The domestic political crisis in the Right-Bank Ukraine in the late summer-autumn of 1669

Abstract

The article examines the mass riots of the population of RightBank Ukraine and the Zaporizhia Cossacks against Hetman Petro Doroshenko and his supporters. They were accompanied by the Ottoman Empire intervening in the events. After the Porta forced Crimea to abandon the support of the rebels in the summer of 1669, they were defeated, and a change of leader took place in their camp: instead of P. Sukhoveenko, who was supported by the Crimean Tatars, an Uman colonel M. Khanenko was elected hetman. He and his allies were besieged by Doroshenko in Uman, but without enough support from the Tatars, the right-bank hetman was forced to make peace with his opponents and lift the siege at the end of August 1669. Moreover, Crimea again, contrary to orders from Istanbul, provided assistance to Doroshenko’s opponents, who in October besieged him in Stebliv. Only the new intervention of the Porta, which sent significant forces of the Belgorod Horde to help Doroshenko and once again forbade Crimea to provide assistance to Khanenko, allowed the supporters of the Right-Bank hetman to lift the siege and inflict a decisive defeat on the enemy. Khanenko fled to Zaporizhia, and many cities and towns of the Right Bank were occupied by the Belgorod Tatars. The sources testify a particular depth and acuteness of the domestic political crisis in the Ukrainian society of the Right Bank, and also show that in the end the victory was won by the side (Doroshenko) that managed to gain more powerful external support.