The constant state of warfare on the Tatar border forced the Ukrainian population in those parts to adopt a policy of continual "Preparedness." These fighting people of the marshes led a precarious life, but they had access to the virgin lands of the borders with all their natural treasures, and the exploiting Polish officials did not dare venture forth into these dangerous districts. These armed farmers, hunters and fishermen led an independent life and called themselves Cossacks, i. e., "free warriors."
In the 16th Century there arose among these Ukrainian Cossacks a military state organization, the center of which was a strongly fortified position below the rapids of the Dnieper (the Zaporog Sich). The Zaporog warrior state, compared by some to a religious order of knights (because of their compulsory celibacy and their wars against unbelievers), by others to a communistic republic, shows us most clearly what has always been the goal of the Ukrainian "political idea." In the Zaporog organization, absolute equality of all citizens in all political and social rights prevailed above all else. All authority was vested in the General Assembly of all the Zaporogs, and their decisions were enforced by elective officers who were, at the same time, officers of the army. The liberty of the individual was very great, but had to yield to the will of the whole. And when, in time of war, the General Assembly delegated unlimited dictatorial power to the highest official, the Hetman, it gave him a degree of authority with which the power of any one of the absolute rulers of Europe at the time could not be compared.
In the aristocratic state organization of Poland there was no room for such a lawless democratic state as that of the Zaporogs was in Polish eyes. The entire Ukrainian nation regarded the Zaporog Cossacks as their natural defenders against the terrible Tatar peril, and likewise as their sole hope as opposed to the oppression practiced by the Poles. An ominous discontent prevailed thruout the Ukraine, and after the Poles had naturally taken severe measures, a number of Cossack revolts occurred in rapid succession, beginning toward the end of the 16th Century and filling the first half of the 17th. In these revolts the Cossacks were supported by the oppressed peasantry. But the Polish Kingdom was rather deficient, always, as far as its standing army was concerned, and was obliged to appeal to the Ukrainian Cossack organization, which it could not possibly destroy, to aid in its wars against the Turks, the Russians and the Swedes.
Finally, in 1648, the Ukrainian Cossacks, aided by the entire people, from the Dnieper to the San, raised the standard of rebellion, and under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnyzki, succeeded in annihilating the Polish armies. Thus the Ukrainian Nation fought for and won its independence again after three hundred years of a foreign yoke. Chmelnyzki, after his victory over the Poles, extended the Cossack organization beyond the narrow bounds of the Zaporoze, over the entire huge area of the Ukraine.
Surrounded by enemies on all sides, the new state needed calm and quiet to enable it to achieve the necessary internal organization. Much time was needed to organize the new order completely in so enormous a country, to bring to a successful conclusion the fight against the Polish social-political order, which had prevailed here so long and was so different from the Ukrainian. It required much time to work out new constitutional forms, which were inevitable, now that the Zaporog organization was extended over great areas. Khmelnitsky negotiated with all the surrounding governments and peoples, with the Poles, the Transy- Ivanians, the Swedes, the Turks, and finally, in 1654, concluded the treaty of Pereyaslav with Russia, with which they were related by ties of religion. This treaty provided that the Ukraine should retain a complete autonomy, as well as their Cossack organization, the latter under the suzerainty of the Czar. The Hetman, who was to be elected by the votes of the General Assembly, was even to retain the right of conducting an independent foreign policy.
But Russia had no mind to respect the treaty that bound it in dual alliance with the warlike Ukrainian nation. The democratic form of government in the Ukraine was an abomination to Russia, just as it was to aristocratic Poland.
Once the Cossack- republic was under the control of