THE FORGOTTEN POLISH-TURKISH WAR ON UKRAINIAN LANDS (1672–1676)

Abstract

The Polish-Turkish war of 1672–1676 almost did not arouse the interest of Ukrainian researchers, although the causes of the war were the situation and events in Ukrainian lands, the fighting took place exclusively on Ukrainian territory, Ukrainian cities and villages were burned, and the Ukrainian population was mainly recruited into the camp. This already determines the relevance of such research. In the historiography, the events of the war are covered in a rather one-sided way, and the Ukrainian historiography considered these problems as marginal, while the Polish historiography gravitated towards the apologetics of the main hero of the war, the hetman, and then King Jan III Sobieski. Many episodes of the war have remained unnoticed by researchers, the role of individual personalities, in particular the Ukrainian hetmans Petro Doroshenko and Mykhailo Khanenko, remains incompletely illuminated or distorted by outdated stereotypes. The article attempts to revise the coverage and assessments of the course of the war, focusing more attention on the Ukrainian military formations and their leaders who participated in the hostilities of both opposing sides. The causes and consequences of individual campaigns, battles and their results, in particular those fixed in the course of complex compromise negotiations, are analyzed. Certain old stereotypes have been corrected, attention has been focused on important episodes that have fallen out of the field of view of researchers of the problem. Some new problems have been raised that need to be solved in the course of further research. Keywords: the Polish-Turkish war, the siege of Lviv, the second battle of Khotyn, the battle of Zhuravno, the Peace of Zhuravno, the Ukrainian Cossacks, Petro Doroshenko, Mykhailo Khanenko.