Between Faith and Dogma: Ideological Attitudes of Ordinary Participants in the Bohdan Khmelnytsky Uprising

Vasilenko Mariya ORCID: 0009-0008-0628-3546 Postgraduate student; Faculty of History; Lomonosov Moscow State University 119192, Russia, Moscow, Ramenki district, ter. Leninskie Gory, 1B vmasha1999@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

The Bogdan Khmelnitsky uprising of 1648-1654 was the culmination of a series of Cossack conflicts and triggered a process of global geopolitical changes in Eastern Europe, which is why historiographical attempts to understand the nature of this conflict remain relevant. The Cossack issue remained one of the main challenges for the Polish gentry and the magnate for more than half a century, and therefore the Polish studies of M. R. Drozdovsky ^[1], T. Hennel-Hynchevskaya ^[2], V. Serchik ^[3], etc. are often focused on the strategy and nature of the actions of the Sejm and the Polish gentry in attempts to resolve conflict. In the Ukrainian research tradition, which inherits M. S. Hrushevsky ^[4], special attention is paid to the nature of the emerging new type of statehood within the Hetmanate, as well as to the Cossacks as a social and cultural phenomenon. The studies of I. P. Kripyakevich ^[5], V. A. Smoliy, V. S. Stepankov ^[6], T. G. Tairova-Yakovleva ^[7], N. N. Yakovenko ^[8] were written in this spirit. The consideration of the religious side of the conflict is also widely presented in historiography, by B. N. Florey ^[9], M. V. Dmitriev ^[10], D. Yu. Stepanov ^[11]. However, such studies often present us with a view of conflict from the point of view of people burdened with power, education, and far-reaching ambitions, due to the nature of the source base. We, in turn, propose to look at this conflict from below.

The subject of this work is the mentality and ideological attitudes of ordinary participants in the Bogdan Khmelnitsky uprising of 1648-1654, by which we here mean grassroots Cossacks, peasants, burghers, merchants, and the lower ranks of the black and white clergy. As noted by a number of researchers, including S.N. Plokhia ^{[12, 13]} and B.N. Florya ^[14], the struggle for "liberties" and the struggle for faith should be singled out among the key motives of the participants in the uprising. The question of which of these motives has a more significant impact on how the situation develops deserves a more thorough and detailed study. In this article, we will look at various religious motivations for social activity. Let's try to partially reconstruct the mentality of the rebels and their contemporaries in order to understand in which cases the struggle for faith was the real reason or just a reason to justify actions.

Although the focus of the study will be directly on the years of the Khmelnytsky uprising – 1648-1654, in order to provide a more convincing argument, we will turn to later plots, therefore the chronological framework should be extended until the end of the 1650s.

First of all, it is necessary to specify what exactly in the framework of this article we will mean by the terms "faith" and "dogmatism". Faith is confidence, conviction, firm consciousness, the concept of something, especially about higher, immaterial, spiritual subjects ^[15]. Dogmatism is uncritical thinking based on dogmas – propositions accepted on faith as an immutable truth, unchangeable under all circumstances ^[16]. By transferring these theoretical definitions to the plane of research observations based on specific material, we can probably identify the following difference: dogmatism is an algorithmic adherence to established rules — performing actions based on their expectation and acceptability under given conditions. In turn, faith is characterized as an emotional and motivational impulse that is not always amenable to rational justification.

The foundation of our research will be the so—called "linear sources" - interrogative speeches. Questioning is a special communicative unit that occupies an intermediate position between conversation and interrogation. Unlike a conversation, a question is not a communication that the respondent can refuse. Anyone crossing the border had to communicate with the priest in the voivodeship hut, inform him about his identity, the purpose for which he crossed the border, and provide some information about the situation in the neighboring state, in our case, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Unlike a biased interrogation with a clear list of questions suggesting a specific answer, the information was provided voluntarily, so in addition to the facts that were required in the first place, the respondents also shared their opinions, assessments of events and personalities that became the subject of conversation.

Interrogative speeches are a controversial and difficult source to analyze, therefore, methodologically it seems to us correct to conduct a comparative and comparative analysis of interrogative speeches with texts of intellectuals and polemicists of the 17th century in order to obtain more convincing and reliable conclusions. We draw conclusions about various trends in the behavior and manner of reasoning of different social groups based on several hundred surveys taken into account, in which similar trends are observed, which we point out by quoting only some of them in the text of the article.

The categories of the population we mentioned earlier: Cossacks, peasants, burghers, small and medium-sized merchants, the lower ranks of the black and white clergy are united by us into one category, since they do not represent the highest circles of the "powerful", but make up the mass of the people, the so-called "voices from below". In addition, all of them, to varying degrees, actively and fervently joined the "struggle for the [Orthodox] faith" declared by Khmelnitsky and the Cossack foreman. In the following analysis, we will consider these phenomena in more fragmented categories, since the concepts of the "struggle for faith" among the subjects under consideration differed, and the intensity and means used for this struggle varied.

The main part

Shortly after the conclusion of the Union of Brest in 1596, the Cossacks proclaimed themselves "defenders of the Orthodox faith"^[17]. In fact, they fulfilled this role by periodically carrying out punitive raids on secular and ecclesiastical Catholics, whose actions in the material or spiritual field of action undermined the position of the Orthodox Church and its parishioners. However, the key Cossack uprisings of the first half of the 17th century were caused primarily by the struggle for Cossack liberties (increasing the registry, gaining representation in the Seimas, social and economic privileges), although the religious aspect remained noticeable in them.

Analyzing the uprising of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, it is necessary to highlight a significant difference in rhetoric: the Cossack foreman and Khmelnitsky himself focused on the struggle for socio-political liberties, while ordinary Cossacks more often interpreted their military actions as protecting the interests of their co-religionists. In interrogative speeches, the Cossacks stated that under various circumstances they "beat the Lyakhs" not because they pursued personal interests and hoped to achieve their own goals through a policy of intimidation, but because their opponents "planted the Lyatka faith everywhere," tried to "repair the taming of the Christian people," "they broke the pious Christian faith, and the churches God's books were printed, and many pious churches were turned into unia," etc. ^{[18, pp. 13, 33-34]}.

It must be admitted that a significant part of the cases of violence on the part of the Cossacks is indeed related precisely to the arguments they present. The Cossacks fervently respond with a series of bloody reprisals, both mass and private, to the large-scale looting of Kiev by the "heretic Radziwill" "the most holy Theotokos [church] ... were looted, the entire treasury and images were burned, and the whole burned out, only one wall remained"; "and their horses were placed in the Most holy Theotokos in the church ... and it was in your churches"; "they ruined everything, took images and salaries for themselves, and others split them"; "the bells of all the churches were taken" ^{[18, p. 130]}. They react no less violently to Potocki's outrages in Korsun.: "the place of Korsun, Ukraine, with churches, was burned down, the church apartments, vessels, silver were taken, half-destroyed, the lambs of God, the body of Christ were thrown to the ground, the priests were crucified, they were slaughtered.^" In these and other similar cases, the actions of the Cossacks seem to be imbued with sincere faith and righteous anger, but is this always the case?

The same Cossacks turned out to be guilty of robberies against their co-religionists in the border area, often for the purpose of profit, but they skillfully found excuses for themselves, in one way or another referring to ignorance. They attacked rich wagons and carts, justifying their actions in case of capture by the need to provide themselves with weapons and supplies for the campaign in order to "fight for the faith" ^{[19, pp. 184, 186]}. These cases clearly confirm that the idea of the need for the Cossack struggle for Orthodoxy is firmly rooted in the collective consciousness. However, as practical actions demonstrate, the lexical construct was not always accompanied by sincere faith, therefore, following the idea was transformed into a formalized principle — a kind of unconscious and common dogma that performs the role of a prescribed "function".

Of course, there is a temptation to object that there is a "black sheep" in every "herd", that such exceptions only confirm the rule, but these hopes are finally dashed by the fact of mass burnings and looting of monasteries by Cossacks during the decade after the Khmelnytsky uprising ^{[20, pp. 207-209]}. Nevertheless, since dogmatism was still, at least nominally, a compelling motive for large-scale military action and political struggle to defend the "Orthodox faith" in the Cossack environment, where material gain prevailed over religiosity, it had to be fueled from the outside. Who can we consider this "life-giving source"?

After achieving the first significant military successes, Khmelnitsky's army demonstrated rapid growth in numbers and strengthening of its positions. Although its basis remained Cossack, by the end of the first year of the uprising, an impressive part of it consisted of burghers and peasants who joined it ^{[21, p. 153]}. Obviously, for those who are not interested in going to the Zaporozhye steppes in the future, but expect to return to a peaceful life and abandoned home after the end of the conflict (which will be successfully implemented by most of the survivors) defending Cossack privileges with weapons in their hands is a useless occupation. The primary motive was not the desire for social status, but the protection of faith, an idea that the Cossacks, at least nominally, proclaimed since the end of the XVI century. In the interrogatory speeches, there is a huge amount of reasoning and ardent peasant ^{[22, l. 718-719],[23, L. 198-199, 417-419, 501, 603]} and petty-bourgeois ^{[24, L. 436-437]} statements concerning the noble goals of the struggle of the Cossacks within the framework of the Khmelnitsky uprising and the need for others to join them.

As an illustration of the theses put forward above, we turn to a vivid episode of the interrogation speech of starodubets G. Klimov on June 16, 1648, which reflected many of the trends and stereotypes that we recorded in the interrogation speeches of the townsfolk and ordinary participants in the uprising, belonging to the bourgeoisie and the peasantry. Klimov emphasizes that the rebels "beat the Lyakhs everywhere." In addition, he notes with satisfaction that it is impossible to accurately determine the number of Khmelnitsky's troops due to its rapid growth. Later, the author gives an indirect description of the composition of the rebel army: the key unifying feature of all participants in the uprising is belonging to the Orthodox faith. Moreover, there is a mention that "many Jews baptize and molest their own army." An analysis of the lengthy and ambiguous explanation allows us to conclude: from the author's point of view, any Orthodox a priori is considered part of the Khmelnitsky army. In his concept, the hetman's army appears primarily as an Orthodox army defending the interests of co-religionists. At the same time, for starodubets, the Orthodox faith is not just a personal choice, but a kind of social privilege. It is noteworthy that the author demonstrates an approving attitude towards Jews who convert to Orthodoxy, while his rhetoric towards Poles takes on a fundamentally different character. Contrasting the two practices, he says, "Although the lakh wants to baptize, they are not accepted, but all are beaten." As researchers, we cannot unconditionally accept the information recorded in starodubets' questioning speech. He probably significantly exaggerated the scale of the local population's conversion to Orthodoxy, since this fact is not confirmed by third-party sources of either Russian or Polish origin. Nevertheless, the very fact of mentioning such practices indicates their real existence, at least on a limited scale. It is hard to believe that there were any large-scale conversions of nobles to Orthodoxy, but based on the materials of such interrogatory speeches, which are not devoid of grotesque boasting, we can judge how the inhabitants and ordinary participants in the uprising perceived the attempt to change their religion. The observed aggressive reaction to an action that at first glance seems beneficial to the rebels can be explained by the presence of pronounced revanchist tendencies in Khmelnitsky's army. All the "Lyakhs" should have been "beaten for breaking the Christian faith and leading many Christians to the Lyatka faith by rape," even if they now wanted to join the Orthodox world ^{[25, p. 41]}.

Taking into account the aggression against Catholics that has not subsided over the years, it is logical to conclude that the dogmatically acting Cossacks are not able to maintain such a heat of passion. The source of these emotions are feelings and genuine faith that comes from the heart. Our current thesis that the peasantry and the bourgeoisie were guided by faith rather than dogmatism in their actions during the uprising does not mean that we see them as dreamers divorced from reality or "holy warriors." In this case, it seems to us that at that time, like the Cossacks, the burghers fought to improve their quality of life, they understood the latter differently. The Cossacks wanted to strengthen their financial and social position by acquiring "liberties," and for the townsfolk it seemed comfortable to exist without violence from Catholics and the possibility of safe worship, without constant additional communal expenses for the restoration of church property.

The latter thesis is confirmed by later events. Already after the death of Khmelnitsky and the occupation of his place by Vygovsky, the new hetman arrived in Kiev in October 1657, already harboring the idea of defecting from the Moscow state, however, ordinary residents of Little Russia urged him to continue to adhere to the word given earlier and remain faithful to the Moscow throne, recalling why the change of citizenship was originally committed.: "they retreated from the king in order to defend the Christian faith, from the persecution of the Cossacks, so that they would not be in the papal faith, also as jews." Here, in our opinion, a clear division of the mental strata of the Cossacks proper and ordinary Little Russians begins to appear, who explicitly declare "as they were under royal possession, the king did not take away their liberties" ^{[20, p. 45]}, so in fact the socio-economic situation of the townspeople and peasants remained unchanged during the change of citizenship. The only important issue for them, which remains relevant to this day, is the possibility of professing Orthodoxy without fear of being persecuted and harassed for it, without the threat of being forcibly baptized into Uniatism. In other words, ordinary Little Russians are far from supporting the rebellious sentiments prevailing in the Vygovsky camp, they remain faithful to the ideas of defending Orthodoxy, which previously attracted them to Bogdan Khmelnitsky.

Our sources demonstrate that the petty gentry, in matters of religious consciousness, aligns themselves with the peasantry and philistinism and acts guided by faith, not dogmas. We find a number of confirmations of this, including in anonymous interrogatory speeches dating from April-early May 1648, as well as in a number of other similar sources, the average person sees the main reason for the outbreak of the uprising in the Belarusian lands in the fact that "the Poles wanted to break the Russian land, but they wanted to destroy it," in response to that six thousand registered Cossacks and nobles, "who went to Cherkassy to help for their faith" ^{[26, p. 19]}.

Persons involved in trading activities, even if they had religious beliefs, in practice acted within the framework of strict dogmatism, following established rules without taking into account other considerations, and preferring to try to turn to their advantage a number of well-known concepts, often simply rooted in popular consciousness, in fact, unrelated to religion. For example, they were particularly resourceful in trying to justify their own illegal transactions.

Representatives of the border authorities regularly encountered illegal transportation of various goods, that is, an attempt to circumvent the "sovereign duty", and most often "Lithuanian people", namely Orthodox residents of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, went to such "tricks", who sometimes tried to directly negotiate with the local authorities to reduce duties, arguing their requests with the community of religion. Much more often, such merchants initially tried to smuggle goods across the border in order to then sell it to the greatest advantage for themselves, but if they were caught in this, they tried to bring the same argument – religious community, their belonging to "Holy Russia", that is, the Orthodox ecumene ^{[20, p. 121]}. It seems to us extremely unlikely that this kind of practice can be regarded as evidence of deep religiosity, however, the very existence of such an argument and its prevalence force us to recognize the existence of such a construct in the mental matrix of Orthodox Polish subjects.

Conducting a legitimate financial transaction is also sometimes not complete without appealing to religious issues. The confessional and social aspects often play an essential role in trading activities. In their interrogations, Lithuanian merchants emphasize that they are "peasants of faith," that in addition to trading activities they intend to visit a number of churches and monasteries, and sometimes they complain to the voivodes that a certain "merchant" refused to bargain with him for a certain price for goods, despite the fact that he his co-religionist. Of course, it is quite obvious that merchants use their religious affiliation to maximize their benefits, however, in our opinion, the special place of religious feeling in mentality is indicated by the fact that merchants generally massively appeal to the Orthodox faith as an element of modeling their social and professional status as a respected and reliable person in trade matters ^{[25, p. 137]}. Such actions clearly indicate that in the confessional consciousness of merchants, religious dogmatism prevails over a more exalted faith.

The dogmatism of the hapless merchants is offset by the faith of the clergy, which seems to be nothing surprising. Among the participants in the uprising were representatives of both white and black clergy, who, like the legendary Peresvet, personally took part in the fighting, fighting alongside secular warriors. We sometimes learn about them from later appeals to the Patriarchal Order and to the emperor personally with requests to bless them again, because after all the blood they have shed, they no longer dare to serve in the temple. A significant part of the clergy provides support to the rebels, expressing it through blessings or providing financial assistance on behalf of the monastery or church parish, such as Abbot Isiheya, who in his interrogatory speeches of April 30, 1651, explaining the purpose of his purchases, refers to assistance to the troops passing through his monastery. At the same time, he speaks of the Cossack army as a "Christian army", "defenders of the faith" ^{[18, p. 26]}.

Conclusions

Summing up the analysis of the motivation of the participants in the Bogdan Khmelnitsky uprising (1648-1654), it is advisable to identify four main categories into which the initially abstract and heterogeneous "popular mass" was differentiated to ensure a more structured conclusion:

1) The Cossacks,

2) Peasants, burghers, small Orthodox gentry,

3) Small and medium-sized merchants and other small trading people,

4) The lower ranks of the black and white clergy.

The participation of representatives of the first and third categories in the uprising, as well as a significant part of the accompanying actions, are conditioned by a dogmatic worldview that determines their behavioral attitudes. This thesis does not mean that their religious sense is atrophied, on the contrary, religiosity and the need to define themselves as representatives of the Orthodox Ecumenical community are deeply embedded in their minds, but pragmatic motives are a priority for them. The concept of religiosity in this group is reduced to the fulfillment of established ritual practices, as well as to the implementation of certain political and economic actions. These actions are perceived as justified in a particular situation or as socially expected of individuals.

Representatives of the second and fourth categories identify themselves as Orthodox and fighters for the faith not only under the influence of deep mental constructs, but also, apparently, due to the presence of genuine religious conviction and an emotional need for religious self-identification. The latter does not indicate fanaticism, but rather suggests that in their value system, material well-being is more closely linked to stability in the cultural and religious sphere of life.

The topic discussed in this article opens up opportunities for further comparative and interdisciplinary research using methods of social psychology to study the mechanisms of group identity formation among representatives of different social categories. Using digital humanities technologies, it is interesting to create large-scale databases for diachronic and synchronous studies of the motivation of participants in uprisings and military operations in different historical periods and in different European regions.

The article is published in the version approved by the reviewers (after receiving a positive review recommending the manuscript for publication) with corrections made by the author (after receiving the editor’s comments, if any).
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