Hadyatsky Treaty of 1658 – why did the agreement never become a union? (On the prospects and problems of implementing the project on the 360th anniversary of its conclusion)

Abstract

The article investigates prospects opened up by the Hadiach Treaty 1658 for the Commonwealth and the Zaporozhian Host in the field of military cooperation, political and social development, the sphere of interfaith relations, as well as those problems that had to be solved in the process of implementation of the agreement in practical terms. It is argued that the agreement 1658 arose from the awareness of the importance of reconciliation of the warring parties and the returning of Cossack Ukraine to the renewed Commonwealth, despite all the negative consequences that could be expected in the process of project implementation. The reasons for updating the idea of reconciliation exactly at the late 1950’s were hiding as foreign policy conditions unfavorable to the Commonwealth of Poland and Cossacks, and those challenges that were formed within these state institutions. In the field of foreign policy for Warsaw, the first issue was the need to reverse the unfortunate development of wars with the Moscow kingdom and the Swedish kingdom in its favor. For Chyhyryn, the most urgent task was to ensure counteraction to the aggressive external pressure of Moscow in the arena of foreign policy. In the context of the internal affairs of the Commonwealth, the Union with the Cossacks appeared to be very promising in the sense of strengthening the position of the king and, in general, the state authorities in the republic. For the Ukrainian leadership, it was important to streamline social relations, as the government of Tsar Aleksey Mikhailovich actively used a map of social contradictions in the Hetmanate in order to put pressure on the hetman’s government and to restrict the autonomy of Cossack Ukraine. In view of the keen interest in concluding the agreement, the parties demonstrated significant potential for trade-offs during its agreement and signing. The provisions included in it became the greatest actions of the ruling elite of the Commonwealth in the political, social, interdenominational and spiritual-educational plan in the history of the development of relations with Cossack Ukraine. Similarly, the return of the Hetmanate to the body of the Commonwealth and the promise of the restitution of the property rights of the crown gentry on the Ukrainian lands seemed to be a departure from the intentions of achieving the political subjectivity of the Zaporozhian Host. However, the prospect of introducing into the political life of the renewed Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Duchy of Ruthenia was to minimize the existing political losses of the Cossacks as a de facto united political elite of Cossack Ukraine and to create the necessary conditions for the integration of the interests of the gentry and the Cossacks in the framework of a single state body. The compromise decisions that the parties had to make at the time of the establishment of the peace process enabled the signing of the agreement, however, because of the pressure of the opponents of its conclusion, both in Ukraine and Poland and Lithuania, provoked the parties to try to revise the disadvantageous conditions at the stage of ratification of the document at the Diet, and in the future was challenged by its creators to criticize its opponents for neglecting their fundamental socio-political needs of their own societies. Extremely negative consequences for the implementation of a long-term political project were aspects of social selfishness, manifested in the reluctance of the elite of the Crown of the Polish and Grand Duchy of Lithuania to give the Cossacks the part of their monopoly law in the political and social spheres, as well as the desire of the hetman of the I.Vyhovskyi Cossack administration to provide himself the maximal social advance and maximize material benefits, even in spite of the negative reaction of the broad Cossack community.