Koliivshchyna

Koliivshchyna rebellion
Part of Bar Confederation and Haidamaky
Camp of Haidamakas by Juliusz Kossak
Date 6 June [O.S. 26 May] 1768 — June 1769 Location Right-bank Ukraine, (Kyiv and Braclaw voivodeships) Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Result Russian-Polish victory Substantial civilian casualties Rebels were punished and executed
Belligerents
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Russian Empire	Haidamaky (Cossacks)
Commanders and leaders
Jan Klemens Branicki Mikhail Krechetnikov	Melkhisedek Znachko-Yavorsky Maksym Zalizniak Ivan Gonta

Monument of Gonta and Zalizniak in Uman, Ukraine

Koliivshchyna (Template:Lang-uk, Template:Lang-pl) was a major haidamaky rebellion that broke out in the Right-bank Ukraine in June 1768, caused by the money (Dutch ducats coined in Saint-Petersburg) sent by Russia to Ukraine to pay for the fight of the locals against the Bar Confederation, the dissatisfaction of the peasants with the treatment of Eastern Catholics and Orthodox Christians by the Bar Confederation and by the threat of serfdom, the anti-nobility and anti-Polish moods among the Cossacks and peasants. The uprising was accompanied by violence against the members and supporters of the Bar Confederation, Poles, Jews and Roman Catholics and especially Uniate clergymen, culminating in the massacre of Uman. The number of victims is estimated from 100,000 to 200,000, because many communities of national minorities (such as Old Believers, Armenians, Moslems, Greeks) completely disappeared in the area of the uprising.

Etymology

The origin of the word is not certain. Taras Shevchenko, whose grandfather and villagers participated in the uprising, wrote a poem, Haydamaky, in which Kolii is the name of a knife that is blessed in a church and used by special people in villiages in Ukraine (Ruthenia) villages to kill animals humanely, according to the local understanding of animal rights. The blessing of knives had occurred two or three weeks before the uprising as a rule and so the members and supporters of the Bar Confederation and its regular military forces fled to the Ottoman Empire before the uprising. However, some fortresses such as Umanl and Lysianka were still occupied by the members of the Bar Confederation. The secret was shared by millions of people and so different national minorities were accused of atrocities towards animals ans retreated to the fortresses as well. The poem is the best description though it considers village drinkings after massacres as part of the uprising. It explains that Ukrainians, apart from professional Kolii, never killed even chicken and other animals before the uprising, and the bloodletting led to drinking as the most continuous part of the uprising. The Kolii are similar to Rezniks and may be the heritage of the Khazar-Russian kaganate (Kievan Rus) in Ukraine. Kolii have never been present among Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, Byelorussians, Moslems, Armenians, Romanians or even Greeks in spite of their Orthodoxy and their life together with Ukrainians. Shevchenko emphasized that iit was the first uprising for animal rights worldwide, and the rebels wanted to clean Ukraine of bad animals (especially Old Believers, (Muscovites), Armenians, Greeks, Moslems etc., who tortured poor good real animals killing them without Kolii. Ukrainian Poles often used meat from animals slaughtered by Kolii, and Jews used meat slaughtered by rezniks in a way very similar to Kolii and so Maksym Zalizniak solemnly rejected any plans to massacre Jews or Poles and explained the massacre as the excess of the executors.

The term could be an adaptation of the Polish words "kolej", "kolejno", "po kolei", which implies "służba kolejna" (patrolling service), designating Cossack militia in the service of aristocrats. That etymology is suggested by Polish historians such as Władysław Andrzej Serczyk and Volodymyr Shcherbyna, who did not read the poem of Schevcenko about the uprising.

Outlook

It was simultaneous to the Confederation of Bar which originated out of the adjacent region in the city of Bar (historical Podolia) and was a de facto civil war in Poland. Bar confederation declared not only the Orthodox faith but the Uniate church pro-Russian ones. Later the Polish government and the Polish Roman Catholic church accused both eastern churches responsible on the Uman massacre and the uprising because Russia defended the political rights of believers of both churches. Though almost all pupils of the Uman Uniate seminary had died in the massacre in Uman they were accused in the fall of the city by the Polish government. There were rumors that Don Cossacks fighting against Bar confederation needed help from Zaporozhian Cossacks so many Zaporozhian Cossacks left for Right-Bank Ukraine to join Don Cossacks. Some of them became leaders of different detachments. Some were seized by Polish government forces and tried in Kodnya by Poles. One Zaporozhian Cossack was executed in Kodnya. These Cossacks were not paid. The rebellion of peasants was fueled by ducats paid by Maxim Zalizniak for every killed Bar confederate (a blue-eyed old-believer because women and children could not find confederates to have a reward) and by the circulation of a fictitious proclamation of support and call to arms by Russia's Empress Catherine II, the so-called "Golden Charter". Mostly based on rumors, the charter however had a real foundation and was connected with the Repnin's seim decisions to give politically freedoms to Uniates and Orthodox Christians and the Catherine's rescript that in 1765 she issued it to Archimandrite Melkhisedek and obligated the Russian ambassador in Warsaw to facilitate assertion of rights and privileges of the Right-bank Ukraine Orthodox confession. In 1764, on the territory of the Zaporozhian Host and along the southern borders of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian Empire created the New Russia Governorate in place of previously existing New Serbia province, and intensively militarised the region.

Preparation to uprising against Bar Confederation and the initial raid of the Cossack detachment of Maksym Zalizniak started at the Motrynine Saint Trinity Monastery (today a covenant in Cherkasy Raion), a hegumen of which was Archimandrite Melkhisedek (Znachko-Yavorsky) who also served as the director of all Orthodox monasteries and churches in Right-bank Ukraine (in 1761–1768).

The peasant rebellion quickly gained momentum and spread over the territory from the right bank of the Dnieper River to the river Sian (San). At Uman it led to a big massacre. In Uman, Poles, Jews, and Uniates were herded into their churches and synagogues and killed in cold blood though Uniates were not the victims in other places.

Crowds of insurgents broke into the city [...] Most of the nobles and Jews gathered in the churches, synagogue and town hall. Catholic priests communicated and gave absolution [...] the slaughter initiated, most likely by vengeful peasants, began. According to modern testimonies, about three thousand Jews died in the synagogue alone. Killed and tormented. Jews were cut off their hands and ears. They were pulled out of cellars, houses and even ditches, where they sought shelter in vain. Catholic and Uniate priests became the next victims of the hatred of the insurgent crowd.

In three weeks of unbridled violence the rebels slaughtered 20,000 people, according to numerous Polish sources. The leaders of the uprising were Cossacks, mainly Maksym Zalizniak and a commander of a private militia of the owner of Uman, Ivan Gonta. While being the commander of Potocki's private Uman city Cossack militia garrison, the latter joined Zalizniak at Uman and the governor and other Polish nobles supporting Bar confederation capitulated knowing that Gonta was dispatched by Polish Count Franciszek Salezy Potocki to protect Uman by some secret mission. They mistakenly thought that rebels supported the Polish king as did count Potocki. But insurgents were for the principally new Zaporozhian Host of Right-Bank Ukraine.

Eventually the uprising was crushed by Russian troops, Ukrainian registered cossacks of Left-Bank Ukraine, the Zaporozhian Host, and aided by Polish army. Its two major leaders were arrested by Russian troops on 7 July 1768. Ivan Gonta was handed over to Polish authorities who tortured him to death, while Maksym Zalizniak was exiled to Siberia. The rebellion was suppressed by the joint forces of Polish and Russian armies, with numerous hangings, decapitations, quarterings and impalings of Polish subjects and of those Russian subjects who were captured by governmental Polish forces themselves.

In popular culture

Taras Shevchenko's epic poem Haidamaky (The Haidamakas) chronicles the events of the Koliivshchyna. The event also inspired recent artwork during the latest Ukrainian unrest.

Controversy

On 17 May 2018 the Kyiv City Council voted to hold events marking 250 years since Koliivshchyna; the proposal was put forward by two deputies of the ultranationalist Svoboda party. The decision received strong criticism from the Ukrainian Jewish community and the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group.

Further reading

• Magocsi, Paul Robert (1996). A History of Ukraine. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-0830-5.
• Henryk Mościcki, "Z dziejów hajdamacczyzny", Warszawa 1905
• Władysław Andrzej Serczyk, "Koliszczyzna", Kraków 1968
• Władysław Andrzej Serczyk, "Hajdamacy", Wydawnictwo Literackie, Kraków 1972
• Karol Grunberg, Bolesław Sprengel, Trudne sąsiedztwo, Warszawa 2005
• Władysław Wielhorski, Ziemie ukrainne Rzeczypospolitej: Zarys dziejów, Londyn 1959
• Kazimierz Karolczak, Franciszek Leśniak, "Wielka Historia Polski", Kraków 1998
• "Dzieje Polski. Kalendarium", pod red. Andrzeja Chwalby, Kraków 1999
• "Kronika Polski", praca zbiorowa, Warszawa 200
• Stanisław Bogusław Lenard, Ireneusz Wywiał, Historia Polski w datach, wyd. PWN, Warszawa 2000