Khmelnytsky Uprising
The Khmelnytsky Uprising, also known as the Cossack–Polish War, or the Khmelnytsky insurrection, was a Cossack rebellion that took place between 1648 and 1657 in the eastern territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which led to the creation of a Cossack Hetmanate in Ukraine. Under the command of hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, allied with the Crimean Tatars and local Ukrainian peasantry, fought against Polish domination and Commonwealth's forces. The insurgency was accompanied by mass atrocities committed by Cossacks against the civilian population, especially against the Roman Catholic and Ruthenian Uniate clergy and the Jews, as well as savage reprisals by Jeremi Wiśniowiecki, the voivode (warlord) of the Ruthenian Voivodeship.: 355
| Khmelnytsky Uprising | |||||||||
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| Part of the Deluge | |||||||||
Entrance of Bohdan Khmelnytsky to Kyiv, Mykola Ivasyuk | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
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Cossack Hetmanate Crimean Khanate (1648–1654, 1656–1657) Moldavia (1651, 1653, 1656–1657) Russia (1654–1656) Sweden (1655–1656) Brandenburg (1655–1656) Wallachia (1656–1657) Transylvania (1656–1657) |
Poland–Lithuania Moldavia (1648–1650, 1653) Wallachia (1653) Transylvania (1653) Crimean Khanate (1654–1656) Russia (1656–1657) Holy Roman Empire (1656–1657) Denmark–Norway (1657) | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Bohdan Khmelnytsky # Matei Basarab |
John II Casimir Jeremi Wiśniowiecki Marcin Kalinowski † Mikołaj Potocki Stefan Potocki † Stefan Czarniecki George II Rákóczi (till 1657) Mehmed IV Giray | ||||||||
| History of Ukraine |
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| Ukraine portal |
The uprising has a symbolic meaning in the history of Ukraine's relationship with Poland and Russia. It ended the Polish Catholic szlachta′s domination over the Ukrainian Orthodox population; at the same time, it led to the eventual incorporation of eastern Ukraine into the Tsardom of Russia initiated by the 1654 Pereiaslav Agreement, whereby the Cossacks would swear allegiance to the tsar while retaining a wide degree of autonomy. The event triggered a period of political turbulence and infighting in the Hetmanate known as the Ruin. The success of the anti-Polish rebellion, along with internal conflicts in Poland, as well as concurrent wars waged by Poland with Russia and Sweden (the Russo-Polish War (1654–1667) and Second Northern War (1655–1660) respectively), ended the Polish Golden Age and caused a secular decline of Polish power during the period known in Polish history as "the Deluge".
In Jewish history, the Uprising is known for the atrocities against the Jews who, in their capacity as leaseholders (arendators), were seen by the peasants as their immediate oppressors and became the subject of vicious antisemitic violence.