^Vhile readers of the English race may consider exaggerated a parallel between the Cossack Bogdan and the great Protector, we must take into account in our judgment of these men and their ambitions, the widely different circumstances which confronted them. Both tried, in the name of liberty, to build into free states nations just emerging from the tyranny of feudal institutions. Both sought to maintain independent of the autocratic governments that surrounded them, democracies anticipating those of our own day.
But, by "freedom" it is to be feared the Cossack comrades of Bogdan understood little except license. During the siege of Zamosc at the most fatal moment of their national fortunes, even the prestige of Bogdan's leadership could not prevent
* Salvandy. _
large numbers of his followers from deserting the Cossack camp in order to place in safety the rich spoils of the chateaux pillaged by the way. The Cossack troopers that remained, "astonished to find themselves eating their coarse rations from silver plates, drinking from golden goblets and sleeping on couches covered with the richest furs, passed their days and nights in orgies and masquerades. Simple peasants, dressed in the stolen trappings of noble bishops and palatines wasted the stern opportunities their courage had won."
With the death of Bogdan the free Cossack state he had founded in the Ukraine fell to pieces almost in a night — nor were his great projects revived until recent times.
CHAPTER V
BOGDAN left to his surviving son a splendid heritage — the duty of carrying out great projects but half realized. Soon after his father's death George Hmelnicky found even his right to the hetmanship contested by John Wykowski, a Cossack representing the faction favorable to Poland. The young hetman threw Iiimself upon the mercies of the Tsar Alexis, but the majority of the Cossack settlements once more temporarily united themselves with Poland, lured by the promise, readily broken, that they should enjoy nationality as an independent duchy under the Polish crown. The Cossack officers of this faction now began to copy the manners of the Polish panye fatuously dreaming of a nobility of their own. At Knotop the Hetman Wykowski led these "free" Cossacks for the last time to victory against the Russian troops. But factions known as the parties of the "Left and Right Bank" (i. e. of the river Dnieper, forming the geographical boundary between the two Slav nations) divided the Cossacks who still professed allegiance to Poland into two opposing parties. Moreover the Polish nobles, blinded by