Chapter VI: (d) Songs of the Cossack and of Haydamaki1 Era

After the Union of Lithuania with Poland, whereby Ukraine was also forced to join the latter, the Ukrainian and Lithuanian nobility became gradually Polonized as a consequence of Polish political tactics and repressions--so much so that the Ukrainian people felt the necessity of providing for some measure of national defence. As a consequence of this feeling there arose on the lower left bank of the river Dnipro (Dnieper), a Ukrainian knighthood--the Cossacks who at the end of the Fifteenth century organized in Sitch under Ostap Dashkevitch, and consequently organized into a strong military force under Prince Demetrius Wyshnevetsky in 1515, and became the bulwark of the Ukraine against Turks, Poles and Russians. This excellent Ukrainian organization, called also the Zaporoghian Cossacks or Sitch[2] (since the first settlements were located beyond the cataracts of the lower Dnipro and on the islands of the River)--was the first to revolt against the mediaeval intolerable economic conditions and national oppression by Poles; insurrections followed in quick succession under Ataman[3] Kosinsky, 1592; Loboda and Nalywayko in 1596; Tryasylo, 1630; Pavliuk, 1637, until Bohdan Chmelnitsky, one of the greatest leaders of the modern times, proclaimed war for independence in 1648. The entire nation became insurgent. The Poles were defeated many a time; Ukraine was liberated, but when Chmelnitsky saw that Turks, Poles and Russians were bent either on ruling wholly or on partitioning the Ukraine, he entered a free alliance with Russia at Pereyaslav in 1654, to save Ukraine from Poles and Turks. Ukraine was promised entire freedom and independence; but soon she was again partitioned by Russia and Poland in the treaty of Andrussow (1667); at that time all freedom and rights were abrogated and serfdom gradually introduced.

The Cossacks as the flower of the Ukrainian Nation, and inheritors of glorious national traditions from the period of Princes, were always struggling for Ukraine’s independence and for the privileges of the common people, and this is the reason why the people have celebrated this era most of all. The variety of subjects is greater than in any other period; love and exploits are the main themes.

What the Cossacks were for Ukraine let this folk song demonstrate:

A Cossack drives over the mountain
And thus he addresses it:
“Why, Oh, why, thou mountain white
Hast thou not burned long ago?”
--Reason why I have not burnt
Is because I am soaked with blood.
--What sort of blood?--Cossack blood,
Intermingled with Turkish.[4]

Terribly did the Ukrainians suffer in the Turkish Yassir.[5]

... Thrice, they flogged and cut to the bone in the same place the
poor captives,
The young white Cossack flesh was torn from the bones

* * * * *

Thou Turkish land, thou Mussulman faith,
Thou which separated Christians!
Many a one didst thou separate from father and mother,
A brother from sister,
A husband from a faithful wife.
Deliver us, O, Lord, the poor captives
From heavy Turkish yassir,
From the Mussulman galley
Into the quiet waters;
Under the bright stars,
Into the joyful land;
Unto the Christian people,
Into the Christian cities....[6]

There were a very few instances in which some did abandon the Christian faith for the Turkish luxuries and became the lords and ladies of the land:

... Thou becamest a Turk, a Mussulman
For the sake of Turkish luxuries,
Out of fatal greediness....[7]

Thus many different features were dealt with in song by the people.

The terrible economic conditions of the times are deplored in folklore, showing how the Polish nobility, idle and without initiative, resigned most economic matters into the hands of the Jews--possessors, usually the liquor dealers, and inn-keepers:

... More than a year or two have passed already,
Since there has been prosperity in this Christian land.

... How the Jews the inn-keepers
Have leased all the Cossack highways.

* * * * *

How in this renowned Ukraine, Jews took lease of the Cossack trade.
And levied taxes--customs,

* * * * *

How Jews took lease of all the Cossack churches in the renowned
Ukraine,[8]

* * * * *

Hetman Chmielnitsky ordered these outrages and abuses stopped and conditions changed, and then both the noblemen and the Jewish expropriators suffered, and both were compelled to flee from Ukraine for their lives; the populace meant revenge for the extreme suffering:

... Then the Jews--the inn keepers
Cried with a bitter voice:
Stop Poles, stop if ye care for us,
Open the gates to Poland
And let us in beyond the Vistula, though we have nothing but shirts
on.
We shall teach our children all good deeds,
We shall teach them not even to glance at Cossack Ukraine.[9]

Chmeilnitsky won a few decisive battles over the Poles, for example, at Zhovti Vodi, Korsun, Pylava; annihilated a great many of them and liberated Ukraine:

... Our famous Ukraine is sorely afflicted
But we shall pick up this red cranberry
And we shall yet cheer our renowned Ukraine.[10]

* * * * *

Be not surprised, oh, good folks,
What happened in our Ukraine:
Beyond Dashev, nearby Soroka
Many Lachs[11] have perished.
Perebeynis[12] has but few of them,
Seven hundred Cossacks at his side.
He takes off the Poles’ heads from their shoulders,
While the rest he drowns.[13]

But Chmielnitsky met with a heavy defeat just outside of Berestechko in 1651, solely on account of the treachery on the part of the Tartar Khan whom the former summoned against the more numerous Poles and their mercenaries, so that the Poles returned to Ukraine for some time:

... The Lachs,
The nobility,
Took up the Cossacks’ and peasants’ abodes
And made expensive quarters of them.
Took the keys away from the proprietors
And began to husband in them.

* * * * *

Permit us to ask the Russians’ assistance
Or else let us make an insurrection against the Lachs....[14]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Haydamaki is a Turkish word for a robber, a highwayman; this word was originally applied to the Ukrainian Cossack bands who inveighed guerrillas against the Turks. With the progress of time the Ukrainian peasants rebelled against the Polish rule of nobility and the economic oppression and expropriation by Poles and Jews in Ukraine--applied this word to themselves as a meaning for self-defense.

[2] Sitch (or kish-basket) was a camp of the Ukrainian Cossacks of the Dnipro River, who inhabited the country beyond the porohi (thresholds), i. e., rapids or cataracts of Dnipro; derived from “sitchi” or “sikti,” to hew or cut down, because the virgin forests were hewn and extensive territory cleared up and prepared for cultivation.

[3] Ataman or Hetman are words corresponding to the English Head-man; he was the elected chief or president of the Ukrainian Cossacks and of the entire Ukrainian people.

[4] Lysenko: Collection of Ukrainian Songs, Vol. IV, p. 11.

[5] Yassir, a Turkish imprisonment, captivity, detention.

[6] Antonovitch and Drahomanow: “The Historic Songs of the Ukrainian Nation,” Vol. I, p. 88.

N. B. The translations made by the author of this study are free, without any consideration to rhythm or rhyme, but just so as to convey the thought alone; such a translation in many instances is rendered difficult on account of so many idiomatic expressions implied in the Ukrainian folklore.

[7] Antonovitch and Drahomanow: “The Historic Songs of the Ukrainian Nation,” Vol. I, p. 230.

[8] Antonovitch and Drahomanow: “The Historic Songs of the Ukrainian Nation,” Vol. II, pp. 20-22.

[9] Antonovitch and Drahomanow: “The Historic Songs of the Ukrainian Nation,” Vol. II, pp. 20-25.

[10] Antonovitch and Drahomanow: “The Historic Songs of the Ukrainian Nation,” Vol. II, pp. 20-25.

[11] Lach is another name for a Pole; supposed to be derived from a legendary Polish King Lech.

[12] Perebeynis or Kryvonis, a famous Cossack Colonel.

[13] Ibidem, Vol. II, p. 114.

[14] Antonovitch and Drahomanow: “The Historic Songs of the Ukrainian Nation,” Vol. II, p. 50.