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448 FRANK E. SYSYNIn discussing the commoners, the Discourser focuses on the Cossacks.Yet, considering his loathing of the Cossack-led revolt, thetreatment is remarkably detached. He assumes that they will in thefuture, as they have in the past, rise up in revolt against the Commonwealthand hence must be destroyed. But the Discourser's venom isdirected not at the Cossacks themselves, but at those who are manipulatingthe Host — the Orthodox clergy and lay supporters. He evenadmits that some Cossack grievances against the administration of theHost and Commonwealth officials are justified. But the assertion thatmistreatment of the Host provoked the revolt is dismissed, on thegrounds that redress could have been sought in other ways. In additionto being marionettes of the Orthodox clergy and delegates to the Diet,the Cossacks are portrayed as base commoners who had to turn to theTatars because they could not stand up to the lords on their own. TheDiscourser sees no place for such rabble in the Commonwealth. Heproposes that the very name of the Zaporozhian Cossacks be obliteratedand that they be replaced on the Ukrainian frontier by noblesfrom Maso via and Podlachia. 37 At one point the Discourser has a moreowners and Jews in the Ukrainian lands: a zealous Catholic in an anti-Semitic agecould hardly justify this symbiotic partnership. On no point were the defenders ofthe Commonwealth so vulnerable, in ideological terms, as to the rebels' charge thatthe enemies of Christ had been raised up over a Christian people. Self-interestmight lead Wiśniowiecki and his peers to protect Jews, but anti-rebel propagandistsand historians were reluctant to defend the Jews' position in the old order.The Discourser may have decided just to avoid the problem. There is, however,one instance where he might have had the Jews in mind — his admission thatexcessive exactions had been made from the peasants by stewards and lessees, agroup which included Jews, particularly in the popular imagination. Such criticismnot only absolved the major landowners of responsibility for the excesses, but <strong>also</strong>implied criticism of their Jewish agents. On expressions of anti-Semitism, seeKazimierz Bartoszewicz, Antysemityzm w literaturze polskiej XV-XVll w. (Cracow,1914).37The Discourser provides a resolution for one of the most difficult problems inthe nobles' conception of society — the existence of the Cossacks. He affirms thatthey in no way differed from the peasantry and the rabble in general (line 115).This widespread social tenet of the nobility conflicted with the function of theCossack in the Commonwealth and with the numerous privileges that the Cossackshad wrung from the king and Diet. In 1632 the Cossacks had even insisted that asmembers of the body-politic, they should be allowed to participate in electing theking. The Diet had replied that they were indeed part of the body of the Commonwealth,like fingernails and toenails that had to be pared from time to time(Zbigniew Wójcik, Dzikie Pola w ogniu: O Kozaczyźnie w dawnej Rzeczypospolitej[Warsaw, 1960], pp. 130-31). Refusal to accept them as "worthy of beingincorporated into the Fatherland" (quoting Wiśniowiecki; line 146) implied adetermination not to tolerate their de facto existence as a social order any longer.The Discourser therefore proposed a final solution to the question — the annihilationof all the Cossacks.
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS ON THE KHMEL'NYTS'KYI UPRISING 449"positive" appraisal of the Cossacks' potential, warning that a new"Cossack Commonwealth" may be created. But in this instance heintimates that other forces are behind the Cossacks. 38The Discourser voices the dominant ideology of the Commonwealth indescribing the noble order. The Commonwealth, the Fatherland, andthe Crown of Poland (in the text Korona Polska implies the Kingdomof Poland as well as the Polish Crown, the symbol of sovereignty) arethe patrimony of the szlachta, or the order of knights. Challenges tothem must be suppressed, for only harm can come from compromiseswith the base orders. The noble is above all a warrior, more valorousthan the Cossack and capable of replacing him as defender of theUkraine's borders. The Discourser supports his argument with quotationsfrom Jeremi Wiśniowiecki, leader of the armed resistanceagainst the Cossack revolt and the opponent of all compromise. 39Thus, he, like many nobles of the age, found an archetype of noblevirtue in the brave and intransigent prince. 40The Discourser does not question the powerful political or economicposition of the nobles, although he says that the nobles' excessiveexactions have provoked the peasants. His criticism of estate stewardsand lessees is implicitly a criticism of the system of large domainsowned by absent magnates and a recognition of the abuse of theCossacks by the great nobles. Yet nowhere does he criticize thefabulously wealthy magnates. Instead, the great magnate Wiśnio-38The mention of the creation of a "New Cossack Republic" or a "RuthenianPrincipality" is followed by the phrase "którego snadź ktoś afektuje." This asideis probably an attack on Adam Kysil, leader of the Orthodox nobility andnegotiator with the Cossacks. Kysil's treason was commonly alleged in 1648: see,for instance, Lypyns'kyi, "Stanisław Krzyczewski," pp. 171-82. Kysil's publicstatements had certainly provided ammunition for his enemies. On May 31 hewarned that "Nieprzyjaciel obwoływa novum Vasallum Krymowi z Ojczyznynaszej, i z własnego na wszystek świat libertatis domicilio, format sobie domiciliumvel Dominum . . . Kijów Stolicę bydź swoją deklarował," Kysil to PrimateMaciej Łubieński, in Michałowski, Księga pamiętnicza, p. 27. At theelection Diet, Kysil' spoke of the rebels' lack of respect for the majestas Reipublicae,and maintained that they, too, were a Rzeczpospolita, see the votum of10 October 1648, in Michałowski, Księga pamiętnicza, p. 238. Such statements lentthemselves well to opponents who sought to prove that a secessionist plot wasafoot.39On Wisniowiecki's policies, see Władysław Tomkiewicz, Jeremi Wiśniowiecki(1612-1651) (Warsaw, 1933) (Rozprawy Historyczne Towarzystwa NaukowegoWarszawskiego, 12), pp. 181-298.40For examples of paeons to Wiśniowiecki, see the works of Jan Białobockicited in fn. 24.
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THE UKRAINIAN UNIVERSITY IN GALICIA
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Reviews 547Although certainly Nemir
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Reviews 551serves as a general intr
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Reviews 553inevitably detracts from
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Reviews 555tion, a useful history o
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Reviews 559spelling), but also brin
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Books Received 561Berkeley: Univers
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INDEX TO VOLUME V (1981)A. Articles
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Index 565Saunders. D. В. "Contempo
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Index 567Hryhorii Kostiuk. See Naka
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