Changes in the Social System

From the very beginning of the great revolt, two different conceptions of organizing society vied with each other in Ukraine - the egalitarian and the elitist. Initially, the former predominated. Cossacks replaced the Polish nobility as the dominant class and access to Cossack status was, by tradition, open to all. During the tumultuous period of 1648- 56, thousands of burghers, peasants, and Orthodox nobles joined Cossack ranks. According to an incomplete Muscovite census taken in 1654, roughly half the adult male population were Cossacks. If a peasant or burgher could render military service at his own cost, it was not difficult to register in a Cossack regiment and claim such privileges as the right to own land, to be excused from taxes, and to vote for or be elected as a Cossack officer. By the same token, a Cossack who could no longer afford to outfit himself for war or who lost his desire for fighting usually reverted back to peasant or burgher status. In any case, in the immediate aftermath of 1648, social boundaries were extremely fluid and a spirit of egalitarianism, unmatched in Eastern Europe, held sway.

For the peasantry who survived the brutal warfare, the uprising brought considerable improvements. Willi the expulsion of the szlachta, peasants regained their personal freedom, the right to dispose of their property and to move when and where they wished. The more ambitious or wealthier among them now had the possibility of raising their status by enrolling as Cossacks. But the peasants were not freed of all their obligations. Because they occupied lands that the ("ossacks had confiscated from the Poles, they were required to render to the Zaporozhian Host certain services and payments. Foremost among them was the obligation to provide Cossack armies with transportation, quarters, and provisions. Although the peasants continued to pay taxes in cash and in kind, the hated labor obligations they had owed to their Polish lords were liquidated.

Yet, in time, these gains were threatened by the elitist tendencies of the starshyna. Many members of the Cossack leadership, notably the sizable contingent of Ukrainian nobles and registered Cossack officers who had joined Khmelnytsky, had been a part (albeit a minor one) of the pre-1648 establishment. In their view, the uprising was not meant to create an egalitarian society - something unheard of in Eastern Europe -but rather to expel the hated Polish szlachta and magnates, replacing them with a native Ukrainian elite. For them a society without elite was unthinkable and unworkable. Because of their relatively high status, extensive military and political experience, and wealth, many Ukrainian nobles and well- established Cossacks attained positions of leadership in the Zaporozhian Host. And they used these positions to retain and expand their status and wealth. Moreover, they frequently transformed the public lands attached to their offices into their own private property.

Since hetmans frequently emerged from the officer class and greatly relied on its support, they not only failed to prevent its aggrandizement of power and wealth but actively encouraged it with generous land grants and appointments. As this new elite evolved, it pushed for sharper delineation of the classes in Ukrainian society and it increased its demands upon the peasants and common Cossacks. The latter responded to these attempts to deprive them of the gains of 1648 with growing animosity and even open resistance. As a result, a bitter and eventually fatal cleavage developed in the newly formed society of Cossack Ukraine.

The towns had played a relatively minor role in the uprising and their status remained essentially unchanged. About a dozen large towns, such as Kyiv, Starodub, Chernihiv, and Poltava, continued to govern themselves through elected magistrates according to Magdeburg Law. Their contacts with the Cossack-dominated countryside were relatively limited. But the vast majority of small, semiagrarian towns came to be dominated by the local starshyna who, like the Polish nobles before it, placed its interests above those of the townsmen. An indication of the stranglehold that the starshyna and common Cossacks exerted on the towns was the fact that townsmen had to pay tariffs on the items they traded, while Cossacks, often their commercial rivals, did not. Dissatisfied with Cossack rule, many towns looked to the tsar for support and backed him in his conflicts with the starshyna.

In contrast to the townsmen, the Orthodox clergy enjoyed friendly relations with the Cossack leadership because the clergy embodied the Orthodoxy that the Cossacks had fought to preserve. Khmelnytsky and his successors were quick to confirm the rights of monasteries to their lands and to the labor obligations of the peasants living on them. In fact, the hetman's generous support of the church was a major factor in undermining the gains of the peasantry. Pleased with the status quo, the hierarchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox church was opposed to closer ties with Moscow, especially in ecclesiastical affairs, for they considered it to be inferior to them in religious and cultural matters. It would take many years of cajolement and gift- giving before the tsars would be able to bring about a change in the attitudes of Ukrainian churchmen.