Princes and Cossacks: Putting Ukraine on the Map of Europe Serhii Plokhy The word “Ukraine,” which today is used to define an independent country in the middle of Europe, has medieval origins and was first used by the Kyivan chroniclers of the twelfth century to define the areas of today’s Ukraine bor- dering on the Pontic steppes. In the second half of the seventeenth century the term “Ukraine” entered the international vocabulary as one of the names of the Cossack polity created in the course of the Khmelnytsky Uprising (1648– 57). By that time, European geographers could already locate Ukraine on the maps produced by the French engineer and cartographer Guillaume Levas- seur de Beauplan. His, however, was not the first depiction of Ukraine on a European map.1 The terms “Ukraine” and “Cossacks” appeared on European maps simul- taneously in the first decades of the seventeenth century. Both terms were introduced for the first time on a map of Eastern Europe produced by a group of cartographers and engravers assembled by Mykalojus Kristupas Radvila (Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł) the Orphan, one of the most prominent aristo- crats in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The map, titled “Detailed Description of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Other Adjacent Lands,” captured not only major political and territorial, but also social and cultural changes that had taken place in the region in the course of the sixteenth century. The Radvila map covers the territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as they existed before the Union of Lublin (1569) between the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and has a supplement consisting of a separate map of the Dnieper River. By far the most important new devel- opment reflected on the Radvila map was the emergence of a border divid- ing the Grand Duchy almost in half. The new boundary was in some of its For the background information on the history of Ukraine this essay draws on the relevant chapters of my book The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine (New York: Basic Books, 2015), on which I worked concurrently with producing the original draft of this paper. 1 Guillaume Levasseur de Beauplan, A Description of Ukraine, trans. Andrew B. Pernal and Dennis F. Essar (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1993). Seeing Muscovy Anew: Politics —Institutions—Culture. Essays in Honor of Nancy Shields Kollmann. Michael S. Flier, Valerie A. Kivelson, Erika Monahan, and Daniel Rowland, eds. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2017, 323–38. 324 SERHII PLOKHY parts similar to the present-day Ukrainian-Belarusian border, following the Prypiat River and then diverging to the north. The word “Ukraine,” used to describe part of the lands south of the new border, referred to the territory on the right bank of the Dnieper extending from Kyiv in the north to Kaniv in the south. Beyond Kaniv, if one trusted the cartographer, there were wild steppes, marked Campi deserti citra Boristenem (Desert plains on this side of the Bo- rysthenes). “Ukraine” thus covered a good part of the region’s steppe frontier, which had become the homeland of the social group subsequently known as the Ukrainian Cossacks.2 The Radvila map provides unique insight into three interrelated pro- cesses that shaped the future of the Pontic steppes: the renegotiation of rela- tions between royal crown and the local aristocracy; the economic and cul- tural colonization of the Dnieper area, and last but not least the emergence of the Ukrainian Cossacks as a powerful military and later political and cultural force. The Princes The Radvila map is often attributed to Tomasz Makowski, its principle en- graver, but was produced, in fact, by a group of cartographers, which included Maciej Strubicz. Most of the work on the map was done between 1585 and 1603, while the first known edition was published only in 1613 by Hessel Ger- ritsz (Gerard) of Amsterdam.3 The Radvila map in many ways was a continuation of work initiated by King Stefan Batory at the time of the Livonian War, and can be viewed as sign of increased involvement of the aristocracy in the political, religious and 2 See a copy of the 1613 edition of the map in the Stanford University Libraries: MAGNI DVCATVS LITHVANIAE, CAETERARVMQVE REGIONVM ILLI ADIACENTIVM EX- ACTA DESCRIPTIO. Ill[ustri]ss[i]mi ac Excell[enti]ss[i]mi Pri[n]cipis et D[omi]ni D[omini] Nicolai Christophori Radziwil, D[ei] G[ratia] Olicae ac in Nieswies Ducis, S[acri] Rom[ani] Imperii Principis in Szylowiec ac Mir Comitis et S[ancti] Sepulchri Hierosolimitani Militis etc. opera, cura et impensis facta ac in lucem edita, https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/10366631; for a 1633 edition of the map, which includes a map of Dnieper River, see https://search- works.stanford.edu/view/10366743. 3 On the history of the production of the map, see H. Bartoszewicz, “Geodeci i kartogra- fowie radziwiłłowscy,” Geodeta, no. 2 (2001): 45–49; S. Alexandrowicz, “Rola mecenatu magnackiego w rozwoju kartografii ziem Rzeczypospolitej Obojga Narodów w XVI–I połowie XVII wieku,” in Europa Orientalis: Studia z dziejów Europy Wschodniej i Państw Bałtyckich (Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2010), 235–54; S. Alexandrowicz and A. Treiderowa, “Makowski Tomasz,” in Polski słownik biograficzny (Wrocław: Zakład Narod. Im. Ossolińskich, 1974), 19: 248–49; Jarosław Łuczyński. “Przestrzeń Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego na mapie radziwiłłowskiej Tomasza Makowskiego z 1613 r. w świetle treści kartograficzneji opisowej,” Ukraina Lithuanica 2 (2013): 121–52. PUTTING UKRAINE ON THE MAP OF EUROPE 325 cultural realms dominated earlier by the king. Radvila was assisted in his work by fellow aristocrats, and it has been argued that the information on the Dnieper settlements was supplied to him by his peer, the palatine of Kyiv and prominent Volhynian magnate Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozky. Not unlike the Kronika polska, litewska, żmódzka i wszystkiéj Rusi by Maciej Stryjkowski (1582), sponsored by a fellow Lithuanian aristocrat, the bishop of Samogitia (Žemai- tija) Merkelis Giedraitis, Radvila’s map was not limited in scope to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and included the lands of Rus´, lost to Poland as a result of the Union of Lublin (1569). The elites of the Grand Duchy were clearly un- happy with the deal they got in 1569 in Lublin and were eager to renegotiate the political and cultural spaces created by the Union.4 All over Europe, the sixteenth century was marked by the strengthening of royal authority, centralization of the state, and regularization of political and social practices. The other side of the coin was increasing aristocratic op- position to this growth. Both tendencies were fully apparent in the prepara- tion and conclusion of the Union of Lublin, which had as its goal not only the unification of the two parts of the Polish-Lithuanian state, but also strength- ening of the crown. If King Sigismund Augustus wanted the Union, the aris- tocratic families of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania opposed it. But many of their concerns had to be put aside because of a growing external threat to the Grand Duchy that could be met only with the help of Poland. In 1558, after taking control of the Volga trade route by defeating and forc- ing into submission the two successors of the Golden Horde, the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates, Ivan the Terrible moved his armies westward, trying to gain access to the Baltic Sea. The Livonian War, which Ivan started that year, would last for a quarter century and see Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania, and, eventually, Poland involved in the struggle. In 1563, Muscovite troops crossed the borders of the Grand Duchy, taking the city of Polatsk (now in Belarus) and raiding Vitsebsk, Shkloŭ, and Orsha. This defeat mobilized support for the Union among the lesser Lithuanian nobility. Given Muscovite claims to the lands of Kyivan Rus´, which included not only Polatsk but also the rest of the Ukrainian-Belarusian territories of the Grand Duchy, the future looked bleak for the Duchy’s ruling elite. Union with the Kingdom of Poland now seemed the only possible solution. In December 1568, Sigismund Augustus convened two Diets in the city of Lublin—one for the Kingdom, the other for the Grand Duchy—in the hope that their representatives would hammer out conditions for the new union. The negotiations began on a positive note, as the two sides agreed to the joint election of the king, a common Diet, or parliament, and broad auton- 4 S. Alexandrowicz, Rozwój kartografii Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego od XV do połowy XVIII wieku (Poznań: Wyd. Naukowe Uniwersytetu im. A. Mickiewicza, 1989); “The Radziwiłł Map of the Duchy of Lithuania,” Cartographia Rappersviliana Polonorum. Muzem Polski w Rapperwilu, http://mapy.muzeum-polskie.org/articles-about-the-collection/ the-radziwi-map-of-lithuania.html (accessed 7 April 2017). 326 SERHII PLOKHY omy for the Grand Duchy. Nonetheless, the magnates would not return the royal lands in their possession—the principal demand of the Executionists. Directed by Mykalojus Radvila (Mikołaj Radziwiłł) the Red, the leader of the Lithuanian Calvinists and the victorious commander of the Lithuanian army in its recent clashes with Muscovite troops, the Lithuanian delegates made no concessions. They packed their bags, assembled their retinues of noble clients, and left the Diet. This move backfired. Unexpectedly for the departing Lith- uanians, the Diet of the Kingdom of Poland with the king’s blessing began to issue decrees transferring one province of the Grand Duchy after another to the jurisdiction of the Kingdom of Poland. The Lithuanian magnates who had feared losing their provinces to Mus- covy were now losing them to Poland instead.