Blackwell Reference Online

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The Khmelnytsky Uprising was a series of organized peasant rebellions waged by Cossacks and Tatars in Ruthenia (contemporary Ukraine) in response to occupation, imposition of a foreign culture, and repression of local peoples by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The sequence of popular campaigns raged in the southeastern region of the Commonwealth beginning in 1648 and culminated in the Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1654, viewed as the forerunner to the national autonomy movement. The uprisings are considered by Ukrainians as key rebellions that liberated Ukrainians, leading to the formation of the modern Ukrainian state. The leader of the Khmelnytsky Uprising was Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, a Ukrainian Cossack nobleman who was expelled from his lands by Aleksander Koniecpolski, a Polish magnate. Bohdan Khmelnytsky was steadfastly opposed to what was considered a foreign occupation and the imposition of mandatory tributes and payments to the magnates by local peasants of all social classes. Daniel Czaplinski, the Chyhyryn starost , or head of the local administration of the Polish king, sent an armed contingent to harass Khmelnytsky and his family. The Polish forces raided and destroyed peasant lands and agricultural property, and beat and injured his son Yurii. To avert any further injury or death from the Polish forces, Khmelnytsky sent his family out of the zone of conflict into ... log in or subscribe to read full text