Timothy Snyder, The Making of Modern Ukraine, Lecture #9: Polish Power and Cossack Rebellion
For those who are not familiar with Timothy Snyder, he is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He speaks five and reads ten European languages, including both Ukrainian and Russian.
His book, “Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin,” which I highly recommend, is not only meticulously researched, it is essential reading for a complete understanding of WWII as well as Europe today.
I have undertaken to summarize all of Snyder’s lectures. I am also following along in the reading (see syllabus link below), which has not only been enlightening, but enjoyable. As always, my summaries are meant to be a guide, rather than a substitution for Snyder’s lectures.
Timothy Snyder’s ninth lecture for his course, “The Making of Modern Ukraine,” was entitled, “Polish Power and Cossack Rebellion.” This lecture covered the enormous historical influence Poland has had on Ukraine.
One thing that Professor Snyder has stressed throughout his lectures is that nations aren’t inevitable. They don’t have a clear trajectory from inception (usually enshrined in a myth), to continual development until they are fully formed. Nations, like all social and political structures, are usually the product of competing influences and encounters, which means they are subject to fits and starts.
The influence of Poland in the 16th century, and later that of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, had a profound effect — both politically and socially — on what was to become Ukraine. Poland, which was controlled by the Polish nobility (though, interestingly, their kings were always Lithuanian), embraced republican values. The most important of these was that the nobility had property rights. They could not be deprived of their landholdings, and could thus pass their vast estates (latifundia) to their children. They also could not be imprisoned for no reason (habeas corpus). The lower nobility even had their own parliaments.
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which covered modern day Lithuania, Belarus and parts of Ukraine, Latvia, Poland, Russia and Moldova, operated on a different system. Yet because of their union with Poland, which formed the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, they used Polish as the language for official and court proceedings. This meant that the people did not speak the language of their rulers, making communication between social strata impossible. The union of those two powers allowed Polish nobles to own huge swathes of land in Lithuania, relegating the majority of the Grand Duchy’s inhabitants to serfdom.
By the mid-seventeenth century, the inequities posed by this system impelled the Cossacks (freemen) to revolt. Initially, the Cossacks massacred Jews, who served as lessees and managers for the Polish nobles. Later, with the help of the Crimean Tatars, the Cossacks attacked the estate holders themselves. The concessions the Cossacks were granted after emerging victorious enabled thousands of Cossacks to be “registered,” which gave them some of the rights conferred to nobility, but not enough to give them real power.
After years of battles, the Tatars deserted the Cossacks, leaving them in a weakened position. The Cossacks then turned to a small, relatively unknown principality for support — Muscovy. And thus began a long, though not very fruitful (at least from Ukraine’s perspective), association.
In stark contrast to Poland and the Lithuanian Duchy, Muscovy operated on the Mongol model, in which the ruler wielded absolute power. The concept of “rights” was unknown, so, unlike Poland, Muscovy was not affected by republican ideals or by the Renaissance. (The Renaissance came about after the Catholic Kings, Ferdinand and Isabella, expelled the Moors and Jews from Iberia — losing all of their scientists, scholars, doctors, architects, and anyone who could read and write in the process. The exodus from Byzantium during the Ottoman onslaught also contributed greatly to Europe’s “rebirth.”)
In this lecture, Snyder talked about several pivotal points in Ukraine’s nascent history. The Union of Lublin (1569), which established Ukraine’s borders and set up a constitutional form of government through the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, was one of the most important. But what struck me about this lecture was the recurring theme of conflict between powerful forces, during this time between East and West. Poland, with its Western ideas of republicanism, was pushing from the west, and autocratic Russia was pushing from the east. That conflict is still playing itself out in the 21st century.
You can watch the ninth lecture of The Making of Modern Ukraine here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IBll--m7qI
The syllabus for the course is here: https://snyder.substack.com/p/syllabus-of-my-ukraine-lecture-class
You can watch all of Timothy Snyder’s lectures for The Making of Modern Ukraine here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh9mgdi4rNewfxO7LhBoz_1Mx1MaO6sw_
You can read my summaries here: https://ericaverr.medium.com/
Erica Verrillo is the author of the Phoenix Rising Trilogy (Random House). Her short work has appeared in over a dozen publications. She is also the author of the definitive reference guide for treating myalgic encephalomyelitis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Treatment Guide, now in its second edition (first edition, St. Martin’s). She holds degrees from Tufts University (BA — History) and Syracuse University (MA — Linguistics) as well as doctoral work in Linguistics, Anthropology, and Speech Communication. Her professional life includes: Spanish language editor for the journal Mesoamerica, linguistics instructor (Dartmouth), Spanish and ESL instructor (Syracuse University), classical musician (Oxford Symphony Orchestra), Mayan linguist (SUNY Albany), and director of a non-profit NGO for Mayan refugees. She is the president of the American Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Society, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to to serving the needs of patients and caregivers through support, advocacy, and education. Her blog for writers, Publishing … and Other Forms of Insanity, has received nearly 8 million page views. You are welcome to visit.
