History of Ukraine-Rus': Volume 9, Book 1. The Cossack Age, 1650–1653(9.1 History of Ukraine-Rus')

No period in Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s hetmancy was as rich in international and dynastic plans as the years 1650 to 1653. After the Zboriv Agreement of 1649, when the hetman resolved to find a way to break forever with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, he set out to create the military and political conditions to achieve his goal. From Venice to Moscow the wily hetman spun his diplomatic and military plans. In his search for allies and in pursuit of his goal of establishing a political system that secured the Ukrainian Hetmanate, he looked above all to the Ottomans and their Danubian vassal states. Fusing the interests of his new state to those of his own family, the hetman aspired to found a new dynasty by marrying his son into the ruling house of Moldavia. And as Khmelnytsky was pursing these goals and aspirations, the Cossacks’ military victories and defeats were shaping the fate of a new Ukraine. The book also covers the dramatic development of Ukrainian-Moldavian relations in the years 1650–53, beginning with the Cossacks’ victorious campaign against Moldavia. The period witnessed the marriage of Tymish Khmelnytsky to Roksanda Lupu, the daughter of the Moldavian hospodar, and it ended with Tymish’s tragic death during the siege of Suceava by allied Polish, Wallachian, and Moldavian forces—a major blow not only to Khmelnytsky’s policy in the Danube region, but also to his dynastic aspirations. In covering these events, Hrushevsky again proved himself an outstanding researcher with scrupulous attention to detail. His portrait of Tymish, whom Bohdan Khmelnytsky was grooming to become his successor, remains the most complete in the literature. The book concludes on the eve of the Battle of Zhvanets (1653) and the Pereiaslav Council of 1654, events crucial to the future of Ukraine. This volume was translated by Bohdan Struminski and edited by Serhii Plokhy (consulting editor) and Frank E. Sysyn (editor in chief) with the assistance of Uliana M. Pasicznyk. The volume includes an extensive historical introduction, a full bibliography of the sources used by Hrushevsky, 3 maps, and an index. The preparation of this volume for publication was generously sponsored by Mrs. Sofiia Wojtyna of Hamilton, Ontario, in memory of Vasyl Bilash, Mykhailo Charkivsky, and Mykhailo Wojtyna.

About the Author :
Appointed professor of history at Lviv University in 1894, Mykhailo Hrushevsky became a leading figure in the scholarly and cultural community of Western Ukraine. In 1918 in Kyiv, he became head of the government of the independent Ukrainian state. From 1924 to 1931, he organized historical studies at the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. An extraordinarily prolific writer, he produced some 2,000 scholarly works. Frank E. Sysyn is Director of the Peter Jacyk Centre for Ukrainian Historical Research at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies and Editor-in-Chief of the Hrushevsky Translation Project. He is a co-editor of Culture, Nation and Identity: The Ukrainian-Russian Encounter, 1600–1945 (2003), the author of Between Poland and Ukraine: The Dilemma of Adam Kysil, 1600–1653 (1985), and Mykhailo Hrushevsky: Historian and National Awakener (2001).