Bohdan Khmelnytsky (27 December 1595-6 August 1657) was the Ukrainian Hetman of the Zaporizhian Sich from 30 January 1648 to 6 August 1657, preceding Yurii Khmelnytsky. In 1648-1654, he led the Khmelnytsky Uprising against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the creation of an independent Ukrainian Cossack state. While many modern Ukrainians view him as a national hero, others, such as Taras Shevchenko, have criticized him for his 1654 treaty with the Tsardom of Russia (which effectively ended his domain's short-lived independence) and for his alliance with the Crimean Khanate (allowing the Tatars to take Ukrainian peasants as slaves in the process).
Biography[]
Bohdan Mykhailovych Khmelnytsky was born in Subotiv, Kiev Voivodeship, Poland-Lithuania on 27 December 1595, and he came from a family of Ukrainian lesser nobility. He joined the Cossacks in 1617 and fought against the Ottoman Turks in Moldavia, where his father was killed in battle in 1620 at the Battle of Cecora; Bohdan was captured and served as a galley slave, learning Turkish in the process. He was ransomed in 1622 and returned to Ukraine, where he managed his father's estate and continued his military service. He was initially loyal to Poland during the first Cossack uprisings of the 1630s, but, in 1646, the Polish magnate Aleksander Koniecpolski attempted to redraw the maps of his late father's possessions, claiming Khmelnytsky's lands as his own. King Wladyslaw IV of Poland sided with Khmelnytsky, but the King was powerless against the local magnates, and Khmelnytsky was evicted in 1647. He sought aid from fellow Cossack leaders, leading to Koniecpolski ordering Khmelnytsky's execution; Khmelnytsky escaped to the Zaporizhian Cossacks and started a rebellion in December 1647 after taking over the Zaporizhian Sich. In January 1648, Khmelnytsky was elected its Hetman, and, aided by the Crimean Khanate, Khmelnytsky defeated the Poles at the Battle of Zhovti Vody on 16 May 1648 and the Battle of Korsun on 26 May 1648. He made his Host the supreme power in the new Ukrainian state, but the war with Poland soon settled into a stalemate, and regular Polish attacks starting in 1649 led to the tide gradually turning in Poland-Lithuania's favor. Khmelnytsky was betrayed and captured by the Tatars at the 1651 Battle of Berestechko, and the Tatars would switch sides frequently in order to maintain the balance of power as warfare continued into the 1650s. Khmelnytsky considered an alliance with the Ottomans, but this proved unpopular with his Orthodox Christian followers, so he instead allied himself with the Tsardom of Russia in 1654. This led to the Tatars going over to the Polish side. In 1654, the Cossacks drove the Poles from Belarus, and Poland-Lithuania soon came under attack from the Swedes and Hungarians in addition to the Russians and Cossacks, nearly collapsing. In 1656, however, the Cossacks failed in their invasion of Poland, leading to a rebellion within the Host, and Khmelnytsky returned home to deal with the uprising and made preparations to fight off a Tatar invasion of Ukraine. Khmelnytsky soon became terminally ill, receiving the Tsar's embassy from his bed, and he died from a cerebral hemorrhage on 6 August 1657.