By a meek, prudent rule, the father of Alexei Mikhailovich, Mikhail Fedorovich, achieved the goal for which state officials called him to the kingdom: by ending all disputes for the Moscow crown, reconciling the parties that were at odds within the fatherland, restoring the rule of law, he established his dynasty, so that, there seemed to be no break between the generation of Ivan Kalita and the House of Romanov. The main issue was resolved, but by the beginning of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich, much remained unfinished: long wars, having exhausted the treasury, forced the government to introduce various taxes that were burdensome for the lower classes, from all works, rural and urban, burdensome duties were levied in various forms, and farming was established. , enriching not so much the treasury, but the people of the private upper class. In addition, numerous abuses crept in: noble people, taking advantage of the previous disorders, secured entire settlements and settlements in the cities, freed them from public duties and gave them the means to recapture the crafts from other city dwellers. Significant estates passed, contrary to the decrees of the former sovereigns, under the jurisdiction of monasteries and, like the fatherlands of the boyars, they enjoyed many benefits that state lands did not have. With numerous exemptions, with various benefits granted to individuals and societies, there was no equality either in the payment of taxes, or in court and reprisal. In the early years of Alexei Mikhailovich, the merchants clearly grumbled at the foreign guests, who appropriated the exclusive right to duty-free trade and seized the entire domestic industry. In the circle of noble people, a spirit of hostility was finally revealed, according to the calculations of the locals. In a word, although the former parties fell silent, the spirit of rebellion disappeared and all estates expressed boundless devotion to the house of the Romanovs, but by coincidence, general discontent prevailed within the state.

There, Nikon, solely at the suggestion of offended pride, spoke boldly about the court, about the queen. This is not enough: in the heat of indignation, he wrote a letter insulting to Alexei Mikhailovich himself to the Greek primates. His bold speeches were brought to the attention of the king; letter intercepted. Numerous enemies of Nikon, secular and spiritual, hastened to denigrate him. The patriarch could easily return the lost favor of the good sovereign if he showed humility. Instead, he began to act even more arrogantly, solemnly cursed his enemies and, having arbitrarily appeared in Moscow, despite the previous abdication of the patriarchal throne, by arguing with the dignitaries of Tsar Alexei in the Assumption Church, he made such a strong impression on the people that it was necessary to fear serious unrest, common in those days. time. Already there was a seductive strife about the limits of the power of the tsar and the patriarch. Alexei Mikhailovich comprehended all the danger and hurriedly suppressed evil at the very beginning - he asked the ecumenical patriarchs to judge him with Nikon. The primates of Alexandria and Antioch arrived in Moscow, dressed up the court, and at a solemn council (1666–1667) of secular and clergy, Nikon was found guilty of insulting the royal person, of excessive lust for power, of obscene acts: he was defrocked and exiled to the Belozersky Ferapontov Monastery as a monk. (After the death of Alexei Mikhailovich, Nikon was transferred to the Kirillov Monastery, from where the new Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich allowed him to return to Voskresensky. Nikon died on the way there, in Yaroslavl, in 1681.) Nikon's imprudent actions worried Alexei Mikhailovich for three whole years, and it was at a time when foreign policy demanded the full attention of the sovereign. Owing to the successes of the first war with Poland to personal leadership, which eliminated all disputes about localism, Tsar Alexei now did not dare to leave Moscow and lead his troops to victories.

Andrusovsky treaty of 1667

Preoccupied with internal disturbances, the Russians and Poles waged the war weakly and repeatedly offered peace. The negotiations dragged on for three whole years and, probably, with the intransigence of both sides, they would have lasted for several more years if Turkey's intervention in the affairs of Little Russia had not accelerated the denouement. The reason for this was the reckless ambition of the right-bank hetman Doroshenko. Since 1665, Little Russia was divided into two halves by the Dnieper: the left side, recognizing Hetman Bryukhovetsky, was under Russian citizenship; the right, having elected the leader of the Chigirinsky Cossack Peter Doroshenko, was dependent on Poland. Both hetmans, as usual, harbored irreconcilable hatred and tried to oust each other. Bryukhovetsky, hoping to hold on with the help of Russia, appeased the Moscow court, took the rank of boyar, married the daughter of Sheremetev, allowed the governors of Alexei Mikhailovich to impose a universal tax on the Cossacks. Doroshenko strove for a different goal in other ways: more decisively than all his predecessors, considering the original existence of Little Russia as a separate state, not subject to either Poland or Tsar Alexei, following the example of Moldavia and Transylvania, he managed to excite the Cossacks with the dream of complete independence. Courage in battles, ardent disposition, captivating gift of speech, impulses for unbridled will, everything was in line with the mindset of that time, and the Cossacks got used to looking at Doroshenko as a second Bogdan Khmelnitsky. Arming both Russia and Poland against himself, for the surest success, he asked the Sultan to accept Little Russia under the patronage of the Porte. The Sultan, busy with the war in Candia, did not want to entertain his forces, but promised to send an army. Doroshenko's negotiations could not hide either from the Moscow court or from the Warsaw one. Anticipating a thunderstorm and seeing no hope of holding on to Little Russia, Kazimir hurried to reconcile with Alexei Mikhailovich. The treaty was concluded (1667) in Andrusov on the following conditions: 1) stop hostile actions for 13 years 6 months, meanwhile agree on eternal peace; 2) Smolensk and the Seversk principality to remain with Russia; 3) Polotsk, Vitebsk and the cities of southern Livonia, occupied by Russian troops, should be returned to Poland; 4) Divide Little Russia into two halves: the shelves on the left side of the Dnieper be under the rule of Alexei Mikhailovich, on the right, depending on Poland; 5) return Kyiv to Poland in two years; 6) the Cossacks to be under the patronage of both powers with the duty to protect their borders from the Tatars and Turks.

The Andrusov Treaty, having saved Russia from a painful war with Poland and delivered significant benefits to it, the most important of which was the expansion of its borders along the Dnieper itself, did not reassure Little Russia. The Cossacks heard with sorrow that the sovereign had abandoned the Zadneprovskaya Ukraine, that Kyiv itself should be returned to the Poles. (Inaccurate fulfillment of the Andrusov treaty by the Poles prompted Alexei Mikhailovich to keep Kyiv. The Warsaw court, after repeated harassment, refused it in 1686.) Most of all, the ambitious Doroshenko and Metropolitan Joseph Tukalsky did not like the terms of the treaty: the former thought of dominating all of Little Russia; the second feared the former persecution of the Orthodox Church by the Uniates. The murmur also spread throughout Russian Ukraine, where there was a rumor, supported by Bishop Methodius of Nizhyn, that the court of Alexei Mikhailovich was negotiating with Warsaw about the cession of all of Little Russia to Poland. Doroshenko clearly rebelled against the terms of the Andrusov Treaty, announced to Kazimir that neither he nor the Cossacks wanted to hear about obedience to Poland, that the Poles did not own Kyiv, and invited Tsar Alexei to take him into citizenship with all of Little Russia, as was the case under Khmelnitsky. Alexei Mikhailovich advised him to put up with it. Doroshenko also rebelled against Russia as an ally of hated Poland, won Bryukhovetsky over to his side with the hope of Turkish patronage and an insidious promise to recognize him as the hetman of all Little Russia. Bryukhovetsky was glad to have the opportunity to get rid of the Russian governors, whom Alexei Mikhailovich had appointed governors of the Little Russian cities, caused a general uprising in Ukraine subject to him and hurried to meet, as a friend, the cunning Doroshenko, who ordered him to be seized and sacrificed to the angry mob, and he himself proclaimed himself hetman of all Little Russia, independent of Poland and Russia.

Razin's uprising

There had never been such a terrible upheaval in Little Russia. It responded to the Don and the Volga. The violent Zaporozhian heads, probably incited by Doroshenko, with the intention of entertaining our forces, made their way to the Don, angered entire villages there, which the government of Alexei Mikhailovich tried to appease from robberies, proclaimed the ataman of the daring Don Cossack Stepan Razin and rushed to the banks of the Volga, where this villain had experienced the luck of robbery a few years before. In 1668, Razin robbed the environs of Astrakhan and, having ruined several Persian cities near the Caspian Sea, almost armed the Shah against Russia, but then received forgiveness. Leading a strong crowd, Razin took Tsaritsyn and Astrakhan by storm, spread the rumor that the imaginary son of Alexei Mikhailovich, Tsarevich Alexei, with Patriarch Nikon, was looking for his protection, that he was going to liberate the peasants from the landowners, and agitated the entire Volga region. Saratov surrendered to the rebel, who, with 200,000 men, was already on his way to Nizhny Novgorod, marking his path with indescribable atrocities. In Astrakhan, at the hands of thieves' Cossacks, Stenka's comrade-in-arms, Vasily Us, Metropolitan Joseph died a martyr.

The unrest of the southern and eastern borders could be all the more dangerous for Russia and Alexei Mikhailovich, since the Turkish sultan was already gathering troops to support Doroshenko. The prudent measures of the government stopped the disturbances before the Turks appeared in Little Russia. Tranquility in Ukraine was restored without difficulty: the sovereign assured its inhabitants that he would not betray them to the Poles. Doroshenko, by his alliance with the infidels, aroused indignation against himself and had to retire beyond the Dnieper; The Cossacks willingly agreed to recognize Colonel Mnogogreshny, zealously devoted to the throne, as hetman. Razin's accomplices persisted longer, but the courageous defense of Simbirsk by the boyar Sheremetev stopped the spread of the rebellion along the Volga, and the activities of other voivodes Alexei Mikhailovich, who defeated Razin's detachments in parts, especially the boyar Miloslavsky, who captured Astrakhan, so weakened the villain that he was extradited to the government and received a decent execution. The severity of punishment pacified the Don and the Volga region.

Fighting the Turks

Meanwhile, a storm, which both Tsar Alexei and Poland equally tried to deflect, broke out in Zadneprovskaya Ukraine without touching our borders. The hatred of its inhabitants for Polish rule was revealed with such force that, having lost hope of joining Russia, they decided to recognize as their patron better the Turkish sultan than the Polish king, and willingly flocked under the banner of Doroshenko, seeing in him the only deliverer from the hated yoke. Mohammed IV was in a hurry to take advantage of such favorable circumstances in the hope of establishing his power not only in Little Russia, but also in Poland, where general anarchy reigned, on the occasion of Casimir's abdication from the throne. A large Turkish army under the personal leadership of the Sultan with the entire Crimean horde entered the Polish borders. The fall of Kamenets Podolsky, the siege of Lvov and the devastation of many cities so frightened the successor of Kazimir Mikhail Vyshnevetsky that, fearing to lose the whole kingdom, he offered peace to the sultan and agreed to very painful conditions: by an agreement in Buchach, the king undertook to pay tribute to the Turks annually and cede Little Russia to them. True, the Warsaw Sejm, after the removal of Mohammed, who considered the war over, did not confirm the Treaty of Buchach, and the Polish commander Jan Sobessky, resuming the war, defeated the enemies near Khotyn. But the Poles failed to oust the Turks from the cities they occupied in Polish Ukraine. A fierce fight began.

Zadneprovskaya Little Russia, showered with the ashes of cities, drenched in the blood of the unfortunate people, repeatedly appealed to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich with a convincing request to save her from the Turks and Poles. The sovereign, already dissatisfied with Poland for the repeated violation of the Andrusov Treaty, for obvious hostility, for stubborn deviation from eternal peace, became even more indignant at her after her weak government, constantly oppressing the Cossacks, allowed the Turks to interfere in the affairs of Little Russia. It was obvious that the sultan, having mastered the Polish Ukraine, would not leave the Russian alone either. The security of the state obliged Alexei Mikhailovich to take part in a country that so zealously desired to be subject to him and which the Polish king so indifferently betrayed as booty to the Turks. In 1674, Tsar Alexei announced to the Zadneprovsky Cossacks that he agreed to accept them as subjects. All ten regiments located beyond the Dnieper gladly swore allegiance to him, left Doroshenko and recognized Samoilovich as the hetman of all Little Russia.

Asserting his power beyond the Dnieper, Alexei Mikhailovich foresaw that neither the king nor the sultan would leave him a calm owner. He was not afraid of war with both partners and zealously prepared his measures. But death cut short his life at the very time when the fate of Little Russia and Russia's tangled relations with Poland and Turkey were to be decided.

Alexey Mikhailovichthe quietest(March 27, 1629 - February 8, 1676) - the second Russian Tsar from the Romanov dynasty (July 24, 1645 - February 8, 1676), son of Mikhail Fedorovich and his second wife Evdokia.

The New Chronicler reports on his birth:

In the summer of 7137 (1629), March on the 17th day, the pious Tsarevich Prince Alexei Mikhailovich of All Russia was born to the Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Mikhail Fedorovich of All Russia, and was baptized in the Miracle Monastery, and His Holiness the Patriarch himself baptized him, Sovereign Filaret Nikitich of Moscow and all Russia, and the godfather [was] the Trinity cellar Alexander.

Alexy, the man of God, became the heavenly patron of the boy according to the calendar.

Childhood

Until the age of five, the young Tsarevich Alexei remained in the care of the royal "mothers". From the age of five, under the supervision of B. I. Morozov, he began to learn to read and write using the primer, then he began to read the Book of Hours, the Psalter and the Acts of the Holy Apostles, at the age of seven he began to learn writing, and at nine - church singing. Over time, the child (11-13 years old) has a small library; among the books that belonged to him are mentioned, among other things, "Lexicon" and "Grammar", published in Lithuania, as well as "Cosmography". Among the items of "children's fun" of the future king there are: a horse and children's armor of the "German cause", musical instruments, German maps and "printed sheets" (pictures). Thus, along with the previous educational means, innovations are also noticeable, which were made not without the direct influence of B. I. Morozov. The latter, as is known, dressed the young tsar with his brother and other children in German clothes for the first time. At the age of 14, the prince was solemnly "announced" to the people, and at the age of 16 he ascended the throne of Moscow.

The nature and hobbies of Alexei Mikhailovich

With his accession to the throne, Tsar Alexei came face to face with a number of issues that troubled Russian life in the 17th century. Little prepared to resolve such issues, he initially listened to the opinion of his former uncle B. I. Morozov, but soon he himself began to take an independent part in affairs. In this activity, the main features of his character were finally formed. The autocratic Moscow tsar, judging by his own letters, foreigners (A. Meyerberg, S. Collins, J. Reitenfels, A. Lizek) and his relations with those around him, had a remarkably mild, good-natured character, was, according to G. K. Kotoshikhin , "much quiet." The spiritual atmosphere in which Tsar Alexei lived, his upbringing, character and reading of church books developed religiosity in him. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the tsar did not drink or eat anything during all fasts, and in general was a zealous performer of church rites. The veneration of the external rite was joined by an internal religious feeling, which developed Christian humility in Tsar Alexei. "But to me, a sinner, he writes, local honor, like dust ". Royal good nature and humility sometimes, however, gave way to brief outbursts of anger. Once the tsar, who was bled by the German "dokhtur", ordered the boyars to try the same remedy. Rodion Streshnev disagreed. Tsar Alexei personally "humbled" the old man, but then did not know what gifts to appease him.

Samuel Collins, an English physician at the royal court, reported:

Its fun consists in falconry and dog hunting. It maintains more than three hundred falcon keepers and has the best gyrfalcons in the world, which are brought from Siberia and kill ducks and other game. He hunts bears, wolves, tigers, foxes, or, better to say, poisons them with dogs. When he leaves, the East Gate and the inner wall of the city are locked until he returns. He rarely visits his subjects... When the King goes out of town or to the field for pleasure, he strictly orders that no one bother him with requests.

In general, the king knew how to respond to someone else's grief and joy; remarkable in this regard are his letters to A. L. Ordin-Nashchokin and Prince N. I. Odoevsky. Few dark sides can be noted in the character of Tsar Alexei. He had a contemplative, passive rather than a practical, active nature. He stood at the crossroads between two directions, old Russian and Western, tried them on in his worldview, but did not indulge in either one or the other with the passionate energy of Peter. The king was not only intelligent, but also an educated man of his age. He read a lot, wrote letters, compiled the Code of the Falconer's Way, tried to write his memoirs about the Polish war, and practiced versification (versification). He was a man of order par excellence; " business time and fun hour"(that is, everything has its time) - he wrote; or: " without rank, no thing is established and strengthened».

It is known that Alexei Mikhailovich personally dealt with the organization of the army. The staff list of the Reiter regiment, made by the sovereign himself, has been preserved. The secretary of the Danish embassy, ​​Andrei Rode, testifies that the sovereign was also engaged in artillery. As he wrote in his diary: (April 11, 1659 “The colonel (Bauman) also showed us a drawing of a cannon, which was invented by the Grand Duke himself (Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich)”. Alexei Mikhailovich was very interested in the European press, which he got acquainted with through translations made in the Ambassadorial Prikaz. One of the articles (that the British, who overthrew and executed their king, greatly regret it), the tsar personally read to the boyars at a meeting of the Boyar Duma. Since 1659, Alexei Mikhailovich tried to establish a regular delivery of foreign newspapers to Russia. In 1665, for this purpose, the first regular postal line was organized, linking Moscow with Riga, and through it with the pan-European postal system. The king showed great interest in various systems of secret writing. The newly developed ciphers were used in diplomatic practice. The order of the Secret Affairs kept drawings of Egyptian hieroglyphs, made according to the book of the Egyptologist A. Kircher. The king's interests included astrology. Following the advice of his physician Samuel Collins, he allowed himself to be bled based on the recommendations of medical astrology. Aleksei Mikhailovich was so fascinated by the starry sky that in the early 1670s, through A. S. Matveev, who was in charge of the Ambassadorial Order, he asked the Danish resident to get him a telescope. In the last years of his life, the king became interested in European music. (October 21 (31), 1674, Alexei Mikhailovich arranged a feast for himself and his neighbors, which was accompanied by very unusual fun: they beat the timpani at everything.

Reign

Marriage. Boyar Boris Morozov

The young tsar strongly submitted to the influence of Boris Morozov. Thinking of getting married, in 1647 he chose Euphemia, the daughter of Raf Vsevolozhsky, as his wife at the brides review, but refused his choice due to intrigues, in which B. I. Morozov himself was probably involved. In 1648, on January 16 (26 according to the new style), the tsar married Marya Ilyinichnaya Miloslavskaya; soon after that B. I. Morozov married her sister Anna. Thus, B. I. Morozov and his father-in-law I. D. Miloslavsky acquired a paramount importance at court. By this time, however, the results of BI Morozov's bad internal management had already clearly come to light. The royal decree and the boyar verdict (7 (17) February 1646 established a new duty on salt. This duty replaced not only the former salt duty, but also Yamsky and Streltsy money; it exceeded the market price of salt, the main consumer item, by approximately 1⅓ times and caused strong discontent on the part of the population. To this was added the abuse of I. D. Miloslavsky and the rumor about the addiction of the tsar and ruler to foreign customs. All these reasons caused a popular revolt (Salt Riot) in Moscow and riots in other cities; (1 (11 ) of June 1648, the people began to demand the extradition of B. Morozov from the tsar, then plundered his house and killed the roundabout Pleshcheev and the Duma clerk Chisty.The tsar hastened to secretly send his beloved B.I. The new duty on salt was abolished in the same year.After the popular unrest subsided, Morozov returned to the court, enjoyed royal favor, but did not have l of paramount importance in management.

Patriarch Nikon

Tsar Alexei matured and no longer needed guardianship; he himself wrote to Nikon in 1651, " that his word became in the palace good and terrible". These words, however, were not fully justified in practice. The soft, sociable nature of the king needed an adviser and friend. They later became Nikon. Being at that time the metropolitan in Novgorod, where with his characteristic energy he pacified the rebels in March 1650, Nikon seized the royal confidence, was consecrated to the patriarchs (July 25 (August 4), 1652 and began to exert a direct influence on state affairs. From among of the latter, foreign relations attracted particular government attention.

Patriarch Nikon was instructed to carry out church reform. The reform took place in 1653-1655 and concerned mainly church rites and books. Baptism with three fingers was introduced, waist bows instead of earthly ones, icons and church books were corrected according to Greek models. The Moscow Cathedral, convened in 1654, approved the reform, but proposed that the existing rites be brought into line not only with the Greek, but also with the Russian tradition.

The new patriarch was a wayward, strong-willed man, in many ways fanatical. Having received immense power over the believers, he soon came up with the idea of ​​the primacy of church authority and invited Alexei Mikhailovich to share power with him. However, the king did not want to endure the patriarch for a long time. He stopped going to patriarchal services in the Assumption Cathedral, inviting Nikon to state receptions. This was a serious blow to the pride of the patriarch. During one of his sermons in the Assumption Cathedral, he announced the resignation of his patriarchal duties (with the preservation of his rank) and retired to the New Jerusalem Resurrection Monastery. There Nikon waited for the tsar to repent and ask him to return to Moscow. However, the king acted differently. He began to prepare a church trial against Nikon, for which he invited Orthodox patriarchs from other countries to Moscow.

For the trial of Nikon in 1666, the Great Moscow Cathedral was convened, to which the patriarch was brought under guard. The tsar declared that Nikon, without the permission of the tsar, left the church and renounced the patriarchate, thereby making it clear who owns the real power in the country. The church hierarchs present supported the tsar and condemned Nikon, blessing his deprivation of the rank of patriarch and eternal imprisonment in a monastery. At the same time, the Council of 1666-1667 supported the church reform and cursed all its opponents, who began to be called schismatics. The participants of the Council decided to transfer the leaders of the Old Believers into the hands of the authorities. Thus, the reforms of Nikon and the Council of 1666-1667 marked the beginning of a schism in the Russian Orthodox Church.

Military reform

In 1648, using the experience of creating regiments of a foreign system during the reign of his father, Alexei Mikhailovich began to reform the army.

During the reform of 1648-1654, the best parts of the "old system" were strengthened and enlarged: the elite Moscow local cavalry of the Sovereign's regiment, Moscow archers and gunners. The main direction of the reform was the mass creation of regiments of the new system: Reiters, soldiers, dragoons and hussars. These regiments formed the backbone of the new army of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. To fulfill the goals of the reform, a large number of European military specialists were recruited into the service. This became possible due to the end of the Thirty Years' War, which created a colossal market for military professionals in Europe for those times.

Affairs in Ukraine. Polish war

At the end of 1647, the Cossack centurion Zinoviy Bogdan Khmelnitsky fled from Ukraine to Zaporozhye, and from there to the Crimea. Returning with the Tatar army and elected hetman by the Cossack Rada, he raised an uprising that engulfed the whole of Ukraine, defeated the Polish troops at Zhovti Vody, Korsun, Pilyava. After these first victories, on June 8 (18), 1648, Khmelnitsky sent a letter to Alexei Mikhailovich with a request to accept the Zaporozhye Cossacks as citizenship. Then he laid siege to Zamostye and concluded a favorable peace near Zborov. After the defeat near Berestechko, he agreed to a world much less profitable than Zborovsky near Belaya Tserkov. In February 1651, the Zemsky Sobor was convened, where, among other things, it was announced that Khmelnitsky and the Cossacks wanted to become Russian subjects. During all this time, Alexei Mikhailovich occupied a waiting policy: he did not help either Khmelnitsky or the Commonwealth.

The Belotserkovsky peace became the cause of new unrest in Ukraine; the hetman was forced to violate all the conditions and for the third time to ask for help from the "king of the East, the Orthodox." At the Zemsky Sobor, convened on this occasion in Moscow, (October 1 (11), 1653, it was decided to take the Cossacks into citizenship and announced an imminent war with Poland. The tsar considered it necessary to explain the reasons for the war to the French king Louis XIV, sending him a messenger at the end of the year Machekhin, who arrived in Paris only in October 1654.

On May 18, 1654, the tsar himself went on a campaign, having gone to pray at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery. An eyewitness to the events described the king as he left at the head of the army:

The king himself rode, surrounded by 24 halberdiers, of which the two preceding carried two broadswords. The king is in rich armor, over which he had short clothes, decorated with gold braids, open on the chest so that armor could be seen. Over this robe, he had another robe, extremely long, hanging from everywhere, closed on one side only, embroidered with gold: on this robe there were three large bulges set with precious stones and pearls. On his head he had a helmet, at the top, according to the ancient form, pointed, and on it was a royal golden apple with a cross, also seated with precious stones. On the front of the helmet was a solitaire set, a large gem valued at several thousand.

During the successful sovereign campaign of 1654, Smolensk was besieged and taken, as well as a number of cities in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in present-day eastern Belarus. The fighting took place against the backdrop of a large-scale plague epidemic that broke out in the rear, which claimed a large number of lives. In the spring of 1655 a new campaign was undertaken. On July 30, the tsar made a solemn entry into Vilna and assumed the title of "Sovereign of Polotsk and Mstislav", and then, when Kovno and Grodno were taken, "Grand Duke of Lithuania, White Russia, Volyn and Podolsk." In November the tsar returned to Moscow. At this time, the successes of the Swedish king Charles X, who took possession of Poznan, Warsaw and Krakow, changed the course of hostilities. Moscow began to fear the strengthening of Sweden at the expense of Poland. In order to borrow money to wage war with Poland and Sweden, Alexei Mikhailovich sent a diplomat Ivan Chemodanov to Venice in 1656, but his embassy did not fulfill its task. In the autumn of 1656, the Vilna truce was concluded with the Commonwealth.

(July 15 (25), 1656, the tsar set off on a campaign in Livonia and, after taking Dinaburg and Kokenhusen, laid siege to Riga. The siege was lifted due to a rumor that Charles X was going to Livonia. Derpt was occupied by Moscow troops. The tsar retreated to Polotsk and here waited for the truce concluded in Vilna (October 24 (November 3), 1656. In 1657-1658, hostilities continued with varying success. (December 20 (30), 1658, the Valiesar truce was concluded with the Swedes for a period of three years, according to which Russia retained part of the conquered Livonia (with Derpt and Marienburg). The final peace was concluded in Kardis in 1661; in this world, Russia ceded all the conquered places. The unfavorable conditions of the Cardis peace were caused by unrest in the Hetmanate and a new war with Poland.

After the death of Bogdan Khmelnitsky in July 1657 at the Chigirinsky Rada, the Cossack foreman assigned hetman duties to Ivan Vyhovsky, but only until Yuri Khmelnitsky reached full age.

Portrait of Alexei Mikhailovich. 17th century (?)

On October 21, 1657, at the Korsun Rada, in an atmosphere of sharp contradictions, Ivan Vyhovsky was elected hetman of Ukraine. “The bright, but controversial personality of the new hetman could only increase the unrest in Ukraine. On the one hand, in the conditions when Ukraine was still at war with Poland, a greedy clerk, not a “natural Cossack”, but bought from the Tatars for a horse “lyakh”, in addition married to the daughter of a Polish magnate, could not become a leader recognized by all. But on the other hand, from 1648 he served as a general clerk and, being the closest confidant to Bogdan Khmelnitsky, he was the only person in Ukraine who was privy to all internal and external political problems. Thus, the very election of I. Vyhovsky as hetman caused a lot of controversy and could not create unity in Ukraine.” Already in October 1657, the hetman faced strong opposition. The hetman succeeded in defeating the oppositionists, headed by the Poltava colonel Martyn Pushkar and the ataman Yakov Barabash. But the contradictions within the Cossack society continued to heat up. Hetman Vyhovsky swore allegiance to the Commonwealth and launched attacks on Kyiv and other cities. In response, the government brought the troops of the Belgorod category into the territory of the Zaporizhzhya Army, and Hetman Vyhovsky again swore allegiance to the tsar. Soon, the Vygovtsy, with the support of the Polish troops, began hostilities again. In the Battle of Konotop on June 28 (July 8), 1659, Vyhovsky won. The outcome of the Battle of Konotop, however, did not strengthen Vyhovsky's position in the ongoing civil war in the Hetmanate and did not prevent his imminent overthrow.

In the civil war, in which Vyhovsky was supported by the Polish crown, and behind the back of Yury Khmelnitsky, who was in the Sich, were the experienced colonels of his father Ivan Bohun, Ivan Sirko, Yakim Somko, actively supported by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the supporters of an alliance with Russia won, and Vyhovsky was forced to to lay down the hetman's mace in favor of the politically inactive Yuriy Khmelnytsky, who later became a monk and went to a monastery.

Taking advantage of the unrest in the Hetmanate, Poland refused to recognize Alexei Mikhailovich as the heir to the Polish throne and did not concede to Moscow its conquests. The consequence of this was the second Polish war. In June 1660, Prince Khovansky was defeated near Polonka, in September - Sheremetev near Chudnov. Things took an even more dangerous turn due to the unrest that continued in the Hetmanate. Teterya swore allegiance to the king, who appeared on the left side of the Dnieper, but after the unsuccessful siege of Glukhov in early 1664 and the successful actions of his opponents - Bryukhovetsky, who was elected hetman on the left side of the Dnieper, and Prince Romodanovsky - left for the Desna. A. Ordin-Nashchokin advised the tsar to abandon the Hetmanate and turn to Sweden. Alexei Mikhailovich rejected this offer; he did not lose hope. The favorable outcome of the struggle was facilitated by internal unrest in Poland and the transfer of Hetman Doroshenko, Teteri's successor, to the citizenship of the Turkish Sultan. On January 13 (23), 1667, peace was concluded in the village of Andrusov. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich acquired Smolensk, Seversk land, the left side of the Dnieper and, in addition, Kyiv for two years.

Palm Sunday in Moscow during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich. V. B. Schwartz, 1865

During the wars of 1654-1658, the tsar was often absent from Moscow, was, therefore, away from Nikon and did not restrain the patriarch's lust for power with his presence. Returning from campaigns, he began to be weary of his influence. Nikon's enemies took advantage of the tsar's cooling towards him and began to disrespect the patriarch. The proud soul of the archpastor could not bear the insult; On July 10 (20), 1658, he renounced his dignity and left for the Resurrection Monastery. The sovereign, however, did not soon decide to put an end to this matter. Only in 1666, at a spiritual council chaired by the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, Nikon was deprived of his bishopric and imprisoned in the Belozersky Ferapontov Monastery. In the same period of the wars (1654-1667), Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich personally visited Vitebsk, Polotsk, Mogilev, Kovno, Grodno, especially Vilna, and here he got acquainted with a new way of life; on his return to Moscow, he made changes in the court environment. Wallpaper (“golden skins”) and furniture in German and Polish designs appeared inside the palace. Outside, the carving became figured, in the taste of rococo, and not only on the surface of the tree according to Russian custom.

Monetary reform

In 1654, the tsar ordered that rubles be minted from the thalers accumulated in the treasury. On one side, an eagle was depicted in a square (cartouche) and in ornaments, the date in letters and the inscription "ruble". On the other side, the tsar-rider on a galloping horse, in a circle there is an inscription: "By the grace of God, the great sovereign, tsar and grand duke Alexei Mikhailovich of all Great and Little Russia." Due to the complexity of making stamps, it was not possible to re-mint all those thalers. In 1655, thalers began to be minted on one side with two stamps (rectangular with the date "1655" and a round stamp of a kopeck (rider on a horse). Such a coin was called "Efimok with a sign." Efimok and the ruble were equated to 64 kopecks (by weight), although earlier the price varied from 40 to 60 kopecks.The taler cut into four parts was overminted, thus a quarter (half-fifty kopeck) was put into circulation.Another half-efimok coin was introduced (a taler cut in half with a countermark).“Efimok with a sign” and its shares (half-fifty kopecks) and a quarter) were in circulation mainly in Ukraine.

A copper fifty-kopeck piece was put into circulation. The inscription on a fifty-kopeck piece around a rider on a walking horse: "By the grace of God, the Tsar and Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich of All Russia." On rubles and fifty dollars there was a date in Slavic numbers (letters) in the translation of "summer 7162", that is, according to the chronology from the Creation of the World.

The collection of taxes was ordered to be made in silver, and payments from the treasury - in copper coins. Thus the king quickly replenished the treasury with silver. However, the peasants refused to sell grain, and the merchants refused to sell goods for copper, which resulted in a copper riot. Subsequently, copper coins were withdrawn from circulation.

The monetary reform of Alexei Mikhailovich is considered unsuccessful, and only under Peter the Great began minting coins that were not inferior in quality to European coins.

Internal unrest

As soon as the war with Poland subsided, the government had to pay attention to new internal unrest, to the Solovetsky indignation and the uprising of Razin.

With the fall of Nikon, his main innovation was not destroyed: the correction of church books. Many priests and monasteries did not agree to accept these innovations. The Solovetsky Monastery offered especially stubborn resistance; besieged since 1668, he was taken by the governor Meshcherinov on January 22 (February 1), 1676; the rebels were outweighed.

At the same time, the Don Cossack Stepan Razin revolted in the south. Having robbed the caravan of Shorin's guest in 1667, Razin moved to Yaik, took the Yaitsky town, robbed Persian ships, but in Astrakhan he brought guilt. In May 1670, he again went to the Volga, took Tsaritsyn, Cherny Yar, Astrakhan, Saratov, Samara and raised Cheremis, Chuvashs, Mordovians, Tatars, but he was defeated near Simbirsk by Prince Yu. Baryatinsky, fled to the Don and, issued by ataman Kornil Yakovlev , executed in Moscow on June 6 (16), 1671.

Soon after the execution of Razin, a war began with Turkey over Little Russia. Bryukhovetsky betrayed Moscow, but he himself was killed by supporters of Doroshenko. The latter became the hetman of both sides of the Dnieper, although he entrusted the administration of the left side to the hetman Mnohohrishny. Mnogohrishny was elected hetman at the council in Glukhov (in March 1669), again went over to the side of Moscow, but was overthrown by the foremen and exiled to Siberia. In June 1672, Ivan Samoylovich was elected to his place. Meanwhile, the Turkish Sultan Mehmed IV, to whom Doroshenko succumbed, did not want to give up the left-bank Ukraine either. The war began, in which the Polish king Jan III Sobieski, who was the crown hetman, became famous. The war ended with a 20-year peace only in 1681.

The results of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich

Of the internal orders under Tsar Alexei, the following can be distinguished:

• a ban on Belomestsk residents (monasteries and persons who were in state, military or civil service) to own black, taxable lands and industrial, commercial establishments (shops, etc.) in the settlement;
• the final attachment of taxable classes, peasants and townspeople, to the place of residence; the transition was forbidden in 1648 not only to the peasant owners, but also to their children, brothers and nephews (according to the Council Code of 1649).
• new central institutions were founded, what are the orders: Secret Affairs (not later than 1658), Khlebny (not later than 1663), Reitarsky (since 1651), Accounting Affairs (mentioned since 1657), engaged in checking the receipt, expenditure and balances of money , Little Russian (mentioned since 1649), Lithuanian (1656-1667), Monastic (1648-1677).

Financially, several changes have also been made:

• in 1646 and the following years, a census of the tax households with their adult and minor male population was carried out;
• an unsuccessful attempt was made to introduce a new salt duty;
• by a decree of April 30, 1653, it was forbidden to collect small customs duties (myt, travel duties and anniversary) or to farm them out and it was ordered to be included in ruble duties collected at customs;
• at the beginning of 1656 (not later than March 3), due to a lack of funds, copper money was issued. Soon (since 1658), the copper ruble began to be valued at 10, 12, and in the 1660s even 20 and 25 times cheaper than the silver one; the resulting terrible high cost caused a popular uprising (Copper Riot) on July 25, 1662. The rebellion was pacified by the tsar's promise to punish the guilty and the expulsion of the archery troops against the rebels.
• by decree of June 19 (29), 1667, it was ordered to start building ships in the village of Dedinovo on the Oka; however, the ship built at the same time made only one three-month voyage to Astrakhan and was not used in the future.

In the field of legislation:

• the Council Code was compiled and published (it was printed for the 1st time on May 7-20, 1649) and supplementing it in some respects: the New Trade Charter of 1667, New decree articles on robbery and murderous cases of 1669, New decree articles on estates of 1676, military charter 1649.
• Russia also united with Ukraine in 1654.

Under Tsar Alexei, the colonization movement to Siberia continued. Famous in this regard: A. Bulygin, O. Stepanov, E. Khabarov and others. Founded: Simbirsk (1648), Nerchinsk (1658), Irkutsk (1661), Penza (1663), Kungur (1663), Selenginsk (1666).

Death

Cathedral of the Archangel. Perspective of the ends of the tombstones of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (1629-1676), Tsarevich Alexei Alekseevich (1654-1670), Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich (1596-1645), infant princes Vasily and Ivan Mikhailovich. Photograph by K. A. Fischer. 1905 From the collections of the Museum of Architecture. A. V. Shchuseva.

In the last years of the reign of Tsar Alexei, Artamon Sergeevich Matveev especially exalted himself at the court. Two years after the death of M. I. Miloslavskaya (March 4 (14), 1669), the tsar married his relative Natalia Kirillovna Naryshkina on January 22 (February 1), 1671. Matveev, an admirer of Western European customs, gave theatrical performances, to which not only the tsar himself went, but also the tsarina, princes and princesses (for example, on November 2 (12), 1672 in the village of Preobrazhensky). On September 1 (11), 1674, the tsar declared his son Theodore heir to the throne. On January 30 (February 9), 1676, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich the Quietest died of a heart attack at the age of 47.

Marriages and children

Alexei Mikhailovich was the father of 16 children from two marriages. Three of his sons subsequently reigned. None of Alexei Mikhailovich's daughters married.

Other information

Alexei Mikhailovich's favorite entertainment was playing chess (and other board games close to them: tavlei, saki ...). In the painting by the Russian artist Vyacheslav Schwartz "A Scene from the Domestic Life of Russian Tsars" (1865), Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich appears playing chess with a boyar.

As a child, Alexei Mikhailovich received a good musical education. In adulthood, he composed church hymns. Of these, only the poem “It is worthy to eat” has survived, written in the European, or “Venetian” (in the terminology of the 17th century) style, based on the Polish-Ukrainian tradition, where the basses play the leading part. The stihira entered the repertoire of the male choir of the publishing department of the Moscow Patriarchate "Old Russian chant".

Had a common ancestor with the last monarchs from the Rurik dynasty, namely: Ivan III, Vasily III, Ivan the Terrible, Fedor I, like any of their descendants

Memory

Monuments

• In August 2010, a monument to the founder of the city, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, was unveiled in Novy Oskol.
• In Penza, on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of the city, it is planned to erect a monument to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.

Cinema

• Pyotr Leontiev (Stepan Razin. Dir. I. Pravov, O. Preobrazhenskaya. 1939)
• Vladimir Ivanov (“300 years ago…”. Dir. V. Petrov. 1956)
• Ilya Gurin (Walking People. Dir. I. Gurin. 1988)
• Dmitry Tikhonov ("Split", t / s. Dir. N. Dostal. 2011)
• Alexander Gorelov (The Romanovs. The first film. Dir. M. Bespaly. 2013)

History of Russia. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Part 1.

Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich

Part 1

Alexei Mikhailovich (1629-1676) - Russian Tsar (from 1645), the second representative of the Romanov dynasty on the Russian throne

The middle of the 17th, rebellious century ... In Europe, the Thirty Years' War was completed by the Peace of Westphalia, a revolution broke out in England, which, through the Long Parliament, tried to limit royal power and smoothly spilled over into the Civil War, during which King Charles I Stuart was executed; France has its own turmoil - the Parliamentary Fronde - a conflict between two alternative ways of developing the French absolute monarchy. In the Commonwealth, there is a rift between the king, the Polish magnates and the gentry. The Holy Inquisition is also on the alert...

Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich
Miniature from Titularnik 1672

After the death of Tsar Michal Fedorovich, the Russian throne was taken by his son Alexei Mikhailovich, and, like his father, at the age of 16. However, Alexey was distinguished by greater liveliness of mind, natural talent, he early became addicted to reading religious literature, began to study literacy and science, and mastered church singing. In the fourteenth year, the prince was solemnly announced to the people, and at the age of 16, having lost his father and mother, he was crowned king. He was instilled with the idea of ​​the "royal business" as a service, the fulfillment of the will of God in accordance with his high destiny.

Alexey Mikhailovich
HX

Infinitely trusting his tutor boyar Boris Ivanovich Morozov, Alexei Mikhailovich at first handed over to him all the threads of government, and for several years he himself performed the prescribed rehearsed etiquette, indulged in royal fun and pilgrimage trips to monasteries

Departure of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich to the church on the name day
Drawing from Meyerberg's Album Views and everyday paintings of Russia, 17th century a

In 1647, the king decided to marry. The bride he chose, the daughter of the Kasimov landowner Efimiya Vsevolzhskaya, not without the participation of Morozov, was rejected (she fainted in front of the tsar due to excessively tightened hair) and was exiled to distant Tyumen together with her family for "concealing the disease".

The choice of the royal bride, Ilya Repin

The choice of the bride, Sergey NIKITIN

The choice of the bride, Ivan KIRILLOV

The choice of the bride by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, Grigory SEDOV

However, the tsar did not grieve for a long time and soon, on the advice of the same uncle, in January 1648 he married Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya (Boris Morozov himself married her younger sister)

Konstantin MAKOVSKY

The choice of the bride of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Chromolithography by A. Abramov, 1882

The choice of the bride by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich,Konstantin MAKOVSKY

The first meeting of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich with the hawthorn Maria Ilinichnaya Miloslavskaya, Mikhail NESTEROV

Empress Maria Miloslavskaya
Meyerberg's album Views and everyday paintings of Russia in the 17th century.
Drawings from the Dresden Album

Portrait of Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya

Terem of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, Carl RABUS

Emergence of the queen

Emergence of Tsarina Maria Ilyinichna from the church, Andrey RYABUSHKIN

Emergence of Tsarina Maria Ilyinishna Miloslavskaya from the Red Porch of the Tsarina's Chambers of the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery

Sergey KIRILLOV

Exit of the queen with the prince,Drawing from Meyerberg's album

Maria Miloslavskaya, Mikhail KLODT

Thus, the boyar Boris Morozov ran all state affairs according to his own understanding and desire. In 1646 the tax on salt was increased. Already several times. All products that could be stored only in salted form immediately rose in price. A year later, the tax was abolished, but arrears were still collected. In June 1648, the Salt Riot began in Moscow, during which the Muscovites demanded that the main noblemen-likhoimmers be handed over to them for reprisal - the boyar Morozov, the head of the Posolsky order of Chisty, the head of the Pushkarsky order of Trakhaniotov, the head of the Zemsky order of Pleshcheev.

Moscow uprising of 1648, Salt riot,Nikolai Nekrasov

Salt riot on Red Square. 1648, Ernest LISSNER

The tsar was forced to extradite some of the most odious persons, and Morozov, under the guise of exile, took refuge for a while in the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery. Following Moscow, the uprisings swept through other cities. The king, having lost his closest advisers, was forced to show interest in governing the state.

Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery

Drawing up the Cathedral Code under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich,Nikolai Nekrasov

The original column of the Cathedral Code of 1649 in a silver gilded "ark" of the 18th century.

In the original, this impressive document was a column (scroll) 309 m long, divided into 25 chapters and 396 articles. The Code finally formalized serfdom in Russia.

Chapter XVIII of the Council Code of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich

Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Portrait. Watercolor.
In the manuscript the Cathedral Code of 1649. The list of 1749.

In 1646, the monk Nikon (in the world Nikita Minov) came to Moscow on the business of the monastery. A tall, handsome, well-spoken young priest charmed Alexei Mikhailovich, who loved pious and zealous people in the faith. In his person, the monarch found a spiritual mentor, who, after two years of constant communication with Nikon, looked at the world through his eyes.

Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and Nikon, Archbishop of Novgorod, at the tomb of Philip the Wonderworker, Metropolitan of Moscow
Alexander LITOVCHENKO

Fragment, Alexander LITOVCHENKO

Having become patriarch in 1652 and having stipulated for himself the title of great sovereign (similar to the one that Patriarch Filaret used as the royal parent in his time), Nikon, with his inherent passion, began to carry out a reform in the ritual field.

Patras Archpriest Nikon in bishop's vestments, After the original Title Book 1672

Image of the Cross with the upcoming St. Tsar Constantine, St. queen Elena,
Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, Tsarina Maria Ilyinichnaya and Patriarch Nikon

The image of Tsarina Maria Ilyinichna on the icon of the Kien Cross
isographer Bogdan SALTANOV, 1670

Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and Tsarina Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya, S. USHAKOV

The temperamental and passionate nature of Nikon did not allow him to carry out the church reform painlessly, this led to a split in the Russian Orthodox Church. The patriarch proceeded to unify the church rite and the order of worship according to modern Greek models, by personal power reduced the number of bows during prayer; demanded that icons be painted according to Greek patterns. It was ordered to be baptized not with two, but with three fingers, to sing alleluia not two, but three times, during the procession to move against the sun, to make bows not on the earth, but on the waist, etc.

Emblem of Patriarch Nikon
Engraving from 1659

Patriarch Nikon with the brethren of the Resurrection New Jerusalem Monastery. Unknown artist. 1660-1665 years

Patriarch Nikon Party dress of Patriarch Nikon, Fedor Solntsev

Patriarch Nikon, A copy from a lifetime image. Late 18th century

All this caused a stormy protest of the "zealots" and some of the priests, against whom the patriarch acted very cruelly.
In addition, he wanted to change the order of the complete control of secular power over the church.

Nikon Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. , Engravings from 1890

Church Council of 1654
Patriarch Nikon offers new liturgical books. The beginning of the splitAlexey KIVSHENKO

Patriarch Nikon

Convened in 1654 in Moscow, the council of the Moscow clergy approved all the corrections he proposed. Then Nikon turned to the eastern patriarchs, and the next year the Tsaregrad Patriarch, on behalf of the entire Greek Church, approved and approved all the corrections outlined by Nikon.
Leaving for the war with the Commonwealth, Alexei Mikhailovich entrusted Nikon with the administration of the state and the care of the royal family. Thus, not only church, but also state affairs were concentrated in the hands of Nikon. Nikon's autocratic habits, interference in state affairs and an arrogant attitude towards the boyars initially caused irritation and outbursts of royal anger, but in the end this led to a complete break in their relationship.

Patriarch Nikon with the brethren of the Resurrection Monastery,Chromolithograph, from a parsuna from the early 1660s

Patriarch Nikon, Yuri Shmelev

In July 1658, Patriarch Nikon served the Liturgy for the last time in the Assumption Cathedral, after which he took off his patriarchal vestments and, despite the requests of the people who were in the church, left Moscow for New Jerusalem, i.e. Resurrection Monastery, built by him 40 miles from Moscow.

Patriarch Nikon in New Jerusalem, Vyacheslav SCHWARTZ

Patriarch Nikon, Sergei MILORADOVICH

To finish with the church schism, you have to skip a few years.

In 1666, on the initiative of Alexei Mikhailovich, the Supreme Council of the Clergy was again convened, which was attended by 30 Russian and Greek hierarchs. The council once again approved all Nikon's reforms and condemned those who opposed them. Also in the Miracle Monastery, a trial of the patriarch took place, at which Nikon was charged with embarrassing the Russian kingdom, interfering in civil affairs; gave his monastery the proud names of Bethlehem, Golgotha, Jerusalem; that he abused the anathema, that he tormented the monks with worldly punishments and tortures. Nikon behaved proudly and uncompromisingly, entered into disputes with accusers and the tsar himself, who, in tears and excitement, complained to the cathedral about the long-term faults of the patriarch.

Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and Patriarch Nikon at the trial

Trial of Patriarch NikonSergei MILORADOVICH

On December 12, he was sentenced: for arbitrarily leaving the patriarchal throne, for insulting the tsar, for bringing confusion into the Russian church, Nikon was deprived of his patriarchal rank, becoming a simple monk. They took off his hood and panagia, and exiled him to the Belozersky Ferapontov Monastery, where he spent almost 15 years in captivity. Released in 1681 to his Resurrection Monastery, Nikon died on the way not far from Yaroslavl

Nikon, Oleg GROSSE

Patriarch Nikon, Boris CHERUSHEV

Death of Patriarch Nikon Engraving

Procession on a donkey from the time of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich

Despite the fact that the Great Council upheld all church innovations, and declared the zealots of the old faith to be heretics and schismatics, many of their Old Believers did not repent, including Archpriests Avvakum and Neronov, Moscow deacon Fyodor, who were anathematized and exiled

Avvakum, Tatiana BYKOVA

Avvakum's journey through Siberia,Sergei MILORADOVICH

Avvakum, Victor MATORIN

Boyarynya Morozova visited Archpriest Avvakum
Martyrdom of Avvakum (Old Believer icon)

Archpriest Avvakum in prison

Sozhzh The meeting of the leaders of the Old Believers in Pustozersk
book illustration

Burning of Archpriest Avvakum Petr MYASOEDOV

The boyar Theodosia Sokovnina, in the marriage of Morozov, was an associate of Archpriest Avvakum, who called her and her two closest associates - the sister of Princess Evdokia Urusova and the wife of the Streltsy Colonel Maria Danilova "the holy, blessed and martyr trinity." The boyar was fabulously rich, absolutely adamant, from her youth she was famous for her beauty. Her husband was the younger brother of Boris Morozov (mentor of Alexei Mikhailovich) Gleb, and after their death she inherited the entire fortune of the brothers. Vasily Klyuchevsky wrote: “When she remained a young widow and left the house in mourning, she was put into an expensive carriage of twelve horses, followed by three hundred servants, protecting the honor of her sovereign mother. The Queen of Assyria and nothing more, you say , a slave of a superstitious and conceited age."

Boyar Morozova, Vasily SURIKOV

But Feodosya Morozova is a beauty, a fashionista (all cities and villages were famous for her headdresses), who had amazing trips, led a secular life during the day, and at night, dressed in a simple dress, visited almshouses, fed, watered, treated, gave alms , in her house there was a whole shelter for wanderers and holy fools. And under silks and velvets she wore a coarse sackcloth for the mortification of the flesh. The tsar knew that at home they prayed in the old way, that she corresponded with Avvakum. But she was not arrested immediately, but only after the noblewoman dared not to appear at the royal wedding of Alexei Mikhailovich and Natalya Naryshkina.

In November 1671, Feodosia Prokofievna Morozova was arrested, and three days later they put on an iron collar, put her in firewood and took her to prison. When the sleigh caught up with the Miracle Monastery, the noblewoman, believing that the tsar was seeing her, raised her right hand with two fingers, and then signed herself with the sign of the cross in a schismatic manner. All three schismatics were tortured, but not burnt. The high origin and wealth of Theodosya Morozova did not give rest to either the tsar or the patriarch, however, it was not possible to convert the stubborn to the new faith. Even after the death of her only son, she did not give up. She died in November 1675 in an earthen pit, sick and hungry, but not broken.

Starover, Mikhail Botkin

self-burners, Grigory MYASOEDOV

The Solovetsky Monastery also openly refused to obey the decisions of the councils, and offered armed resistance to the government troops sent. Its siege lasted almost eight years, and the monks then suffered a heavy punishment. But this "standing for the old faith" greatly influenced the entire north, where the schism took root.

Solovetsky Monastery

Black Cathedral. The uprising of the Solovetsky monastery against newly printed books in 1666
Sergei MILORADOVICH

The siege of the Solovetsky Monastery by the army of governor Ivan Meshcherinov
Miniature from the handwritten book The Tale of the Solovetsky Uprising

The massacre of the governor Meshcherinov over the participants of the Solovetsky uprising

Thus, which began as a movement in defense of the "old faith", disagreement with the church reform carried out in the country by Patriarch Nikon, resulted in an open anti-government speech.

By the middle of the 17th century, most of Ukraine was part of the Commonwealth, where Polish was the official language, and Catholicism was the state religion. Orthodox Ukrainians, Belarusians for the most part were serfs. The uprisings against Polish domination were replaced by periods of calm, but in 1648 the uprisings broke out again, now under the leadership of the hetman of the Zaporizhzhya Sich, Bogdan Khmelnitsky. Two major victories were won: at Zhovtiye Vody and at Korsun. Success attracted a large stream of Cossacks and peasantry to the camp of the hetman.

Glorious Hetman of Ukraine Bogdan Khmelnitsky, L. GRITSENKO

Bogdan and Yuri Khmelnitsky,book illustrations

Further successes were replaced by defeats, the struggle took on a protracted character. Bogdan Mikhailovich Khmelnitsky pinned his hopes on Orthodox Russia, he repeatedly turned to the Moscow government with a request to take Ukraine under his protection.

Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Ambrose ZHDAHA

Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Fedor ALEKSEEV

Negotiations of Bohdan Khmelnitsky with the Polish Ambassador

Moscow's delay in the decision at the request of the Little Russian Cossacks and the Orthodox gentry about the accession of Little Russia to Russia led to the fact that Bogdan Khmelnitsky made an appropriate proposal to the Turkish Sultan Mahmed IV, who soon agreed. The Russian government could not allow Turkish possessions to reach almost the center of Russia. On October 1, 1653, the Zemsky Sobor in Moscow decided to satisfy the requests of Little Russia to accept it "under the high hand" of the Russian Tsar. Which meant an imminent war with Poland. And already on October 23, 1653, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich declared war on the King of Poland, Jan II Casimir Vasa, and he himself went to the theater of operations.

Alexey Mikhailovich,Nicholas de LARMESSIN

Engraving Early 1880s

King of Poland Jan II Casimir Vasa
Daniel SCHULTZ Jan MATEJKO

Forever with the Russian people. Pereyaslav Council. January 8, 1654 http://ru.wikipedia.org/

fig.1.3.36

In the book of A.S. Chistyakov "History of Peter the Great" shows the old seal of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, father of Peter I, p.20, fig.1.3.36. Along its rim is a long inscription. Here is its full text.

“By God’s ml (c) tia we are the great city (r) king i great prince Alexy Mikhailovi (h) all great and small i Byatlya Russia autocrat i many (x) gdrtv i land (l) eastern (x) i west (d ) none are true (x) very good (x) dyatdichy (x) to enjoy the diary i g (c) other i owner.

Here, in parentheses, extended letters are placed, that is, letters placed upward, above the line, in the form of small icons. Letter Yat, read as E, is designated here by us as yat. Letter Omega, read as O, is not specifically noted. Let us now give a more modern Russian reading of the same inscription.

"By GOD'S MERCY, WE, THE GREAT GOVERNMENT, THE Tsar AND THE GRAND PRINCE ALEXEY MIKHAILOVICH OF ALL THE GREAT AND SMALL AND WHITE RUSSIA, AUTOCURATOR AND MANY STATES AND LANDS OF EASTERN AND WESTERN INFAID FAMILY AND DEDICHNY HEIR AND SOVEREIGN AND OWNER."

The inscription is very interesting. It turns out that Alexei Mikhailovich, at least judging by his state seal, possessed not only Little and White Russia, but eastern and even western states and lands. And unfaithful, Fig.1.3.37. Probably, this word means not just a difference in faith, but also the fact that these states have already broken away from the mother country. Moreover, Alexei Mikhailovich owns the eastern, western and unfaithful lands as an heir, since, as it is said on the seal, they once belonged to him. fathers and grandfathers. Most likely, this title on the seal comes from the old pre-Romanov tsars-khans of Russia-Horde. When the Great - "Mongolian" Empire stretched from England to Japan. And even possessed America, see CHRON4, ch.12 and CHRON6, ch.14.

fig.1.3.37

In the modern version of Russian history, such a seal of Alexei Mikhailovich looks very strange and pompous. What is Alexei Mikhailovich hinting at, arguing on his state(!) print that his fathers and grandfathers owned many eastern, western and infidel lands outside of Russia? In the Scaligerian-Millerian history, such statements by Alexei Romanov look simply wild. Of course, historians will offer us some kind of "explanation". Alexei Mikhailovich, they say, was a great original. Of course, he himself understood that no such many his fathers and grandfathers did not own distant states. But such was the alleged custom of that time - to unreasonably lay claim to foreign lands.

Our reconstruction explains this picture well. Indeed, in the era of Alexei Mikhailovich, they still well remembered what lands the Russian Tsar-Khans of the pre-Romanov era owned not so long ago.

One more note about the royal seal of Alexei Romanov. It depicts six cities to the right and left of the double-headed eagle. On the right in Fig. 1.3.36 they are marked with letters AT, W and With, and on the left - letters AT or C(inaudible) M and apparently R(Slavic-Greek "r"). It is very curious what six cities are meant here.

And below, to the left and to the right of the eagle, there are armed troops. And they are separated. Some troops are on the left, while others are on the right. Like the western and eastern Hordes of the Empire. Below, under the paws of the eagle, two patterns are also depicted, very much reminiscent of the Ottoman-Ataman crescent with a star.

Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and his team. Boyar Morozov and his economic policy. Revolt and fall of the Morozov government. Zemsky Sobor and Zemsky Code of 1649. At Ukrainian Cossacks. Attempts by Sagaidachny and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to rapprochement with Moscow. Polish-Jewish oppression of the Russian population of Ukraine. The inconsistency of the policy of the Polish authorities and the behavior of the Ukrainian Cossacks. Golden Decade. Ascent of Khmelnytsky. Potocki's defeat. Death of King Vladislav. The defeat of the Polish camp on Pilyavka. Zborovsky agreement. Khmelnytsky is a vassal of the Turkish Sultan. The defeat of Khmelnitsky near Berestechko. Danube adventure of the hetman. Pereyaslav Council. Eleven articles. War with Poland. Victory march across Belarus. The entry of the Swedes into the war. Polish popular uprising. War with Sweden and peace with Poland. Death of Bohdan Khmelnitsky. Ivan Vygovsky. Gadyach agreement. The collapse of Ukraine. Yuri Khmelnitsky. Sheremetev's defeat. The betrayal of Y. Khmelnitsky. Petro Doroshenko and the Turkish protectorate over Western Ukraine. Andrusovsky treaty of 1667. Bakhchisaray agreement of 1681

The day after the death of Mikhail Fedorovich, on July 13, 1645, the boyars and all the highest officials of the Moscow state took an oath of allegiance to Tsarevich Alexei and his mother. The first to do this was Nikita Ivanovich, the cousin of the deceased Tsar, the eldest in the Romanov family.

By his act, he, as it were, affirmed the dynastic traditions of succession to the throne. A similar procedure, without any delay, began to be carried out in all cities and counties. But trouble does not come alone. Less than forty days after the death of his father, the young king lost his mother. These tragic events, outwardly reminiscent of the beginning of the reign of Ivan the Terrible and Fyodor Ioannovich, left their mark on the first years of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich. The only difference was that the roles of Alexei Adashev and Boris Godunov this time were played not by young and ambitious courtiers, but by 55-year-old Boris Ivanovich Morozov, yesterday's educator of the heir to the throne. Forty days after the death of his mother, on September 28, Alexei Mikhailovich was married to the kingdom.

It cannot be said that the new king inherited a heavy legacy. Far from it, his position was fundamentally different from the position of his father thirty-two years ago, when he ascended the throne, as if on Golgotha. Over the past years, the state has been pacified, and the population has received a real opportunity to restore their vitality and raise the economy. But there is no need to talk about the "welfare state" either. There were problems in the country, which was quite frankly discussed at the Zemsky Sobor in 1642, and those that are resolved within the life of several generations of people. And the most important of them was the replenishment of the treasury.

The first boyar of the former reign, Fedor Ivanovich Sheremetev, who by the time Alexei Mikhailovich ascended the throne had already overcome the 70-year milestone, and besides, he was sick and incapable of working in the command of the young tsar, was removed from power without much difficulty. The same fate befell his numerous relatives. The place of Sheremetev, as we already know, was taken by the boyar Morozov, who stood at the head of the archery army and foreign mercenaries, and also took control of the order of the Big Treasury, the Pharmaceutical Order and the wine monopoly. Like the former favorites, he began to appoint his relatives, relatives and friends to leading government posts. He appointed one of his relatives, I.V. Morozov, to the Vladimir court order, and the other, B.I. Pushkin, to Razboyny. Shurin, P. T. Trakhaniotov, he nominated for the Pushkar order, and another relative, L. S. Pleshcheev, for the post of judge of the Zemsky order.

True, this did not guarantee the stability of the temporary worker's position. At any moment, it could be shaken: as soon as the king got married, his new relatives would immediately throw him out of the palace, push him away from power and the feeding trough. And this threat became quite real when, at the beginning of 1647, the tsar suddenly wanted to marry and even chose a bride for himself - the daughter of a Kasimov landowner, Evfemia Fedorovna Vsevolozhskaya. But Alexei suffered the same fate as his father and Maria Khlopova. The bride was suddenly declared sick, and the wedding was upset. But Morozov had another party in mind - the daughter of one of his henchmen, the beautiful Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya, who liked the tsar so much that in January 1648 she became queen. And ten days after the royal wedding, another wedding took place, now the boyar Morozov and the tsarina's sister Anna Miloslavskaya. So the ruler became a relative of the king and queen, thereby inexpressibly strengthening his position.

Contemporaries and later researchers characterize the boyar Morozov as an active and tough master, whose stinginess and business acumen bordered on inhuman, sophisticated cruelty towards peasants and clerks, whose all-consuming greed and craving for gold were figuratively compared with a natural thirst to drink plenty of water. Therefore, S. M. Solovyov, who highly appreciated the businesslike qualities of the ruler, was forced to state with sincere regret that he had not managed to “rise to the point of not becoming a temporary worker.” Nevertheless, looking ahead, we can say that it was this farming technique that allowed him to expand his personal household from 151 to 9,000 peasant households in thirty years and thus create a state within a state.

He also selected assistants on his own, and, apparently, it was not his fault that these assistants, taking care of the royal treasury, did not forget themselves, which ultimately became the reason for their fall.

But let's see what policy B. I. Morozov pursued and whether it had a perspective. Once again, having fixed the ten-year period of the right to claim the runaway or exported peasants, Morozov began the census of the population, but not in order to streamline the collection of taxes and taxes, but in order to finally fix people to the land with a view to subsequently canceling the right to transfer peasants, and the terms of the rights to demand their extradition. If this measure was undoubtedly beneficial for landowners, nobles and clergy, then another measure, which he began already in February 1646, was undertaken solely in the interests of the treasury and the townspeople. It was associated with the natural process of social stratification of the townspeople, who basically replenished the state treasury with tax deductions. The fact is that the ruined townspeople, who lost the opportunity to regularly pay taxes and wanted to avoid the right, out of hopelessness, either sold their lands or went into bondage to monasteries, boyars and service people who had tax benefits. In both cases, the treasury suffered losses due to the reduction, as they would say now, of the "taxable base." In addition to the treasury, the city communities also suffered losses, forced by such a development of events to tax the remaining townspeople with additional taxes to cover local expenses. The solution was simple: all lands that had passed from urban communities to the property of landowners who were not part of the townspeople were subject to seizure in favor of urban communities, and the pawnbrokers who made a bonded record, starting from 1637, were to be returned to their previous state. This quite pragmatic reform was tested on the example of the city of Vladimir and promised to give good results in the future if it was applied everywhere.

But the money was needed not in the future, but immediately, and moreover, a lot. Therefore, Morozov introduced a regime of austerity. As in his estates, he drastically reduced the size of the bureaucratic and court apparatus, simultaneously cutting the salaries of those who held on to their posts. The changes also affected the army. The maintenance was also reduced for the archers, and some of the foreign officers, instead of money, were forced to be content with land plots from which they were offered to feed.

So, we see that by the above actions, the temporary worker had to amass ill-wishers not only among the peasants, landowners and clergy, but also among the army. And he made them, but the money from this did not increase in the treasury. Then Morozov prepared a royal decree of February 7, 1646 on the introduction of a monopoly on salt and tobacco. The duty on salt immediately quadrupled - from five to twenty kopecks per pood, and tobacco from a prohibited product, like vodka once, turned into a source of replenishment for the royal treasury. Retail prices for these goods jumped sharply, which caused dissatisfaction with the entire population. Numerous complaints were sent to the Zemsky Prikaz judge Pleshcheev, who, instead of responding in a timely manner and correcting the mistakes of the ongoing reform, began to use his position for personal enrichment. And only after a wave of salt riots, this monopoly was canceled on December 10, 1647.

But if it is difficult to raise a Russian person to rebellion, then it is even more difficult to stop this rebellion. Moreover, it is not enough for a Russian to restore justice - he wants to see the punishment of his real or imaginary offenders, whose faces are well known to him. With the name of one, P. T. Trakhaniotov, the city reform was personified, with the name of another, the clerk of the order of the Great Treasury N. I. Chisty, - the salt monopoly, with the name of the third, L. S. Pleshcheev, - the so-called "Pleshcheevsky crippling", and with the name of the fourth, B. I. Morozov himself, - all the troubles of the new reign. A petition to the tsar was drawn up, a convenient occasion was chosen for its presentation. The tsar took it and promised to take action, but as soon as he drove off, Pleshcheev's assistants attacked the people's deputation with curses and whips. Rocks flew in response.

The next day, June 2, 1648, an open riot broke out. The raging crowd smashed the houses of Morozov and his closest assistants, lynching the duma clerk Chistov, then broke into the Kremlin and demanded that Pleshcheev be handed over for execution. Morozov ordered the archers to shoot at the rebels, but they refused. Under these conditions, the tsar had no choice but to sacrifice one of the perpetrators of the popular unrest. Pleshcheev was taken out of the palace, accompanied by an executioner, but the people fought him off and immediately, like Chistov, beat him to death with sticks. However, the unrest did not end there: the people demanded new victims. On June 5, Trakhaniotov was handed over to be torn apart by the crowd.

The next few days, the tsar, his father-in-law I. D. Miloslavsky and Patriarch Joseph were busy processing influential people from the living room and cloth hundreds, pleasing archers and foreign mercenaries with feasts, admonishing the people and rearranging the government. Instead of the courtiers who had compromised themselves, new ones were put forward, among which were N. I. Romanov and Prince Ya. K. Cherkassky, who immediately began to gather the noble militia to Moscow. When the excitement subsided a little, and the forces of the parties became equal, Alexei Mikhailovich considered it possible to personally meet with the people. Surprisingly, in his speech, as N. I. Kostomarov notes, the tsar not only did not reproach the Muscovites for the rebellion, but even justified it, stating that Pleshcheev and Trakhaniotov suffered a worthy punishment. He probably didn't think so. Fear spoke in him and for him: he was afraid that the rebels would demand the extradition of Morozov to be torn to pieces. And in order to prevent this from happening, he was ready to make even greater concessions, “if only we, the great sovereign, would not betray him (Morozova. - Yu.F.) the head of the people, because he is like a second father to us: he raised and raised us. My heart can't take it!" When this was done, the king wept. “For the sake of such joy,” the people shouted a toast to the king and decided: “As it pleases God and the king, so be it!” Nevertheless, Morozov was removed from business and on June 12 he was sent to a remote monastery, though not for long. Upon his return from exile, he no longer played his former role, although he remained one of the most influential persons in the kingdom.

And on July 16, the tsar, frightened by the Moscow events and their echoes in Solvychegodsk, Ustyug and Cherdyn, which were mainly the result of the haste in carrying out Morozov's reforms, issued a decree on convening a new Zemsky Sobor. The Council was given the task of putting in order the legislation of the Moscow kingdom, taking everything useful and “decent for state zemstvo affairs” from the Rules of the Apostles and the Holy Fathers of the Church, as well as the civil laws of the Greek kings, that is, from the Pilot Book. In addition, he had to revise the Sudebnik of Ivan the Terrible of 1550, as well as all subsequent Moscow laws, statutes and regulations, correlating them with the latest petitions of the nobility, merchants and townspeople, and plus, take into account all the positive experience that already existed in the West, in particular, in the Lithuanian Statute of the 1588 edition. This was declared beautifully and impressively: so that "the Moscow state of all ranks to people, from the highest to the lowest rank, the court and reprisal would be equal to everyone in all matters."

Princes Nikita Odoevsky, Semyon Prozorovsky and Fyodor Volkonsky were entrusted with carrying out this truly titanic work, and deacons Gavrila Leontiev and Fyodor Griboedov were entrusted with preparing the text of the Code. The latter coped with the task very successfully. Moreover, it should be noted that the edition of the Cathedral Code with good reason can be called Morozov, because all the innovations of the disgraced ruler were taken into account in it. After January 29, 1649, the procedure for signing a code of laws began, consisting of 25 chapters and 967 articles. As a result, it was signed by 315 delegates of the Zemsky Sobor, but there were no signatures of N.I. Romanov, Ya.K. Morozov party.

The first chapter of the Code, as one would expect in an Orthodox state, was devoted not just to the defense of Orthodoxy, but to the assertion of its “primacy” by establishing severe punishments: from the death penalty for blasphemy to whipping for reprehensible behavior in the church, including for filing petitions during a church service to the tsar or patriarch.

In the next two chapters, for the first time in the history of the Russian state, what was previously realized on the basis of customs or through arbitrariness was set out in writing. They legitimized the rights of the king to power, measures to protect his health, honor and dignity, established penalties for crimes against the sovereign, his family and management. Here, for the first time, the terrible “word and deed of the sovereign” was consolidated for the first time, obliging all subjects to stand guard over the interests of the autocrat, to identify his detractors, intruders and seditious, to report on them. Obtaining testimony under torture has become a charitable act, and the death penalty has become a common measure of punishment.

However, while recognizing the clerical (religious) nature of the Muscovite state, the compilers of the Code nevertheless went to the limits of the church in the sphere of economic and judicial activities, as well as to establish a kind of censorship for the public statements of church hierarchs. For these purposes, the Monastic Order was established to resolve disputes between the laity and the clergy and punishment was established for clergy for impartial statements about the boyars and other sovereign people, uttered by them both in everyday life and during church sermons and recognized as offensive. But the most tangible blow to the church was dealt in the 19th chapter, where all the monastic and church settlements founded in Moscow, its environs and in provincial cities were subject to return to state ownership, and their inhabitants thus became the township taxable population. Moreover, the clergy were forbidden from now on to acquire fiefdoms for themselves. It is significant that under the original copy of the Code were the signatures of Patriarch Joseph, two metropolitans, three archbishops, one bishop, five archimandrites and one rector, including the signature of Archimandrite Nikon, who, having become patriarch, will be the main opponent of this code of laws.

It is known that one of the signs of statehood is the right of people inhabiting a certain territory to own, use and dispose of landed property. In Russia, since the advent of princely power, the right to dispose of lands and establish land use rules has entirely belonged to the prince and members of his large family. From here originate state and specific (patrimonial, tribal) lands. At the same time, the institution of private land ownership also developed, when a successful or hardworking commoner (merchant, industrialist, cattle breeder) bought some land from the prince and became their owner. With the advent of Christianity in Russia, church property was formed, and with the birth of the service class, local land tenure. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that rural and urban communities have never been the owners of the lands on which they ran their economy. They were just users of these lands on the basis of the rights of a worker or by virtue of a special permission received from a grand or specific prince. However, no matter how the person who received this land by the right of ancestral inheritance or by virtue of a sale and purchase transaction felt like a master on earth, he was never protected from the arbitrariness of the sovereign, who at any moment could change the “rules of the game”, which we have repeatedly observed in the previous history of the fatherland. Land use rules were adjusted to the requirements of the day, whether it was the elimination of specific principalities, the imposition of disgrace on objectionable dignitaries, the seizure of monastic lands.

This time they seem to have been ordered.

The tsar disposed of state lands to solve the strategic tasks of the state, palace lands - to maintain the royal court, his own - to satisfy his personal needs.

The boyars received confirmation of their rights to hereditary ancestral patrimonies and patrimonies granted by Vasily Shuisky for participating in the war with Bolotnikov and the Tushinsky thief. In addition, the "Tushins" who went over to the side of the national army were recognized as inalienable rights even to the estates received from False Dmitry. And finally, the Code secured the patrimonial right to the lands taken from the adherents of the Tushinsky thief and redistributed among the patriots who liberated the Moscow kingdom from the Polish interventionists and their home-grown "dashing people".

The estate, as you know, was given to the servant "for food" for the duration of his service to the sovereign and could not be inherited, sold or exchanged for another. The Zemsky Sobor went to meet those landowners who prepared a replacement for themselves in military service. In this case, the estate was inherited by the son, younger brother or nephew of the deceased nobleman. An indulgence was also made in the exchange of estates, but they could be changed only on the condition that the area of ​​the exchanged estates was approximately equal.

Naturally, the boyars and landowners needed the land not in itself, but inhabited by agricultural workers. More than forty years have passed since those first ill-fated "forbidden years", during which the peasants were not allowed to move from one landowner to another. During this time, two generations of people have grown up - people who are patient and not "rebellious", so it seemed to the landowners that with the help of the tsar they could well, without fear of internal unrest, finally secure the peasants to the land. And the Council did this by legislatively establishing serfdom. From now on, the statute of limitations on the search for and return of fugitive peasants was canceled. At the same time, the responsibility of the landlords who sheltered the fugitives became tougher. For each year of harboring each runaway peasant, the landowner had to pay a 10-ruble fine.

But outwardly, the peasant remained free: he was a subject, not an object of law, owned movable property, could conclude business transactions, initiate a case in court and take part in it. He owned the crop he had grown, for "disgrace" he was entitled to compensation, albeit the lowest - one ruble.

By the time the Council Code was published, the urban population of the Moscow kingdom already had its own "table of ranks", the Code only formulated and consolidated it. The degree of importance of this or that citizen could be judged by the amount of compensation that was paid to him for insulting honor. At the top of this pyramid were "eminent people" - the Stroganovs, who owned vast territories in the Urals and Western Siberia with all kinds of crafts. Their "disgrace" would have cost the offender 100 rubles, a huge amount for those times. The "famous people" were followed by "guests", or the richest wholesale merchants, whose honor was estimated at 50 rubles. This was followed by wealthy merchants, members of the so-called living hundred, who, in turn, were divided into three layers, differing in their wealth, and, accordingly, in the amount of compensation for "disgrace" - 20, 15 and 10 rubles. An intermediate position between the townspeople and the "living room hundred" was occupied by a hundred "cloth", also divided into three categories, with a compensation amount of 15, 10 and 5 rubles. All these merchants and industrialists, as a rule, lived in Moscow and had their representation in the Zemsky Cathedral. They didn't pay taxes. Their participation in the formation of revenue items of the budget consisted in the fact that they periodically had to carry out difficult government assignments, occupying the positions of heads or kissers of customs, mug yards, or selling state-owned goods at fairs. At the same time, they were financially liable in the event of a shortfall in the expected profit.

And now the townspeople are day laborers, artisans, small merchants, that is, the main part of the urban population, bearing the brunt of city fees and duties in favor of the state treasury, for the maintenance of archers and pit stations, as well as for other needs of the city. As a “living room” and “trading” hundreds, townspeople, or philistines, depending on their financial situation, were divided into three categories and, according to the scale of compensation for insulting honor, could receive compensation of 7, 6 and 5 rubles.

Their position differed little from that of serfs. Like the peasants, they were firmly assigned to their settlement and could not change their place of residence, sell or mortgage their house and land allotment. Escape from the settlement was punishable by beating with a whip and exile to Siberia. Thus, the main purpose of the townspeople was fixed - to bear the "tax". However, if the landowner paid the taxes due from him to the treasury for the insolvent peasant, then the taxes that were not received from the townsman were distributed to other members of the community, which caused discontent of the urban population. Therefore, the main demand of the “black” townspeople, supported by the government of the boyar Morozov, was the return of all urban lands to the state and the taxation of all homeowners living there. Thus, an article appeared in the Code, declaring that henceforth "there will no longer be other settlements either in Moscow or in provincial cities, except for state ones."

Posad people did not have their own representation in the Zemsky Sobor, so they could solve all their questions, and in the time of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich they solved them through petitions. But if the “petition” remained unresponsive, then they had the last but effective means in reserve - a riot.

X - XV chapters of the Code were devoted to the judiciary and legal proceedings. It seems that this was the most unfortunate section of the code of laws, since the transfer of judicial functions exclusively to the jurisdiction of Moscow orders completely eliminated the role of elected labial elders, established at one time as a shock-absorbing mechanism from local voivodship arbitrariness, and opened the way for even greater abuses. From now on, a person who suffered from lawlessness could seek protection only in Moscow, which was associated with promises, high living expenses and “Moscow red tape”, which continued to dominate the order system of the Moscow kingdom. As a result, instead of justice, the subjects received the mutual responsibility of corrupt judicial officials and a convincing argument to address their claims for the outrages not only to the local governor, but also to the central government, which provoked riots and riots.

And yet, the Code must be given credit for the fact that, although declarative, it proclaimed the principle of equality in the administration of justice for all people, regardless of their ranks, and the need for a preliminary investigation in cases where the death penalty could be applied.

However, the legislative activity of the government of Alexei Mikhailovich did not end there. Realizing the need for changes in the inner life of the kingdom and following the practice of economic activity of different strata of society, he published more than 600 so-called New Decree Articles on various branches of law, and primarily on customs, trade, "tateb, robbery and murderous" cases. .

Within the framework of these New Decree Articles, the issue of foreign trade was also resolved. According to the petition of the Russian merchants, foreign "guests" were deprived of the benefits and privileges previously granted. Henceforth, they were prohibited from retail trade throughout the entire kingdom, and wholesale trade was limited only to Moscow, Astrakhan and Arkhangelsk. The tax policy is also noteworthy. In relatively peaceful years, as they would say now, the "value added tax" in trade was only five percent.

Some time ago we already mentioned the history of the Ukrainian Cossacks. It is time to dwell on this issue in more detail. It is known that at the beginning of the 17th century the Ukrainian Cossacks were not allies of their Great Russian brothers. Worse, in the Russian-Polish conflict, they were on the side of the Commonwealth. The Cossacks were part of the troops of False Dmitry I, who invaded the territory of Muscovy, supported the Tushinsky thief and besieged Smolensk together with Sigismund III. After the accession of Mikhail Fedorovich to the throne, they, alone or together with Ataman Lisovsky, raided all the internal regions of the Russian state, sowing death and destruction. In 1618, the Cossacks, led by Hetman Sagaydachny, known for his daring sea campaign against the Crimea in 1616, supported Crown Prince Vladislav in his attempt to capture Moscow and the Trinity-Sergius Lavra.

But the war ended, the Deulino truce was signed - and the “Zaporizhzhya chivalry” turned out to be useless to anyone, except perhaps for the pans, tenants and their own poor peasant farms. The Cossacks, unaccustomed to everyday peasant labor, wanted to remain among the service people, that is, to be enrolled in the Cossack estate and receive state support. But the Crown could not afford such a "luxury" and was forced to limit the registered Cossack army to one thousand people, mainly from among the small Ukrainian gentry and wealthy peasants. Under these conditions, the energy of people who returned from the war or from a robbery raid should have resulted in something, and it resulted in an open rebellion, to pacify which it was necessary to mobilize Zolkiewski himself with his army. True, there was no bloodshed. On October 17, 1619, Sagaidachny and the foremen agreed to a compromise solution: the number of registered Cossacks increased to three thousand, and as for the rest, they were promised to be made up if they went home.

It should be recalled here that the Registered Cossacks date back to the time of Stefan Batory, who managed to redirect the energy of the Ukrainian “rabble” from raids on Turkish possessions to a fratricidal war with the “Muscovites” in order to strengthen his position on the Polish throne. To get a Ukrainian peasant into this register meant great luck in life. From that moment on, the peasant was enrolled in the service class with the payment "from the crown" of a certain salary from the funds collected from other peasant farmers who were not awarded such an honor. But the main privilege enjoyed by the registered Cossack was that his family was endowed with a land plot and exempted from paying any taxes and incurring numerous duties. Thus he became a free farmer. Each Cossack was assigned to a specific regiment, created according to the territorial principle (Cherkassky, Kanevsky, Belotserkovsky, Korsunsky, Chigirinsky, Pereyaslavsky). In peacetime, he went about his business, but if there was any external or internal threat to the security of the Commonwealth, then he, on his horse and with his weapons, would get into line under the command of his centurion, who was subordinate to the corresponding colonel, and he, in his turn - to the hetman appointed by the Polish king. From the foregoing, we see that already in the very principle of the creation of the Ukrainian urban Cossacks, an inter-class opposition of Cossacks and peasants living in the same villages was laid.

Well, the truly Zaporizhzhya, or Sich, Cossacks were built on almost the same principle as the Don, with the only difference being that its most restless and most warlike part was formed from among seasonal fishermen and hunters, as well as "free robbers" who hunted for raids on Moldavian, Tatar and Turkish possessions. Having “hunted” enough, they quite calmly returned to their villages to peasant labor ... until the next “season”.

So, back to Sagaidachny. Disillusioned with the Poles, who never fulfilled their promises to increase the registered Cossacks and finance it, he decided to send his embassy to Moscow (February - April 1620) to probe the ground for a possible replenishment of his, hetman's, treasury at the expense of the Muscovite kingdom. There was only one offer - an alliance against a common enemy, which at that time was only the Crimean Khan. However, the Great Sovereigns, mindful of the recent atrocities of the Cossacks in the Moscow kingdom, but at the same time not wanting to make ill-wishers for themselves, answered evasively: they say, we have a truce with the Crimean Khan, and therefore there is no need for the service of the Zaporozhye Cossacks yet. With the answer, a modest assistance was sent - 300 rubles, with a promise to send more when such an opportunity arose.

Simultaneously with Sagaidachny and at his suggestion, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church also made an attempt to restore good relations with Moscow of the same faith. The fact is that after the establishment of the Church Union in 1596, the Kyiv Metropolitan See, all episcopal chairs, most of the Western Russian churches and monasteries fell into the hands of the Uniates. And in general, everything went to the point that the remnants of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, its hierarchy should disappear, die out in a natural way, since the Polish king forbade new Orthodox bishops to replace the dead. Sahaidachny took advantage of the visit of the Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophan, who was returning to Constantinople after Filaret was appointed to the Moscow Patriarchate. The hetman, the Orthodox clergy and church brotherhoods, who took it upon themselves to preserve Orthodoxy in the conditions of Polish militant Catholicism, begged the patriarch to restore the hierarchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Since this was done without the king's permission, the initiation ceremony was held in secret each time. Job Boretsky became Metropolitan of Kyiv, Isaiah Kopinsky - Bishop of Przemysl, Melenty Smotrytsky - Archbishop of Polotsk, Paisiy Ippolitovich - Bishop of Kholmsky, Isaac Kurtsevich - Bishop of Lutsk, and the Greek Abraham - Bishop of Pinsk.

These events developed against the backdrop of the extremely unsuccessful Polish-Turkish war for influence on Moldova, during which the Polish army, led by Zholkiewski, suffered a crushing defeat. The hetman's head, as a special military trophy, was sent as a gift to the Turkish sultan. Among the Cossacks killed in the battle was Mikhail Khmelnitsky, an underage from Chigirin, and among the numerous captives was his twenty-five-year-old son Zinovy ​​(Bogdan), the future hetman of Ukraine. Tatar flying detachments rushed to rob the villages of Podolia, Eastern Galicia and Volhynia. Everyone was expecting a massive Turkish invasion in fear.

Under these conditions, the Polish king was forced to agree to the restoration of the Constitution of 1607, which guaranteed certain rights of the Orthodox Church. He even recognized the consecration of the Bishop of Lutsk, secret from him, as legal. Moreover, the king asked Patriarch Feofan, who was still in Ukraine, to convince the Cossacks to give the Poles full support in the upcoming war with the Turks. The same, in turn, confident that the active participation of the Cossacks in the war guarantees the recognition of the hierarchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church restored by him, blessed them for the war. At the same time, he absolved the Zaporozhye Cossacks of the sin of their recent participation in the war against the same-believing Muscovite kingdom and urged them never to do such a thing again.

In mid-August 1621, the Polish army under the command of the crown hetman Khodkevich, reinforced by the Cossack army of hetman Sahaidachny, opposed the advancing Turkish-Tatar troops and camped on the banks of the Dniester River near the Khotyn fortress. Throughout September, the Turks and Tatars unsuccessfully stormed the Polish camp. The Cossacks showed themselves well in the siege, while Sahaidachny was seriously wounded. And it is still unknown how that war would have ended if not for the death of Khodkevich. His successor as commander-in-chief immediately began negotiations for peace, and on October 9 an agreement was signed, according to which the Turks guaranteed to put a person acceptable to Poland on the Moldavian throne, and the Poles promised to prevent further Cossack raids on Turkish possessions.

Six months later, Sagaidachny was gone. Under these conditions, the king and the Sejm considered themselves free from earlier promises made to the Cossacks and refused to approve the Orthodox hierarchs appointed by Feofan, and the Uniate Metropolitan Veniamin Rutsky did everything to deprive the Orthodox prelates of the opportunity to fulfill their duties. The Uniate archbishop of Polotsk, Iosafat Kuntsevich, was especially intolerant of Orthodoxy, who not only seized all the Orthodox churches and monasteries in Polotsk and Vitebsk, but also forbade holding Orthodox services even in private homes. By his actions, he aroused burning hatred among the Russian people, which, unfortunately, resulted in an ugly protest on the occasion of his arrival in the city of Vitebsk on November 12, 1623, which ended in lynching of the irreconcilable Uniate. This murder and the subsequent punitive measures further complicated relations between the two churches, two peoples. Among the Russian population, anti-Polish sentiments became widespread, aggravated by the unseemly behavior of Jewish tenants, tax-farmers and usurers.

In those days, a passion for exorbitant luxury and extravagance spread among the Polish lords. Everyone wanted to eat well, drink well, dress beautifully. All this required money, the only source of which was the lord's estates. The gentry did not want to manage them, and could not. And here the Jewish tribe comes to the aid of the pampered lords, supplying them with money on the terms of renting these very estates. The fate of the Ukrainian peasants, who found themselves under the rule of tenants, became unbearable. Everything that was in demand was taxed: roads, bridges, rivers, stoves, meadows. But Orthodox Christians experienced the greatest oppression from the fact that Orthodox churches without rights were leased from the Jews. They collected fees for every worship service. “If,” a contemporary testifies, “a child is born to a poor peasant or Cossack, or Cossacks or peasants decide to marry their children, then do not go to the priest for a blessing, but go to the Jew and bow to him so that he will let him open the church, baptize the child or marry young." The local population was forbidden to brew beer, drive wine. All this was prescribed to be purchased only in a Jewish tavern or tavern, from which the pan had his own gesheft. Therefore, negative emotions and protest against the oppression of the lords primarily fell on the Jewish tenants, who, being themselves not without sin, indexed the fees from the population, taking into account their exorbitant appetite.

Under these conditions, the desperate Orthodox Ukrainian clergy saw only one way of salvation - the help of the same-believing Moscow kingdom. In January 1625, the ambassador of the Metropolitan of Kyiv, Bishop Isaak of Lutsk, arrived in Moscow, who, having described the terrible state of Orthodoxy in Western Russia, conveyed to Mikhail Fedorovich and his boyars an oral request from Job to accept Ukraine under his protection and protect the Orthodox people and the church from the Poles. He assured that this request was the common desire of all the Orthodox who were under the Polish crown, but the boyars had information that there was no unanimity among the Ukrainians, and therefore they did not dare to violate the Deulino truce.

And indeed, in the same year, the Cossacks sent their deputies to the Sejm with a request to recognize the legitimacy of the appointment of church hierarchs, made by the Jerusalem Patriarch, to eliminate the union and increase the number of registered Cossacks. The Poles rejected these demands, then the Cossacks rebelled, so far bloodless, as a result of which they were only able to achieve an increase in the number of urban Cossacks to six thousand people. The Cossacks, who were not included in the new register, chose not to return to their villages and went to Zaporozhye. However, having offended one part of the Cossacks, the Polish government began to flirt with the other, feeding Cossack officers and wealthy registered Cossacks, from whom it eventually managed to create a special registered Cossack regiment. His main task was the suppression of internal rebellions in both the Cossack and the peasant environment.

During the Polish-Swedish War of 1626–1629, the Polish government, experiencing a lack of troops, went to increase the number of registrars to eight thousand, but then, as if in payment for this "good deed", tried to push the Orthodox into the arms of the Uniate Church. A general Council was even convened, which decided to establish the position of patriarch of Western Russia, whose authority would extend to both churches. But, despite the support of this project by very influential Orthodox hierarchs, it ended in nothing because of the irreconcilable position of the "rabble", registered and free Cossacks.

Only after the accession to the throne of Vladislav in November 1632, when Shein's army was already standing under the walls of Smolensk, when Poland was in dire need of military assistance from the Cossacks, did the Polish Sejm make concessions to its Orthodox citizens and officially recognized the existence of the Orthodox Church and the Orthodox urban brotherhoods. They were returned a number of churches and monasteries, including St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv. Russians were even given equal rights with Poles and Lithuanians, allowing them to enter local governments. The Ukrainians “beneficial” in this way, who recently asked for the patronage of the Muscovite kingdom, immediately changed places of friends and enemies and put up a 20,000-strong army led by Hetman Orandarenko against their brothers of the same faith in support of the 9,000-strong Polish army, thus deciding the fate of the 30- the thousandth Russian army, its commander-in-chief Shein and the fate of the battle for Smolensk itself.

But what is the value of the service already rendered? Immediately after the signing of peace with Moscow, the Cossack army was disbanded to their homes, and the number of registered Cossacks was again reduced to seven thousand. Instead of gratitude, instead of the promised indulgences, the oppression of the Orthodox began with renewed vigor. The Polish lords, who received extensive land holdings in the Seversk land on the left bank of the Dnieper, began to resettle Ukrainian peasants there from the right bank, establishing their own rules and regulations there. The Polish language becomes the official language of all office work in Chernihiv and Nizhyn. The Russian cities of the Left Bank, which came under the jurisdiction of Poland, received the Magdeburg Law, but with the condition that either Catholics or Uniates should be at the head of the municipalities. Fulfilling their obligations to the Turkish Sultan, the Polish authorities took steps to curb the willfulness of the Zaporizhian Cossacks on the Black Sea. On a cliff on the right bank of the Dnieper, in front of the first Dnieper threshold, French engineers and French mercenaries built the Kodak fortress in 1635 to control the actions of the Cossacks, and, if necessary, to counteract their freemen.

The reaction of the deceived Cossacks was predictable. Already in August 1635, the Cossacks took Kodak by storm and destroyed its entire foreign garrison - 200 people. However, ataman Ivan Sulima, the organizer of this daring operation, was soon handed over to the Polish authorities by registered Cossacks and executed. The execution of the leader did not frighten the Cossacks. The following year, they rebelled in Pereyaslavl due to the late issuance of the royal salary, but then everything ended without bloodshed. The events of 1637 developed differently, which began with a bold raid of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks on Cherkassy, ​​during which they captured the artillery of the registered regiment and went beyond the rapids with impunity. This sortie agitated the poorest part of the registered Cossacks and the peasant masses of the Left Bank, who proceeded to pogroms of the squires' estates and Catholic churches.

The leaders of the Cossacks, Pavlyuk and Skidan, inspired by their success, came to Pereyaslavl, convened a council, and, taking advantage of their numerical superiority, killed Savva Kononovich, the head of the Registered Cossacks. This was presented not as a protest against royal power, but as the removal of a Muscovite incapable of hetmanship. Nevertheless, this did not mislead the Polish authorities, and the masterful Cossacks were opposed by the Bratslav governor Nikolai Pototsky with a 15,000-strong army, who, during a week-long battle, defeated the superior forces of the rebels and demanded the extradition of the instigators. Stained by betrayal, disarmed registered Cossacks in humiliating conditions re-sworn allegiance to the king and received no longer elected by them, but appointed by the Poles, hetman Ilyash Karaimovich, colonels and other officers. The post of clerk under Karaimovich was given to the then little-known Bogdan Khmelnitsky, who had recently returned from Tatar captivity.

A terrible picture was presented by the “pacified” Pototsky Left-bank Ukraine. According to Polish contemporaries, all the roads leading to Nizhyn were lined with gallows and sharpened stakes with Cossacks and peasants executed on them.

However, this awesome cruelty only inflamed the Cossacks. In March 1638, a new uprising broke out - under the command of Hetman Ostryanin, which was joined by several hundred Don Cossacks. In an open battle, they defeated Stanislav Pototsky, captured Chigirin and Mirgorod. But brother Nikolai with the Polish regiments and Prince Jeremiah Vishnevetsky with his armed serfs hurried to help Stanislav. On June 10, Stanislav, reinforced by Vishnevetsky's militia, approached the Cossack camp located near Zhovnin. Under these conditions, Ostryanin considered further resistance useless and invited the Cossacks to leave for Moscow possessions, but only about a thousand people followed him. The rest chose a new leader for themselves - Gunya, with whom they held out in the siege for another two months, but in view of the superior forces of the enemy, on August 7 they stopped resistance on the condition that they would not be pursued for rebellion.

A few days later, a deputation of registered Cossacks consisting of four people, including Bogdan Khmelnitsky, already known to us, came to Warsaw with a confession. On behalf of the Cossack Rada, the deputation had to repent to the king for the rebellion and loyally ask him to leave them at least some rights. In December of the same year, the royal will was announced to the registered Cossacks gathered in Maslov Stan. Nikolai Pototsky introduced them to the royal commissar Peter Komarovsky, who was proclaimed their supreme commander with the right to appoint colonels at his own discretion and approve the centurions elected by the Cossacks. The register was reduced from seven to six thousand. Korsun was declared the seat of the main Cossack headquarters. The previously destroyed Kodak fortress was to be restored and expanded, and the "seagulls" of the Cossacks, on which they made daring raids on Turkish possessions along the Black Sea coast, were to be burned.

In Ukraine, the "golden decade" has come for the Poles. The Cossacks are pacified. On the fertile left bank of the Dnieper, like mushrooms after rain, the latifundia of Polish and Ukrainian magnates grow, turning this region into the granary of the Commonwealth and a source of income from foreign trade in wheat and cattle. Jewish leaseholders for years to come take a ransom on the lord's lands and everything that is on them: mills, distilleries, taverns, river ferries, bridges, churches. Due to the exploitation of the Ukrainian peasantry, such cities as Warsaw, Vilna, Lvov, Kamenets, and Kyiv grow and become richer. But all this prosperity is built on a shaky foundation. The gulf between the Polish and Ukrainian magnates, on the one hand, and the Ukrainian peasants, on the other, deepens and widens. The appetites of the Jewish tenants are growing, and the patience of the Cossacks and peasants is wearing thin. The volcano of contradictions between Catholics, Uniates and Orthodox continues to rage. And the spring of Cossack patience is compressed to the limit, only a pretext was needed for the explosion. But the Polish troops stationed on Ukrainian lands are still holding back popular anger. The only form of protest that the Russian people allowed themselves in this decade was their mass departure to Moscow lands, as a result of which the so-called Sloboda (free) Ukraine was formed, stretching across the expanses from Akhtyrka to Ostrogozhsk, in the Voronezh region.

Paradoxically, the reason for the uprising was given by the Polish king Vladislav himself, who, by the way, highly appreciated the fighting qualities of the Ukrainian Cossacks. The fact is that the king was burdened by his own lack of rights and irritated by the self-will of the Sejm. Vladislav's "blue dream" was to strengthen royal power, which, in his opinion, could only be achieved through real services to the Commonwealth. And what could be more prestigious, more uplifting than a victorious war, especially a victory over Turkey, before which all of Europe trembled? A suggestion also came up. In 1645, driven to despair, Venice turned to European monarchs, including the Polish king, with a proposal to create an anti-Turkish coalition. The proposal was supported by a large cash subsidy, which was very useful for Vladislav, who was limited in funds. Wanting to keep his intentions secret from the Sejm, he invited four Cossack foremen to a secret meeting - Barabash, Karaimovich, Nesterenko and Khmelnitsky. The meeting took place at the end of April 1646 in the presence of Chancellor Ossolinsky. After making sure that the Cossacks shared his plans, the king gave them a letter, which said that - in view of the imminent war with the Turks and their allies, the Crimean Tatars - the Zaporozhye Cossacks were allowed to build sea canoes, and the number of registered Cossack troops increased to 20 thousand people . For initial expenses, the foremen received 6,000 thalers, and in the future they were promised another 60,000. Chancellor Ossolinsky had no less important work to do to strengthen the regular Polish army.

But you can't hide an awl in a bag. A terrible scandal erupted. In the same year, 1646, the Sejm imposed a ban on any increase in the Polish army, and in the next year, he transferred to himself the right to determine the number of registered Cossacks. Barabash and Karaimovich obeyed this decision, which cannot be said about Khmelnitsky. As his contemporaries describe, Bogdan fraudulently managed to steal the royal charter from Barabash and familiarize his associates with it. From that moment on, he was persecuted both by the Cossack foremen and by the Polish authorities. The entire campaign was headed by the assistant to the head of Chigirin, the Polish gentry Chaplinsky. The case ended with the ten-year-old son of Khmelnitsky being beaten to death with whips, his unmarried wife stolen, and the farm he inherited confiscated. The victim did not find protection for his rights either at the Chigirinsky court or at the Warsaw one. The king, to whom he turned, signing his own impotence, allegedly replied: “The time has come for you (Cossacks. - Yu.F.) remember that you are warriors and you have sabers.” To top it all, Bogdan was arrested upon his return from Warsaw, but in December 1647 he managed to escape to the Zaporizhian Sich, where he was immediately proclaimed hetman.

While the Cossacks were gathering strength and strengthening their camp, preparing for all sorts of surprises, Khmelnitsky made a trip to the Crimean Khan Islam Giray, whom he was able to convince with the help of a stolen royal letter of the aggressive intentions of the Polish authorities against him. Khan agreed to support the Cossacks, gave them Murza Perekop Tugay-Bey to help them, keeping Timothy, the hetman's eldest son, as a hostage.

The Crown Hetman Nikolai Pototsky, having received information about the active preparations of the Cossacks, established his headquarters in Chyhyryn and began to prepare to suppress the rebellion. In order to prevent it from flaring up to menacing proportions, he sent two detachments towards the advancing rebels. At the head of the first, he put his son Stefan and the commissar of the registered Cossacks Shemberg. At their disposal were one and a half thousand Polish soldiers and half of the mobilized Cossacks, two - two and a half thousand people. The head of the second, consisting of the other half of the Cossacks and a few foreign mercenaries, was appointed Colonel Krichevsky and the Yesauls Barabash and Karaimovich already known to us. Stefan Pototsky and Shemberg moved by land, and Krichevsky - along the Dnieper, on ships. In the area of ​​​​Kamenny Zaton, a little higher than the Kodak fortress, the Cossacks were met by envoys from Khmelnitsky. Krichevsky immediately joined them. Foreign mercenaries and captains who refused to follow the example of the colonel were killed. Upon learning of what had happened, the Cossacks, who were moving with Potocki, left the Poles and went to unite with the Cossacks, who already numbered about three thousand people, and the Crimean Tatars (five hundred people).

Stefan Potocki, having lost the lion's share of his army, decided to retreat, but he could no longer go far. In the area of ​​Zhovti Vody, it was blocked by numerous detachments of Cossacks and rebellious peasants, who, during a two-day battle, on May 5-6, 1648, defeated the Polish detachment. Potocki himself was mortally wounded in this battle. The surviving Poles were captured by the Crimean Tatars.

A mortal threat hung over the main forces of Hetmans Mykola Pototsky and Kalinovsky - 6,000 men. Retreating, they gave their soldiers "for flow and plunder" the city of Korsun, whose inhabitants sympathized with Bogdan Khmelnitsky. These barbaric actions inflamed the rebellious Ukrainian people even more. In the Polish camp, surrounded on all sides, panic began, people began to scatter. In this confusion, some managed to escape, but the vast majority of the Poles were killed or taken prisoner. The fate of the Tatar prisoner awaited Potocki himself on May 16.

The military defeat was aggravated by another misfortune: King Vladislav died quite unexpectedly. Poland, suddenly found itself without a king and without an army, could become an easy prey for Bogdan Khmelnitsky, but he, having reached the White Church, suddenly stopped. What would that mean? The researchers suggest that several factors played a role here. Firstly, Khmelnitsky, apparently, did not expect such a success himself. Secondly, he did not need a free and independent Ukraine, for him it was all the same under whom he was: under the Polish king or under the Moscow tsar. Thirdly, brought up on personal revenge, Khmelnytsky sought from the Polish authorities only a better lot for the Ukrainian gentry and an increase in the number of registered Cossacks. He wanted the revival of the Orthodox Church, the elimination of the arbitrariness of the pans and Jewish dominance, but within the framework of the Commonwealth. He wrote about this to Warsaw. His message, as it were, to the living king Vladislav ended with the following words: “Who is the reason for this (meaning the reason for his uprising. - Yu.F.), God himself will judge, and we are ready to sacrifice our lives for the republic. Then we humbly ask your royal mercy to grant us paternal mercy, and, having forgiven an involuntary sin, order us to leave us with ancient rights and privileges. At the same time, Khmelnitsky turned to the Moscow Tsar, but this appeal should not be considered as a request for Ukraine to join the Muscovite kingdom, but as an offer of his assistance to Alexei Mikhailovich in mastering the Polish throne and creating under his command a united Russian-Polish-Lithuanian-Ukrainian of the state: “We would like for ourselves an autocrat of a sovereign in our land, like your royal nobility, the Orthodox Christian Tsar. If your royal majesty would immediately go to the state then (to Poland. - Yu.F.) have come, then we, with the entire Zaporizhzhya Army, are ready to serve your royal magnificence. Khmelnytsky was not an "affectionate calf" who, thanks to his courtesy, could suckle two queens. No, he was the leader of the anarchist Cossacks, who did not stop at blackmailing both monarchies, threatening them with war and ready to take the side of the one that would give the most.

And while Khmelnytsky was playing this game, a nationwide uprising engulfed the whole of Ukraine. The Cossack regiments disbanded in the regions and the rebel peasants everywhere plundered and destroyed almost all the estates of the Polish gentry on Ukrainian soil, and their owners, if not killed in the most cruel way, then expelled across the Dnieper. The Ukrainians were especially furious with regard to the Jews. In the captured towns and cities, they were first invited to accept Christianity. The Jews who agreed to these conditions were spared their lives and part of their property: if they persisted, then their fate was terrible. Women, old people, children became victims of the people's elements. The total number of victims of Jewish pogroms, according to contemporaries, reached one hundred thousand people.

Frightened by the scope of the anti-Polish actions, the Seim, headed by Chancellor Ossolinsky, was forced to enter into negotiations with Bogdan Khmelnitsky, who, as a sign of his peaceful intentions, left the White Church and returned to Chigirin. On the Polish side, the governor of Braslav Adam Kisel, an Orthodox Polish nobleman of Russian origin, acted as a negotiator. The Poles had to buy the time they needed to gather their strength themselves and, with the help of diplomatic maneuvers, try to deprive the Cossacks of external support from Constantinople, the Crimea and Moscow.

Khmelnitsky also needed a break. The fact is that as an ally in this war, as we know, he attracted the Crimean Khan. As the success of the Ukrainian uprising developed, the Tatar auxiliary army increased from 500 people to several tens of thousands, and military assistance against the crown troops turned into the most common raid, the victims of which, oddly enough, were tens of thousands of Ukrainian peasants and philistines. All this was blamed on the hetman, and he had to solve a rather difficult task: how, without quarreling with the Crimean khan, to stop the robbery of the Ukrainian population by selfish Tatar warriors.

However, in Poland, in addition to Ossolinsky and his moderate supporters, there was also a group of magnates who did not want to put up with the loss of their possessions and the self-will of serfs. They were united around themselves by the Russian prince Jeremiah Vishnevetsky, who betrayed the faith of his fathers and, as is often the case with new converts, became a militant Catholic and an ardent enemy of the schismatics. Leaving the Left Bank, he went to Podolia to burn in the fire, drown in blood and crush the uprising that was growing there with fear. The rebels captured by him were brutally tortured and only then put to death. "Torture them in such a way," demanded the apostate, "that they feel that they are dying." The actions of the irreconcilable pans forced Khmelnytsky, without interrupting the negotiation process with the Poles, to move west to help the insurgent population, but he was ahead of Colonel Krivonos, who inflicted a number of defeats on Vyshnevetsky's gentry detachments and forced him to retreat to Volhynia. But the Poles had already come to their senses by that time and realized that they were able not only to defend themselves, but also, attacking, to win. Among them were those who presumptuously declared: “It is not worth wasting bullets against such a bastard; we will disperse them with whips across the field.

Be that as it may, but by the end of the summer they had gathered a 36,000-strong army, more like a giant pleasure picnic than a military camp. It seemed that people had gathered here not to fight, but to indulge in endless feasts, to demonstrate the art of their cooks, to become their horses, the magnificence of their outfits, weapons and jewelry. To this luxurious Polish camp, located on the banks of a small river Pilyavka, in Northern Podolia, Khmelnitsky approached with his main forces. The sight of a large army, and even more so, the neglected disinformation about the imminent approach of the 40,000th auxiliary Tatar detachment, inspired such fear in the hearts of the arrogant gentry that on the night of September 21 they began to leave the camp en masse, and with the first shots at dawn, their departure turned into in a stampede. “The winners,” says N.I. Kostomarov, “got one hundred and twenty thousand wagons with horses; banners, shields, helmets, silver utensils, sable coats, Persian fabrics, washstands, beds, food, sweets - everything was in disarray; there was so much wine and vodka that, with ordinary use, they would have been for the entire army for a month ... "

Some authors are perplexed: why didn't Khmelnytsky build on his success, why didn't he go straight to Warsaw and force the Poles to accept his conditions for a future allied Polish-Ukrainian state or for the creation of a completely independent Ukrainian state? Why, burdened with booty, he went to Galicia to receive another indemnity from the Ukrainian city of Lvov, and did not go to the estates of his, as he said, blood enemies Vyshnevetsky and Konetspolsky? And besides, he undertook the campaign itself at the end of October to the primordially Polish lands, not on his own initiative, but under pressure from the Cossack masses. Yes, and the siege of Zamość until mid-November, for some reason, was carried out without much enthusiasm. And the hetman became painfully suspiciously complaisant after the election of the brother of the deceased Vladislav, Jan-Kazimir, to the royal throne. For some reason, Khmelnitsky was satisfied with this choice of the Sejm, despite the fact that the new king had once been a member of the Jesuit order and had a cardinal's cap from the Pope himself.

Is it because, as N.I. Kostomarov claimed in his time, that he was neither born nor prepared for such a great feat. Having started the uprising in extremes, saving his own life and avenging his property, he unexpectedly found himself at the head of a general uprising, but he could not take advantage of the opportunities that presented him and lead the cause of the liberation of the people in the way fate indicated to him and as the people themselves intuitively felt. Hence the mistakes he made, which influenced the entire subsequent course of the tragic history of the Ukrainian people.

Having received a personal message from the king, and with it the hetman's mace and banner, Khmelnitsky lifted the siege of Zamosc and returned to Ukraine with all his army. On the eve of Christmas, he entered Kyiv to the sound of church bells. He was given a triumphant reception by the population, the Orthodox clergy, Metropolitan Sylvester Kozlov of Kyiv and Patriarch Paisios of Jerusalem, who had arrived the day before.

In Ukraine, a de facto independent state was formed, to the ruler of which foreign ambassadors frequented, not at all embarrassed that de jure this territory still belonged to the Polish crown. With an offer of friendship, the ambassadors of Moldavia and Wallachia arrived; an alliance against Poland was proposed by the Turkish vizier and the Se-migrad prince. Secret negotiations were conducted with the head of the Protestant Party of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. February 1649 turned out to be very eventful with important events, during which a treaty of friendship was signed with the Ottoman Empire, negotiations were resumed with representatives of the Polish crown, and a delegation was sent to Moscow with a request to provide military assistance in the event of a resumption of war with Poland. But, asking for help from Moscow, Khmelnitsky held a “stone in his bosom” against her, providing shelter to another impostor, who was called the grandson of Tsar Vasily Shuisky. He did not receive help from Moscow this time either, since she herself was unsatisfied with the peasant unrest caused by the final enslavement of the peasants in accordance with the just adopted Council Code. With the Poles, however, it was possible to conclude a truce until June, which made it possible for both sides to prepare for an inevitable war.

The masks were thrown off when, in April, the king's special envoy to the hetman's camp, Yakob Smyarovsky, was accused of conspiring to assassinate Khmelnytsky and executed. In response to this, the king issued a decree on general mobilization, Vyshnevetsky called the pans from neighboring possessions to the gentry militia under his command, and Radziwill began to prepare the Lithuanian army for a campaign against Kyiv. Khmelnytsky, for his part, issued a universal to the Ukrainian people with a call to rise in the struggle against Poland: "Let everyone, whether he be a peasant or a Cossack, join the Cossack army."

Except for the defeat of the corps of Colonel Krichevsky from the Lithuanians of Radziwill, luck accompanied Khmelnitsky. At the end of June, the Cossacks and Crimean Tatars managed to block the advanced units of the Polish army in the Zbarazh region in South Volhynia. Having learned about the plight of this army group, the king with his main forces came to her rescue. However, Khmelnitsky and the Crimean Khan Islam Giray intercepted him near Zborov in the northwestern part of Galicia. The position of the king, surrounded by superior enemy forces, was hopeless. But this time he was also rescued by the Polish chancellor Ossolinsky, who offered the Crimean Khan to become an intermediary between the Poles and the Cossacks on such conditions that he could not refuse: 200 thousand zlotys at a time and 90 thousand annually in the form of gifts.

With incredible haste, the so-called Zborowski Polish-Ukrainian Treaty was prepared and signed on August 9. According to this agreement, the number of registered Cossacks increased to 40 thousand. At their disposal, they received three provinces - Kiev, Braslav and Chernigov. The city of Chigirin became the capital of the Cossack autonomy, in which the former liberties and privileges were restored. Jews and Jesuits were not allowed to live on the Cossack lands, as well as to station Polish troops. The autonomy retained the presence of representatives of the royal administration, but with the condition that they be elected from among the Orthodox local aristocrats. And most importantly: the Metropolitan of Kyiv received the right to represent in the Polish Senate on a par with the Catholic hierarchs, and the Uniate Church was promised to be liquidated by escheat.

As for the position of the peasants, it remained unchanged. Those of them who were not lucky enough to get into the Cossack register were to return to the royal or private possessions to which they were assigned before the war, and fulfill their former duties. This, of course, gave rise to the question: “What did you fight for?” - and provoked new peasant uprisings, which manifested themselves both in the mass flight of serfs over the thresholds or to the Moscow kingdom, and in new bloody clashes with the Polish lords and wealthy registered Cossacks who participated in the suppression of their spontaneous uprisings. The entire Cossack foreman and the majority of the Ukrainian Orthodox clergy, who were quite satisfied with such a distribution of social roles within the framework of the Polish state, came out on the side of the Zboriv Treaty. After all, if all Ukrainian peasants, they declared, become Cossacks, exempted from paying any kind of taxes, then at the expense of whom will they all exist? The complexity of the situation was aggravated by the behavior of the Polish lords, who, upon returning to their estates, began to severely punish their peasants, subjecting them to torture, abuse and painful death. Khmelnytsky did not help the peasants either, urging the peasants to obey their masters, for which in certain circles he was recognized as a traitor to the people's cause and even formally removed from the hetman's post for some time.

Feeling the inevitability of a break with Poland, unsure of his abilities, Bogdan Khmelnitsky rushed about in search of a strategic patron. The Crimean Tatars turned out to be excessively mercenary and unreliable allies, and therefore the hetman alternately cast his eyes either on Lithuania or on the Danubian Orthodox ersatz states - Moldavia, Wallachia, Transylvania. But this is for the future, and in 1650 he needed powerful and urgent military support, so he was simultaneously negotiating with both Moscow and Turkey.

Khmelnitsky's insincere behavior and his inconstancy kept Alexei Mikhailovich, who was also preoccupied with the Pskov and Novgorod unrest, from hasty actions against Poland. Therefore, it is not surprising that the changeable and somewhere capricious Khmelnitsky in April 1650 “suddenly” turned to the Sultan with a request to take the Zaporizhzhya army under his protection, thereby recognizing his vassal dependence on the Ottoman Empire. The request was accepted with favor, and the protectorate of Turkey over the Cossack army was secured in February - March of the following year by a corresponding letter from the Sultan. This step can be viewed in different ways: as a sincere and voluntary desire of Khmelnytsky to become a junior partner of Turkey, and therefore a potential adversary of Moscow, which, fortunately, did not happen; or as an incentive for the same Moscow to take more active actions against Poland, which actually happened.

But while Khmelnitsky, taking advantage of a kind of truce with Poland and distracting the Tatars from the raid on Moscow lands, decided to try his military fortune in Moldova, and at the same time marry his son Timothy to the daughter of the local ruler Lupul. Thus, he wanted to become related both with the ruler and with the Lithuanian hetman Radziwill, who was married to his other daughter. The trip was a success. Tatars plundered the country. Iasi, the capital of Moldova, was robbed by the Krymchaks along with the Cossacks, and Lupul had no choice but to pay a large indemnity to the Tatars, conclude an alliance with the Cossacks and agree to the marriage of his daughter Roksanda with Timofey Khmelnitsky.

Enraged by the Moldavian campaign of the Cossacks, the Poles, who considered Lupul their vassal, incited by Nikolai Pototsky, who returned from Tatar captivity, and the apostate Jeremiah Vishnevetsky, held at the December 1650 Sejm a decision on the general mobilization of the Polish and Lithuanian armies. And in February 1651, with the support of German mercenaries, having defeated the Braslav Cossack regiment in battle, they already brought the inhabitants of the Braslav region into obedience. This failure was followed by a series of others. The most significant of them was the tragedy near Volyn Berestechko, where in June of the same year the Polish army, on the one hand, and the Cossacks with the Tatars, on the other, met. The opposing forces were approximately equal, and therefore, only one of them, which would show the maximum of heroism and selflessness, could win. But, as you know, the Tatars have always been lovers of easy money, and therefore, not wanting to get involved in a bloody battle, they left the battlefield, taking with them the leadership of an almost sovereign Ukrainian state - Hetman Khmelnitsky and military clerk Vyhovsky as half-hostages, half-prisoners.

The Cossack army that remained on the battlefield with Colonel Bohun, although it offered stubborn resistance, was forced to retreat under the blows of superior enemy forces, while suffering huge losses in manpower. On top of all the Cossack misfortunes, the Lithuanian army of Radziwill on June 25 captured Kyiv on the move. It seemed that the final defeat of Khmelnitsky was only a matter of a few weeks, but there was no one and no one to win. Both sides were drained of blood, the armies were disorganized, and the number of those wishing to go to their death again was catastrophically reduced. There was only one way left - negotiations, which ended on September 18 with the signing of a new peace treaty in Bila Tserkva. The agreement provided for the preservation of the autonomy of the Cossack army, reduced to twenty thousand and limited to the territory of the Kyiv province.

But the world was not destined to come to the tormented Ukrainian land. The January 1652 session of the Polish Sejm refused to ratify the Treaty of Bila Tserkva, in connection with which Poland and Ukraine entered a new period of a precarious state of "no war, no peace." Under these conditions, Bogdan Khmelnitsky again swayed towards Moscow, but the negotiations of his proxies with the tsar and the patriarch ended only with the promise of the latter to provide new lands for the resettlement of Cossacks and peasants arriving from Ukraine with tax exemptions if they assist government troops in repelling the Tatar raids.

Having failed on one front and with one supposed ally, Khmelnytsky swung to another ally, albeit already betraying him, to try his luck on another front. The hetman, as once Prince Svyatoslav, did not leave the desire to gain a foothold in the Danube region. And for this it was necessary to take the first step - to implement the previously reached agreement with the Moldavian ruler on the marriage of their children. Knowing that the Poles would prevent this marriage, Khmelnitsky persuaded the Crimean Khan to take part in a new campaign against Moldova. On May 22, in the area of ​​Kamenetz-Podolsk, the combined forces of the Cossacks and Crimean Tatars defeated the strong Polish army of Hetman Kalinovsky, who blocked their path. During the battle, the Polish commander also died. This victory allowed Khmelnitsky to establish a protectorate over Moldavia, marry his son and, leaving him there as either a co-ruler or his governor, return to Ukraine.

The ease of the victory turned the head of the ambitious hetman. It suddenly seemed to him that he was able to fulfill the recommendation of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Paisius, to create an alliance of all Greek Orthodox powers, and began a risky game to establish his influence on Wallachia, but overestimated his capabilities. With the combined efforts of Wallachia, Transylvania and Polish volunteers, the Moldavian ruler Lupul was removed from power, and Timothy Khmelnitsky was mortally wounded in one of the battles.

Khmelnytsky's Danubian adventure ended in complete failure, but the hetman did not want to put up with it. In September 1653 he led a new campaign to the west. This time, in addition to the Crimean Tatars, he was accompanied by a large detachment of Don Cossacks. In the Zhvanets region, on the border of the Braslav Voivodeship and Moldavia, he was blocked by a fairly strong royal army sent by Jan Casimir to restore Polish influence in this region. The Poles were once again at a disadvantage. Being surrounded, they were in dire need of food, fodder and ammunition. Diseases began, and with them a decline in morale. Last year's tragedy of Kalinovsky could be repeated with even more serious consequences.

But then the warring parties received information that dramatically changed the military-political situation in Eastern Europe as a whole. It turns out that secret negotiations with Moscow on providing assistance to the Cossacks went on as usual, and finally, on October 1, 1653, they ended successfully. The Zemsky Sobor, specially convened for this purpose, voted for the acceptance of Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the entire Zaporizhian Cossack army "with cities and lands" under the patronage of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. The Tatars and Poles, who saw this decision as a threat to their interests, immediately stopped hostilities and entered into negotiations, which ended on December 5 with the signing of an appropriate agreement, according to which the Tatars were paid compensation in the amount of one hundred thousand zlotys. In addition, it was not forbidden for them, when going home through Ukraine, to take a certain number of Polonyaniki for themselves. The king announced his readiness to renew the Zborovsky treaty in relation to the Cossacks, but the time for such compromises had already passed.

And on December 31, the Great Moscow Embassy, ​​consisting of the boyar Vasily Buturlin, the roundabout Ivan Alferov and the deacon Larion Lopukhin, approached Pereyaslavl. Five kilometers from the city, he was greeted by Colonel Pavel Teterya at the head of six hundred Cossacks, and at the city gates the royal envoys were already met by the Pereyaslav Bishop Gregory, the clergy and almost the entire population of the city. General rejoicing from the reunification of Little Russia with Great Russia flooded the city streets. Bogdan Khmelnitsky, who arrived in Pereyaslavl on January 7, 1654, at his first meeting with Buturlin, assessed the events as follows: Kyiv and all of Little Russia are his royal majesty's fiefdom.

The next day, January 8, a general meeting (raid) of citizens and delegates from other cities took place on the central square. The meaning of Khmelnytsky’s speech to the audience boiled down to the fact that the six-year practice of Ukrainian life without a sovereign had shown all its inconsistency and that now it was necessary to choose whose offer of patronage to accept: whether the Turkish sultan, the Crimean khan, the king of Poland, or the “great sovereign, eastern king” . He immediately dismissed the first two - Muslims, the third did not fit because of the numerous "untruths" from the Polish nobles. There was a fourth - native by blood and religion "Eastern Orthodox Tsar", for whom those present voted unanimously. “And those who do not agree with us, let them go wherever they want,” the hetman said. But at first there were none.

On the same day, Khmelnytsky and the entire foreman took an oath of allegiance to the tsar, and in response, Buturlin handed over to the hetman the symbols of his power - a mace and a banner, endowing his closest assistants and Cossack colonels with generous royal gifts along the way. The next day, junior officers, Cossacks and townspeople took the oath, and a few days later the members of the great Moscow embassy dispersed for this purpose to all Ukrainian cities and villages subject to Khmelnitsky. This event took place everywhere in an atmosphere of popular enthusiasm from the consciousness that the end of pan and Jewish dominance had come, and in anticipation of a cloudless future at the hand of a fellow-faith tsar.

Everywhere - but not in Kyiv. There, the opponent of reunification, although not clearly expressed, was the highest church hierarchy, headed by Metropolitan Sylvester of Kyiv. The fact is that for almost two centuries the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was separated from the Moscow one and was under the control of the weak and semi-poor Patriarch of Constantinople, financially dependent on his Ukrainian flock, to whom he periodically turned for help for church needs. In this regard, the Kyiv Metropolis, which felt almost independent in solving its internal church problems, saw in the ongoing reunification of fraternal peoples under the rule of a single sovereign a threat to its independence. There was a whole range of objective and subjective reasons, but one of them was on the surface and was very actively manipulated by the Ukrainian hierarchs - this is the lower educational level of Moscow churchmen, to which the enlightened clergy of Western Russia did not want to obey. For him, this would be a step back, as they said, into barbarism. One way or another, the metropolitan's resistance was overcome and he blessed his flock to take the oath to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.

In March 1654, the final stage of the unification process took place in Moscow in a benevolent atmosphere. The Cossacks, represented by the chief judge of the Zaporizhzhya army Zarudny and Colonel Teteri of Pereyaslavl, defended their demands and conditions for Ukraine's accession to Russia before a special committee of the Boyar Duma, which included Alexei Trubetskoy, Vasily Buturlin, Petr Golovin and Almaz Ivanov. Within two weeks, they were agreed upon and consolidated by a royal decree called "Eleven Articles", as well as a number of "commended letters", the meaning of which was briefly as follows:

Ukraine recognized the supreme power of the Muscovite tsar, retaining the right to maintain a 60,000-strong Zaporizhzhya army led by a hetman, to whom Chigirin and its environs were given to “feed”;

Bogdan Khmelnytsky was approved as hetman for life. He should be succeeded by the one whom the Zaporizhian army chooses after his death;

The hetman was granted the right to exchange embassies with foreign countries, with the exception of Turkey and Poland;

The metropolitan and the clergy, as well as the Ukrainian gentry, retained their traditional rights and privileges;

Residents of cities were given the right to elect municipal authorities;

The Zaporizhian army was confirmed their former rights and freedoms, including the inviolability of Cossack land; independence of the Cossack courts; annual salary to each Cossack at the expense of income collected in Ukraine;

The tsar took upon himself the obligation to maintain at his own expense the garrison in the Kodak fortress and the Zaporizhzhya Cossack military brotherhood (kosh).

The only estate that neither the hetman nor his envoys cared about, and about whose rights there is not a word in the signed documents, were the peasants. They got the same responsibilities. But the military foreman took care of himself in abundance. After the former royal lands in Ukraine went into the tsar's treasury, the hetman asked for the city of Gadyach with income from it, Colonel Teterya - the city of Smela. Judge Zarudny also received similar income. Looking at them, other senior officers bombarded the tsar with their petitions for land grants, most of which, oddly enough, were satisfied: Alexei Mikhailovich's heart was painfully warmed by his new title - "Autocrat of All Great and Small Russia."

The war with Poland was becoming inevitable, but how to violate the 1634 Polyanovsky agreement on "eternal peace"? It turns out that you could do that if you wanted to. I also found a reason. They recalled the old grievances inflicted by the Polish people by belittling the title of the Tsar of Moscow, and most of all - by the “obnoxious books” published in Poland, which printed “a lot of dishonor and reproach to the father of the great sovereign, Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich himself, boyars and all sorts of ranks to people , which, according to the eternal end and embassy agreements, is not only to be printed, and it is impossible to think, from God to sin and from people to shame. Therefore, the Polish side was presented with ultimatum demands: “If the king wants to keep the peace, then for such a dishonor to the great sovereigns, let him give up those cities that were given by Tsar Michael to King Vladislav, let him execute the death of Hetman Vyshnevetsky and all the ranks of people who wrote without warning the sovereign honor, and for the dishonor of the boyars and all sorts of ranks of people, let them pay 500,000 gold chervonny.

The claims, of course, were far-fetched, the demands were impossible to fulfill, and the likelihood of war was inevitable. The breakaway of Ukraine from Poland and its subsequent annexation to Russia was a de facto declaration of war.

Zarudny and Teterya were still negotiating with the Moscow boyars, and the movement of Russian troops to the western border had already begun. Boyar Dalmatov-Karpov advanced to Vyazma, Prince Alexei Trubetskoy advanced to Bryansk, and on May 18 the main forces of the Russian army headed towards Smolensk, headed by 25-year-old Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, moved towards Smolensk. The tsar sent the boyar Vasily Sheremetev to Belgorod to protect the southern borders from the Crimean Khan and the Nogai hordes, and instructed the Don Cossacks to disturb the Crimean possessions in order to distract the Tatars from active operations in the north.

Before entering the Belarusian land, “the mother of our holy eastern church to the sons”, on behalf of the tsar, letters were sent urging them to arm themselves against the Poles and assist the advancing Russian troops. This call found a lively response from the population, and the first Russian victories were achieved solely thanks to the popular enthusiasm. Dorogobuzh, Nevel, Belaya, Polotsk, Roslavl, Mstislavl surrendered without a fight. Saddened only three times unlucky for the Russian Orsha, where in the night battle the Moscow troops suffered another defeat. But this failure could no longer stop the victorious march of the tsarist troops across Belarus. Cities surrendered one after another: Disna, Druya, Orsha, Glubokoy, Gomel, Mogilev, Chechersk, Novy Bykhov, Propoisk, and finally Smolensk, after three months of siege, surrendered to the mercy of the winner. And the mercy and in fact was shown extraordinary. Even ardent opponents of the Moscow authorities, after the occupation of cities and estates, were freely released, which further increased the number of Moscow well-wishers.

But if in Belarus things were going as successfully as possible for the Russians, then in Ukraine Bogdan Khmelnitsky, who had gathered a 100,000th army, was inactive. He was inactive even when Hetman Potocki and Stefan Chernetsky carried out the most severe punitive action against the Ukrainian population of the Braslav region. According to Potocki himself, during this campaign he burned fifty Ukrainian cities and a thousand churches, killed one hundred thousand people, and another three hundred thousand ended up in the Crimean slave markets. Only in January 1655 Khmelnytsky opposed the Polish army and in a four-day battle at Akhmatovo stopped its further advance.

Revealed in Ukraine and the first betrayal. The tsar became aware of the secret relations of the Metropolitan of Kyiv Sylvester with the Polish king, whom he called to war with the “Moscow people”.

Not all was well in relations between the Belarusian Cossacks of Colonel Poklonsky and the Ukrainian Cossack detachment of Colonel Zolotarenko, who did not divide Mogilev and Mogilev district. Both one and the other were not unnecessarily burdened with moral deterrents in relations with the local population. Both of them did not hesitate to rob civilians, take away their crops, livestock, fodder and meager savings. In satisfying their material needs, they did not stop at the forcible seizure of provisions intended for the Moscow troops. Things got to the point that the tsar was forced to send to protect the peasants and philistines from the Cossack lawlessness "the governor Alferyev, and the soldier's ranks of a colonel with a regiment, and two streltsy heads with orders" with three hundred pounds of gunpowder and lead.

The outgoing year 1654 was marked by a terrible disaster for the Moscow kingdom. As if in punishment for violating the treaty of "perpetual peace" with Poland, a pestilence fell upon the inner Great Russian regions, claiming many lives. Here are just a few figures that testify to the extent of the tragedy: only 15 courtyards remained for the three Kremlin palaces; “182 monks died in the Chudov Monastery, 26 remained alive; in Voznesensky, 90 nuns died, 38 remained. In the boyar courts: 343 people died at Boris Morozov, 19 remained; at Prince Alexei Nikitich Trubetskoy, 270 died, 8 remained; 295 died at Prince Odoevsky, 15 remained; Streshnev had one boy alive from all the household ... "And so - in all the cities and villages of the Moscow region and the Upper Volga, which lost from 20 to 80 percent of their population.

The next year, 1655, was marked by some cooling of the Belarusian population in relation to the Moscow authorities due to the fact that some of the Russian military people were not liberated from Polish oppression, but even more suffering, robbing, raping and killing civilians. There were recorded non-isolated cases of transition to the side of the Poles and Lithuanians in Lyubovitsy, Orsha, Smolensk, Ozerishchi, Mogilev. In order to prevent such behavior on the part of his troops, Alexei Mikhailovich was forced to introduce the death penalty for marauders and rapists. And yet, in this theater of operations, the Russians continued to be successful. Despite the betrayal of the Belarusian colonel Poklonsky, the Lithuanian hetman Radziwill failed to capture Mogilev. The entry of the Swedes into the war put an end to the organized resistance of the Polish troops. On July 3, the boyar Fyodor Khvorostinin took Minsk, and on July 31, Prince Yakov Cherkassky and Colonel Zolotarenko captured the capital of Lithuania, Vilna. The news about the capture of Kovno came to the tsar on August 9, and about the capture of Grodno - on August 29.

Even greater successes in the war against Jan Casimir were achieved by the Swedish king Charles X, who entered the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian state in June 1655 with a 40,000-strong army. He didn't even have to fight. The Polish aristocracy, and behind it the noble militia, recognized Charles X as their king on July 29; two weeks later, at the suggestion of the all-powerful Lithuanian magnates Janusz and Boguslav Radziwill, all Lithuania swore allegiance. In four months, almost the entire Commonwealth was under the rule of the enemy. The Polish king had no choice but to flee the country. A lively correspondence began between Charles X, Khmelnitsky and the Transylvanian prince George Rakoczy, with the aim of creating a military alliance and partitioning Poland, which, if successful, could bring great benefits to Ukraine.

But not everything was in their hands. The Swedes, who did not know how to restrain themselves in robberies, awakened the patriotic feelings of the Poles. Partisan detachments began to be created, pockets of resistance appeared, and after several successful operations against the invaders, a real people's war broke out in Poland. In order to consolidate success and enlist even greater support from the population, Jan Casimir openly admitted in April 1656 that all the disasters of Poland were punishment for "tears and lies to the peasants." He swore an oath to improve their situation, curb the willfulness of the nobility and strengthen the executive power of the king. And although these promises remained promises, nevertheless, the expulsion of the Swedes from the country continued, since by this time Russia, under the influence of the “Caesar” ambassadors Allegretti and Lorbach, who had been in Moscow since October 1655, suspended its offensive operations. On the one hand, Alexei Mikhailovich was frightened by the possibility of an excessive strengthening of the Swedes on the Baltic coast, and on the other hand, he was attracted by the idea of ​​becoming the king of Poland himself. The latter, presumably, was the main reason for the cessation of hostilities and the start of negotiations.

And on May 17, Russia, which considered it extremely important for itself to have free access to the Baltic Sea, not without instigation from outside, made a fatal mistake by declaring war on Sweden. At first, the Russian troops were lucky: Dinaburg and Kokenhausen (the ancient Russian city of Kukeynos) were easily taken, but Riga, which was besieged by the tsar himself from August to October 1656, was never conquered. The Swedish fleet, which dominated the sea, supplied the besieged with everything necessary, including manpower.

Negotiations with Poland, which took place in the vicinity of Vilna, ended on October 24 with the signing of an agreement under which Tsar Alexei, provided that he continued the war with Sweden, was recognized as the heir to the childless Jan Casimir on the Polish throne and left Vilna with Belarus. Ukraine was not mentioned in the agreement. But you need to know the Polish rules: this agreement, until approved by the Sejm, remained a worthless piece of paper, which subsequent events confirmed. Bohdan Khmelnytsky, a graduate of the Jesuit school and himself a bit of a Jesuit, knew better than the “Muscovites” the perfidious principles of the domestic and foreign policy of Polish society, and therefore presented the signed agreement to the Cossack foreman as a stab in the back to the Ukrainian people, who supposedly had to again fall under the rule of the pans and "Jews".

Pursuing his policy, the hetman entered into an agreement with the Transylvanian prince Rakoczi, whom the Swedish king agreed to recognize as the king of Poland, and in defiance of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich assigned him a 12,000-strong Cossack corps to participate in the campaign against Warsaw. In March 1657, their forces joined near Lvov, whose inhabitants refused to surrender. Then, having devastated the outskirts of the city, the united troops continued their movement towards Krakow, which, unlike Lviv, recognized Rakoczy's authority over itself, and the Swedish garrison stationed there left its suburbs. In April, the multi-tribal army of the Transylvanian prince and the Cossack corps united with the Swedish regiments. Their target was Warsaw. On June 9, the capital of Poland capitulated, but despite this, it was completely plundered by the victors.

Here Denmark intervened. Not wanting an excessive strengthening of Sweden and fulfilling an allied agreement with Jan Casimir, she entered the war on the side of the Polish king. Under these conditions, Charles X was forced to choose a theater of operations: Poland or Denmark. He chose Denmark and began to withdraw troops there. Rakoczy, who was surrounded by numerous Polish detachments, had to hastily retreat through Volhynia to Podolia in the hope of replenishing his army there. But it turned out the opposite. The Cossacks, who found out that the campaign in Poland was carried out in secret from the king, rebelled and went home in early July, and Rakoczy, surrounded on all sides, had no choice but to capitulate: this happened on July 23. Under the condition of an unhindered exit from the encirclement, he had to renounce his claims to the Polish throne, return the loot and pay one million zlotys to compensate for the damage caused.

The day before, Yuri Khmelnitsky, heading a 20,000-strong expeditionary corps to rescue the Transylvanian prince, also suffered a setback. Ordinary Cossacks refused to fight for interests alien to them and raised an uprising. On July 22, half of their militia went home. But Bohdan Khmelnitsky, exhausted by illness and the royal inquiry into the circumstances of the unauthorized participation of the Cossacks in Polish events, was hardly destined to find out about this - he died on July 27, 1657.

Shortly before this, the hetman, who had popular support, managed to approve at the Rada his sickly sixteen-year-old son Yuri as his successor. But the death of the people's leader changed the balance of power in the Cossack milieu, where against the prevailing opinion among the people about the inviolability of the bonds of the Russian-Ukrainian union, the voices of the Ukrainian foreman, who preferred Polish gentry liberties to the autocratic centralized policy of Moscow, began to sound more and more clearly. Ivan Vyhovsky became the spokesman for these aspirations, having made a dizzying career under Bogdan from a prisoner of war to a military clerk, the head of the executive branch of the Cossack state. First, he became regent under the minor Yuriy, and a month and a half later, against the will of ordinary Cossacks, he became an autocratic hetman. Ukraine split into two parts: one of them - the foreman and the wealthy Cossacks, who supported the pro-Polish policy of Vyhovsky; the other is the ordinary Cossacks, who stood up for an alliance with Moscow and united around the Zaporizhzhya Kosh and its ataman Yakov Barabash.

Having come to power, Vyhovsky thanked his like-minded people with profitable positions and estates, and appeased the vacillating clergy with generous land allotments in favor of the monasteries. But this did not fundamentally affect the alignment of forces in Ukraine: the military and political failure of the hetman was obvious. In this regard, he took frankly unpopular measures. And the first of them appeared in the form of the restoration of allied relations with the Crimean Khanate, while the second was a clumsy attempt to discredit the Ukrainian policy of the Moscow government. A fake document was launched into circulation, in which the future of Ukraine was painted in extremely dark colors. People were intimidated by the fact that Russian garrisons would be stationed in all cities of the Left and Right-Bank Ukraine; that the number of registered Cossacks will be reduced to ten thousand, and the rest of the Cossacks will serve in the dragoon units of the Russian army; that Ukrainian clergy would be moved to Muscovy, and illiterate Russian priests would be sent instead; that Ukrainian peasants will be forbidden to wear woolen caftans and leather shoes, and those who disagree with the new order will be sent to Muscovy and Siberia. Other "horror stories" were also launched.

But for the time being, it was beneficial for Vyhovsky to maintain external loyalty to Alexei Mikhailovich in order to obtain official recognition of hetman's powers from him, on the one hand, and on the other hand, to negotiate the most favorable conditions for surrendering Ukraine under the auspices of the Polish king. Moreover, he wanted to draw Russian troops into an armed struggle with his opponents, but supporters of Moscow - the ataman Barabash and the Poltava colonel Pushkar - in order to finally undermine the trust of the Ukrainians in the Moscow tsar.

The double-dealing policy of Vyhovsky can be seen from an elementary chronological comparison of his foreign policy steps. As soon as the next Pereyaslav Rada and representatives of the Moscow Tsar confirmed his hetman's powers and the newly-made legitimate hetman took the oath to the tsar in February 1658, he signed an allied agreement with the Crimean Khan on March 1 and sent a secret diplomatic mission to Poland to coordinate joint actions against the "Muscovites" and Zaporozhye Cossacks.

The first blow was inflicted in May 1658 on Poltava. Registered Cossacks of Vyhovsky, with the support of European mercenaries and Crimean Tatars, defeated their opponents. During the battle, Pushkar died. The entire male population, taken prisoner, was slaughtered, and women and children were driven away to the full, the city was plundered and burned.

The second blow was directed against another opponent - ataman Barabash. At the insistence of Vygovsky, who continued to play the role of a loyal subject, Alexei Mikhailovich ordered the arrest of the ataman and, under the escort of two hundred Moscow dragoons and Don Cossacks, sent to Kyiv at the disposal of the Moscow governor Sheremetev, in order for him to monitor the impartiality of the Cossack military tribunal. But the hetman decided to dispense with Moscow's participation. On August 24, Cossacks loyal to him attacked the convoy, captured Barabash, and an obedient court immediately condemned the "rebel" to death.

This day - August 24 - can be considered the date when the Ukrainian ruling elite threw off the hypocritical masks of devotion to the Moscow Tsar and loyalty to the union of Ukraine with Russia. The hetman's brother, Danila Vygovsky, was entrusted with a large-scale operation against the Kyiv garrison of Moscow troops. At his disposal were several thousand Cossacks and a detachment of Crimean Tatars. However, Sheremetev, who was warned in advance, managed to prepare for the defense and defeat them in a meeting battle. The attackers were dispersed, Danila fled, and the prisoners testified that they were forcibly led into battle.

But Vyhovsky put the final point in his apostasy by signing the Gadyach agreement of September 6, 1658, according to which Ukraine (Kiev, Braslav, Chernihiv provinces) joined the Polish-Lithuanian union. For life-long hetmanship and autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, for noble ranks (one hundred people for each Cossack regiment) and the privileges associated with them, for rich estates and generous land grants, Vyhovsky's party refused to live in the same state with their Russian brothers. Moreover, she allowed the return of the Polish lords to the Ukrainian lands, agreed to a reduction in the number of registered Cossacks and the presence of a 10,000-strong corps of Polish troops in their cities. The management of Ukraine, previously carried out by popular assemblies (rada, Cossack circle), was replaced by gentry management through chancellors, senators, marshals, treasurers and other officials appointed from among the Ukrainian and Polish gentry.

But Vyhovsky was far from Khmelnitsky. The people did not follow him. Worse, almost the entire Eastern Ukraine rose up against him, to whose aid Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich sent Prince Grigory Romodanovsky with twenty thousand Moscow troops. Ukraine was divided into two parts - the Left Bank and the Right Bank. On the left bank, the treaty on the reunification of Ukraine with Russia was defended by the Kyiv voivode V. B. Sheremetev, Prince G. G. Romodanovsky and the appointed (temporary) hetman of the Left Bank Ivan Bespaly. On the right bank, power belonged to the Poles and Vyhovsky and his associates under the Gadyach agreement.

The possibility of a new war between Muscovy and Poland, which, as usual, forgot about its promise to elect Tsar Alexei as heir to the Polish throne, became an absolute reality, in connection with which the tsarist diplomats, in order to focus on the upcoming war, had to, abandoning all Baltic acquisitions, conclude on December 20 1658 three-year truce with Sweden.

In the meantime, battles with varying success were already going on near Minsk and Vilna, near Poltava and Lokhvitsa. But the shock in Moscow and pro-Moscow circles was caused by the defeat near Konotop of the strong Russian army of Prince A.N. Trubetskoy, which had been unsuccessfully besieging the city for two months. Vyhovsky's Cossacks, Nogai, Crimean and Akkerman Tatars, who came to the rescue of the besieged, lured the Russian cavalry into a trap and completely destroyed it on June 28, 1659. Five thousand people taken prisoner during this battle were also killed. However, the Crimean Khan, who did not want to start a big war with Moscow, having pretty much plundered Ukrainian villages and captivated their inhabitants, calmly retired beyond Perekop.

This victory was not good for the hetman either, the number of his opponents increased every day, and not only on the left bank. Things got to the point that at the parliament in Germanovka he had to resign and flee. As a result, on September 11, the legally incompetent Yuri Khmelnitsky was again elected hetman of the Right Bank, behind whom stood a group of foremen led by Petro Doroshenko, who were relatively loyal to the Moscow tsar.

Prince Trubetskoy managed to lure Khmelnitsky to his place in Pereyaslavl and convince him of the expediency of convening a council in order to elect a single hetman. But if Khmelnytsky's supporters won the election of the hetman of "all" Ukraine, then their proposals to limit Moscow's powers on the territory of Ukraine did not pass. On the contrary, according to additional articles to the Pereyaslav Rada of 1654, they even increased due to the deployment of new garrisons of Moscow troops on both sides of the Dnieper and the restriction of the rights of elders in favor of ordinary Cossacks loyal to the tsar.

It goes without saying that the established situation can hardly be considered stable and reliable: between the “rabble” and the foremen, between the pro-Polish Right Bank and the pro-Moscow Left Bank, such contradictions have emerged that their resolution has dragged on for centuries. But this status quo lasted for some time, at least until it took blood to prove its commitment to the union of the Russian peoples. In August 1660, Sheremetev and Khmelnitsky, in order to strengthen their position on the Right Bank, moved in two separate columns towards Lvov. The upcoming operation could not be kept secret, and the Poles, supported by a 60,000-strong Tatar army, took advantage of this disunity: in the Chudnov region in Volyn, they blockaded Sheremetev's corps. Khmelnytsky, who remained indifferent to the fate of the Russian army, soon entered into negotiations with the Poles and on October 9 signed an agreement on the return of Ukraine to the jurisdiction of the Polish king, but without the rights of autonomy promised by the Gadyach agreement.

Two weeks later, being in a hopeless situation, the Russian troops capitulated. The Poles, leaving the captured army as hostages, demanded the withdrawal of all Moscow military men from Ukraine. However, the tsarist governors did not consider the war lost and therefore refused to comply with these demands. Naturally, in this case, all Russian governors, dragoons and archers automatically moved into the category of prisoners of war. Sheremetev himself was waiting for twenty years of Tatar captivity.

But the Poles and Tatars did not take advantage of this victory either. The expected invasion of the Muscovite kingdom did not take place. There was only the actual consolidation of the demarcation of Ukraine. In November 1660, the Korsun Rada confirmed the hetman's powers of Yuri Khmelnitsky, who immediately swore allegiance to the Polish king, which did not please the Cossacks and the left-bank Cossacks, who remained loyal to the Moscow tsar. They refused to recognize the power of Khmelnytsky and elected their own hetman, Akim Somko. In the next five or six years, none of the warring parties was able to achieve a tangible advantage in their favor. Local victories alternated with defeats. Defeats, in turn, led to the change of hetmans with the categoricalness characteristic of the Cossacks. Khmelnytsky, having resigned power, went to the monastery in January 1663, and Somko, having lost the hetman's elections, was accused of treason and executed in June 1663. Their successors - Pavel Teterya and Ivan Bryukhovetsky - continued the policy of their predecessors with the same result: today one has achieved local success, tomorrow another.

It cannot be said that Moscow's rule of Eastern Ukraine was an absolute boon for its inhabitants. No, everything was there: the arbitrariness of the governor, and looting by Russian soldiers, and abuses in the collection of taxes and taxes, and a host of other “misunderstandings”. There were even armed uprisings against the Moscow order, but such an aversion to foreign domination, as in Western Ukraine, still had to be looked for. Not only did the Polish lords and their Jewish tenants restore the former predatory order, but they also paid with live goods with the Tatars for their participation in the war with the Moscow regiments. “How Mamai passed” - such was the picture of Ukrainian cities and villages through which the valiant allies passed.

Not just villages and towns rose up against the Poles, but entire regions were ready to join either Moscow or Turkey. It so happened, but the principal opponent of Polish domination, Petro Doroshenko, who became the leader of the right-bank Cossacks, quickly found a common language with the Turks and Crimean Tatars than with the Moscow boyars and governors. He was not particularly worried about the fact that his choice of an ally could negatively affect the fate of the Ukrainian farmer. For him, the main thing was that this ally should help him expel the Poles from the Ukrainian land.

So Western Ukraine came under the jurisdiction of Turkey, and Doroshenko became a vassal of the Turkish Sultan. Cossacks and Crimean Tatars everywhere won victories over the Polish garrisons, destroying Ukrainian settlements along the way and replenishing the slave markets of Crimea and Turkey with tens of thousands of Slavic Polonians. The threat of Turkish invasion hung not only over Poland, but also over Russia.

Under these conditions, according to most historians, an absolutely correct decision was made to stop hostilities between the Russian and Polish armies in order to prevent the Turkish-Crimean alliance from triumphing over the Slavic peoples. It was this danger, as well as the excessive exhaustion of the belligerents, that became the motives for the conclusion of the Andrusovo Treaty in January 1667. You can have different attitudes to this treaty: you can blame the government of Alexei Mikhailovich for not leaving Western Ukraine and Belarus behind, or you can thank him for returning Smolensk land to Russia and moving the western border of the kingdom to the Dnieper River, retained Kyiv and retained influence on the Zaporizhzhya Sich, and most importantly, for some time suspended the advancement of Turkish expansion into Christian countries.

And then the events in Ukraine developed according to a completely unpredictable scenario: the hetman of the Left-Bank Ukraine, Bryukhovetsky, rebelled against the actions of the tsarist government, which sent census takers and tax collectors to Ukraine, expelled the Moscow garrison from Chernigov and called on the Don Cossacks to support Stepan Razin, who was advancing deep into Russia. His relationship with the hetman of the Right Bank, Petro Doroshenko, threatened to develop into an open war, but the Cossacks of both sides refused to fight and in June 1668 convened a "black council", during which Bryukhovetsky was killed by his own people. The same fate awaited Doroshenko, but he escaped in time, and a few days later the same council approved him as the hetman of "both banks."

Leaving Demyan Mnogohrishny on the left bank as his deputy, Doroshenko went beyond the Dnieper. In the meantime, the military initiative again passed into the hands of the Moscow governor Romodanovsky, and Mnogohrishny swore allegiance to the tsar in March 1669. However, the conditions for the restoration of the Moscow protectorate over Ukraine did not suit the ambitious and unrestrained hetman, in connection with which he decided to revive his relations with the hetman of the Right Bank. The intrigue was revealed, Mnogohrishny was arrested and taken to Moscow, where he was accused of treason and sentenced to death, graciously replaced by Alexei Mikhailovich with exile in Siberia.

In June 1672, Ivan Samoylovich became the new hetman, a sincere supporter of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia, who remained faithful to the oath to the end. And on the right bank, discord continued: Doroshenko, wanting to establish his power over the whole of Ukraine, with the southern regions of Western Ukraine went into citizenship to the Turkish Sultan, while the regions adjacent to Poland and preferring its protectorate elected Khanenko as their hetman.

In the spring of 1672, under the guise of a struggle for the independence of Ukraine from Polish oppression, a war broke out between Turkey and Poland. On the side of the first were the Crimean Tatars and the Cossacks of Doroshenko, on the side of the other - the Cossacks of Khanenko. The Turks dominated, they captured the most powerful fortress of Kamenetz-Podolsky and began to settle down there with all thoroughness, converting Christian churches into mosques. But the Ukrainian people themselves suffered most of all from such a “fight for freedom”, robbed utterly by those and other well-wishers. Mass migrations of the Ukrainian population from the right bank to the left began.

Dejected by this development of events, Khanenko, who by that time had lost all authority, in March 1674 resigned as hetman. But Doroshenko still continued to entertain himself with the idea of ​​the prospects of "independence" under the auspices of the Turkish sultan, and in the end he became a prisoner of Moscow. Oddly enough, he escaped trial, moreover, he first became the royal adviser on Turkish and Crimean affairs, and from 1679 - his governor in Vyatka.

Meanwhile, the Polish-Turkish war, mediated by Louis XIV, ended with the division of the Right-Bank Ukraine between the warring parties. Tensions between the Sultan and the Tsar persisted. The Turks did not lose hope for new territorial acquisitions at the expense of the Left-Bank Ukraine and the south of the Muscovite kingdom. But they wanted to fight by proxy, for this the sultan appointed his captive monk Gideon as the ruler of the Turkish part of Ukraine, whom the Patriarch of Constantinople released from the monastic vow, and he again became Yuri Khmelnitsky, and not just a hetman, but also the "prince of Sarmatia." Four years of the inglorious reign of the son of the Ukrainian hero, remembered for his pathological cruelty, the complete destruction of the interfluve of the Bug and the Dnieper (Chigirin, Korsun, Kanev, Cherkassy), as well as devastating raids on the left bank, ended with the Bakhchisaray truce, according to which Moscow, following Warsaw, was forced to recognize Turkish rights to Podolia. And Yuri Khmelnitsky, cursed by the people as an unnecessary figure in the game, was recalled to Constantinople, where he soon died, and it seems not by his own death.

Notes:

7 Crown- in this case, the Polish state.

8 Gull- a fast sailing ship.

9 Autocephaly - independence, independence.