Political Reasons for Khmelnitsky Uprising from the Perspective of the Polish-Lithuanian Nobility

Abstract

The article discusses the political reasons for Khmelnytsky uprising in the opinions of the nobility of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The outbreak of the Cossack insurrection led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky at the beginning of 1648, which immediately involved broad strata of the Ukrainian society and quickly transformed into a national liberation war, caused terror among noblemen. An additional factor influencing the mood of the nobility was the growing awareness of Khmelnytsky’s political ambitions, whose realization posed a deadly threat to the current political system of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This article is largely devoted to discussing the views of the nobility on the subject of political motives encouraging the Cossacks to armed resistance against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which fundamentally influenced its assessment of the nature of the uprising. Detailed analysis of correspondence, seimiks’ resolutions (lauda) and instructions as well as certain fictional and journalistic sources is provided. The article emphasizes that there was a conviction among the nobility of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of the political motives of the Cossack uprising. This conviction was mainly based on the news about Khmelnytsky’s aspirations to separate Ukraine and to build an independent state entity referred to as the Russian Principality. Understanding by the gentry of the emancipatory aspirations of the insurgents had a huge impact on the nature of the Commonwealth policy the towards events in Ukraine in the second half of the seventeenth century.