The Khmelnytsky Uprising, also known as the Cossack-Polish War, or the Khmelnytsky insurrection, was a Cossack rebellion that took place between 1648 and 1657 in the eastern territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which led to the creation of a Cossack Hetmanate in Ukraine. Under the command of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, allied with the Crimean Tatars and local Ukrainian peasantry, fought against Polish domination and Commonwealth’s forces. The insurgency was accompanied by mass atrocities committed by Cossacks against the civilian population, especially against the Roman Catholic and Ruthenian Uniate clergy and the Jews, as well as savage reprisals by Jeremi Wiśniowiecki, the voivode of the Ruthenian Voivodeship.
The uprising has a symbolic meaning in the history of Ukraine's relationship with Poland and Russia. It ended the Polish Catholic szlachta′s domination over the Ukrainian Orthodox population; at the same time, it led to the eventual incorporation of eastern Ukraine into the Tsardom of Russia initiated by the 1654 Pereiaslav Agreement, whereby the Cossacks would swear allegiance to the tsar while retaining a wide degree of autonomy. The event triggered a period of political turbulence and infighting in the Hetmanate known as the Ruin. The success of the anti-Polish rebellion, along with internal conflicts in Poland, as well as concurrent wars waged by Poland with Russia and Sweden (the Russo-Polish War (1654–1667) and Second Northern War (1655–1660) respectively), ended the Polish Golden Age and caused a secular decline of Polish power during the period known in Polish history as the Deluge.
In Jewish history, the Uprising is known for the atrocities against the Jews who, in their capacity as leaseholders (arendators), were seen by the peasants as their immediate oppressors.
Background
In 1569 the Union of Lublin granted the southern Lithuanian-controlled Ruthenian voivodeships of Volhynia, Podolia, Bracław and Kiev—to the Crown of Poland under the agreement forming the new Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Kingdom of Poland already controlled several Ruthenian lands which formed the voivodeships of Lviv and Belz. The combined lands would be formed into the Lesser Poland Province, Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. Although the local nobility was granted full rights within the Rzeczpospolita, their assimilation of Polish culture alienated them from the lower classes. It was especially important in regard to powerful and traditionally influential great princely families of Ruthenian origins, among them Wiśniowiecki, Czartoryski, Ostrogski, Sanguszko, Zbaraski, Korecki and Zasławski, which acquired even more power and were able to gather more lands, creating huge latifundia. This szlachta, along with the actions of the upper-class Polish magnates, oppressed the lower-class Ruthenians, with the introduction of Counter-Reformation missionary practices and the use of Jewish arendators to manage their estates.
Local Orthodox traditions were also affected from the assumption of ecclesiastical power by the Grand Duchy of Moscow in 1448. The growing Russian state in the north sought to acquire the southern lands of Kievan Rus', and with the fall of Constantinople it began this process by insisting that the Metropolitan of Moscow and All Rus′ was now the primate of the Russian Church.
The pressure of Catholic expansionism culminated with the Union of Brest in 1596, which attempted to retain the autonomy of the Eastern Orthodox churches in present-day Ukraine, Poland and Belarus by aligning themselves with the Bishop of Rome. Many Cossacks were also against the Uniate Church. While all of the people did not unite under one church, the concepts of autonomy were implanted into consciousness of the area and came out in force during the military campaign of Bohdan Khmelnytsky.