Koliivshchyna

The origin of the word is not certain. Taras Shevchenko, whose grandfather and villagers participated in the uprising, wrote a poem, Haydamaky, in which Kolii is the name of a knife that is blessed in a church and used by special people in villages in Ukraine (Ruthenia) villages to kill animals humanely, according to the local understanding of animal rights. The blessing of knives had occurred two or three weeks before the uprising as a rule and so the members and supporters of the Bar Confederation and its regular military forces fled to the Ottoman Empire before the uprising. However, some fortresses such as Uman and Lysianka were still occupied by the members of the Bar Confederation. The secret was shared by millions of people and so different national minorities were accused of atrocities towards animals and retreated to the fortresses as well. The poem is the best description though it considers village drinkings after massacres as part of the uprising. It explains that Ukrainians, apart from professional Kolii, never killed even chicken and other animals before the uprising, and the bloodletting led to drinking as the most continuous part of the uprising. The Kolii are similar to Rezniks and may be the heritage of the Khazar-Russian kaganate (Kievan Rus) in Ukraine. Kolii have never been present among Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, Byelorussians, Muslims, Armenians, Romanians or even Greeks in spite of their Orthodoxy and their life together with Ukrainians. Shevchenko emphasized that it was the first uprising for animal rights worldwide, and the rebels wanted to clean Ukraine of bad animals (especially Old Believers, (Muscovites), Armenians, Greeks, Muslims etc., who tortured poor good real animals killing them without Kolii. Ukrainian Poles often used meat from animals slaughtered by Kolii, and Jews used meat slaughtered by rezniks in a way very similar to Kolii and so Maksym Zalizniak solemnly rejected any plans to massacre Jews or Poles and explained the massacre as the excess of the executors.

The term could be an adaptation of the Polish words "kolej", "kolejno", "po kolei", which implies "służba kolejna" (patrolling service), designating Cossack militia in the service of aristocrats. That etymology is suggested by Polish historians such as Władysław Andrzej Serczyk and Volodymyr Shcherbyna, who did not read the poem of Schevcenko about the uprising.[9]

The rebellion was simultaneous to the Confederation of Bar, which originated in an adjacent region in the city of Bar (historical Podolia) and was a de facto civil war in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Bar Confederation declared not only the Orthodox faith but the Uniate church pro-Russian ones. Later, the Polish government and Roman Catholic church accused both Eastern Churches of responsibility on the Uman massacre and the uprising because Russia defended the political rights of believers of both churches. Though almost all pupils of the Uman Uniate seminary had died in the massacre, they were accused of the fall of the city by the Polish government.[10]

There were rumours that Don Cossacks fighting the Bar Confederation needed help from Zaporozhian Cossacks, many of whom left for Right-bank Ukraine to join the Don Cossacks. Some of them became leaders of different detachments. Some were seized by Polish government forces and tried in Kodnya by Poles. One Zaporozhian Cossack was executed in Kodnya. The Cossacks were not paid. The rebellion of peasants was fueled by ducats paid by Maxim Zalizniak for every killed Bar Confederate (a blue-eyed Old Believer because women and children could not find Confederates to have a reward) and by the circulation of a fictitious proclamation of support and call to arms by Russian Empress Catherine II, the so-called "Golden Charter".[11] Mostly based on rumours, the charter, however, had a real foundation and was connected with the Repnin's sejm decisions to give political freedoms to Uniates and Orthodox Christians. Catherine issued a rescript in 1765 to Archimandrite Melkhisedek and made the Russian ambassador in Warsaw facilitate assertion the rights and privileges of the Right-bank Ukraine Orthodox.[12] In 1764, on the territory of the Zaporozhian Host and along the southern borders of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian Empire created the New Russia Governorate in place of the previously-existing New Serbia province and intensively militarised the region.[13]

Preparations for the uprising against the Bar Confederation and the initial raid of the Cossack detachment of Maksym Zalizniak started at the Motrynine Saint Trinity Monastery (now a covenant in Cherkasy Raion), a hegumen of which was Archimandrite Melkhisedek (Znachko-Yavorsky), who also served as the director of all Orthodox monasteries and churches in Right-bank Ukraine (in 1761–1768).[1]

The peasant rebellion quickly gained momentum and spread over the territory from the right bank of the Dnieper River to the river Sian (San). The Massacre of Uman had many Poles, Jews, and Uniates herded into their churches and synagogues and killed in cold blood, but Uniates were not the victims in other places:[14]

Crowds of insurgents broke into the city [...] Most of the nobles and Jews gathered in the churches, synagogue and town hall. Catholic priests communicated and gave absolution [...] the slaughter initiated, most likely by vengeful peasants, began. According to modern testimonies, about three thousand Jews died in the synagogue alone. Killed and tormented. Jews had their hands and ears cut off. They were pulled out of cellars, houses and even ditches, where they sought shelter in vain. Catholic and Uniate priests became the next victims of the hatred of the insurgent crowd.

In three weeks of unbridled violence, the rebels slaughtered 20,000 people, according to numerous Polish sources. The leaders of the uprising were Zaporozhian Cossacks, mainly Maksym Zalizniak, and a commander of a private militia of the owner of Uman, Ivan Gonta. He was the commander of Potocki's private Uman city Cossack militia garrison, which later joined Zalizniak at Uman. The governor and other Polish nobles supporting the Bar Confederation capitulated since they knew that Gonta had been dispatched by Polish Count Franciszek Salezy Potocki to protect Uman by a secret mission. They mistakenly thought that the rebels supported the Polish king, as did Potocki. However, the insurgents were for the Zaporozhian Host of Right-Bank Ukraine.

Eventually, the uprising was crushed by Russian troops, Ukrainian-registered Cossacks of Left-Bank Ukraine and the Zaporozhian Host, aided by Polish army. The two major leaders were arrested by Russian troops on 7 July 1768.[1] Ivan Gonta was handed over to Polish authorities, who tortured him to death, and Maksym Zalizniak was exiled to Siberia.[15] The rebellion was suppressed by the joint forces of Polish and Russian armies, with numerous hangings, decapitations, quarterings and impalings of Polish subjects and of the Russian subjects who were captured by governmental Polish forces themselves.[7]

Taras Shevchenko's epic poem Haidamaky (The Haidamakas) chronicles the events of the Koliivshchyna. The event also inspired recent artwork during the latest Ukrainian unrest.[16]

On 17 May 2018 the Kyiv City Council voted to hold events marking 250 years since Koliivshchyna; the proposal was put forward by two deputies of the ultranationalist Svoboda party. The decision received strong criticism from the Ukrainian Jewish community and the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group.[17][18]

• Magocsi, Paul Robert (1996). A History of Ukraine. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-0830-5.
• Henryk Mościcki, "Z dziejów hajdamacczyzny", Warszawa 1905
• Władysław Andrzej Serczyk, "Koliszczyzna", Kraków 1968
• Władysław Andrzej Serczyk, "Hajdamacy", Wydawnictwo Literackie, Kraków 1972
• Karol Grunberg, Bolesław Sprengel, Trudne sąsiedztwo, Warszawa 2005
• Władysław Wielhorski, Ziemie ukrainne Rzeczypospolitej: Zarys dziejów, Londyn 1959
• Kazimierz Karolczak, Franciszek Leśniak, "Wielka Historia Polski", Kraków 1998
• "Dzieje Polski. Kalendarium", pod red. Andrzeja Chwalby, Kraków 1999
• "Kronika Polski", praca zbiorowa, Warszawa 200
• Stanisław Bogusław Lenard, Ireneusz Wywiał, Historia Polski w datach, wyd. PWN, Warszawa 2000