Turning the pages back... October 11, 1665 (10/11/98)

Turning the pages back...

October 11, 1665

As Ukraine descended into the period of ruin after the death of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the ouster of his successor, Ivan Vyhovsky, the country was sundered by two major factions (although there were many others). Right-Bank Ukraine, west of the Dnipro River, was largely under the control of Pavlo Teteria; the Left Bank - under Ivan Briukhovetsky.

The two were also split along the lines of support from two antagonists who lusted after Ukrainian territory, the Polish Kingdom and Muscovy. Briukhovetsky threw in his lot with the latter.

In 1663 Briukhovetsky was elected hetman at the so-called "Chorna Rada" (Black Council), with the support of the Zaporozhian Host and the Kozak masses. That year he signed the Baturyn Articles, which were purportedly drafted to confirm the Pereiaslav Treaty signed by Khmelnytsky, but actually served to ratify its pro-Muscovite interpretation and added three new conditions, quite invidious to the lower-echelon Kozaks who gave him backing.

Briukhovetsky agreed to return escaped serfs to Russian landowners, to abet the Muscovite tsar's monopoly on liquor and tobacco by forbidding Ukrainian merchants to sell their products in Russia, and to feed the Muscovite garrisons stationed on the territory under his control.

It took him another two years to further consolidate his hold on the hetmancy (although he'd had rivals such as Yakiv Somko and Vasyl Zolotarenko murdered right after the Chorna Rada), whereupon he traveled to the Muscovite capital to sign yet another treaty.

On October 11, 1665, Briukhovetsky affixed his mark to the Moscow Articles, which handed over control of administrative, financial, military affairs of Left-Bank Ukraine to the tsar and his governors. All that was retained was nominal recognition of the Kozaks as a social estate. In exchange he was given the title of boyar (nobleman).

Muscovite garrisons in Ukraine fastened themselves to cities such as Chernihiv, Kaniv, Kremenchuk, Kyiv, Nizhen, Oster, Pereiaslav, Poltava and even Kodak in the Zaporozhian region, with the tax burden on the population ever heavier. In 1666, after a "referendum" conducted under the treaty's provisions, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was subordinated to the patriarch of Moscow.

Dissatisfaction was rife. Two years later, it came to a head, and even Briukhovetsky began to organize a rebellion. Too late. On June 18, 1668, in the village of Budyschi, in the Poltava region, he was killed by an angry Kozak mob.

Sources: "Briukhovetsky, Ivan," "Moscow Articles of 1665," Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Vols. 1, 3 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993).

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