Editing Cossacks (section)

===Cossack Hetmanate===
{{main|Cossack Hetmanate}}

====Formation of the Cossack class in the Hetmanate====

[[File:Pic I V Ivasiuk Mykola Bohdan Khmelnytskys Entry to Kyiv.jpg|thumb|left|350px|''[[Bohdan Khmelnytsky]]'s entry to Kyiv'' by [[Mykola Ivasyuk]], end of the 19th century]]
The waning loyalty of the Cossacks, and the ''[[szlachta]]'s'' arrogance towards them, resulted in several Cossack uprisings against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the early 17th century. Finally, the King's adamant refusal to accede to the demand to expand the [[Registered Cossack|Cossack Registry]] prompted the largest and most successful of these: the [[Khmelnytsky Uprising]], that began in 1648. Some Cossacks, including the Polish ''szlachta'' in Ukraine, converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, divided the lands of the Ruthenian ''szlachta'', and became the [[Starshina#Ukraine|Cossack ''szlachta'']]. The uprising was one of a series of catastrophic events for the Commonwealth, known as [[The Deluge (Polish history)|The Deluge]], which greatly weakened the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and set the stage for its disintegration 100 years later.

Influential relatives of the Ruthenian and Lithuanian ''szlachta'' in Moscow helped to create the Russian–Polish alliance against Khmelnitsky's Cossacks, portrayed as rebels against order and against the private property of the Ruthenian Orthodox ''szlachta''. Don Cossacks' raids on [[Crimea]] left Khmelnitsky without the aid of his usual Tatar allies. From the Russian perspective, the rebellion ended with the 1654 [[Treaty of Pereyaslav]], in which, in order to overcome the Russian–Polish alliance against them, the Khmelnitsky Cossacks pledged their loyalty to the [[Russian Tsar]]. In return, the Tsar guaranteed them his protection; recognized the Cossack ''[[starshyna]]'' (nobility), their property, and their autonomy under his rule; and freed the Cossacks from the Polish sphere of influence and the land claims of the Ruthenian ''szlachta''.<ref name="EB_Pereyaslav">"In 1651, in the face of a growing threat from Poland and forsaken by his Tatar allies, Khmelnytsky asked the tsar to incorporate Ukraine as an autonomous duchy under Russian protection ... the details of the union were negotiated in Moscow. The Cossacks were granted a large degree of autonomy, and they, as well as other social groups in Ukraine, retained all the rights and privileges they had enjoyed under Polish rule." {{cite encyclopedia| encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica| year=2006| article=Pereyaslav agreement| url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Pereyaslav-Agreement| title=Archived copy| access-date=2015-08-07| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924185022/https://www.britannica.com/event/Pereyaslav-Agreement| archive-date=2015-09-24| url-status=live}}</ref>

Only some of the Ruthenian ''szlachta'' of the [[Chernigov]] region, who had their origins in the Moscow state, saved their lands from division among Cossacks and became part of the Cossack ''szlachta''. After this, the Ruthenian ''szlachta'' refrained from plans to have a Moscow Tsar as king of the Commonwealth, its own [[Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki]] later becoming king. The last, ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to rebuild the Polish–Cossack alliance and create a Polish–Lithuanian–Ruthenian Commonwealth was the 1658 [[Treaty of Hadiach]]. The treaty was approved by the Polish king and the [[Sejm]], and by some of the Cossack ''starshyna'', including [[hetman]] [[Ivan Vyhovsky]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dvornik |first1=Francis |title=The Slavs in European History and Civilization |year=1962 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |location=New Jersey |isbn=978-0-8135-0799-6 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/slavsineuropeanh0000dvor_f9h0 }}</ref> The treaty failed, however, because the ''starshyna'' were divided on the issue, and it had even less support among rank-and-file Cossacks.

====Relations with neighbours====

As a result of the mid–17th century Khmelnytsky Uprising, the Zaporozhian Cossacks briefly established an independent state, which later became the autonomous [[Cossack Hetmanate]] (1649–1764). It was placed under the [[suzerainty]] of the Russian Tsar from 1667 but was ruled by local hetmans for a century. The principal political problem of the hetmans who followed the [[Pereyaslav Council|Pereyeslav Agreement]] was defending the autonomy of the Hetmanate from Russian/Muscovite centralism. The hetmans [[Ivan Vyhovsky]], [[Petro Doroshenko]] and [[Ivan Mazepa]] attempted to resolve this by separating Ukraine from Russia.<ref name="auto"/>

Relations between the Hetmanate and their new sovereign began to deteriorate after the autumn of 1656, when the Muscovites, going against the wishes of their Cossack partners, signed an armistice with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in [[Vilnius]]. The Cossacks considered the Vilnius agreement a breach of the contract they had entered into at Pereiaslav. For the Muscovite tsar, the Pereiaslav Agreement signified the unconditional submission of his new subjects; the Ukrainian hetman considered it a conditional contract from which one party could withdraw if the other was not upholding its end of the bargain.<ref name="auto1">{{Citation|last1=Plokhy|first1=Serhii|title=The Battle of Konotop 1659|chapter=Konotop 1659: exploring alternatives in East European history|pages=11–19|publisher=Ledizioni|isbn=978-88-6705-050-5|doi=10.4000/books.ledizioni.374|year=2012|doi-access=free}}</ref>

The Ukrainian hetman Ivan Vyhovsky, who succeeded Khmelnytsky in 1657, believed the Tsar was not living up to his responsibility. Accordingly, he concluded a treaty with representatives of the Polish king, who agreed to re-admit Cossack Ukraine by reforming the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to create a third constituent, comparable in status to that of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The [[Treaty of Hadiach|Union of Hadiach]] provoked a war between the Cossacks and the Muscovites/Russians that began in the fall of 1658.<ref name="auto1"/>

[[File:Stanisław Masłowski (1853-1926), Cossacs, ca 1900, drawing, 29 x 36,5 cm.jpeg|thumb|left|''Kozacy'' (Cossacks), [[drawing]] by [[Stanisław Masłowski]], {{circa|1900}} ([[National Museum in Warsaw]])]]
In June 1659, the two armies met near the town of [[Konotop]]. One army comprised Cossacks, Tatars, and Poles, and the other was led by a top Muscovite military commander of the era, Prince [[Aleksey Trubetskoy]]. After terrible losses, Trubetskoy was forced to withdraw to the town of [[Putyvl]] on the other side of the border. The battle is regarded as one of the Zaporizhian Cossacks' most impressive victories.<ref name="auto1"/>

In 1659, [[Yurii Khmelnytsky]] was elected hetman of the Zaporizhian Host/Hetmanate, with the endorsement of Moscow and supported by common Cossacks unhappy with the conditions of the Union of Hadiach. In 1660, however, the hetman asked the Polish king for protection, leading to the period of Ukrainian history known as [[The Ruin (Ukrainian history)|The Ruin]].<ref name="auto1"/>

====Suppression of Cossack autonomy in the Russian Empire====

Historian Gary Dean Peterson writes: "With all this unrest, Ivan Mazepa of the Ukrainian Cossacks was looking for an opportunity to secure independence from Russia and Poland".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Peterson, Gary Dean.|title=Warrior kings of Sweden: the rise of an empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries|date=2007|publisher=McFarland & Co|isbn=978-0-7864-2873-1|oclc=237127678}}</ref> In response to Mazepa's alliance with [[Charles XII of Sweden]], [[Peter the Great|Peter I]] ordered the sacking of the then capital of the Hetmanate, [[Baturyn]]. The city was burnt and looted, and 11,000 to 14,000 of its inhabitants were killed. The destruction of the Hetmanate's capital was a signal to Mazepa and the Hetmanate's inhabitants of severe punishment for disloyalty to the Tsar's authority.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/excavations-at-baturyn-in-2016-2017-ceramic-decorations-of-the-hetmans-palaces-and-offices/|title=Excavations at Baturyn in 2016-2017: ceramic decorations of the hetman's palaces and offices|last1=Mezentsev|first1=Volodymyr|website=The Ukrainian Weekly|date=27 October 2017 |language=en-US|access-date=2020-02-17|archive-date=2020-02-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200217143143/http://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/excavations-at-baturyn-in-2016-2017-ceramic-decorations-of-the-hetmans-palaces-and-offices/|url-status=live}}</ref> The Zaporizhian Sich at [[Chortomlyk Sich|Chortomlyk]], which had existed since 1652, was also destroyed by Peter I's forces in 1709, in retribution for decision of its otaman [[Kost Hordiyenko]], to ally with Mazepa.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CZ%5CA%5CZaporozhianSich.htm|title=Zaporozhian Sich|website=www.encyclopediaofukraine.com|access-date=2020-02-17|archive-date=2018-06-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180623033138/http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CZ%5CA%5CZaporozhianSich.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

Under Russian rule, the Cossack nation of the Zaporozhian Host was divided into two autonomous republics of the Russian Tsardom: the [[Cossack Hetmanate]], and the more independent [[Zaporozhian Sich|Zaporizhia]]. These organizations gradually lost their autonomy, and were abolished by [[Catherine the Great|Catherine II]] in the late 18th century. The Hetmanate became the governorship of [[Little Russia]], and Zaporizhia was absorbed into [[New Russia]].