THE COSSACK MYTH In the years following the Napoleonic Wars, a mysterious manuscript began to circulate among the dissatisfied noble elite of the Russian Empire. Entitled The History of the Rus′, it became one of the most influential historical texts of the modern era. Attributed to an eighteenth-century Orthodox archbishop, it described the heroic struggles of the Ukrainian Cossacks. Alexander Pushkin read the book as a manifestation of Russian national spirit, but Taras Shevchenko interpreted it as a quest for Ukrainian national liberation, and it would inspire thousands of Ukrainians to fight for the freedom of their homeland. Serhii Plokhy tells the fascinating story of the text’s discovery and dissemination, unravelling the mystery of its authorship and tracing its subsequent impact on Russian and Ukrainian historical and literary imagination. In so doing, he brilliantly illuminates the relationship between history, myth, empire, and nationhood, from Napoleonic times to the fall of the Soviet Union. serhii plokhy is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University. His previous publications include Ukraine and Russia: Representations of the Past (2008)andThe Origins of the Slavic Nations: Premodern Identities in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (2006). Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 210.212.129.125 on Sun Dec 23 05:35:34 WET 2012. http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9781139135399 Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012 new studies in european history Edited by PETER BALDWIN, University of California, Los Angeles CHRISTOPHER CLARK, University of Cambridge JAMES B. COLLINS, Georgetown University MIA RODRI´GUEZ- SALGADO, London School of Economics and Political Science LYNDAL ROPER, University of Oxford TIMOTHY SNYDER, Yale University The aim of this series in early modern and modern European history is to publish outstanding works of research, addressed to important themes across a wide geographical range, from southern and central Europe, to Scandinavia and Russia, from the time of the Renaissance to the Second World War. As it develops, the series will comprise focused works of wide contextual range and intellectual ambition. A full list of titles published in the series can be found at : www.cambridge.org/newstudiesineuropeanhistory Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 210.212.129.125 on Sun Dec 23 05:35:34 WET 2012. http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9781139135399 Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012 THE COSSACK MYTH History and Nationhood in the Age of Empires SERHII PLOKHY Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 210.212.129.125 on Sun Dec 23 05:35:34 WET 2012. http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9781139135399 Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012 cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sa˜o Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru,UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107022102 # Serhii Plokhy 2012 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2012 Printed in the United Kingdom byithe MPGiBooksiGroup A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Plokhy, Serhii, 1957– The Cossack myth : history and nationhood in the age of empires / Serhii Plokhy. pages cm. – (New studies in European history) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-107-02210-2 (Hardback) 1. Ukraine–Historiography. 2. Istoriia Rusov. 3. Istoriia Rusov–Authorship. 4. Ukraine– History–Sources. 5. Cossacks–Ukraine–History–Sources. 6. Cossacks–Ukraine–Folklore. 7. Nationalism–Ukraine–History. 8. Ukraine–Relations–Russia. 9. Russia–Relations– Ukraine. 10. Imperialism–History. I. Title. DK508.46.P55 2012 947.7′00491714–dc23 2012000083 isbn 978-1-107-02210-2 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 210.212.129.125 on Sun Dec 23 05:35:34 WET 2012. http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9781139135399 Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012 For Olena Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 210.212.129.125 on Sun Dec 23 05:35:34 WET 2012. http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9781139135399 Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012 Contents List of figures page ix List of maps x Note on transliteration and dates xi Introduction 1 part i the mystery 1 A call for freedom 15 2 The Cossack annals 28 3 The birth of the myth 47 part ii on a cold trail 4 A noble heart 69 5 The Cossack prince 88 6 The Kyiv manuscript 108 part iii pieces of a puzzle 7 A matter of time 131 8 Uncovering the motive 149 9 How did he do it? 170 10 The Cossack treasure 188 vii Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 210.212.129.125 on Sun Dec 23 05:35:30 WET 2012. http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9781139135399 Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012 viii Contents part iv unusual suspects 11 People and places 207 12 The Cossack aristocrats 225 13 The liberated gentry 243 14 A history teacher 261 part v a family circle 15 A missing name 287 16 A son-in-law 307 17 The rivals 328 Epilogue 351 Appendix: Cossack family networks 369 Acknowledgments 371 Index 374 Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 210.212.129.125 on Sun Dec 23 05:35:30 WET 2012. http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9781139135399 Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012 Figures Between pages 176 and 177 1 The History of the Rus′, c. 1818. (Andrei Sheptytsky National Museum, Manuscript Division, no. 563.) 2 A Chronicle of Little Russia, 1813. (Volodymyr Vernadsky Library of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kyiv), Manuscript Institute, I, no. 6099.) 3 Aleksandr von Brigen. From A. F. Brigen, Istoricheskie sochineniia (Irkutsk, 1986). 4 Mykhailo Myklashevsky. From Chernigovskie gubernskie vedomosti, no. 666 (1895). 5 Myklashevsky mansion in Ponurivka at the turn of the twentieth century (Photo Collection of Chernihiv State Archives). 6 Archbishop Heorhii Konysky (unknown artist, Nizhyn Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church). 7 Hryhorii Poletyka as the author of the History of the Rus′. From Narodzheni Ukraı¨noiu. Memorial′nyi al′manakh u dvokh tomakh (Kyiv, 2002), vol. ii. 8 Vasyl Poletyka. From Kievskaia starina, no. 1 (1893). 9 Oleksandr Bezborodko. By Dmytro Levytsky. From Russkaia Zhivopis′ v XVIII veke, vol. i: D. G. Levitskii (St. Petersburg, 1902). 10 Ivan Hudovych. From Chernigovskie gubernskie vedomosti, no. 592 (1895). 11 Mykola Borozdna. From Chernigovskie gubernskie vedomosti, no. 164 (1894). 12 Stepan Shyrai. From Chernigovskie gubernskie vedomosti, no. 632 (1895). 13 Nikolai Repnin. From V. V. Ruban, Ukraı¨ns′kyi portretnyi zhyvopys pershoı¨ polovyny XIX stolittia (Kyiv, 1984). ix Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 210.212.129.125 on Sun Dec 23 05:35:28 WET 2012. http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9781139135399 Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012 Maps 1 The Hetmanate and surrounding territories in the 1750s. From Zenon E. Kohut, Russian Centralism and Ukrainian Autonomy: Imperial Absorption of the Hetmanate, 1760s–1830s (Cambridge, Mass., 1988), p. xiv. page xii 2 The Starodub regiment in the 1750s. xiii 3 Imperial provinces: the Hetmanate as part of imperial Russia, 1809. From Kohut, Russian Centralism, p. xv. xiv 4 Modern Ukraine. From Encyclopedia of Ukraine, ed. Volodomyr Kubijovycˇ and Danylo Husar Struk, vol. v (Toronto, 1993), p. 441.xv x Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 210.212.129.125 on Sun Dec 23 05:35:29 WET 2012. http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9781139135399 Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012 Note on transliteration and dates In the text of this book, a simplified Library of Congress system is used to transliterate Ukrainian and Russian personal names and toponyms. The same system is applied in non-bibliographic references to persons and places in the footnotes. In bibliographic references, where the reader must be able to reconstruct Cyrillic spelling precisely from its Latin-alphabet transliteration, the full Library of Congress system (ligatures and breves omitted) is used. Toponyms are transliterated from the language of the country in which they are now located, with the notable exception of the Starodub region of the Russian Federation, which in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries constituted part of the Ukrainian Hetmanate. In this particular case, both Ukrainian and Russian spellings are given on first mention. Pre-1918 dates in this book are given according to the Julian calendar, which in the nineteenth century lagged behind the Gregorian calendar by twelve days. xi Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 210.212.129.125 on Sun Dec 23 05:35:25 WET 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139135399.001 Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012 The Hetmanate and surrounding territories in the 1750s D e The Hetmanate s n a R i ve RUSSIAN D r n i e p D e Starodube r s EMPIRE R n iv a e R r i D ve n r i e p Chernihiv e r POLISH- R i Nizhyn v e r Pryluky LITHUANIAN Kyiv Hadiach PereiaslavLubny COSSACKS OF Myrhorod Kharkiv COMMONWEALTH SLOBODA UKRAINE Poltava Myrhorod Izium SLAVIANO-SERBIA NOVO-SERBIA ZAPOROZHIAN COSSACKS Zaporozhian Sich TATARS Sea of Azov OTTOMAN EMPIRE Bahçesaray Black Sea 0 100 200 300 km 0 50 100 150 200 miles Map 1 The Hetmanate and surrounding territories in the 1750s.