cossacks were very afraid not to hold this line again. Although in December 1653 a peace treaty was even signed with the Poles, they did not really believe in it. In addition, then relations with the Crimean Khanate began to deteriorate significantly. Most likely, the territories of the Zaporozhye Host simply lost their economic attractiveness due to constant wars.

- Why did the Moscow army fight side by side with the Cossacks and against the Poles?

- This war will last for 13 years, until 1667. For the Muscovite state, this was one of the most serious and long-playing wars. There was no talk of any interests of the Cossacks. Moscow solved its problems and fought not only on the territory of modern Ukraine, but also on the territory of modern Belarus. As a result, in 1667, Ukraine will be divided in half along the Dnieper: the Right Bank will go to the Commonwealth, the Left Bank - to the Muscovite state. In fact, the Pereyaslav agreements of 1654 will no longer be valid. This is their global result: Ukraine will gradually lose its independence, and the Moscow factor will appear in its internal life for a long time.

- More than 100 years after the Pereyaslav Rada, the Zaporozhian Sich will be destroyed, the Commonwealth will be divided, and Russian troops occupy Crimean peninsula. Who in the end received the greatest benefit, draw your own conclusions.