Nikolai Ulyanov - the origin of Ukrainian separatism. "The origin of Ukrainian separatism", Nikolay Ulyanov, selected Nikolay Ulyanov the origin of Ukrainian separatism

The contents of the book cannot be summarized in a short post. Therefore, I will try to list the main works on which Ukrainianism is based, and the authors who tried to lay the foundation of Ukrainianism. Some of these authors later renounced what they had created and became the most ardent defenders of the Russian world. The reason is simple - they became better acquainted with history, which refuted the fairy tales they had completely learned in their early youth.

As a preface, let’s give the floor to Nikolai Ulyanov.

The peculiarity of Ukrainian independence is that it does not fit any of the existing teachings about national movements and cannot be explained by any “iron” laws. It does not even have national oppression, as the first and most necessary justification for its emergence. The only example of “oppression” - the decrees of 1863 and 1876, which limited the freedom of the press in a new, artificially created literary language - was not perceived by the population as national persecution. Not only the common people, who had no involvement in the creation of this language, but also ninety-nine percent of the enlightened Little Russian society consisted of opponents of its legalization. Only an insignificant group of intellectuals, who never expressed the aspirations of the majority of the people, made it their political banner. For all 300 years of being part of the Russian State, Little Russia-Ukraine was neither a colony nor an “enslaved people.”

It is no coincidence that the title of this work uses the word “separatism” instead of “nationalism”. It was precisely the national base that Ukrainian independence lacked at all times. It has always looked like a non-popular, non-national movement, as a result of which it suffered from an inferiority complex and still cannot get out of the stage of self-affirmation. If for Georgians, Armenians, and Uzbeks this problem does not exist, due to their clearly expressed national image, then for Ukrainian independentists the main concern is still to prove the difference between a Ukrainian and a Russian. Separatist thought is still working on the creation of anthropological, ethnographic and linguistic theories that should deprive Russians and Ukrainians of any degree of kinship among themselves. At first they were declared “two Russian nationalities” (Kostomarov), then - two different Slavic peoples, and later theories arose according to which Slavic origin was reserved only for Ukrainians, while Russians were classified as Mongols, Turks, and Asians. Yu. Shcherbakivsky and F. Vovk knew for certain that the Russians are the descendants of people of the Ice Age, related to the Lapps, Samoyeds and Voguls, while the Ukrainians are representatives of the Central Asian round-headed race that came from across the Black Sea and settled in the places liberated by the Russians, who went north following the retreating glacier and mammoth. An assumption has been made that sees the Ukrainians as the remnant of the population of the drowned Atlantis.
And this abundance of theories, and the feverish cultural isolation from Russia, and the development of a new literary language cannot but be striking and not give rise to suspicions of the artificiality of the national doctrine.

The main parties that gave rise to Ukrainian separatism:
1. Cossack elite. It was not by chance that I put it in first place. No matter how much the Poles and Austro-Hungarians wanted to tear Ukraine away from Russia, they would not have been able to do anything on this path if not for the Cossack elite.
2. Poland
3. Austria-Hungary.

We will leave the influence of Poland and Austria-Hungary outside the brackets of this summary. But it’s worth talking about the Cossacks.

Kostomarov in his youth, a conductor of ideas about the oppression of Ukrainians and independence, while digging in the archives, found two Turkish letters from Mehmet Sultan to Khmelnitsky, from which it is clear that the hetman, having surrendered himself to the hand of the Tsar of Moscow, was at the same time a subject of the Turkish Sultan. He also accepted Turkish citizenship in 1650, when they sent him from Constantinople a “golden-headed piece” and a caftan, “so that you can confidently take on this caftan, in the sense that you have now become our faithful tributary”
It is necessary to recall that the Zemsky Sobor, at the request of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, accepted the Zaporozhye Army with cities and lands into Russia in 1653
Going to the Rada in Pereyaslavl in 1654, Khmelnitsky did not renounce his former citizenship and did not take off his Turkish caftan, putting on a Moscow fur coat over it.

Kostomarov Nikolay Ivanovich

The main reason for the reunification was the will of the people. All the Cossack elite needed was equal noble rights. There was no way she could achieve this in Poland, but she didn’t really want to go to Russia either, but the people living on the lands of the Zaporozhian Army felt an inextricable connection with Russia by faith and language. The elite only led the uprising against the Poles.

Let's look further at the actions of the first reconnector:
More than a year and a half after swearing allegiance to Moscow, the Sultan sent a new letter, from which it is clear that Bogdan did not even think of breaking with the Porte, but tried in every possible way to present to her in the wrong light his connection with Moscow. He hid the fact of his new citizenship from Constantinople, explaining the whole matter as a temporary alliance caused by difficult circumstances. He still asked the Sultan to consider him his faithful vassal, for which he was awarded a gracious word and assurance of high patronage.

Such double-mindedness subsequently manifested itself constantly. Mazepa was no exception. And the lands of the Zaporozhye Army were far away. The Cossack elite asked (they always asked for something) that taxes from their lands remain with them for some time, for which they themselves will support the army. Moscow went for it. The Cossack elite did not just collect taxes, but robbed the people. When the Moscow arrivals tried to restore order, complaints of harassment were written against them. Although they tried to oppress only the local hetmans who had become completely unruly.

Mazepa is the flesh and blood of this elite. There was nothing surprising or extraordinary in his action. This is what some Cossack governors did before him.

There was a legend that the Cossack way of life was democratic. The development and spread of this legend was facilitated by Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood, founded in 1847 in Kyiv by Kostomarov, Belozersky, Gulak, Shevchenko.

In general, the formation of the point of view about the heroes and democrats of the Cossacks, who were always oppressed, was greatly influenced by the famous "History of the Rus" , written in the late 18th early 19th centuries. This the richest collection of propaganda material that flooded Ukraine after its annexation to Russia... the most educated turned out to be defenseless against it. No one was able to comprehend the fact of such a colossal falsification. Without any resistance, she captured the minds, transferring into them the poison of Cossack independence

This book shaped the views of both Kostomarov and Kulisha, and Shevchenko.

Kulish Panteleimon Alexandrovich

Panteleimon Kulish - The creator of “Kulishovka” - one of the early versions of the Ukrainian alphabet, the main author of the first Ukrainian translation of the Bible.
in 1857 Panteleimon Aleksandrovich published a grammar, later nicknamed “Kulishovka”, the main principle of which was “as it is heard, so it is written”, And a decade later, Kulish would publicly renounce his brainchild. “I swear,” Kulish wrote to the Galician Omelyan Partitsky, “that if the Poles print in my spelling to commemorate our discord with Great Russia, if our phonetic spelling is presented not as helping the people to enlightenment, but as a banner of our Russian discord, then I, having written in my own way, in Ukrainian, I will print with etymological old-world spelling. That is, we don’t live at home, talk and sing songs in the same way, and if it comes down to it, we won’t allow anyone to separate us. A dashing fate separated us for a long time, and we moved towards Russian unity along a bloody road, and now human attempts to separate us are useless

Mikhail Petrovich Drahomanov

M. P. Drahomanov I saw a communal principle in Cossack life and was even inclined to call the Sich a “commune”. Drahomanov is one of those who were much more imbued with socialist ideas than with Ukrainians. He simply mistakenly believed that the experience of the Sich was the experience of a somewhat just society. Drahomanov considered one of the direct tasks of the participants in the Ukrainophile movement to be “to look for memories of former freedom and equality in different places and classes of the population of Ukraine.” It was his socialist views that were rejected by Ukrainian supporters. He noted with bitterness that his aspirations for a fair society in Russia were shared much more.

Taras Grigorievich Shevchenko is a very significant figure for Ukrainian separatism.

It is much less interesting than the mentioned authors. If both Kostomarov and Kulish were able to outgrow the “History of the Rus,” then for Shevchenko it was the bible. According to contemporaries, he was an unimportant poet. This is what Belinsky writes about him
“If gentlemen Kobzari think with their poems to benefit the lower class of their compatriots, then they are very mistaken; their poems, despite the abundance of the most vulgar and vulgar words and expressions, lack the simplicity of fiction and storytelling, are filled with frills and manners characteristic of all bad poems, and are often not at all folk, although they are supported by references to history, songs and legends, therefore, according to all these signs are incomprehensible to the common people and have nothing in them that sympathizes with them.”
This is also confirmed by Drahomanov
who believed that “Kobzar” “cannot become a completely popular book, nor one that would fully serve the preaching of the “new truth” among the people.”
The same Drahomanov testifies to the complete failure of attempts to bring Shevchenko to the grassroots of the people. All attempts to read his poems to men ended in failure. The men remained cold.

Despite his poor education, a small number of poems worthy of reading by Shevchenko entered both Ukrainian and Soviet mythology.
With all the abundance of legends that have surrounded the name and distorted its true appearance, Shevchenko can be considered the most striking embodiment of all the characteristic features of the phenomenon called “Ukrainian national revival.” Two camps, outwardly hostile to each other, still consider him “one of their own.” For some, he is a “national prophet”, almost canonized; the days of his birth and death (February 25 and 26) were declared church holidays by the Ukrainian clergy. Even in exile, monuments to him are erected with the assistance of the parties and governments of Canada and the United States. For others, he is the subject of the same idolatry, and this other camp began to erect monuments to him much earlier. As soon as the Bolsheviks came to power and established the cult of their forerunners and heroes, the statue of Shevchenko was one of the first to appear in St. Petersburg. Later, in Kharkov and over the Dnieper, gigantic monuments arose, second only in size to the statues of Stalin.

Oddly enough, Russian enlightened society played a huge role in the formation of Ukrainianness. It not only brought out talented people from the lower classes throughout the Russian Empire (Shevchenko, Tropinin), but also welcomed Ukrainians as expressing the ideas of freedom and a fair life. Knowledge of history has always not been a strong point of most of the Russian intelligentsia.

Nikolai Ivanovich Ulyanov (1905-1985) Russian and Soviet historian, engaged in scientific activities in the USSR and the USA, and lived an amazing life in the most difficult era for his homeland, going through arrest, camps and foreign lands. There - in Germany and Morocco - he had to work in factories, because he did not want to give up his intellect and knowledge to the enemies of Russia, until, with the help of Russian emigrants, he moved overseas and began teaching at American universities. Nikolai Ulyanov went down in history, however, not as a professor, but as the author of just one - but what a one! - books: "The Origin of Ukrainian Separatism."

Apparently, this question worried him more than anything else, since he understood its significance for the future of Russia and wanted to honestly understand what gave rise to this phenomenon, how viable it is and, accordingly, what could await it. That is why we are turning now to this book - the coming 2017 will, of course, be very important, fateful for Ukraine, which, having turned away from Russia and not accepted by the West, will have to think hard about how to live on and why continue to live the way it is she still lived.

By the way, this scientific work, published half a century ago, also has an amazing fate. The historical writer wrote it at the call of his heart, as a hobby, in his free time from work. Not by order - he never took on such work, for which he was declared a “Trotskyist” in the USSR and sent to the Gulag. Nevertheless, he rejected anti-USSR work in Western propaganda centers after the war, quickly realizing that the fight against “communism” was in fact a fight against Russia, which was and will be. In the USA, the historical writer was unable to publish his work - the press simply refused to publish it. This was done in Madrid in 1966. Most likely, the White Guards who settled there since the Spanish Civil War - Great Russians, Little Russians and others who considered themselves Russians - helped. And then another “miracle” happened, or rather, two. Almost the entire circulation was bought up by someone and... destroyed: Ulyanov only had a few original copies left. It could be both American and ... Soviet intelligence services interested in maintaining the Ukrainian myth, and the “independents” themselves. And yet, years after the death of the author, who died in 1985, one of the miraculously surviving copies broke through the information blockade. In 1996, the book was published by the Vagrius publishing house, anyone can read it on the Internet - the detective story of the book is over. Thus, after his death, Ulyanov realized the goal of his life: to tell the truth about one of the most mythologized phenomena in world history.

In the preface to his life’s work, the author explains why he became so interested in “Ukrainian independence.” Because this phenomenon has one unique feature - “it does not fit any of the existing teachings about national movements and cannot be explained by any “iron” laws.”

Why is Ukrainianism separatism and not nationalism?

Ulyanov emphasizes that this separatist ideology, firstly, does not have “the most necessary justification for its emergence” - “national oppression”, since “for all 300 years of being part of the Russian State, Little Russia-Ukraine was neither a colony nor “enslaved” nationality." And secondly, independence strikingly contradicts the basic principle of any true national movement - that the "national essence of the people" is best expressed by the party that leads it. However, instead we have the following: "Nowadays Ukrainian independence provides an example of the greatest hatred towards all the most revered and most ancient traditions and cultural values of the Little Russian people: it persecuted the Church Slavonic language, which had been established in Rus' since the adoption of Christianity, and even more severe persecution was brought against the all-Russian literary language, which for a thousand years underlay the writing of all parts of the Kievan State , during and after its existence. Independents are changing cultural and historical terminology, changing the traditional assessments of heroes of past events."

Indeed, all this happened when Ulyanov wrote his book, it is happening on a colossal scale now, and all with the same goal: “All this does not mean understanding and not affirmation, but the eradication of the national soul. A truly national feeling is being sacrificed invented party nationalism."

Therefore, Ulyanov proposes calling Ukrainian nationalism “separatism”: “The development scheme of any separatism is as follows: first, a “national feeling” supposedly awakens, then it grows and strengthens until it leads to the idea of separation from the previous state and the creation of a new one. In Ukraine, this cycle took place in the opposite direction. There, first a desire for separation was revealed, and only then an ideological basis began to be created as a justification for such a desire... It was precisely the national basis that Ukrainian independence lacked at all times. It always looked like a non-popular, non-national movement, as a result of which it suffered from an inferiority complex and to still cannot get out of the stage of self-affirmation. If for Georgians, Armenians, Uzbeks this problem does not exist, due to their clearly expressed national image, then for Ukrainian independentists the main concern is still to prove the difference between a Ukrainian and a Russian. Separatist thought is still working over the creation of anthropological, ethnographic and linguistic theories that should deprive Russians and Ukrainians of any degree of kinship among themselves."

And indeed, Ukrainian historians, writers and politicians are still doing this, and on a scale completely unimaginable in Ulyanov’s time - they write books like “Ukraine is not Russia”, talk about the “great Ukrainians”, talk about the “proto-Ukrainians” Jesus Christ and Buddha... But this only speaks of the correctness of his concept, since even this fits into it.

“And this abundance of theories, and the feverish cultural isolation from Russia, and the development of a new literary language cannot but be striking and not give rise to suspicions of the artificiality of the national doctrine,” concludes the author of “The History of Ukrainian Separatism.”

Progenitors of Ukrainian separatism

And Ulyanov sets out to trace who gave the population of Little Rus' such ideas that contradict common sense, and why and how they found their supporters among the “Ukrainians.”

In the preface to his work, the author notes “the long-standing tendency to explain Ukrainian nationalism solely by the influence of external forces.” And he admits that this factor did play a huge role. Rich food for thought was provided by the events of the First World War, when “a picture was revealed of the broad activities of the Austro-Germans in financing organizations such as the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine”, the organization of military squads (“Sichev Streltsy”), who fought on the side of the Germans, and the establishment of camps and schools for captured Ukrainians." He admits that the German plans for imposing independence were grandiose, carried out with persistence and scope, but all the preparatory work was not done by them.

In this sense, Ulyanov emphasizes, no one can compare with the Poles: “The Poles, in fact, can rightfully be considered the fathers of the Ukrainian doctrine. It was laid down by them back in the era of the hetman. But even in modern times, their creativity is very great. So, the use of the words "Ukraine" and "Ukrainians" for the first time in literature began to be implanted by them. It is already found in the works of Count Jan Potocki. Another Pole, Count Thaddeus Chatsky, then embarked on the path of racial interpretation of the term "Ukrainian". If the ancient Polish annalists, like Samuel of Grondsky, back in the 17th century they derived this term from the geographical location of Little Rus', located on the edge of the Polish possessions (“Margo enim polonice kraj; inde Ukgaina quasi provincia ad fines Regni posita”), then Chatsky derived it from some one except to the unknown horde of “Ukrs” that allegedly emerged from beyond the Volga in the 7th century. The Poles were not satisfied with either “Little Russia” or “Little Rus'.” They could have come to terms with them if the word “Rus” had not been spread to "Muscovites".

Yes, it was the Poles, despite the divisions of Poland and disappearance from the political map for the time being of this state, “having covered the entire right-bank south-west of Russia with a dense network of their povet schools, founding the Polish university in Vilna and taking over the Kharkov university that opened in 1804, ... felt like masters of the mental life of the Little Russian region." It was the Polish intelligentsia that began to propagate “the Little Russian dialect as a literary language; Ukrainian youth were instilled with the idea of the alienness of the all-Russian literary language, all-Russian culture, and, of course, the idea of the non-Russian origin of Ukrainians was not forgotten.”

“Polish interest in Ukrainian separatism,” continues Ulyanov, referring to the works of other researchers of this phenomenon, “is best expressed by the historian Valerian Kalinka, who understood the meaninglessness of dreams of returning the south of Russia to Polish rule. This region is lost to Poland, but this must be done. "so that it would be lost for Russia too. There is no better way for this than creating discord between southern and northern Russia and promoting the idea of their national isolation."

Ulyanov states: “The Poles took on the role of midwife during the birth of Ukrainian nationalism and nanny during its upbringing. They achieved that Little Russian nationalists, despite their long-standing antipathies towards Poland, became their zealous students. Polish nationalism became a model for the most petty imitation, even so much so that the anthem “Ukraine Has Not Yet Died” composed by P.P. Chubinsky was an undisguised imitation of the Polish one: “Jeszcze Polska ne zgineea”...

This is how the Poles acted not only in the 19th century, unwittingly also preparing the ground for intense rivalry and enmity, which culminated in the Volyn massacre, in the 20th century. As an example of a very characteristic figure of the “Ukrainian nationalist” of this era, the historian cites Andrei Sheptytsky, the primate of the Uniate Church, who was also a Polish count and - before taking monasticism - an Austrian cavalry officer, the younger brother of the Minister of Defense in the Pilsudski government. Occupying the chair of Lvov Metropolitan in 1901-1944, “he tirelessly served the cause of separating Ukraine from Russia under the guise of its national autonomy,” and “his activities, in this sense, are one of the examples of the implementation of the Polish program in the east.”

It would seem that everything has already been said. But Ulyanov “dug” even deeper, concluding his preface: “The picture of these more than century-old efforts is full of such tenacity and energy that one should not be surprised at the temptation of some historians and publicists to explain Ukrainian separatism solely by the influence of the Poles. But this is unlikely to be correct. Poles "could nourish and nurture the embryo of separatism, but the very embryo existed in the depths of Ukrainian society. To discover and trace its transformation into a prominent political phenomenon is the task of this work."

Where did the embryo of separatism come from?

This embryo was, as Ulyanov brilliantly proves, the Zaporozhye Cossacks, whose appearance as free people, zealots of Orthodoxy, fighting for justice and truth, formed from “historical novels, songs, legends and all kinds of works of art,” bears little resemblance to its real historical appearance. In fact, it was a predatory band of bandits, in modern terms, an organized criminal group of mixed ethnic origin, nominally Orthodox, but quite indifferent to any religion, but very fond of material wealth, money and honors, and ready to fight for this under any banners, change allies and patrons, based on their own interests. During the uprising of the Little Russians against the Polish yoke and expulsion by the rebels, who, seeing opportunities to enrich themselves and improve their status, were joined by the Cossacks, the Polish administration and landowners from the vast regions of Little Rus', the Cossack elders imposed themselves on its population as new lords.

And when the Little Russian peasants, disillusioned with this outcome of the uprising, lost their enthusiasm and the anti-Polish forces began to suffer defeats, Bogdan Khmelnitsky, who led the uprising, had no choice but to seek Moscow’s intercession against the Poles in order to preserve the privileges gained by the Cossacks and the control they received over the population of the territories that had fallen away from Poland. For the hetman, who was also a tributary of the Ottoman port (the corresponding letters were discovered by the historian Kostomarov), and his entourage, the alliance with Russia was a temporary measure caused by special circumstances, and therefore neither Khmelnytsky himself nor the other hetmans seriously considered it, and were always ready to postpone , which almost everyone did, one way or another. Before Catherine II, they did whatever they wanted in their patrimony; the Russian government, often brutal with its own subjects, in such cases always demonstrated unsurpassed tact and respect for local customs, and therefore did not interfere in Little Russian affairs. But it was precisely Russia, which established cruel oppression over the Little Russians, bought magnificent fake coats of arms and titles in Berdichev by the Cossack foreman, that was blamed for its own selfishness, mediocrity and cruelty. Therefore, Ulyanov notes, “perhaps the first separatist was Hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky himself, with whose name the reunification of the two halves of the ancient Russian state is associated.”

Ulyanov reveals and gives countless examples of the fact that having lost Little Russia, the Poles launched a real ideological war against Russia, in which the Cossack foreman gladly acted on their side, increasing his worth in the eyes of Moscow: “When Vygovsky betrayed the tsar and gathered the Rada in Gadyach, there the Polish envoy Benevsky arrived. His speech to the Cossacks is a magnificent example of eloquence, designed for listeners who know that every word of the speaker is a lie, but accept it as a revelation. “The tsar takes all income from Ukraine, established new duties, established taverns, the poor Cossack can no longer drink vodka, honey or beer, and they no longer even remember about wine. But to what extent, fellows, has Moscow’s greed come? They tell you to wear Moscow zipuns and put on Moscow bast shoes!

This is unheard of tyranny!.. Before you chose your own elders, but now the Muscovite gives you whoever he wants; and whoever pleases you, but he doesn’t like it, he will order to kill him. And now you are already living in contempt with them; They barely consider you human, they are ready to cut out your tongues so that you don’t speak, and gouge out your eyes so that they don’t look... and they keep you here only until they conquer us Poles with your blood, and Afterwards they will resettle you beyond Beloozero, and Ukraine will be populated with their Moscow slaves.”

“The Cossacks, of course, knew better whether they were ordered to wear zipuns and put on bast shoes, but some kind of “ideological basis” had to be brought under treason,” the historian continues. “Therefore, when they were asked: “What! Did you, gentlemen, thank you for his favor, Mr. Commissar?" followed by an enthusiastic cry: "I'm glad to speak!" The entire second half of the 17th century was full of libels, slander, anonymous letters, and rumors. Generations grew up in an atmosphere of hostility and nightmarish stories about the Moscow horrors. Knowing from experience the power of propaganda, we can only attribute to a miracle that the Little Russian people for the most part did not become Russophobes. The writing of anti-Russian pamphlets continued until the abolition of the Hetmanate in 1780. It is now quite well established that the military chancellery was the hotbed of this creativity in Ukraine - the bureaucratic center of the Cossack order. The officials of this institution were remembered in the 20th century by Grushevsky as selfless patriots who worked “in honor, glory and in defense of all of Little Russia.” They carried, so to speak, to the masses the entire “fund of jokes and sarcasms” originally created by Polish propaganda , jokes, legends, anti-Moscow inventions that independence uses to this day."

Exposing a black legend

Ulyanov leaves no stone unturned from one of the most poisonous myths of the Ukrainian nationalists, in which they convinced many others: the “Ukrainians” who trusted Russia were turned into slavery by the Muscovites!

The “bright, happy, free” era (remember the speech of the Polish commissar!) is gone; after Catherine’s decree of 1783, the era of “slavery, tears and lamentations” began: “Katerina is an enemy woman. What have you done! The steppe is wide, the rich land has been given away to Panam.” In historical reference books we read: “1783. On May 14 (May 3, Old Style), by decree of Catherine II, the free peasants of the Little Russian regions were enslaved.”

Meanwhile, an elementary analysis of the test of this document shows that serfdom de facto existed in Little Russia before the adoption of this decree. We are talking about the legalization of a practice that the Cossacks, who turned into “landowners” and “nobles,” started long ago - soon after the expulsion of the Poles and the establishment of their power over the peasants of Little Russia, which was perceived by contemporaries as “worse than Lyadskaya”. Moreover, in conditions when Russia did not interfere in the internal affairs of the Hetmanate. The queen’s decree, which allegedly turned the life of the “Ukrainians” into hell, was not noticed by the people, since nothing actually changed. Moreover, it had positive consequences.

“The decree was one of a series of legalizations generated by another, more important and general reform announced in 1780,” the historian points out. “This reform is the abolition of the hetmanate and all Cossack orders in Little Russia. In 1781, the Little Russian Collegium, the General Court, and the central military and regimental institutions, the territory of the hetmanate was divided into the governorships of Kiev, Chernigov and Novgorod-Seversk, where all administration, court and management were to be carried out from then on according to the all-Russian model. This was the complete end of the Cossack order, which had existed for about 130 years. They regretted it few, more those who fed from him; the "Mots" Cossacks, for the most part, had long ago turned into the "noble Russian nobility", no different from their Great Russian brothers. Serving in the capitals, sitting in the Senate and Synod, becoming generals , ministers, chancellors of the empire, having achieved everything that their ancestors dreamed of, they no longer had any reason to regret the Cossack privileges.From a breeding ground of unrest they turned into a support of order and the throne. Only a small handful continued to grieve for the bunchuks and zhupans."

The historian continues: “The process of merging the Little Russian gentry with the Great Russian gentry proceeded so quickly that the final abolition of the hetmanate under Catherine did not cause any regret. All other changes were met just as easily, even with sympathy. If a small handful continued to talk about the previous “rights,” then very soon the “desire for rank, and especially for salary” took precedence over the “mindsets of old times." As soon as the question of checking the title of nobility was resolved in a favorable direction, the southern Russian gentry finally merged with the northern one and became a factor in all-Russian life. The oblivion of the recent autonomist past was like this It is great that, in the words of the same Grushevsky, “the creation of national life” had to begin “anew from scratch.”

Well, as a result of this, there was only more order and stability in the life of the people: state laws now applied equally to Little Russia and Great Russia. Only from this period did St. Petersburg really take responsibility for what was happening in Southern Rus', where “national life” in the first half of the 19th century was represented by “lovers of folk poetry and folklore collectors, a good half of whom consisted of “Katsaps,” like Vadim Passek , I.I. Sreznevsky, A. Pavlovsky." Gogol well expressed the feelings of 99.9% of educated and uneducated people of Southern Rus': “I’ll tell you that I myself don’t know what kind of soul I have, Khokhlatsky or Russian. I only know that I would never give an advantage to either a Little Russian over a Russian or "to the Russian before the Little Russian. Both natures are generously endowed by God and, as if on purpose, each of them separately contains something that is not in the other."

Centers of Ukrainian Literature - St. Petersburg and Moscow

“The centers of new Ukrainian literature in the 19th century,” the historian testifies, “were not so much Kiev and Poltava as St. Petersburg and Moscow. The first “Grammar of the Little Russian dialect,” compiled by the Great Russian A. Pavlovsky, was published in St. Petersburg in 1818... The first a collection of ancient Little Russian songs compiled by Prince M.A. Tsertelev, published in St. Petersburg in 1812. The following “Little Russian Songs”, collected by M.A. Maksimovich, were published in Moscow in 1827. In 1834, in the same place, their second edition was published. Kotlyarevsky, Grebenka, Shevchenko were published in St. Petersburg...

However, politics gradually begins to interfere with this idyll: the Decembrists and the Polish gentry in the lands annexed to Russia, hatching plans for anti-government revolts and raising them, the Polish intelligentsia in Little Russia, receptive to revolutionary, liberal and nationalist ideas coming from Europe, begin to use the minor differences between two main parts of the Russian people, preserved at the level of language and mentality, in their own interests. The “progressive” Russian intelligentsia begins to actively help them in this, for whom the violent Cossacks become a symbol of freedom and the fight against autocracy. The common people are not captivated by these trends, but they force the imperial authorities to begin to look with suspicion at books and articles in the “language”, which they themselves initially promoted as evidence of the rich regional characteristics of the great and mighty Russian language. When it becomes known that the Polish rebels are counting on help from the “Ukrainians” and deliberately pitting them against the Russians.

Ukrainianism and revolution

“The Decembrists were the first to identify their cause with Ukrainianism and created a tradition for the entire subsequent Russian revolutionary movement. Herzen and Ogarev imitated them, Bakunin proclaimed to the whole world the demand for an independent Poland, Finland and Little Russia, and the Petrashevites, with all the ambiguity and uncertainty of their plan for the transformation of Russia, also managed to emphasize their alliance with separatisms, including the Little Russian one. This is one of the laws of any revolutionary movement," the historian points out, further citing a completely anecdotal case.

“In 1861, the idea arose of printing official state documents in Little Russian, and the first such experiment was to be the February 19 manifesto on the liberation of the peasants,” writes Ulyanov. “The initiative came from P. Kulish and was positively received at the top. March 15, 1861 the highest permission for the translation followed. But when the translation was made and a month later submitted for approval by the State Council, it was not considered possible to accept it. Even before this, Kulish had a scandalous case of translating the Bible with his famous “Hai dufae Srul na Pan” (May he trust Israel to the Lord). Now, when translating the manifesto, the complete absence of state-political terminology in the Little Russian language affected. The Ukrainophile elite had to hastily compose it. They composed it by introducing Polonisms or distorting Russian words. The result was not only a linguistic ugliness, but also completely incomprehensible to the Little Russian For a peasant, the text was at least less understandable than ordinary Russian. Later published in Kievskaya Starina, it served as material for humor. But when in 1862 the St. Petersburg Literacy Committee filed a petition for the introduction of teaching in the local dialect in the People's Schools of Little Russia, it was accepted for consideration, and the Minister of Public Education A.V. Golovnin himself supported it. In all likelihood, this project would have been approved if it had not been for the outbreak of the Polish uprising, which alarmed the government and public circles. It turned out that the rebels relied on Little Russian separatism and inciting peasant agrarian unrest in the south of Russia, through propaganda brochures and proclamations in the vernacular. And then it was noticed that some Ukrainophiles willingly collaborated with the Poles on the basis of distributing such brochures. Papers found during searches of Polish leaders revealed direct connections between Ukrainian nationalists and the uprising."

Naturally, St. Petersburg decided to “stop” sedition: “The project of teaching in the Little Russian language was not allowed to proceed, and they decided to limit the printing of Little Russian books.” Although formally and officially all restrictions on the Ukrainian press were lifted only in 1905, in fact they were not observed from the very beginning. This also applies to the famous prohibitive Emsky Decree of 1876 by Alexander II, which did not bring harm to anyone except the autocracy itself: “For the Ukrainian movement, it turned out to be manna from heaven. Without causing any real damage, it gave it the long-awaited crown of martyrdom.”

Thus, the love of the Little Russians for their land, their “small homeland,” which was clear to both the government and the Great Russians and was shared by them, turned out to be fraught with very unpleasant consequences.

How the “Ukrainians” beat the Celts

The author very appropriately compares Ukrainians with other ethnographic quirks of the time, and makes a striking conclusion: “A hundred years ago there was a new Celtic movement that set out to revive the Celtic world as part of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and French Brittany. The stimulus was ancient poetry and legends But born not of life, but of imagination, this movement did not go beyond some literary revival, philological and archaeological research. There would have been no shoots on the basis of a passion for Cossack literature, if the gardener-history had not grafted this branch cut from a fallen tree , to a plant that had roots in the soil of the 19th century. The Cossack ideology was grafted onto the tree of the Russian revolution and only from it received true life. What the independentists call their “national revival” was nothing more than a revolutionary movement dressed in Cossack trousers." . It was thanks to this that the student of the Decembrist Ryleev, a second-rate Ukrainian poet-Russophobe, who picked up primitively understood revolutionary ideas in St. Petersburg and therefore promoted by revolutionaries, Taras Shevchenko, made his poetic career. Alas, the revolutionaries did not like not only Russia, its political system, religion and church, but also everything Russian, as it was too closely connected with all this, so his poems came in handy - giant monuments were erected to the “great kobzar” in the USSR, they were named after him streets, squares and ships. Here it is - a “political order” in its purest form, but what disgusting things he wrote: “Fuck off the black-browed ones, they are not with the Muscovites, because the Muscovites are strangers, it’s daring to bother with you.” Or: “The Poles took everything, drank the blood, and the Muscovites and the retinue of God were wrapped in shackles.”

By the way, Ukrainian nationalists abroad who hated Russia and the USSR offered him laudatory articles and speeches, and they also erected monuments. What Soviet and anti-Soviet fans of Shevchenko had in common was his hatred of historical Russia and the false glorification of the Cossack freemen.

Ukrainians are defeated in Russia and go to Galicia

Meanwhile, the rapid economic development of Russia, the growth of the people's well-being, and the suppression of the revolutionary movement under Alexander III led to the oblivion of Ukrainianness on the territory of the Russian Empire - the “Ukrainians” considered themselves Little Russians and were proud of it. Therefore, the apologists of this ideology, which was tending towards complete decline and never had a mass character, had to move to Austrian Galicia, where the Austro-Hungarian intelligence services began to support it - both for the purposes of internal politics, in order to contrast the local “Russians” with the Poles who made up the upper ranks of society and dreamed of restoration of Polish independence, and Russians, but as “Ukrainians”.

This was not possible immediately, far from immediately, since a strong “Russian party” had long existed in Galicia, and they knew nothing about any “Ukrainians.” Thanks to World War I, however, this geopolitical intrigue worked. Galician supporters of Russia, who warmly welcomed Nicholas II in Lvov after its occupation by the Russian army, rotted in concentration camps, and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia destroyed its remaining supporters in Galicia morally. Thus, the Galicians, who had long been separated historically from the main Russian tree, not only became Ukrainians, but also received a kind of “patent” for Ukrainianness. So Lvov gradually ideologically subjugated Kiev, and continued to burn with hatred of Russia even when the Russians/Ukrainians between the two world wars found themselves in the hands of the Poles, who treated them as second-class citizens and subjected them to all kinds of repression.

After World War II...

The Second World War led to the inclusion of Galicia, Bukovina, Carpathian Ruthenia, and Russian Crimea into Soviet Ukraine. And Ulyanov describes how this was done both then and in the first decades of Soviet power: “Everything was done through sheer violence and intrigue. Residents of vast territories were not even asked about their desire or unwillingness to stay in conciliar Ukraine. The fate of the Carpatho-Russians, for example, is simply tragic. This people, who for centuries languished under the Magyar yoke, who endured a heroic struggle to preserve their Russianness and dreamed of nothing but reunification with Russia and a return to the fold of Russian culture, are even deprived of the rights of a national minority in the Ukrainian republic - they are declared the Ukrainian people. world democracy, which raises a fuss at the slightest infringement of any cannibalistic tribe in Africa, has passed over in complete silence the fact of the forced Ukrainization of the Carpatho-Russians. However, was it not with the same silence that the forced Ukrainization of the Little Russian people took place about forty-five years ago? This fact has been erased and hushed up in journalism and history.Neither the common people nor the intelligentsia were asked in what language they wished to study and write. It was prescribed by the supreme authority. The intelligentsia, accustomed to speaking, writing and thinking in Russian and forced in a short time to relearn and switch to a hastily cobbled together new language, experienced a lot of torment. Thousands of people have lost their jobs due to their inability to master the “sovereign language”...

Why was this book written?

The book of life of the historian Nikolai Ulyanov ends with the Bolshevik period in the history of Ukraine, from which this country is now striving in every possible way to free itself, destroying the memory of the past: overthrowing monuments to its creator - Vladimir Lenin and his associates, renaming streets and cities, destroying the science and economy inherited from Russia/USSR. And since Europe is showing Ukraine the door, and it has quarreled with Russia itself, Ukrainians who have forgotten about their Russianness will have to look into themselves and decide who they are - the inhabitants of Little, primordial Rus', “where the Russian land came from,” or the mannequin into which they breathed life or something similar to the life of an evil wizard. But for this insight to take place, Ukrainians need to understand what was wrong in the history of the southern Russian region, what needs to be done to correct mistakes and in order to become Russian again. This is why this book was written.

Nikolay Ulyanov

Origin of Ukrainian separatism

Introduction

The peculiarity of Ukrainian independence is that it does not fit any of the existing teachings about national movements and cannot be explained by any “iron” laws. It does not even have national oppression, as the first and most necessary justification for its emergence. The only example of “oppression” - the decrees of 1863 and 1876, which limited the freedom of the press in a new, artificially created literary language - was not perceived by the population as national persecution. Not only the common people, who had no involvement in the creation of this language, but also 99 percent of the enlightened Little Russian society consisted of opponents of its legalization. Only an insignificant group of intellectuals, who never expressed the aspirations of the majority of the people, made it their political banner. For all 300 years of being part of the Russian state, Little Russia-Ukraine was neither a colony nor an “enslaved people.”

It was once taken for granted that the national essence of a people is best expressed by the party that stands at the head of the nationalist movement. Nowadays, Ukrainian independence provides an example of the greatest hatred for all the most revered and most ancient traditions and cultural values of the Little Russian people: it persecuted the Church Slavonic language, which had been established in Rus' since the adoption of Christianity, and an even more severe persecution was erected against the all-Russian literary language, which had been lying dormant for a thousand years. years in the basis of writing of all parts of the Kyiv state, during and after its existence. Independents change cultural and historical terminology, change traditional assessments of heroes of past events. All this does not mean understanding or affirmation, but the eradication of the national soul. Truly national feeling is sacrificed to invented party nationalism.

The development scheme of any separatism is as follows: first, a “national feeling” supposedly awakens, then it grows and strengthens until it leads to the idea of separating from the previous state and creating a new one. In Ukraine, this cycle occurred in the opposite direction. There, a desire for separation was first revealed, and only then an ideological basis began to be created as a justification for such a desire.

It is no coincidence that the title of this work uses the word “separatism” instead of “nationalism”. It was precisely the national base that Ukrainian independence lacked at all times. It has always looked like a non-popular, non-national movement, as a result of which it suffered from an inferiority complex and still cannot get out of the stage of self-affirmation. If for Georgians, Armenians, and Uzbeks this problem does not exist, due to their clearly expressed national image, then for Ukrainian independentists the main concern is still to prove the difference between a Ukrainian and a Russian. Separatist thought is still working on the creation of anthropological, ethnographic and linguistic theories that should deprive Russians and Ukrainians of any degree of kinship among themselves. At first they were declared “two Russian nationalities” (Kostomarov), then - two different Slavic peoples, and later theories arose according to which Slavic origin was reserved only for Ukrainians, while Russians were classified as Mongols, Turks, and Asians. Yu. Shcherbakivsky and F. Vovk knew for certain that the Russians are the descendants of people of the Ice Age, related to the Lapps, Samoyeds and Voguls, while the Ukrainians are representatives of the Central Asian round-headed race that came from across the Black Sea and settled in the places liberated by the Russians, who went north following the retreating glacier and the mammoth. An assumption has been made that sees the Ukrainians as the remnant of the population of the drowned Atlantis.

And this abundance of theories, and the feverish cultural isolation from Russia, and the development of a new literary language cannot but be striking and not give rise to suspicions of the artificiality of the national doctrine.

In Russian, especially emigrant, literature, there is a long-standing tendency to explain Ukrainian nationalism solely by the influence of external forces. It became especially widespread after the First World War, when a picture of the extensive activities of the Austro-Germans was revealed in financing organizations such as the “Union for the Rescue of Ukraine”, in organizing fighting squads (“Sichev Riflemen”) who fought on the side of the Germans, in organizing camps-schools for captured Ukrainians.

D. A. Odinets, who immersed himself in this topic and collected abundant material, was overwhelmed by the grandeur of German plans, the persistence and scope of propaganda in order to instill independence. The Second World War revealed an even broader canvas in this sense.

But for a long time, historians, and among them such an authority as Professor I. I. Lappo, paid attention to the Poles, attributing to them the main role in the creation of the autonomist movement.

The Poles, in fact, can rightfully be considered the fathers of Ukrainian doctrine. It was laid down by them back in the era of the hetmanate. But even in modern times their creativity is very great. Thus, the very use of the words “Ukraine” and “Ukrainians” for the first time in literature began to be implanted by them. It is already found in the writings of Count Jan Potocki.

Another Pole, Count Thaddeus Chatsky, then embarks on the path of racial interpretation of the term “Ukrainian.” If ancient Polish annalists, like Samuel of Grondsky, back in the 17th century. derived this term from the geographical location of Little Rus', located on the edge of the Polish possessions (“Margo enim polonice kraj; inde Ukraina quasi provincia ad fines Regni posita”), then Chatsky derived it from some unknown horde of “ukrov” to anyone except him ”, which supposedly came out from beyond the Volga in the 7th century.

The Poles were not satisfied with either “Little Russia” or “Little Rus'”. They could have come to terms with them if the word “Rus” did not apply to “Muscovites.”

The introduction of “Ukraine” began under Alexander I, when, having Polished Kyiv, covered the entire right bank south-west of Russia with a dense network of their povet schools, founded the Polish university in Vilna and took over the Kharkov University, which opened in 1804, the Poles felt themselves masters of the mental life of the Little Russian region.

The role of the Polish circle at Kharkov University is well known in the sense of promoting the Little Russian dialect as a literary language. Ukrainian youth were instilled with the idea of the alienness of the all-Russian literary language, all-Russian culture, and, of course, the idea of the non-Russian origin of Ukrainians was not forgotten.

Gulak and Kostomarov, who were in the 1830s. students of Kharkov University were fully exposed to this propaganda. It also suggested the idea of an all-Slavic federal state, which they proclaimed in the late 1940s. The famous “Pan-Slavism,” which caused furious abuse against Russia throughout Europe, was in fact not of Russian, but of Polish origin. Prince Adam Czartoryski, as head of Russian foreign policy, openly proclaimed Pan-Slavism as one of the means of reviving Poland.

Polish interest in Ukrainian separatism is best summed up by the historian Valerian Kalinka, who understood the futility of dreams of returning southern Russia to Polish rule. This region is lost for Poland, but we must make sure that it is lost for Russia too. There is no better way for this than creating discord between southern and northern Russia and promoting the idea of their national isolation. The program of Ludwig Mierosławski on the eve of the Polish uprising of 1863 was drawn up in the same spirit.

“Let all the agitation of Little Russianism be transferred beyond the Dnieper; there is a vast Pugachev field for our belated Khmelnytsky region. This is what our entire pan-Slavic and communist school consists of!.. This is all Polish Herzenism!”

An equally interesting document was published by V.L. Burtsev on September 27, 1917 in the newspaper “Common Deal” in Petrograd. He presents a note found among the papers of the secret archive of the Primate of the Uniate Church A. Sheptytsky after the occupation of Lvov by Russian troops. The note was compiled at the beginning of the First World War, in anticipation of the victorious entry of the Austro-Hungarian army into the territory of Russian Ukraine. It contained several proposals to the Austrian government regarding the development and separation of this region from Russia. A broad program of military, legal, and ecclesiastical measures was outlined, advice was given regarding the establishment of the hetmanate, the formation of separatist-minded elements among the Ukrainians, giving local nationalism a Cossack form and “the possible complete separation of the Ukrainian Church from the Russian.”

The piquancy of the note lies in its authorship. Andrei Sheptytsky, whose name it is signed, was a Polish count, the younger brother of the future Minister of War in Pilsudski's government. Having begun his career as an Austrian cavalry officer, he subsequently became a monk, became a Jesuit, and from 1901 to 1944 occupied the see of the Lviv Metropolitan. Throughout his tenure in this post, he tirelessly served the cause of separating Ukraine from Russia under the guise of its national autonomy. His activities, in this sense, are one of the examples of the implementation of the Polish program in the east.

This program began to take shape immediately after the sections. The Poles took on the role of midwife during the birth of Ukrainian nationalism and nanny during its upbringing.

They achieved that the Little Russian nationalists, despite their long-standing antipathies towards Poland, became zealous...

Ulyanov Nikolay

Nikolay Ulyanov

Origin of Ukrainian separatism

Introduction.

It was once taken for granted that the national essence of a people is best expressed by the party that stands at the head of the nationalist movement. Nowadays, Ukrainian independence provides an example of the greatest hatred for all the most revered and most ancient traditions and cultural values of the Little Russian people: it persecuted the Church Slavonic language, which had been established in Rus' since the adoption of Christianity, and an even more severe persecution was erected against the all-Russian literary language, which had been lying dormant for a thousand years. years at the basis of writing in all parts of the Kievan State, during and after its existence. Independents change cultural and historical terminology, change traditional assessments of heroes of past events. All this does not mean understanding or affirmation, but the eradication of the national soul. Truly national feeling is sacrificed to invented party nationalism.

It is no coincidence that the title of this work uses the word “separatism” instead of “nationalism”. It was precisely the national base that Ukrainian independence lacked at all times. It has always looked like a non-popular, non-national movement, as a result of which it suffered from an inferiority complex and still cannot get out of the stage of self-affirmation. If for Georgians, Armenians, and Uzbeks this problem does not exist, due to their clearly expressed national image, then for Ukrainian independentists the main concern is still to prove the difference between a Ukrainian and a Russian. Separatist thought is still working on the creation of anthropological, ethnographic and linguistic theories that should deprive Russians and Ukrainians of any degree of kinship among themselves. At first they were declared “two Russian nationalities” (Kostomarov), then - two different Slavic peoples, and later theories arose according to which Slavic origin was reserved only for Ukrainians, while Russians were classified as Mongols, Turks, and Asians. Yu. Shcherbakivsky and F. Vovk knew for certain that the Russians are the descendants of people of the Ice Age, related to the Lapps, Samoyeds and Voguls, while the Ukrainians are representatives of the Central Asian round-headed race that came from across the Black Sea and settled in the places liberated by the Russians, who went north following the retreating glacier and the mammoth (1). An assumption has been made that sees the Ukrainians as the remnant of the population of the drowned Atlantis.

In Russian, especially emigrant, literature, there is a long-standing tendency to explain Ukrainian nationalism solely by the influence of external forces. It became especially widespread after the First World War, when a picture emerged of the extensive activities of the Austro-Germans in financing organizations such as the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine”, in organizing fighting squads (“Sichev Streltsy”), who fought on the side of the Germans, in organizing camps-schools for captured Ukrainians.

D. A. Odinets, who immersed himself in this topic and collected abundant material, was depressed by the grandeur of German plans, the persistence and scope of propaganda in order to instill independence (2). The Second World War revealed an even broader canvas in this sense.

But for a long time, historians, and among them such an authority as Prof. I. I. Lappo, drew attention to the Poles, attributing to them the main role in the creation of the autonomist movement.

Another Pole, c. Thaddeus Chatsky, then embarks on the path of racial interpretation of the term “Ukrainian”. If ancient Polish annalists, like Samuel of Grondsky, back in the 17th century, derived this term from the geographical location of Little Rus', located on the edge of the Polish possessions (“Margo enim polonice kraj; inde Ukgaina quasi provincia ad fines Regni posita”) (3), then Chatsky he derived it from some unknown horde of “ukrov”, unknown to anyone except him, who supposedly emerged from beyond the Volga in the 7th century (4).

The Poles were not satisfied with either “Little Russia” or “Little Rus'”. They could have come to terms with them if the word “Rus” did not apply to “Muscovites”.

The introduction of “Ukraine” began under Alexander I, when, having Polished Kyiv, covered the entire right-bank south-west of Russia with a dense network of their povet schools, founded the Polish university in Vilna and took control of the Kharkov university that opened in 1804, the Poles felt themselves masters of intellectual life Little Russian region.

Nikolay Ulyanov. Origin of Ukrainian separatism

Introduction.

It was once taken for granted that the national essence of a people is best expressed by the party that stands at the head of the nationalist movement. Nowadays, Ukrainian independence provides an example of the greatest hatred for all the most revered and most ancient traditions and cultural values of the Little Russian people: it persecuted the Church Slavonic language, which had been established in Rus' since the adoption of Christianity, and an even more severe persecution was erected against the all-Russian literary language, which had been lying dormant for a thousand years. years at the basis of writing in all parts of the Kievan State, during and after its existence. Independents change cultural and historical terminology, change traditional assessments of heroes of past events. All this does not mean understanding or affirmation, but the eradication of the national soul. Truly national feeling is sacrificed to invented party nationalism.

It is no coincidence that the title of this work uses the word “separatism” instead of “nationalism”. It was precisely the national base that Ukrainian independence lacked at all times. It has always looked like a non-popular, non-national movement, as a result of which it suffered from an inferiority complex and still cannot get out of the stage of self-affirmation. If for Georgians, Armenians, and Uzbeks this problem does not exist, due to their clearly expressed national image, then for Ukrainian independentists the main concern is still to prove the difference between a Ukrainian and a Russian. Separatist thought is still working on the creation of anthropological, ethnographic and linguistic theories that should deprive Russians and Ukrainians of any degree of kinship among themselves. At first they were declared “two Russian nationalities” (Kostomarov), then - two different Slavic peoples, and later theories arose according to which Slavic origin was reserved only for Ukrainians, while Russians were classified as Mongols, Turks, and Asians. Yu. Shcherbakivsky and F. Vovk knew for certain that the Russians are the descendants of people of the Ice Age, related to the Lapps, Samoyeds and Voguls, while the Ukrainians are representatives of the Central Asian round-headed race that came from across the Black Sea and settled in the places liberated by the Russians, who went north following the retreating glacier and the mammoth (1). An assumption has been made that sees the Ukrainians as the remnant of the population of the drowned Atlantis.

In Russian, especially emigrant, literature, there is a long-standing tendency to explain Ukrainian nationalism solely by the influence of external forces. It became especially widespread after the First World War, when a picture emerged of the extensive activities of the Austro-Germans in financing organizations such as the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine”, in organizing fighting squads (“Sichev Streltsy”), who fought on the side of the Germans, in organizing camps-schools for captured Ukrainians.

But for a long time, historians, and among them such an authority as Prof. I. I. Lappo, drew attention to the Poles, attributing to them the main role in the creation of the autonomist movement.

The Poles were not satisfied with either “Little Russia” or “Little Rus'”. They could have come to terms with them if the word “Rus” did not apply to “Muscovites”.

Gulak and Kostomarov, who were students at Kharkov University in the 30s, were fully exposed to this propaganda. It also suggested the idea of an all-Slavic federal state, which they proclaimed in the late 40s. The famous “Pan-Slavism,” which evoked furious abuse against Russia throughout Europe, was in fact not of Russian, but of Polish origin. Prince Adam Czartoryski, as head of Russian foreign policy, openly proclaimed Pan-Slavism as one of the means of reviving Poland.

Polish interest in Ukrainian separatism is best summed up by the historian Valerian Kalinka, who understood the futility of dreams of returning southern Russia to Polish rule. This region is lost for Poland, but we must make sure that it is lost for Russia too (5a). There is no better way for this than creating discord between southern and northern Russia and promoting the idea of their national isolation. The program of Ludwig Mierosławski was drawn up in the same spirit on the eve of the Polish uprising of 1863.

“Let all the agitation of Little Russianism be transferred beyond the Dnieper; there is a vast Pugachev field for our late-in-number Khmelnytsky region. This is what our entire pan-Slavic and communist school consists of!... This is all Polish Herzenism!” (6).

An equally interesting document was published by V.L. Burtsev on September 27, 1917, in the newspaper “Obshchee Delo” in Petrograd. He presents a note found among the papers of the secret archive of the Primate of the Uniate Church A. Sheptytsky, after the occupation of Lvov by Russian troops. The note was compiled at the beginning of the First World War, in anticipation of the victorious entry of the Austro-Hungarian army into the territory of Russian Ukraine. It contained several proposals to the Austrian government regarding the development and separation of this region from Russia. A broad program of military, legal, and ecclesiastical measures was outlined, advice was given regarding the establishment of the hetmanate, the formation of separatist-minded elements among the Ukrainians, giving local nationalism a Cossack form and “the possible complete separation of the Ukrainian Church from the Russian.”

This program began to take shape immediately after the sections. The Poles took on the role of midwife during the birth of Ukrainian nationalism and nanny during its upbringing.

They achieved that the Little Russian nationalists, despite their long-standing antipathies towards Poland, became their zealous students. Polish nationalism became a model for the most petty imitation, to the point that the anthem “Ukraine Is Not Yet Dead,” composed by P. P. Chubinsky, was an open imitation of the Polish: “Jeszcze Polska ne zgineea.”

The picture of these more than a century of efforts is full of such tenacity in energy that one is not surprised at the temptation of some historians and publicists to explain Ukrainian separatism solely by the influence of the Poles (7).

But this is unlikely to be correct. The Poles could nourish and nurture the embryo of separatism, while the very same embryo existed in the depths of Ukrainian society. To discover and trace its transformation into a prominent political phenomenon is the task of this work.

Zaporozhye Cossacks.

When they talk about “national oppression” as the reason for the emergence of Ukrainian separatism, they either forget or do not know at all that it appeared at a time when not only Muscovite oppression, but there were no Muscovites themselves in Ukraine. It already existed at the time of the annexation of Little Russia to the Moscow State, and perhaps the first separatist was Hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky himself, with whose name the reunification of the two halves of the ancient Russian state is associated. Less than two years had passed since the day of the oath of allegiance to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, when information began to arrive in Moscow about Khmelnitsky’s disloyal behavior and his violation of the oath. Having checked the rumors and convinced of their correctness, the government was forced to send the devious Fyodor Buturlin and the Duma clerk Mikhailov to Chigirin in order to confront the hetman with the unseemly behavior of his behavior. “You promised Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky with the entire Zaporozhye army in the holy Church of God, according to the immaculate commandment of Christ before the Holy Gospel, to serve and be in subjection and obedience under the high hand of his royal majesty and to want good for his great sovereign in everything, and now we hear that you wish well not for his royal majesty, but for Rakochy and, even worse, you have united with the enemy of the great sovereign, Karl Gustav, the king of Sweden, who, with the help of his royal majesty’s Zaporozhye army, tore away many Polish cities. And you, the hetman, provided assistance to the Swedish king without permission great sovereign, forgot the fear of God and his oath before the Holy Gospel" (8).

Khmelnitsky was reproached for self-will and lack of discipline, but they still did not allow the thought of separating him from the Moscow State. Meanwhile, neither Buturlin, nor the boyars, nor Aleksey Mikhailovich knew that they were dealing with a double-tenant who recognized the power of two sovereigns over himself; this fact became known in the 19th century, when the historian N. I. Kostomarov found two Turkish letters from Mehmet -Sultan to Khmelnitsky, from which it is clear that the hetman, having surrendered himself to the hand of the Tsar of Moscow, was at the same time a subject of the Turkish Sultan. He accepted Turkish citizenship back in 1650, when he was sent from Constantinople a “golden-headed piece” and a caftan, “so that you could confidently take on this caftan, in the sense that you have now become our faithful tributary” (9).

Apparently, only a few close to Bogdan knew about this event, while it was hidden from the Cossacks and the entire Little Russian people. Going to the Rada in Pereyaslavl in 1654, Khmelnitsky did not renounce his former citizenship and did not take off his Turkish caftan, putting on a Moscow fur coat over it.

More than a year and a half after swearing allegiance to Moscow, the Sultan sent a new letter, from which it is clear that Bogdan did not even think of breaking with the Porte, but tried in every possible way to present to her in the wrong light his connection with Moscow. He hid the fact of his new citizenship from Constantinople, explaining the whole matter as a temporary alliance caused by difficult circumstances. He still asked the Sultan to consider him his faithful vassal, for which he was awarded a gracious word and assurance of high patronage.

Khmelnitsky's double-mindedness did not represent anything exceptional; all the Cossack elders were in the same mood. Before she had time to take the oath to Moscow, many made it clear that they did not want to remain faithful to her. Those who broke the oath were led by such prominent people as Bogun and Serko. Serko went to Zaporozhye, where he became a chieftain, Bohun, the Uman colonel and hero of the Khmelnytsky region, having taken the oath, began to stir up trouble throughout the Bug region.

There were cases of direct evasion of the oath. This concerns, first of all, the higher clergy, who were hostile to the idea of union with Moscow. But the Cossacks, who did not express such hostility at all, behaved no better. When Bogdan finally decided to surrender to the Tsar, he asked for the opinion of the Sich, this metropolis of the Cossacks. The Sichists responded with a letter expressing their full agreement not to transfer “the entire Little Russian people, living on both sides of the Dnieper, under the protection of the most powerful and most illustrious Russian monarch.” And after the annexation took place and Bogdan sent them to the Sich lists of the royal charters, the Cossacks expressed joy at “the consolidation and confirmation by the supreme monarch of the ancient rights and liberties of the troops of the Little Russian people”; they gave "praise and gratitude to the Most Holy Trinity and the worshiped God and the lowest petition to the Most Serene Sovereign." When it came to swearing allegiance to this sovereign, the Cossacks became quiet and silent. Covering them up, the hetman reassured the Moscow government in every possible way, assuring that “the Zaporozhye Cossacks are small people, and they are from the army, and they have nothing to honor in business.” Only over time did Moscow manage to insist on their oath (10).

When the war with Poland began and the united Russian-Little Russian army was besieging Lviv, the general clerk Vyhovsky persuaded the Lviv townspeople not to surrender the cities to the tsar's name. To the representative of these burghers, Kushevich, who refused to surrender, Pereyaslavl Colonel Teterya whispered in Latin “you are constant and noble.”

By the end of the war, Khmelnitsky himself became extremely unfriendly with his colleagues - the tsarist governors; his confessor, during prayer, when they sat down at the table, stopped mentioning the royal name, while the foreman and hetman showed signs of affection to the Poles with whom they were fighting. After the war, they decided to commit an open state crime, violating the Vilna Treaty with Poland concluded by the tsar and entering into a secret agreement with the Swedish king and the Sedmigrad prince Rakochi on the division of Poland. Twelve thousand Cossacks were sent to help Rakoca (11). All three years that Khmelnitsky was under Moscow rule, he behaved like a man ready any day to resign his oath and fall away from Russia.

The above facts took place at a time when the tsarist administration did not exist in Ukraine, and by any violence it could not incite the Little Russians against itself. There can be only one explanation: in 1654 there were individuals and groups who reluctantly entered Moscow citizenship and were thinking about how to get out of it as quickly as possible.

The explanation for such a curious phenomenon should be sought not in Little Russian history, but in the history of the Dnieper Cossacks, who played a leading role in the events of 1654. In general, the origins of Ukrainian independence cannot be understood without a detailed excursion into the Cossack past. Even the new name of the country “Ukraine” came from the Cossacks. On ancient maps, territories with the inscription “Ukraine” appear for the first time in the 17th century, and with the exception of Boplan’s map, this inscription always refers to the area of the settlement of the Zaporozhye Cossacks. On Cornetti's map of 1657, between "Bassa Volinia" and "Podolia" the "Ukraine passa de Cosacchi" is listed along the Dnieper. On a Dutch map of the late 17th century the same place is indicated: "Ukraine of t. Land der Cosacken".

From here it began to spread throughout Little Russia. From here the sentiments that laid the foundation for modern independence spread. Not everyone understands the role of the Cossacks in the creation of Ukrainian nationalist ideology. This happens, to a large extent, due to a misconception about its nature. Most get their information about him from historical novels, songs, legends and all kinds of works of art. Meanwhile, the appearance of a Cossack in poetry bears little resemblance to his real historical appearance.

He appears there in the aura of selfless courage, military art, knightly honor, high moral qualities, and most importantly - a major historical mission: he is a fighter for Orthodoxy and for the national South Russian interests. Usually, as soon as the conversation turns to the Zaporozhye Cossack, the irresistible image of Taras Bulba arises, and a deep immersion in documentary material and historical sources is necessary in order to free oneself from the magic of Gogol’s romance.

For a long time, two directly opposing views have been established on the Zaporozhye Cossacks. Some see in it a noble-aristocratic phenomenon - “knightly”. The late Dm. Doroshenko, in his popular “History of Ukraine with Little Ones,” compares the Zaporizhian Sich with medieval knightly orders. “Here gradually developed,” he says, “a special military organization similar to the knightly brotherhoods that existed in Western Europe.” But there is another, perhaps more widespread view, according to which the Cossacks embodied the aspirations of the plebeian masses and were the living bearers of the idea of democracy with its principles of universal equality, elective positions and absolute freedom.

These two views, not reconciled, not coordinated with each other, continue to live to this day in independent literature. Both of them are not Cossacks, and not even Ukrainian. The Polish origin of the first of them is beyond doubt. It dates back to the 16th century, and was first found by the Polish poet Paprocki. Observing the civil strife of the lords, the squabbling of magnates, the oblivion of state interests and all the political depravity of the then Poland, Paprocki contrasts them with the fresh, healthy, as it seemed to him, environment that arose on the outskirts of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This is a Russian, Cossack environment. The Poles, mired in internal strife, according to him, did not even suspect that many times they had been saved from death by this outlying Russian knighthood, which, like a rampart, reflected the pressure of the Turkish-Tatar force. Paprocki admires his valor, his simple strong morals, his willingness to stand up for the faith, for the entire Christian world (12). Paprocki's works were not realistic descriptions, but poems, or rather pamphlets. They contain the same tendency as in Tacitus’s “Germany,” where the demoralized, degenerating Rome is contrasted with the young, healthy organism of the barbarian people.

In Poland, too, works begin to appear describing the brilliant military exploits of the Cossacks, which can only be compared with the exploits of Hector, Diomedes or Achilles himself. In 1572, an essay by masters Fredro, Lasitsky and Goretsky was published, describing the adventures of the Cossacks in Moldavia under the command of Hetman Ivan Svirgovsky. What miracles of courage are not shown there! The Turks themselves said to the captured Cossacks: “In the entire Polish kingdom there are no warlike men like you!” They modestly objected: “On the contrary, we are the last, there is no place for us among our own, and therefore we came here to either fall with glory or return with the spoils of war.” All Cossacks who came to the Turks bear Polish surnames: Svirgovsky, Kozlovsky, Sidorsky, Yanchik, Kopytsky, Reshkovsky. From the text of the story it is clear that they are all nobles, but with some kind of dark past; For some, ruin, for others, misdeeds and crimes were the reason for joining the Cossacks. They consider Cossack exploits as a means of restoring honor: “either fall with glory, or return with military spoils.” That’s why they were painted this way by authors who themselves could have been Svirgovsky’s associates (13). P. Kulish also noted that their composition was dictated by less lofty motives than Paprocki’s poems. They pursued the goal of rehabilitation of the guilty gentry and their amnesty. Such works, filled with exaltation of the bravery of the nobles who went to become Cossacks, endowed the entire Cossacks with knightly traits. This literature, no doubt, became known to the Cossacks early, helping to spread among them a high view of their society. When the “registered” began, in the 17th century, to seize land, turn into landowners and achieve noble rights, the popularization of the version of their knightly origin acquired particular persistence. “The Chronicle of Grabyanka”, “A Brief Description of the Cossack Little Russian People” by P. Simonovsky, the works of N. Markevich and D. Bantysh-Kamensky, as well as the famous “History of the Rus” are the most vivid expressions of the view of the gentry nature of the Cossacks.

The inconsistency of this point of view hardly needs proof. It is simply made up and is not confirmed by any sources other than fake ones. We do not know a single verified document testifying to the early Zaporizhian Cossacks as a distinctive military organization of the Little Russian gentry. Simple logic denies this version. If the Cossacks had been nobles since time immemorial, why would they have sought the title of nobility in the 17th and 18th centuries? In addition, the Lithuanian Metrics, Russian chronicles, Polish chronicles and other sources provide a sufficiently clear picture of the origin of the genuine Lithuanian-Russian nobility so that researchers might be tempted to trace its genesis back to the Cossacks.

It is even more difficult to compare the Zaporizhzhya Sich with the knightly order. Although the orders initially arose outside of Europe, they are connected with it with their entire being. They were a product of its socio-political and religious life, while the Cossacks were recruited from elements displaced by the organized society of the states of the European East. It arose not in harmony, but in the struggle with them. Neither secular nor ecclesiastical authorities, nor public initiative were involved in the formation of such colonies as Zaporozhye. Any attempt to attribute to them the mission of defenders of Orthodoxy against Islam and Catholicism is shattered by historical sources. The presence in the Sich of a large number of Poles, Tatars, Turks, Armenians, Circassians, Magyars and other people from non-Orthodox countries does not indicate the Cossacks as zealots of Orthodoxy.

The data provided by P. Kulish excludes any doubts in this regard. Both Khmelnitskys, father and son, and after them Peter Doroshenko, recognized themselves as subjects of the Turkish Sultan - the head of Islam. With the Crimean Tatars, these “enemies of the cross of Christ,” the Cossacks did not so much fight as collaborate and together went against the Polish and Moscow Ukrainians.

Contemporaries spoke of the religious life of the Dnieper Cossacks with disgust, seeing in it more atheism than faith. Adam Kisel, an Orthodox nobleman, wrote that the Zaporozhye Cossacks “have no faith” and the Uniate Metropolitan of Rutsky repeated the same. The Orthodox metropolitan and founder of the Kyiv Theological Academy, Peter Mogila, treated the Cossacks with undisguised hostility and contempt, calling them “rebelizants” in the press. Comparing the Sich foreman with the chapter, and the Koshe chieftain with the master of the order is the greatest parody of the European Middle Ages. And in appearance, the Cossack resembled a knight as much as the pet of any eastern horde. What is meant here is not so much the lamb’s hat, oseledets and wide trousers, but rather any lack of trousers. P. Kulish collected a vivid bouquet of testimony from contemporaries on this score, such as the Orsha elder Philip Kmita, who in 1514 portrayed the Cherkassy Cossacks as pitiful ragamuffins, and the French military expert Dalrac, who accompanied Jan Sobieski on the famous campaign near Vienna, mentions the “wild militia” of the Cossacks, striking him with her homely appearance.

Already from the beginning of the 13th century, an interesting description of one of the Cossack nests, a kind of branch of the Sich, compiled by the Moscow priest Lukyanov, has been preserved. He had to visit Khvastov - the site of the famous Semyon Paley and his freemen:

“The earthen rampart doesn’t look very strong, but the occupants are strong, but the people in it are like animals. There are frequent gates along the earthen rampart, and at every gate there are holes dug, and straw is laid in the pits. There are paleevshina people lying there, twenty or thirty in each; naked, like tambourines without shirts, very scary. And when we arrived and stood on the square, and that day they had many weddings, they surrounded us like they were around a bear; all the Cossacks were paleevshina, and they left the weddings; and all the pigeons were without ports, and some don't even have a scrap of shirt on; they're so scary, they're black, they're black and dirty, they're tearing out of our hands. They're amazed at us, and we're surprised at them, because we've never seen such monsters in our lives. Here in Moscow and in It won’t be long before you find even one like this in the Petrovsky Circle” (14).

A review of the Paleevites from Hetman Mazepa himself has been preserved. According to him, Paley “is not only darkened by everyday drunkenness, lives without the fear of God and without reason, but he also maintains a self-important revelry that thinks of nothing else, only of robbery and innocent blood.”

The Zaporizhzhya Sich, according to all the information that has reached us, is not far from the Paleev camp - this semblance of “noble orders that were sent to Western Europe.”

As for the democratic legend, it is the fruit of the efforts of Russian-Ukrainian poets, publicists, historians of the 19th century, such as Ryleev, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Shevchenko, Kostomarov, Antonovich, Drahomanov, Mordovtsev. Brought up on Western European democratic ideals, they wanted to see in the Cossacks the common people who had gone to the “bottom” from the master’s bondage and carried there their age-old principles and traditions. It is no coincidence that such a view was determined in the era of populism and received its most vivid expression in the article “On the Cossacks” (Contemporary, 1860) where its author, Kostomarov, rebelled against the common view of the Cossacks as robbers, and explained the Cossack phenomenon "a consequence of purely democratic ideas."

Kostomarov’s point of view still lives in the USSR. In the book by V. A. Golobutsky “Zaporozhye Cossacks” (15), the Cossacks are presented as pioneers of agriculture, plowing virgin lands in the Wild Field. The author sees in them not a military, but a predominantly agricultural phenomenon. But his argumentation, designed for the uninitiated mass of readers, is devoid of any value for researchers. He often resorts to unworthy methods, such as the fact that the economy of the registered Cossacks of the 17th century passes off as the pre-registration period of Cossack life and does not hesitate to enroll non-Cossack groups of the population as Cossacks, burghers, for example. In addition, he completely avoided objecting to works and publications that did not agree with his point of view.

When Kostomarov, together with Belozersky, Gulak, Shevchenko, founded the “Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood” in Kiev in 1847, he wrote “Books of the Life of the Ukrainian People” - something like a political platform, where the Cossack system was opposed to the aristocratic system of Poland and autocratic way of life in Moscow.

“Ukraine did not love either the tsar or the lord; for the sake of justice, they served everyone according to the word of Christ, and the greedy Pompi and the title were not given to the Cossacks.”

Kostomarov attributed a high mission to the Cossacks:

“The Cossacks decided to defend the Holy Virus and free their neighbors from captivity. Tim Hetman Svirgovsky went to defend Voloshchina, and the Cossacks did not take the money with chervonets, as they were given for services, they did not take them, who shed blood for the Virtue and for their neighbors and served God , and not to a golden idol" (16).

Kostomarov at that time was quite ignorant of Ukrainian history. Subsequently, he learned well who Svirgovsky was and why he went to Wallachia. But in the era of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood, the adventurous predatory expedition of the Polish nobles easily passed for a crusade and for serving “God, and not a golden idol.”

According to Kostomarov, the Cossacks brought such a truly democratic structure to Ukraine that they could make not only this country happy, but also its neighbors.

M.P. Drahomanov looked at the Zaporozhye Sich in approximately the same way. He saw a communal principle in Cossack life and was even inclined to call the Sich a “commune.” He could not forgive P. Lavrov for the fact that in his speech at the banquet dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Polish uprising of 1830, he listed the most striking examples of the revolutionary democratic movement (Jacquerie, Peasant War in Germany, Bogumilism in Bulgaria, Taborites in the Czech Republic) - did not mention the “Zaporozhian Partnership (commune)” (16a). Drahomanov believed that Zaporozhye “borrowed the very system of camps from the Czech taborites, whom our Volyntsy and Podolians of the 15th century went to help.” Drahomanov considered one of the direct tasks of the participants in the Ukrainophile movement to be “to look for memories of former freedom and equality in different places and classes of the population of Ukraine.” (He included this as a special point in the “Experience of the Ukrainian Political-Social Program”, published by him in 1884 in Geneva. There, the popularization of Cossack self-government during the era of the Hetmanate and, especially, the “Sich and liberties of the Zaporozhye partnership” is given exceptional importance The “program” requires the champions of the Ukrainian idea to propagate them worldwide “and bring them to the current concepts of freedom and equality among educated peoples” (17).

This fully explains the widespread dissemination of such a view of the Zaporozhye Cossacks, especially among the “progressive” intelligentsia. She learned it as a result of the energetic propaganda of figures like Drahomanov. Without any testing or criticism, it was accepted by the entire Russian revolutionary movement. Nowadays, it has found expression in the theses of the CPSU Central Committee on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia:

“During the struggle of the Ukrainian people against feudal-serfdom and national oppression,” it says, “as well as against Turkish-Tatar raids, a military force was created in the person of the Cossacks, the center of which in the 16th century became the Zaporozhye Sich, which played a progressive role in history Ukrainian people."

The compilers of the theses showed considerable caution; they do not mention either Cossack communism or freedom and equality - they evaluate the Cossacks exclusively as a military force, but their “progressive role” is noted in accordance with the traditional Ukrainophile point of view.

Meanwhile, historical science has long recognized the inappropriateness of the search for “progress” and “democracy” in such phenomena of the past as the Novgorod and Pskov Republics, or the Zemsky Councils of the Moscow State. Their peculiar medieval nature has little in common with the institutions of modern times. Also old Cossacks. His objective study destroyed both aristocratic and democratic legends. Kostomarov himself, as he delved deeper into the sources, significantly changed his view, and P. Kulish, having unfolded a wide historical canvas, presented the Cossacks in such a light that they do not fit into any comparison with European institutions and social phenomena. They were angry with Kulish for such a debunking, but they could not discredit his argumentation and the documentary material he collected. To this day, turning to him is mandatory for anyone who wants to understand the true essence of the Cossacks.

Democracy in our century is assessed not according to formal criteria, but according to its socio-cultural and moral value. Equality and elective positions in a community living by robbery and robbery do not delight anyone. We also do not consider the mere participation of the people in deciding common affairs and electing positions sufficient for a democratic system. Neither ancient, ancient, nor modern democracy conceived of these principles outside of strict state organization and firm power. Nobody now brings the rule of the crowd closer to the concept of democracy. And the Zaporozhye Cossacks lacked precisely the principle of statehood. They were brought up in the spirit of denial of the state. They had little respect for their own military structure, which could be considered as a prototype of the state, which caused general surprise among foreigners. The most popular and strongest of the Cossack hetmans, Bogdan Khmelnytsky, suffered a lot from the willfulness and unbridledness of the Cossacks. Everyone who visited the court of Khmelnytsky was amazed at the rude and familiar manner in which the colonels treated their hetman. According to one Polish nobleman, the Moscow ambassador, a respectable and courteous man, was often forced to lower his eyes to the ground. This caused even greater indignation among the Hungarian ambassador. He, despite the warm welcome given to him, could not help but utter in Latin: “I was taken to these wild animals!” (18).

The Cossacks not only did not value the hetman’s prestige, but also killed the hetmans themselves with a light heart. In 1668, near Dikanka, they killed the left bank hetman Bryukhovetsky. True, this murder was committed on the orders of his rival Doroshenko, but when he rolled out several barrels of the burner, the Cossacks, drunk, decided to kill Doroshenko himself in the evening. Bryukhovetsky’s successor, Demyan Mnogohreshny, admitted:

“I wish to surrender the hetmanship before I die. If death happens to me, then the Cossacks have such a custom - the hetman’s belongings will be destroyed, my wife, children and relatives will be made beggars; and even then it happens among the Cossacks that hetmans do not die by their own death; when I was lying sick , then the Cossacks were going to destroy all my belongings among themselves" (19).

The Cossacks were ready for the destruction of the hetman's belongings at any moment. A description of the banquet given by Mazepa in the Swedish camp in honor of the Cossacks who arrived to him has been preserved. Having gotten tipsy, the Cossacks began to pull gold and silver dishes from the table, and when someone dared to point out the unseemly nature of such behavior, he was immediately stabbed to death.

If such a style reigned during the era of the Hetmanate, when the Cossacks tried to create something similar to public administration, then what happened in relatively early times, especially in the famous Sich? Koshevy atamans and foreman were raised to the shield or overthrown on a whim, or under a drunken hand, without even bringing charges. The Rada, the supreme governing body, was a vociferous, unorganized meeting of all members of the “brotherhood.” Boyar V.V. Sheremetev, who was taken prisoner by the Tatars and lived in Crimea for many years, described in one letter to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich his impression of the Tatar Kurultai or, as he calls it, “Duma.” “And the Busurman Duma was similar to the Cossack Rada; what the khan and his neighbors will condemn, but the black yurt people will not want, and that matter will not be done by any means.” All the hetmans complain about the extraordinary dominance of the unauthorized crowd. The Cossacks, according to Mazepa, “never want to have any power or authority over themselves.” Cossack "democracy" was in fact an ochlocracy.

Isn’t this where the answer lies to why Ukraine did not become an independent state in its time? Could it have been created by people brought up in anti-state traditions? The “Cossack women” who captured Little Russia turned it into a kind of huge Zaporozhye, subordinating the entire region to their wild system of government. Hence the frequent coups, overthrow of hetmans, intrigues, undermining, the struggle of numerous groups with each other, treason, betrayal and incredible political chaos that reigned throughout the second half of the 17th century. Having not created their own state, the Cossacks were the most quarrelsome element in those states with which their historical fate connected them.

Explanations of the nature of the Cossacks must be sought not in the West, but not in the East, not on the soil fertilized by Roman culture, but in the “wild field”, among the Turkic-Mongol hordes. The Zaporozhye Cossacks have long been placed in a direct genetic connection with the predatory Pechenegs, Polovtsians and Tatars, who raged in the southern steppes throughout almost the entire Russian history. Settled in the Dnieper region and known most often under the name of the Black Klobuks, they eventually became Christianized, Russified and laid the foundation, according to Kostomarov, for the South Russian Cossacks. This point of view received strong support in a number of later studies, among which the study of P. Golubovsky is of particular interest. According to him, between the steppe nomadic world and the Russian elements in the old days there was not that sharp border that we usually imagine. Throughout the entire space from the Danube to the Volga, the “forest and steppe” penetrated each other, and while the Pechenegs, Torci and Cumans settled in Russian possessions, the Russians themselves lived in numerous islands in the depths of the Turkic nomads. There was a strong mixing of blood and cultures. And in this environment, according to Golubovsky, already in the Kyiv era, special warlike communities began to be created, in which both Russian and nomadic foreign elements were observed. Based on the well-known “Codex Camanicus” of the late 13th century, Golubovsky considers the very word “Cossack” to be Polovtsian, in the sense of a front-line guard, day and night (20).

There are many interpretations of this word and it was always derived from eastern languages, but previous researchers accompanied their statements with argumentation and corresponding linguistic calculations. Only V. A. Golobutsky, the author of a recently published work on the Zaporozhye Cossacks, deviated from this good academic tradition. Noting his Turkic origin and interpreting him as a “free man,” he did not support his discovery with anything. It is not difficult to notice the desire that guided him - to secure philologically for the word “Cossack” the meaning that was given to it in nationalist journalism and poetry of the 19th century.

Some researchers go further than Golubovsky and look for traces of the Cossacks in Scythian and Sarmatian times, when numerous bands labored in our south, earning food through robberies and raids. From time immemorial, the steppe breathed brigandage, predation and that special freedom that is so difficult to identify with the modern concept of freedom. The most striking stamp was left on the Cossacks by the Tatar era of steppe history that was closest to it in time. Attention has long been paid to the Turkic-Tatar origin of Cossack terminology. The word "shepherd", for example, meaning a sheep shepherd, is borrowed from the Tatars. The word “ataman”, a derivative of “odaman”, meaning the head of the shepherds of the herd, was also borrowed from them. The consolidated flock consisted of ten united flocks, each with a thousand sheep. This became known as “khosh”. The Cossack “kosh” (camp, camp, gathering place) and “koshevoy ataman” came out of this steppe vocabulary. This is where “kuren” and “kuren ataman” come from. “The meaning of kuren,” according to Rashided-Din, “is this: when in a field there are many tents standing around in the form of a ring, they call it KUREN.”

It is not so difficult to explain the penetration of Turkic-Mongolian nomadic terminology into the environment of the Dnieper Cossacks, due to the proximity of Crimea. But its most likely source was the Cossacks, just not their own Russians, but the Tatar ones. The idea of the Cossacks as a specifically Russian phenomenon is so widespread here and in Europe that the existence of foreign Cossack gatherings is rarely known to anyone. Meanwhile, Don and Zaporozhye were, one must think, younger brothers and students of the Tatar Cossacks.

There are many indications of the existence of Tatar Cossacks. Leaving aside the question of the large Kazakh horde beyond the Caspian Sea, which some historians, like Bykadorov and Evarnitsky, place in a family relationship with the entire Cossack world, we will limit ourselves to the territory closer to us - the Black Sea region.

In 1492, Khan Mengli-Girey wrote to Ivan III that his army, returning from near Kyiv with booty, was robbed in the steppe by “Horde Cossacks.” Russian chroniclers have repeatedly written about these Horde or “Azov” Cossack Tatars since the time of Ivan III, characterizing them as the most terrible robbers who attacked border cities and created extraordinary obstacles in relations between the Moscow State and Crimea. “The field is not clear of Azov Cossacks,” we constantly read in the reports of ambassadors and border governors to the sovereign. The Tatar Cossacks, like the Russians, did not recognize the authority of any of the neighboring sovereigns over themselves, although they often entered their service. Thus, detachments of Tatar Cossacks were in the service of Moscow, and Poland did not disdain them. It is known, at least, that King Sigismund Augustus called the Belgorod (Ackerman) and Perekop Cossacks to his side and sent them cloth for their salaries. But more often than not, the Crimean Khan, who constantly had large Cossack detachments among his troops, attracted them to his aid. Robbery in the space between the Crimea and Moscow Ukraine, the Tatar Cossacks were militarily, domestically and economically an independent organization, so that the Polish chroniclers, knowing the four Tatar hordes (Trans-Volga, Astrakhan, Kazan, Perekop), sometimes included a fifth among them - the Cossack (21).

After this, is it necessary to go far to the West in search of a model for the Zaporozhye Sich? The true school of the Dnieper freemen was the Tatar steppe, which gave it everything from military techniques, vocabulary, appearance (mustache, forelock, trousers), to customs, morals and the entire style of behavior. The famous sea voyages to Turechchina do not look like a patriotic or pious undertaking. The Ukrainophiles themselves of the last century knew that the Cossacks “split the Christian merchants along the Black Sea along with the Besurmen merchants, and at home the Russians lined their cities with Tatar robes” (22).

“There were Zaporizhzhya Cossacks in Sweden, numbering 4,000, writes one Polish chronicle, - Samuil Koshka was the hetman over them, and this Samuil was killed there. The Cossacks in Sweden did nothing good, did not help either the hetman or the king, only in Rus' Polotsk is great They did harm, and they devastated the glorious city of Vitebsk, they collected a lot of gold and silver, they chopped down noble townspeople and committed such sodomy that it was worse than evil enemies or Tatars.”

In 1603, the story is told about the adventures of the Cossacks under the command of a certain Ivan Kutsky in the Borkulabovskaya and Shupenskaya volosts, where they imposed tribute on the population in money and kind.

“In the same year, in the city of Mogilev, Ivan Kutska surrendered the hetmanship, because there was great willfulness in the army: whoever wants, does what he wants. A messenger arrived from the king and the noble lords, reminded and threatened the Cossacks so that there would be no violence in the city and in the villages they didn’t. One tradesman brought to this messenger in his arms a six-year-old girl, beaten and raped, barely alive; it was bitter, scary to watch: all the people were crying, they prayed to God the Creator to exterminate such self-willed people forever. And when the Cossacks went back to Niz, then they caused great losses to villages and towns; they took women, girls, children and horses with them; one Cossack led 8, 10, 12 horses, 3, 4 children, 4 or 3 women or girls" (23).

How does this picture differ from the sight of the Crimean horde returning with yasir from a successful raid? The difference may be that the Tatars did not take their co-religionists and fellow tribesmen and did not sell them into slavery, while for the Zaporozhye “knights” such subtleties did not exist.

The Zaporozhye school was neither knightly nor labor peasant. True, many serfs fled there, and there were many advocates of the idea of liberating the villagers from serfdom. But brought from outside, these ideas died away in Zaporozhye and were replaced by others. They did not determine the image of the Sich and the general tone of her life. It had its own age-old traditions, customs and its own view of the world. A person who ended up here was digested and reheated, as if in a cauldron; from a Little Russian he became a Cossack, changed his ethnography, changed his soul. In the eyes of contemporaries, both individual Cossacks and their entire associations bore the character of “miners.” “They don’t keep wives, they don’t plow the land, they feed on cattle breeding, animal hunting and fishing, and in the old days they mostly practiced booty received from neighboring peoples” (24). Cossacking was a special method of earning a living, and the same Paprocki, who praised the Cossacks as knights, admits in one place that in the lower reaches of the Dnieper “the saber brought more profits than farming.” That is why not only commoners, but also gentry, sometimes from very noble families, joined the Cossacks. How lofty their goals and aspirations were can be seen from the case of the famous Samuil Zaborovsky. Going to Zaporozhye, he dreamed of a campaign with the Cossacks on the Moscow borders, but when he came to the Sich and became familiar with the situation, he changed his intention and proposed a campaign to Moldova. When the Tatars come with a friendly offer to go together to plunder Persia, he willingly agrees to this too. Zaporozhye morals and customs were well known in Poland: crown hetman Jan Zamoyski, addressing the guilty nobles who used their merits in the Zaporozhye army to justify their previous misdeeds, said: “It is not on the bottom that they seek a glorious death, it is not there that lost rights are returned. Every reasonable person it is clear that they go there not out of love for their patronymic, but for the spoils" (25).

Even in later times, at the beginning of the 18th century, the Cossacks did not hesitate to call their craft by its own name. When Bulavin raised an uprising on the Don against Peter the Great, he went to Zaporozhye with the goal of gathering assistants there. The Sich became worried. Some stood for an immediate union with the Don chieftain, others were afraid to break with Moscow. It came to the change of chief and foreman. The moderate group gained the upper hand and decided that the entire Sich should not march, but would allow those who wished to join Bulavin at their own risk. Bulavin stood up in the Samara towns and addressed the Cossacks with an appeal:

“Well done atamans, road hunters, free people of all ranks, thieves and robbers! Whoever wants to go with the military marching ataman Kondraty Afanasyevich Bulavin, who wants to walk with him through an open field, walk around, have a sweet drink and eat, ride on good horses, then come Samara's peaks are black!" (26).

Before the establishment of the settled registered Cossacks in the middle of the 16th century, the term “Cossack” defined a special way of life. “Being a Cossack” meant retiring to the steppe beyond the border guard line and living there like the Tatar Cossacks, i.e., depending on the circumstances, fishing, herding sheep or robbing.

The figure of a Cossack is not identical with the type of a native Little Russian; they represent two different worlds. One is sedentary, agricultural, with culture, way of life, skills and traditions inherited from Kyiv times. The other is a wanderer, unemployed, leading a life of robbery, who has developed a completely different temperament and character under the influence of lifestyle and mixing with people from the steppe. The Cossacks were not generated by South Russian culture, but by a hostile element that had been at war with it for centuries.

Expressed by many Russian historians, this idea is now supported by the German researcher Gunther Steckl, who believes that the first Russian Cossacks were Russified baptized Tatars. In them he sees the fathers of the East Slavic Cossacks.

As for the legend ascribing to the Cossacks the mission of protecting the Slavic east of Europe from the Tatars and Turks, it has now been sufficiently debunked by the accumulated documentary material and the works of researchers. The Cossack service on the edge of the Wild Field was created by the initiative and efforts of the Polish state, and not the Cossacks themselves. This question has long been clear to historical science.

Capture of Little Russia by the Cossacks

Anyone who does not understand the predatory nature of the Cossacks, who confuses them with the fugitive peasantry, will never understand either the origin of Ukrainian separatism or the meaning of the event that preceded it, in the middle of the 17th century. And this event meant nothing more than the seizure by a small group of steppe freemen of a country huge in territory and population. For a long time, the Cossacks had a dream of getting some small state to feed them. Judging by the frequent raids on Moldova-Wallachia, this land was the first to be chosen by them. They almost took possession of it in 1563, when they went there under the command of Baida-Vishnevetsky. Even then there was talk of elevating this leader to the throne of the ruler. After 14 years, in 1577, they managed to take Iasi and place their ataman Podkova on the throne, but this time the success was short-lived; Podkova could not maintain his rule. Despite the failures, the Cossacks continued their attempts to conquer and seize power in the Danube principalities for almost a whole century. To get their hands on them, to establish themselves there as officials, to take over the ranks - such was the meaning of their efforts.

Fate turned out to be more favorable to them than they could have imagined; it gave them a much richer and more extensive land than Moldova - Ukraine. Such happiness befell, largely unexpectedly for them, thanks to the peasant war, which led to the fall of serfdom and Polish rule in the region.

But before talking about this, it is necessary to note one important change that took place in the middle of the 16th century. We are talking about the introduction of the so-called “register”, which meant a list of those Cossacks that the Polish government accepted into its service to protect the outlying lands from Tatar raids. Strictly limited in number, brought over time to 6,000, subordinate to the Polish crown hetman and receiving their military and administrative center in the city of Terekhtemirov above the Dnieper, the registered Cossacks were endowed with certain rights and benefits: they were free from taxes, received a salary, had their own court, their own elected control. But, having placed this select group in a privileged position, the Polish government imposed a ban on all other Cossacks, seeing in it the development of a harmful, roaming, anti-government element.

In the scientific literature, this reform is usually considered as the first legal and economic division within the Cossacks. The registries see a select caste that has the opportunity to acquire a house, land, farm and employ, often on a large scale, the labor of workers and all kinds of servants. This provides Soviet historians with material for endless discussions about “stratification” and “antagonism.”

Nikolai Ulyanov - the origin of Ukrainian separatism. "The origin of Ukrainian separatism", Nikolay Ulyanov, selected Nikolay Ulyanov the origin of Ukrainian separatism