The centuries-old history of the relations between the Zaporozhzhian Cossacks and Crimean Tatars, their southern neighbors, contains the examples of relentless confrontation and enmity as well as of peaceful coexistence and even close cooperation. History also recalls the Crimean Khanate as a place of political asylum for Ukrainian Cossacks in the evil hour when they were driven from their homeland by Muscovite troops. Thanks to the Ukrainian operatic genius Semen Hulak- Artemovsky, author of A Zaporozhzhian Cossack Beyond the Danube , even people quite indifferent to the history of the Cossacks know about the life of the Sich community in lands ruled by the Ottoman sultan at the turn of the nineteenth century. Conversely, even enthusiasts of Ukrainian history find it surprising that Zaporozhzhian Cossacks also lived under the Crimean khan.
“THE TRAITOR’S NEST HAS BEEN DESTROYED AND ROOTED OUT!..”
On March 12, 1709, the Zaporozhzhian Sich’s Cossack Rada (council) resolved to support Hetman Ivan Mazepa and Swedish King Carl XII in their armed struggle against Muscovite Tsar Peter I. Later that month, the Cossacks led by the famous koshovy (chieftain) Kost Hordiyenko broke camp to join their allies, leaving behind just a small number of their comrades to guard the Sich treasury, arms depots, and the Church of the Holy Veil. But when Russian Colonel Yakovlev, at the head of three regular army regiments and the Hnat Halahan’s Cossack regiment, surrounded the Sich fortifications in early May 1709, it became obvious that the defenders were too few to stand their ground. What fundamentally weakened the Zaporozhzhian position was that they opposed, among others, their former confrere Colonel Halahan, a longtime Cossack who knew very well all the strength and weaknesses of the Sich fortifications as well as the secret passages through which it was possible to bypass them.
“The traitor’s nest has been destroyed and rooted out!” the tsarist generals solemnly reported in mid-May 1709. Only a tiny fraction of the defenders led by Yakym Bohush managed to break out of the burning Sich. Hastily packing the remaining property, weapons, religious and military regalia, the Cossacks went down the Dnipro, through hidden brooks and streams, fleeing the tsar’s revenge, and that revenge was terrible indeed: the tsar’s ukase of May 26, 1709, ordered that all the Zaporozhzhian Cossacks who had not voluntarily laid down their arms and forgone their rights, be apprehended, imprisoned, and put to death. Lands that had been hitherto the communal property of the Sich were seized by the Myrhorod Regiment.
Driven out of the Sich and ostracized by the tsar on their own soil, the Cossacks were forced to try their luck in foreign lands. To be more exact, they at first founded a new Sich in the lower Dnipro basin, on the frontier of the Zaporozhzhian and Crimean khanate at a small cape that jutted into the Kazatske Ruslo and the Kaminka Rivers estuary. Yet, in the fall of 1710, when the Cossacks sided with the Turkish sultan against Peter I, the tsar’s troops attacked Kaminka Sich, compelling the Cossacks to resettle further south in the territory controlled by the Crimean khan.
“A BLACK CLOUD CAME OVER A WHITE ONE...”
This time a new Sich emerged in the tract of Oleshky near the inlet of Kardashyn south of the place where the Inhul River empties into the Dnipro (on the territory of what is now Tsiurupinsk, Kherson oblast). The Crimean khan and his patron, the Turkish sultan, were very interested in having the Lower Dnipro Cossack Army as an ally rather than an enemy. This is why the Tatars and Turks were extremely pleased to hear that the Cossacks had resettled on the khan’s lands. The then Khan Kaplan-Girei sent the Sich community a message full of assurances of respect and good will. Indeed, Kaplan-Girei granted the Cossacks as people of noble descent various privileges, allowed them to own land, exempted them from paying taxes to the khan’s treasury, and, on the contrary, awarded them a special remuneration called ailyk.
However, the khan’s good will gradually waned: the ailyk was first replaced by the right to extract salt from Crimean inlets and lakes on privileged terms and then was canceled altogether; the Cossacks had to constantly request the khan’s administration not to deny them the right to profit from the cross-Dnipro transport of goods. At the same time, the Cossacks were obliged to supply the Horde with two thousand warriors led by a koshovy at the khan’s first demand and take part — always and without pay — in building the Perekop defensive line. Moreover, the Cossacks were forbidden to have any artillery and build fortifications in the Sich, conduct trade in Crimean and Turkish towns, and so on.
The Cossacks’ plight worsened further after the friendly Kaplan- Girei died in 1719. New Khan Saadat-Girei took a much harsher attitude toward the Cossacks. In search of pastures, the Nogai Tatars constantly ousted the Cossacks from the lands they legally owned. Local courts, in which only Muslims sat, usually handed down rulings in favor of the Tatars. It is at that time that the following historical ballad was composed: “A black cloud/ came over a white one./ The evil Tatar/ Enslaved the Cossacks...”
A BITTER HOMECOMING
Given the hardships of living under the khan’s suzerainty, the Sich was the scene of an unending bitter political struggle between advocates and opponents of the idea of returning under the protection of Moscow. In late 1728 the pro-Moscow party won a victory. The victors enchained koshovy Kost Hordiyenko, Justice Karp Sydorenko, and other anti-Moscow leaders, loaded the religious and military regalia onto carts, took apart and set on fire the structures, and moved to Old Sich, in Chortomlyk. Once in Chortomlyk, the Cossacks with new koshovy Ivan Husak at their head sent a letter of repentance to St. Petersburg, asking the monarch to forgive and allow them to live in the places of old Cossack liberty.
However, official St. Petersburg gave its prodigal sons the cold shoulder. The Ukrainian Hetman Danylo Apostol and Russian Field Marshal Golitsyn were ordered “to keep the Cossacks away from the Russian frontier at all costs... and use weapons to beat back from the border.” Unlike the Russian nobles, their Crimean counterparts were seriously worried over the prospect of losing their grip over the Cossacks. The khan sent the koshovy assurances that he was ready to offer respect and friendship to the Cossacks and suggested that they come back to Oleshky Sich.
Taking into account the Russian government’s stand, the Cossacks were indeed forced to find themselves again under the khan’s rule, but this time they settled not in Oleshky but in Kaminka, closer to their native lands. As rumors were coming from the Russian camp about an early war against Turkey, in which Petersburg hoped to use the Cossack army, the Sich community nursed a hope to return to the ancestral places of Chortomlyk and Velyky Luh.
This occurred very soon. The smell of gunpowder was in the air, and Empress Anna Ioannovna decreed on August 31, 1733, “to forgive by the grace of God” all the previous sins of the Cossacks and allow them to come back within the confines of the Russian Empire. Surprisingly, the Cossacks were in no hurry to return to Chortomlyk even after receiving the tsarina’s ukase. Only in late March did the Zaporozhzhians finally decide to return to their native land, when the Crimean khan declared war on the Russians and the urban Cossacks, their allies. The years of exile came to end, leaving bitter reminiscences in the people’s mind; “Oh, Oleshky, we will remember you forever./ We will also remember that evil day and that evil hour...”
