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90 DARIUSZ KOŁODZIEJCZYKeffective campaigning was very limited.In spite of these conditions, Ahmed Köprülü, one of the greatest Ottomanstatesmen, decided to move against Poland. According to his letter tothe Crown deputy chancellor Jędrzej Olszowski, the primary factor leadingto the war was the relationship with the Zaporozhian Cossacks and theirhetman Petro DoroSenko, to whom the Ottomans had granted protectionagainst the Polish king a few years earlier. 9If we accept this explanationnot as a pretext but as a real cause for the war, a further question arises:Why did the Ottomans involve themselves in supporting such an unstableelement as the Cossacks, whom they themselves had many reasons to hateand destroy?From the "classical" point of view, the Cossack raids were considered ajust revenge made by a desperate Ukrainian population in reaction to theTatar raids. The Cossack "revenges," however, were usually directed notagainst the Tatars but against the rich Turkish towns and villages on theBlack Sea. Whereas the Tatars primarily sacked Ukrainian towns and villagesthat were of lesser economic importance for the Commonwealth, theCossacks struck at the core öf the Ottoman Empire. Narrative sources andVictor Ostapchuk's recent research on kadi court registers (sicils) from Trebizondand Üsküdar give evidence of the disastrous effects of Cossack raidson the Black Sea towns. 10 The importance of these raids was also strategic.The Venetian Bailo Giacomo Quirini wrote in 1676 that "da questo marNero dipende la difensa e la conservatione del mar Bianco," citing instanceswhen the Ottomans were forced to send galleys against the Cossacks on theBlack Sea that could then not be used against the Venetians in the Mediterranean.11By the end of the sixteenth century, Cossack raiding had become more aprofessional than a temporary activity. Polish control in Ukraine was veryweak. After Xmel'nyc'kyj's uprising, it seemed obvious that Poland was nolonger able to suppress the Cossacks. It was then that the Ottomans seem tohave made their desperate decision to stop the Cossack attacks, even at theexpense of breaking their traditional policy and further weakening the Commonwealthvis-à-vis Russia. While the direct destruction of the Cossacks9Quoted in the chronicle of Silahdar (Silahdar tarihi [Istanbul, 1928], vol. 1, pp. 569-72); acopy of the contemporary Polish translation is in the Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych(hereafter AGAD), Warsaw, AR, dz. Π, ks. 22, pp. 819-21.10V. Ostapchuk, "The Effect of the Cossack Naval Raids on the Muslim and Non-MuslimPopulations of the Ottoman Black Sea," paper read at the Seminar in Ukrainian Studies, HarvardUniversity, 12 March 1992.11Le Relazioni degli stati Europei leite al senato dagli ambasciatori Veneziani nel secólodecimosettimo, ed. N. Barozzi and G. Berchet, series 5, Turchia, pt. 2 (Venice, 1871), p. 168.