In our country there is a desire for monasticism. There, each person has his own will." During the war, there were a hundred times more of these same willing komonniks than the registries, and they constituted the power of the Cossacks, won victories. Replenishing themselves from themselves. Therefore, it is not at all surprising the testimony of both our own and others, the chroniclers about the Attilina and Vatyev hordes Khmelnytsky in the fight against the Lyakhs: “The Cossack army cannot be honoured,” says one Little Russian Chronicle (Zaporozhian Starina, parts of the 1st vol. II, p. 22 et seq.): “As many horsemen, so many on foot, and as many people in the Ukraine in the Little Russians, so many Cossacks.” The speech is only to the hunter who holds the regiment - abiye as many as the required army will gather. You don’t need to collect by necessity, as they do in other foreign countries; You don’t need to promise a great thing to a hireling: to say the elder word - the number of troops will be like grass.” And the Eyewitness, having counted the regiments that were at Khmelnitsky, continues like this: “These must all regiments were under Hetman Khmelnitsky, in which there was a significant number of troops: for the other regiment chalked up more than twenty thousand Cossacks; As soon as a village came, then the Sotnik, and another hundred killed a thousand people. So everything that was alive rose to Cossack, but I knew in some village such a person, either himself or his son, would not go to the army, and if he himself did not call, then the boy sent a servant; and others, as many as there were, all left the courtyard, only one was left behind, but it was difficult in the hirelings... but slander (even) where in the cities there were the rights of Magdeburg, and sworn allegiance to Vuymistrovo and Raits (Advisers), they left their ranks, their beards were bare (shaved) and before that the troops left; Both of them held ignominy (disrespect) for themselves, who would have joined the army with a bare (unshaven) beard" (p. 14). From here it is obvious how valid is the opinion of those who look at the Cossacks as "a military brotherhood (squad) that sought to subjugate the entire population of Little Russia." Therefore, all
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The Little Russians, in their opinion, were trying to subjugate themselves to themselves: absurdity to the point of touch! And all from a distant look at the squad, which must certainly be found among us, at all costs, to explain what our historiographers cannot explain at their own hands. But, leaving aside such brilliant views on the Cossacks, let’s ask: What’s so wonderful? if at that time “ambassadors” came to the Leader of such a warlike people from all four sides with greetings and commemorations? “So at once the glory of Cossack and Khmelnydsky spread across all lands, and various Monarchs responded with affection and sent gifts,” such as:... an ambassador from the King of Hungary, His Royal Majesty from Moscow, from the Lords of Volosh (Wallash and Moldavian), with great gifts began to come “(p. 13). How As usually happens in such a case, the congratulators, at the same time, offered the congratulated person not only the well-wishes of their “Potentates,” but also patronage, which ultimately amounted to admission to the same citizenship. But Hetman Kozatsky was as much a happy commander as he was a perspicacious politician: he knew and saw that for success in an equal, and even more so in an unequal, struggle, good relations with his fellow soldiers were necessary, and for this reason he tried to “go out with them in politics,” i.e. That is, do not alienate them from yourself with arrogance, but also do not give unrealistic hopes, and meanwhile wait for what circumstances will show, and then direct your steps towards the clarified matter. That at the conclusion of the Treaty of Zborov, Khmelnitsky did not yet think about any patronage of someone else’s city, this is the best proof of his modus operandi during hostilities and the very articles for the treaty, in which nothing special was proposed, unlike the previous Cossack proposals: there was nothing that was directly aimed at the destruction of the Rech IIospolita, or for
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PREFACE JOVIE,