A Brief Survey of Ukrainian History, 1648–1920: From Bohdan to Symon (02.11.2022)
A street dialogue between Vitalii Dribnytsia and a Russian-speaking interlocutor — a coherent authorial survey of Ukrainian history from the Khmelnytsky era (1648) to the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917–1920. The article draws on the segment about the early modern period: the framing of the “Cossack revolution” (the Cossacks sought a place within the structure of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth rather than an exit from it), the logic of changing one’s suzerain (including the offer of a protectorate by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV before the Muscovite one), the division of Ukrainian lands along the Dnipro under the Eternal Peace of 1686, and a direct refutation of the Russian trope that “Kyiv was bought for 4 carts of gold and silver.”
Key moments
- 00:52 The 'Cossack revolution': the Cossacks sought a place within the political structure of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; no one intended to leave it
- 02:22 The Treaty of Zboriv (1649) effectively created the Cossack state of the Zaporozhian Host; after the defeat at Berestechko the Cossacks' rights were curtailed
- 02:59 The logic of suzerainty: a suzerain could even be found in the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV (Khmelnytsky received the insignia of authority from him); in the end the Muscovite tsardom was chosen — the March Articles
- 03:48 The Eternal Peace of 1686: the territory was divided along the Dnipro — the left bank to Muscovy, the right bank to the Commonwealth
- 04:20 Refutation of the myth that 'Kyiv was bought from the Poles for 4 carts of gold/silver' — an explanation of the actual mechanism of Kyiv's transfer