Hybrid war on stage of Kyiv Mohyla Academy (1736—1737)

Abstract

During the 1736/1737 academic year, Mytrofan Dovhalevskyi taught a course in poetics at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. According to the rules of the time, he prepared two school dramas, the texts of which survived — for Christmas and Easter. Five interludes were set for each drama. In the 3rd interlude to the Christmas drama and the 5th interlude to the Easter drama, the plot is based on the confrontation of Liakh (Pole) and Zhyd (Jew), oppressing Belarusian and Ukrainian peasants, with Cossack. Moskal (Moscovite) is a powerful ally of the Cossack. The propaganda sense of both interludes is revealed in the context of political conflicts of that era. During 1733—1735 Stanisław Leszczyński, a former ally of Hetman Ivan Mazepa, led the war for the royal throne of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Most Ukrainian lands were then part of the Commonwealth. The Russian empire introduced troops into the territory of the Commonwealth and put on the throne Stanisław Leszczyński’s rival August III. Ukrainian citizens of the Commonwealth were prompted by Russians to revolt against Polish authorities. The Haidamaky movement emerged which Russia promised to support. The Cossacks of Zaporizhzhia in 1734 betrayed Hetman Pylyp Orlyk and came under the jurisdiction of the Russian empress. The interludes to the Mytrofan Dovhalevskyi’s dramas form the ideological basis for Russian aggression and future division of the Commonwealth. They impose on the spectators the idea of oppressing Ukrainians and Belarusians by Poles, complementing it with anti-Semitic nuances. Cossacks are encouraged to engage in aggression, interpreted as a liberation mission. These trends, identified still in the Baroque literature, were used in 2014 by the Russian Federation for motivating its incursion into Ukraine. The modern terminology defines such trends with the concept of ‘hybrid war’.