A
long way from big cities, in a quiet nook of Male (Little) Polissia, near the
village of Pliasheva, Radyvyliv District of Rivne Region, the "Cossacks'
Tombs" Preserve is located. It is a place of hallowed memories about the
battle at Berestechko in 1651 that annually attracts tens of thouнsands of
visitors from various parts of this country and from abroad. They come to pay
tribute to the fallen heroes, to explore the Museum's exhibits, to bow their
heads before the remains of those who died in one of the most bloody battles in
the course of the 17th-century Liberation War of the Ukнrainian peoplle against
the oppression- of the Polish gentry.
In
1648, the working people, under the command of hetman (a Cossack military
leader in Ukraine) Bohdan Khmelnytsky, rose against social, natioнnal and
religious oppression of Polish and Ukrainian magnates. During the first year of
the Liberation War the Cossack and peasant troops of Bohdan Khmelnytsky
inflicted quite a few defeats on the Polish gentry army at Zhovti Vody (Yellow
Waters), Korsun and Pyliavtsi, reached Lviv and Zamoscie, then temporarily
returned to Ukraine. In 1649 the hostilities reнcommenced with new vigour. So
long as the Treaty of Zboriv, signed by the Polish king and Bohdan Khmelnytsky
in August 1649, contented neither party, the Royal Seim decided in September
1650 to resume the war. Thus the Liberation War entered its second period,
which reached its peak in June-July 1651 when the two armies met at
Berestechko. Clad in iron armour, perfectly armed and trained troops of the
Polish gentry came there with a firm resolve to subjugate, once and for all,
the Ukrainian people that had risen against their rule, to make them toil for
the grand lords. Bohdan Khmelnytsky brought his Cossack regiments and the
rebels, not infrequently armed with axes, scythes and pickets. Islam Khan
Ghiray III, who came there with the alleged purpose of supporting Khmelнnytsky,
turned out an unreliable ally. He fled the battle-ground, taking Bohнdan
Khmelnytsky his prisoner and thus putting the Cossacks and peasant arнmy in
desperate straits. The Cossacks and rebels did not surrender, they kept on
fighting, but had to retreat to almost impassable marshes in which
many of them were lost. And those who managed to
survive went to Bohdan Khmelnytsky (who had by that time been released from
captivity) to contiнnue the fight for the freedom of the Ukrainian people,
which was crowned with an act of unification of the two brotherly peoples Ч
Russians and Ukrainians,Ч that took place at the Pereyaslav Rada (assembly of
repнresentatives of the Ukrainian people established by Hetman Bohdan Khmelнnytsky
in the town of Pereyaslav to decide on reunification of Ukraine and Russia).
Nearly
340 years have elapsed since the cease-fire at Berestechko. The lands and the
bogs that used to be the scene of fighting still bear the traces of the past
events Ч the mortal remains of the honoured dead, some of their arms and
belongings. A great number of these relics have been collected in the halls of
the ,,Cossacks' Tombs" Museum-Preserve, built to memorialize the heroes.
The aim of the guide-book is to familiarize the reader with the places
associated with the historical events of 1651, with the architectural ensemble
on the Isle of Zhuravlykha and with the exhibits of the ,,Cossacks' Tombs"
Museum-Preserve.
The
Camp of the Royal Troops was located on the right
bank of the Styr River, now the territory of the south suburb of Berestechko.
It was built by the order of the Polish King Jan Kazimierz, in June 1651. In
the diagram of the battle at Berestechko, the camp fortifications are in the
shape of a big rectangle, on the three sides surrounded by a rampart with
twelve redoubts and a moat. The fourth side was protected by the Styr River. In
the centre were the tents of the king and his dignitaries, with mounted and
unmounted regiments being located next to them. There are no records providing
the accurate number of the gentry army. Most likely it must have been either
150 thousand or 200 thousand men atrong, provided the armed menial staff is
taken into account. The army complement was heterogeнneous: royal regiments of
Polish and Lithuanian lords, private armies of Polish and Ukrainian magnates,
German mercenaries, the gentry's volunteer corps from every corner of Poland,
some representatives of the registered Cossacks' elite, Ukrainian Uniate
clergymen. Community of class interests brought all of them together.
At that time, Bohdan Khmelnytsky was encamped at
Kolodne near Vyshnevets (Now Ternopil Region), where he was assembling troops
(about 120Ч140 thousand men) and waiting for the Crimean Tatars (they came
about 28 thousand strong). His army was made up of the Cossack reнgiments,
rebellious peasants and urban artisans. Besides, in some records theнre are
mentionings of the representatives of the Polish petty-gentry catholics
fighting in the ranks of the Cossack- peasant army against the arbitrary rule
of magnates. Khmelnytsky misinformed the king by setting a rumour afloat that
he was about to retreat to the eastern part of Ukraine. Guided by the rumours,
the king commanded that his army should move towards Dubno and cut off
Khmelnytsky's path of retreat. The reconnoitrers, however, inнformed the king
of the approach of the Tatar and Cossack advanced deнtachments, with whom the
gentry were to fight on the 28th and the 29th of June.
The
Battle-field. In the morning on the 30th of June 1651, the fields between the
villages of Soloniv and Pliasheva in the north, between Ostriv in the east and
Mytnytsia in the south were crowded with hundreds of thouнsands of armed
people. Half a million people, from both sides, met there for a battle to the
death. The Cossack-peasant regiments took up the northern part of the field,
the khan settled south of them, on the hill between Ostriv and Mytnyisia, with
his troops disposed around the foot of the hill in a crescent-shape. The
Cossacks started their defensive works by arranging several rows of carts in
the semblance of a big rectangle.
The
king divided his army into three parts, charging Martyn Kalinowski and Yarema
Vyshnevetsky with command of the left wing. Their troops lay along the bank of
the Styr River, stretching from the camp to the village of Soloniv. The right
wing, stationed near the forest on the bank of the Styr, was under command of
Mikolaj Potocki, a coronetted hetman, and the army centre was in command of the
king himself, who had gathered here German mercenaries, a hussar regiment and
all available artillery. Screened by a thick fog, both armies were getting ready
for action which started at about 4 p.m. with Vyshnevetsky's cavalry charging
the Cossack regiments.
The
Royal army centre started an attack against the Tatars, firing the guns on the
khan's camp. The Tatars did not endure the gunfire and took to flight together
with their khan, leaving behind their equipment. Bohdan Khmelnytsky overtook
the khan at a distance of seven kilometres from the battle-ground, trying to
persuade him to come back, but the khan, waxed angry with the defeat, took him
captive and drove away with him. After the Tatars' rout, the Cossack-peasant
army withdrew south-east and began to
fortify there its position. North-west of the
"Cossacks' Tombs" Preserve there are traces of a ploughed-up creeping
barrage which in those olden days used to be part of the fortification work of
the Cossack fighting camp.
According
to the accounts of eye-witneses, the Cossack-peasant camp was on the
left bank of the Pliashivka River Ч "along the Plisniava River".
Today this dried-up branch of the Pliashivka, that has retained its original
name, is in the centre of the village of Ostriv. In their letters from
Berestech-ko, Polish lords noted a strategically convenient arragement of the
camp and the military might of its earthwork. In the centre of the camp were
the tents of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the Cossack leaders and the Corinthian metнropolitan
loasaph, Khmelnytsky's ideological assistant. In the course of ten days the
gentry were unsuccessfully besieging the camp on its three sides, the fourth
being protected by the marshlands of the Pliashivka River.
Having
elected colonel Philon Jajaliy from Kropyva their provisional hetman, the
Cossacks made some daring sallies to parley with the king for an armistice in
terms of the Zboriv Treaty. On the 19th of June they elected colonel Ivan Bohun
from Vynnytsia as their provisional hetman.
The
Fording. In the morning on the 10th of July, Bohun
attempted a salнly to force a crossing to clear the road for the troops. But he
had not coorнdinated his plans with the rebels who, being ignorant of Bohun's
intentions, decided that the Cossacks had left them to the mercy of fate and
thus panic-stricken they all rushed to the ford. Ivan Bohun failed to hold them
back, neither did he manage to return to the camp. The gentry troops broke into
the camp and killed all the people that had remained there, including the
metropolitan loasaph and his deacon Pavlos, a Greek monk. They plunнdered the
camp and started a pursuit of the people retreating toward the marshes.
Since 1970, the Rivne Museum of Regional Studies
has been carrying archaeological excavations on the site of the former ford.
Over two hectares of the battleground that have been explored, revealed 90
human and 36 horse skeletons, over 5,000 objects belonging to the fighters Ч rank-and-file
Cossacks, the Cossack leaders, peasant rebels, artisans, the Don Cossacks and
Moscow strelitzs, who, as it has been ascertained, participated in the battle
within the complement of Bohdan Khmelnytsky's troops. Among the finds are
articles of the Polish gentry's accoutrement. The peat-soil preservedа unique wood and leather wares Ч Cossack and
peasant foot-ware, powder flasks, utensils and arms.
Hayok
Isle, situated amidst the boggy flood- lands of the Pliashivka
Riнver one and a half kilometres to the south-east of the "Cossacks'
Tombs" Preserve, was, according to all available data, the scene of the
heroic combat of 300 Cossacks, who on the 10th of July cushioned the Polish
gentry ofнfensive. The written sources of that time minutely describe how
stubbornly the Cossacks on the surrounded island defended themselves,
inflicting conнsiderable losses upon the enemy and rejecting hetman Potocki's
offer to grant them his pardon. Some more regi ments were sent against the
defenнders to split them into separate groups. The courageous Cossacks would
not yield to the enemy and all of them lost their lives, remaining, according
to Polish historians, unconquered. Today, there is a separated farm on the
island. It is called Hayok (Little Grove), and only the excavated arms lost
during the battle remind one of the brave Cossacks' heroic deed.
The
Cossack's Pit. The small lake amidst the boggy flood-lands of
the Pliashivka is believed to be the place of death of the last Cossack, out of
the 300 of those fighting on the island. The Polish sources hold a mention of a
Cossack who, finding a canoe on the boggy lake, throughout a couple of hours,
was trying to beat off the Polich gentry men with a musket and a scythe.
Standing on his dignity, he rejected the mercy offered by the king and, having
been hit by fourteen bullets, he continued fighting until he was finished off
by a Polish gentry man and a German mercenary.
The
Monastery Area Reservation is a sandy hill in close vicinity to the Cossack's
Pit. On a glade among young pine-trees there are two stone crosнses, with the
year 1651 carved on one of them. Here the local people buried the remains of
those who fell at the fording and at the camp on the 10th of July 1651. When
the construction of the "Cossacks' Tombs" Preserve was underway, a
part of the cemetery was dug up and the remains of the deceaнsed were recovered
and entombed at the basement of the shrine on Zhurav-lykha Island.
The
ensemble of the "Cossacks' Tombs" Preserve is located on Zhurav-lykha Island in the flood-lands of the Pliashivka's
left bank. It was built in 1910Ч1914, mainly with the funds from public
donations. Its central builнding is the three-tiered St. George Church, an
inimitable example of Ukraiнnian baroque, constructed after the design of V. M.
Maximov, a pupil of
A. V. Shchusiev, who had approved the project.
Both She iconostasis of the church, which is at the same time ifc> western
wall, and some of the interior wall-paintings were executed by 1. S. izitakevych,
a famous Ukrainian painнter. In the subterranean tier of the shr'ne the remains
of the dead Cossacks and rebels, recovered on the site of the battle at
Berestechko, are kept.
In
1912, the St. Michael Church, built in 1650, was removed from the neнighbouring
village of Ostriv onto the territory of the Preserve. An underнground passage,
50 metres long, connects it mith the lower tier of the St. Geнorge Church. The
excavations on the site of the former St. Michael Churh at the village of
Ostriv ascertained that in its chapel had been entombed the Corinthian
metropolitan loasaph and the Greek monk Pavlos, killed at the Cossack-and-peasant
camp on the 10th of July 1651.
The
"Cossacks' Tombs" Museum is located on the
territory of the Preнserve, in the former monastety building. The exhibits are
displayed in seven halls and elucidate mainly the developments at Berestechko
in 1651. Its first hall contains the materials pertaining to time preceding the
Battle. In the second hall there is a diorama showing the beginning of the
battle Ч Vyshnevetsky's unsuccessful attack of the Cossacks' field camp. The
third hall, filled with the original exhibits obtained at excavations, offers
speciнmens of Cossacks' arms. One show-case is devoted to bullet moulding, in
another one the accoutrement of the Polish gentry is collected, and next to it
is a glass-case with pieces of personal equipment and belongings of the Don
Cossacks and Moscow strelitzs, which include breast-crosses and a small icon, a
Berdan rifle of a strelitz and muskets of Moscow workmanship.
The
fourth hall shows the social structure of the Cossack-peasant army and class
stratification of the Ukrainian Cossacks. Here one can see things and arms of
the Cossack nobility and those of common Cossacks, peasants, rebels, and tools
of the risen craftsmen. The show-cases exhibit collections of various muskets,
copper vessels for cooking food, knives and wooden spoons in leathern cases.
Among the exhibits are sculptural portraits of Cossacks, executed by Moscow
anthropologists.
The
exhibits of the fifth hall cover the final events of the Berestechko battle,
the Pereyaslav Rada, provide a brief exposition of the history of Ukraine in
the 17thЧ18th centuries.
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