placed on the Tartars. He only marched to Red Russia, besieged Lemberg, took two hundred thousand gulden as ransom, invested Zamosc, received there twenty thousand gulden, and awaited the result of the royal election. His embassy worked for the election of John Casimir, brother of Wladislaus, who was eventually elected. Chmelnicki now began his homeward march, made his entry amid the pealing of bells and the thunder of cannon into Kiev, where he was solemnly received by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, by the Metropolitan, the clergy, and the citizens. There now appeared in his camp ambassadors of the Sultan from Moldavia and Wallachia, from Transylvania and Moscow, all with offers of alliance. Chmelnicki played the part of an independent sovereign. Ambassadors also came from the newly elected king, at their head Kisiel, an Orthodox noble. But Chmelnicki rejected all proposals for peace, and marched for the second time to the Polish frontier, since he knew that only the sword could decide. The king in person now took the field against him. A battle was fought at Zborov. John Casimir had almost been taken prisoner when Chmelnicki gave orders for the slaughter to cease; he wished, he said, to extirpate the Slachta, but not fight against the king. New terms of peace were put forward by him. He demanded that forty thousand should be put on the list of the "Reserved," and that the voivodships of Kiev, Tchernygov, Poltava and Podolia, should be given to the Cossacks; abolition of the union of Brest, a seat for the Orthodox Metropolitan in the Polish Senate, and the expulsion of the Jesuits and the Jews from the Ukraine. Poland would not listen to these conditions, and preparations were renewed for war. The people now began to mutter that Chmelnicki was deserting them and would not win freedom for them. But this time the Cossacks, although Chmelnicki is said to have had three hundred and fifty thousand men with him, were beaten at Beresteczko in Volhynia, through the treachery of the Tartar Khan, who, having made an agreement with the king, left the field of battle at the decisive moment and carried off with him as prisoner Chmelnicki, vainly urging him to turn back. The latter regained his liberty after much trouble, and when he came back all was lost. He was now forced to accept unfavourable conditions. Chmelnicki still persevered, and even won some victories; but he saw that the country could not hold its own without foreign aid. At the assembly specially convened for the purpose some declared for Turkey, others for Moscow; there were a few voices in favour of remaining with Poland. The masses were for Russia, with which the common faith formed a link. Chmelnicki himself preferred Russia. He sent in 1653 a solemn embassy to the Czar Alexej, who had hitherto maintained an unfriendly attitude toward the insurgents, and this time the Grand Duke decided to accept the Cossacks. In the next year Muscovite commissaries appeared in the Ukraine and took possession of the country. An army under Doroszenko submitted some years later to Turkey.

In the centuries of struggle between Poland and Russia for the sovereignty in the East, the year 1654 forms the turning point. Poland had been driven into the background by her own fault, while the power of Russia was from year to year extended at the expense of Poland. It might now be said that the game was lost for Poland.

But the democratic Cossack community was as little adapted for the arrogant Muscovites as for the aristocratic Polish republic. Absolutism cannot brook national forms of liberty in its own domain. Moscow was otherwise, with its rude

Boyars and its low culture little adapted to benefit a people like the Cossacks, who, accustomed to freedom, stood on a higher plane in politics and culture. The position of the Cossacks, however, became more endurable under the Muscovite sceptre, since definite laws were enforced there; all subjects were equal, and even those outside the Boyar class were not treated more indulgently. The weight of the government was, therefore, felt less acutely.

An independent existence for the Cossack State was impossible. The Cossacks received their material as well as spiritual requirements from Russia. They bought their weapons in Russian marts, and they owed their very moderate degree of intellectual development to the Orthodox clergy, whose patron the Russian Czar was. Chmelnicki alone with his sound common-sense recognised this. A bold and skilful soldier, he was hardly competent for his great task as a statesman; he was no born ruler, but always regarding himself as a servant of the crown, he only thought how to find out another master for himself. He showed superficiality in his grip of the national and the social questions. He owed the successes which he achieved more to accident and the universal hatred of the Slachta than to his genius. The people did not notice these defects in him; and when he died, on the 25th of August, 1657, at the age of sixty-four years, a Cossack ballad sang that it was not the wind that groaned and howled in the trees, but the nation bewailing its father Chmelnicki.

D. THE RUSSIAN AGE OF THE COSSACKS

It was not long before the Muscovite administration in the Ukraine caused a bitter disappointment. The Polish party therefore grew again, especially among the upper classes, while the people mostly remained loyal to Moscow. There was still vacillation; at one time there were fresh submissions to Poland, as, for instance, in the case of Jurij, Chmelnicki's own son, at another time there were reversions to Moscow. But there were always the three parties existing in the Ukraine, the Polish, the Turkish, and the Russian, which fought each other with renewed vigor. Soon there was evidence of a deplorable split between the Cossacks and the population which was excluded from the military service. The Cossacks, who acquired large estates, began to separate themselves more sharply as an aristocracy from the lower stratum, over which they wished to rule, like the Slachta in Poland. The democratic spirit, which had formerly worked wonders in the Ukraine and had inspired and morally elevated the whole people, gradually disappeared. Soon the hate of the people turned against the Cossacks themselves, who became their oppressors.

When the reorganisation of the government and the army was completed under Peter the Great and a standing army was raised, the Cossacks no longer fitted into the new political and military structure. But Peter still spared them. It was only when Hetman Ivan St. Mazeppa1 had attempted in the Northern War (1707; Vol. VII, p. 510) to emancipate the Ukraine with the help of the Swedes, and had entered into secret negotiations with Charles XII, that Peter struck about

1 This man, once (1663) bound to a wild horse and carried into the wilds of the Ukraine, has been immortalised by a poem of Lord Byron, as well as by two paintings of Horace Vernet.

VOL. V-36

him with his usual cruelty; he took no further consideration for the separate interests of the Cossacks, instituted in Moscow a special "Chancery for Little Russian affairs," and abolished the office of Hetman. Menschikov (p. 581) captured the Sjetch of the Saporogi on the island of Chortiza, and they now emigrated to the Crimea. They were recalled to the Dnieper under the empress Anna in 1737. They did not recognise their country again. Southern Russia had become quickly settled after the subjugation of the Tartar Khanates and was covered with towns. The steppe, through which the Cossacks had roamed like the Arabs through their desert, had been transformed into a populous land. Discontented with this, they wished their old land to be restored to them and changed back again into a waste, a further proof that they, the knights of robbery and plunder, were no longer suited to the new age and an organised government.

Once again in the time of Catherine II a savage social and religious war against Poles, Jews, and Catholics blazed forth, when the Cossacks, together with Haidamakes and every sort of riffraff, wreaked their fury and pillaged whole towns like Umani. Gonta and Selisnjak were the ringleaders; the Greek clergy once more added fuel to the flames. At last in 1775 Potemkin, by Catherine's orders, took the Sjetch and destroyed it. One part of the insurgents emigrated to Turkey; the rest remained as Cossacks of the Black Sea, they received the southern shore of the Sea of Azov and the island of Fanagoria as their homes, with a special constitution. This was the end of the free Cossack life; it only survived in songs. Catherine II, being alarmed by revolts, especially by that of J. Pugatschev (1774; p. 600), and also indignant because her new settlements and towns in the south were injured in their development by a population of born robbers, declared, in the decree of May 3, 1783, in spite of her liberal views, all the crown peasants of Little Russia, and therefore the peasants among the Cossacks, to be serfs, a measure by which a million and a half peasants were presented to the nobles. When in the same year she united the Crimea (the Tartar Cossacks) with the empire, "the old life of those semi-nomads, semi-robber knights, with all its romance and adventure, ceased for ever in the south, and the stillness of the grave sank over that country where for centuries a noisy life had pulsed." A similar phenomenon came to light in the territory belonging to the state of Moscow, and to some extent in the adjoining districts. The peasant population was no better treated there than in Poland; the treatment of the serfs became more and more oppressive, only with the distinction that it was not so much the Boyars here, as the state itself and the magistrates, who ill-treated the people with true Oriental brutality, and extorted from them the uttermost farthing. Whole districts became depopulated. According to the official report there were in one region of 460 square miles (German) only 123 inhabited settlements and 967 deserted ones; the reason often given for this was "the Czar's taxes and imposts." The people emigrated by thousands; the limitation and the subsequent abolition of the right of emigration proved ineffectual. Vast numbers of those who suffered from the misgovernment tried by flight to save their lives at any rate. Many went into the steppe districts on the Don and the Volga as far as the Ural River and the Caucasus. There, too, Cossack bands were formed, such as those of the Don, the Volga, the Ural, etc. They were usually hostile to the state and were often the cause of serious disturbances.

All the pretenders to the Russian crown found supporters among the Cossacks

or started from that country. Among the more famous chieftains we may mention Bolotnikof, who encouraged the bands to murder the Boyars, to appropriate their goods, their wives and daughters, to plunder the warehouses of the merchants and divide all state offices among themselves; then the dreaded Ataman Stenka (Stephan) Rasin in the time of the Czar Alexis (1667-1671); Kondratij Bulavin under Peter the Great (1707-1708); Pugatchef, who gave himself out to be Peter III; further two pseudo-Demetrij; they were all supported by these bands. This was the harvest which the state of Moscow reaped from the Asiatic brutality of its policy. But among the Cossacks also arose Jarmak Timofejef (cf. Vol. II, p. 218), who became famous by the conquest of Siberia, and then Deschnef, the discoverer in 1648 of the strait between America and Asia which was later rediscovered by Behring and called after him (Vol. II, p. 220). Cossacks conquered Azov and wished to surrender it to the Czar (p. 575). Nevertheless the revolts of these Cossacks gave the Russian government much trouble. It was only after the defeat of Pugatchef under Catherine II that their wide domains became gradually reduced to order.

11. THE LAST CENTURY OF THE POLISH EMPIRE

A. POLAND FROM JOHN II CASIMIR TO JOHN III SOBIESKI; THE
LIBERUM VETO

THE loss of the Ukraine was not the sole disaster which befell Poland in 1654. The war for it with Moscow and Turkey was almost worse. But the Swedish king Charles X Gustavus, against whose accession John II (Jan) Casimir (1648– 1668) raised a protest, also declared war with Poland. In addition to these Prince Georg Rákóczy II of Transylvania (p. 391) attacked Poland in 1657. For many years Poland had not been faced by such great danger. Warsaw (Vol. VII, p. 480) and Cracow were in the hands of the Swedes, the Great Elector of Brandenburg took Prussia; Wilna and Red Russia were occupied by the Russians and Cossacks, and Rákóczy was committing the most terrible ravages; the king fled to Silesia. The saddest feature was that the Slachta joined the Swedes, and that there were traitors who roused rebellion against their own sovereign. The nobler minds formed a league, at whose head the king placed himself; and an alliance was concluded with Austria and Denmark. In spite of some successes to their arms the Poles were forced to submit to great sacrifices. In the treaty of Wehlau (29th September, 1657) it renounced the suzerainty of Prussia in favour of the Elector Frederick William; by this concession the duchy of Prussia was definitely lost. By the treaty with Sweden, concluded on the 3d of May, 1660, in the Cistercian monastery of Oliva near Dantsic, Poland had to cede Elbing and Livonia; besides this, John Casimir abandoned his rights of inheritance in Sweden, and was only allowed to assume for his life the title of King of Sweden. The Polish arms were comparatively most successful in the Ukraine, where the Poles succeeded in winning over to their side a part of the Cossacks under Wyhovskij. Even the son of Chmelnicki (p. 561) submitted to Poland. Nevertheless the latter was compelled by the truce of Andrussov (20th January, 1667) to cede to Moscow Smolensk, Severien, Czernigov, and the Ukraine on the left

bank of the Dnieper for thirteen years, and Kiev for two years (see the "Maps illustrating the History of Poland "). The war with Turkey, which had been brought about by the defeat of a part of the Cossacks under Doroszenko, similarly ended with a humiliating peace for Poland at Buczacz (Budziek), which was concluded eventually under Michael, the successor of John Casimir, on the 18th of September, 1672. According to its terms Poland ceded part of the Ukraine to Doroszenko, Podolia with the fortress of Kamieniec (Kamenez) to Turkey, and consented to pay an annual tribute of twenty-two thousand ducats.

Still more unfortunate for Poland were the moral degeneracy of its Slachta and the general corruption of public life. Each group concluded peace on its own account with the enemy; the parties were hostile to each other and stirred up ill-will against the king; even individual officials carried out an independent policy. Many were in the pay of foreign powers, among them, for instance, the primate of the empire and John Sobieski, the subsequent king; the high dignitaries publicly taunted each other with venality. It was in the year 1652 that a single deputy from Troki in Lithuania, Wladislaus Sicinski by name, dissolved the Reichstag, which had been summoned at a dangerous crisis, by interposing his veto. That the validity of a resolution of the Reichstag depended on the assent of each individual member was of the essence of the constitution; each individual was the embodiment of the majesty of the empire. Unanimity in all the resolutions of the Reichstag had already been demanded (p. 541), and minorities had before this dissolved the Reichstag. But it was unprecedented that an individual should have dared to make the fullest use of the liberum veto. Foreign interference and the exercise of influence on the imperial policy were henceforward much simplified, since all that was now required was to win over one single individual.

But then as formerly, as if that was the obvious course, the blame was laid on the king. John Casimir was cautious and bold, but nevertheless the Slachta hated him. He was accused of indifference, no regard was paid to him, and his deposition was discussed. He anticipated this last proceeding, as he resolved to lay down the crown voluntarily. There was still much haggling about the annuity payable to him, just as he had formerly been forced from motives of economy to marry his brother's widow, Marie Louise (p. 550), in order that the country might not require to keep up two queens. The abdication took place on the 16th September, 1668. The Senate and the Chamber of Provincial Deputies met in a joint session. With touching words of farewell the weeping king laid on the table of the house the deed of abdication, and the whole assembly wept with him. But the whole state, as it were, abdicated in the person of the king; his retirement was the most tangible proof of the impossible position of public affairs in the Polish Empire.

The ex-king revisited Sokal, Cracow, and Czenstochau; he learnt of the election of his successor, the feeble Michael Thomas Kory but Wisnioviecki (1669-1673), and went to France, where he died at St. Germain on the 16th of December, 1672. Shortly before that, King Michael had been forced to conclude the shameful peace of Buczacz. He was the son of that Voivod, Jeremias Wisnioviecki of Reussen, who had once vented his fury on the Ukraine-Cossacks (p. 556); but he had not inherited the warlike abilities of his father. Under the prevailing republican conditions the kingship in Poland of the seventeenth century meant