The Uprising of 1648 in the Interpretations of Polish Historians at the End of the XIXth Century – 1939th

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to study the peculiarities of depicting the events of the first year of the national liberation war under the leadership of B. Khmelnytsky in the Polish historical science at the end XIXth century - 1939, and in particular the battles near Zhovti Vody, Korsun, Pyliavtsi, the siege of the Cossack-Tatar troops of Lviv; investigate various historical myths, stereotypes and evaluation patterns used by Polish historians in depicting the events of Khmelnytsky region; analyze the influences of historiographical concepts, cultural trends and political ideologies on the image of the history of the Polish-Cossack war in 1648. Methodology of the research: the work was based on such principles as historicism and scientific objectivity. Both general scientific (systematization, typology, retrospection) and a number of special historical methods (critical analysis and synthesis of source material, historical-genetic, historical-comparative, etc.) were used. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that a systematic analysis of the depiction of the events of Khmelnytsky region in 1648 in the Polish historiography of the end XIXth century – 1939 was done in this article for the first time in domestic science and the influences of political ideas on the interpretation of historical material were analysed by scientists. Conclusions. The history of the first year of the national liberation war of Ukrainians under the leadership of B. Khmelnytsky attracted considerable attention of Polish researchers and was considered as one of the cornerstones of the history of the Commonwealth, and especially of the Polish-Ukrainian relations. Due to the severity of the events, they were overgrown with various historical myths and were often interpreted through the prism of political conditions and various ideological trends. Thus, the symbolic meaning was given to the battle of Yellow Waters, which historians saw as the last battle of the Polish people for possession of the Black Sea steppes. The influence of the concept of "Poland's stronghold of Christianity" and the ideas of inter-civilizational struggle on the events of the Polish-Cossack war is revealed.