Harvard Ukrainian Studies. Volume I. Number 2. June 1977

7/28/2019 Harvard Ukrainian Studies. Volume I. Number 2. June 1977

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HARVARDUKRAINIAN STUDIES

Volume I Number 2 June 1977

Harvard Ukrainian Research InstituteCambridge, Massachusetts


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CONTENTSARTICLESOn the Chronology of h and the New g in Ukrainian 13 7

GEORGE Y. SHEVELOYThe Hebrew Chronicles on Bohdan Khmelnytskyi and theCossack-Polish War 15 3

BERNARD D. WEINRYBThe Cossack Experiment in Szlachta Democracy in the Polish-

Lithuanian Commonwealth: TheHadiach Hadziacz Union 17 8ANDRZEJ KAMINSKI

Sir Lewis Namier and the Struggle for Eastern Galicia, 1918-1920 198TARAS HUNCZAK

DOCUMENTSA Turk ish Document in Ukrainian from the Mid-SixteenthCentury: On the O rigin of the Ukrainian Cossacks 211

JAROSLAV STEPANIVMykhailo Drahomanov and the Ems Ukase: A Note on the

Ukrainian Question at the 1878 International Literary Congress in Paris 225ROMAN SOLCHANYK

REVIEW ARTICLESUkrainian Linguistics in Rumania: An Overview 23 0

lOAN LOBIUC


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The New Acad emy Dictionary of the Ukrainian LanguageBOHDAN STRUMINSKYJ 24 2

Highlights of the Skovoroda Jubilee 24 9RICHARD HANTULA

REVIEWSEvlija elebi. Kniga putesestv?/a. Izvleen/a iz soinenj/a puteestvennika XVII veka: Perevod i kommentarii. Zygmunt Abrahamowicz et al., trans., Ksiga podry Ewlji Czelebiego:

Wybr Omeljan Pritsak 25 5Donald Edgar Pitcher, An Historical Geography of the Ottoman

Empire from Earliest Times to the End of the SixteenthCentury ... Omeljan Pritsak 258

Nicholas Wacyk, Ivan Franko: His Thoughts and StrugglesMartha Bohachevsky-Chomiak 259CHRONICLEOrest Zilynskyj, In Memoriam 262


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ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF H ANDTHE NEW G IN UKRAINIAN

GEORGE Y . SH EV EL OV

Old Ukrainian records written in Cyrillic furnish no d ire ct indicationof the phonetic value of the letter r hereafter "g".1 What i s knowni s that its sound value in the original Cyrillic alphabet was [g], while inModern Ukrainian it i s [hi. Since the change affected all positions exceptin the cluster zg, a problem which will not be treated in any detail inthis article, native speakers felt no need to make any adjustmentsin the alphabet or orthography to reflect the change. Hence,suggestions concerning the mechanism and the chronology of thechange were mostly speculative; a few others treated the textualevidence naively. Typically, it was assumed that g f irs t changed in toth e voiced counterpart of x, usually denoted y , which at some laterpoint was pharyngealized into what i s traditionally denoted h. Sincethe change g > y occurred in the vast area from the Bavarianfrontier to the Oka i.e., in Czech, Slovak, Upper Sorbian, Belorussian,Ukrainian, and South Russian, as well as in some westernmost dialectsof Slovene and some littoral dialects ofSerbo-Croatian, it was relegatedto prehistoric time.2

For abbreviations of source titles, linguistic terminology, and references see Appendixes1 , 2, and 3 on pp. 150-152. In the transliteration ofOld Ukrainian texts r is rendered as g,H and i as i and the jers are retained; in that ofMiddle Ukrainian texts, r is renderedas h, is and i as y, as ", i, as , and bI as j. The cutoff date is 1387 which ispurely conventional and does not imply that the sound changes in question occurredin or near that year. For both periods "jat" is rendered as e, "jus mal" as , and"fita" as th, regardless of their phonetic value.2 als dialektische Erscheinungen spturslavischen Zeit betrachtet werden drfen"-N. Trubetzkoy, ZSPh 1 1924 293; "... eine dialektische Erscheinung der urslavischen Periode"-N. Trubetzkoy, F s !Ilileti, p. 270; "... at the very latest in the10th century, more probably before 900"-Anderson, p. 561; although in part ofBelorussian and South Russian "not until after" the fall ofjers Anderson, p. 565, whichwould put in doubt the Common Slavic scope of the change g > y. Cf. the morecautious approach in my Problems in the Formation o/ Be/orussian New York, 1953,pp. 7-9.


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138 GEORGE Y. SHEVELOVThe presence of y as an intermediary between g and h cannot be

doubted. It is well motivated by both articulatory and structuralconsiderations; in addition, y still exists in South Russian and, alongside h, in Belorussian. This implies that the student must establish twochronological dates, one for the passage of g to y, and another forthe change y to h. A t yet a later s tage, whose chronology must also bedetermined, g was reintroduced in positions other than in the c lusterzg into Ukrainian. These three chronological dates constitute thesubject of this art icle. We will attempt to base answers on the concretedata of relative chronology, wr it ten records, and dialectal facts, andto abstain from any mental speculations in a fac tua l vacuum.1 . In terms of relative chronology the spirantization of g into y canbe studied in connection with the fol lowing developments in OldUkrainian:a It occurred after the split of into 5 and a eighth to mid-ninthcentury. OHG ahorn maple has the expected distribution of a froma long vowel and o from a short one: OU *javo MoU javir; itsprothetic j- also points to that period. Yet OHG h has been replacedby v. Obviously, Slavic of the time, possibly including Proto-Ukrainian,had as yet no h. The word is not attested in Old Ukrainian texts, b ut th echange o > i and the widespread use of the word in Modern Ukrainiandialects make one assume its presence in Proto-Ukrainian and OldUkrainian.b It occurred after the loss of weak jers i.e., not b efore 1050.

This is best seen by comparing some Ukrainian data with S lovak. InSlovak, *k,4e where became [gde] spelled kde, not +hde or +de;apparently, after the loss of b, when k by assimilation to d became g,the change g > h was no longer operative.3 Consequently, g wasmaintained. In Ukrainian, on the contrary, one has to assume thatMoU de comes from hde, i.e., that the sequence of changes wask,de > kde >gde > hde > de.

This reasoning also applies to todi then < tbgbd.Another alternative, the loss of g in the stage gde, is less plausible.This is Trubetzkoys argument fo r Czech ZSPh 1 [1924]: 292. Strangely enough,he di d not notice or mention that wh en a pp li ed to Ukrainian, this argument wouldlead to the conclusion that in that language g passed into y after the loss ofjers, andwould thus undermine his view of the Common Slavic dialectal scope of the change.


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CHRONOLOGY OF H AND NEW G IN UKRAINIAN 1 3 9Also, it i s repudiated outright by the spellings hde from the time whenthe sound valu e of "g" as y/h cannot be doubted: e.g., nyhdeCh Wiodawa 1536, hde, tohdy Lst Braclav 1545, Lst Luck 1552 a.o.;4the form de i s no t attested in Old Ukrainian. In principle a simplification of the clusters gd/kt is, of course, quite possible; cf. tytarsexton from Gr icrttwp, duija a sort of pears from P gdula i. Rm cIrlIg hook appearsin Ukrainian as gyrljga shepherds stick, with i changed into y but gnot changed in to h-i.e., the word should have been borrowed either

before the coalescence of y and i or just after it, during the sho rt timewhen the language had no iwhich was reintroduced through the changee> i. The change e> i took place in Bukovyna-Podillja in the latethirteenth century, in Volhynia in the mid-fifteenth century. A borrowing of a Rumanian pastural term i s likely to have taken placeabout that time the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. Comparealso the treatment of Li Zemait. Svidrigal PN as Svytrykhal Chytomyr 1433.One may thus conclude that the spirantization of g occurred betweenthe mid-eleventh and the fif teenth century, and in Bukovyna-Podilljain the late thirteenth century. For the Galician and Podilijan dialects this frame can be narrowed by reference to the fact that at thetime of the change ky, xy > ki, xi th e sequen ce s hy were notaffected. This change took place during the late thirteenth century.Apparently, h ex isted in that area at the time, whereas g no longerdid.Finally, a historical fact may be invoked-the acceptance of Christianity. Since all the original Christian names in Ukrainian contain h,

the change g > h y clearly occur red aft er the conversion, i.e., afterthe tenth cen tu ry . O therwise, there would have been other substitutesfor Gr y as rendered by ChS1 "g".2 . In using the data of written records, one mus t f ir st reject certainspellings as irrelevant to the problem of chronology, despite someattempts to use them in solving this problem.a There are several instances of spellings with x instead of "g" inOld Ukrainian texts : xodi, corrected to xodctb instead of godb year inArch Sang4 1890 56 ; AJuZR, pt. 6, 11887: 21; AJuZR, pt. 7, 11886: 1 56 , 1 71 .Rozov, p. 126.


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140 GEORGE Y. SHEVELOVGB 11th c; kbnixbii instead of kbnigzSii savant in Izb 1073; xrou.iinstead of presumably groui pears Stud 12th c; xrxa instead ofgrxa sin gen sing BGV 12th c, and a few more .6 However , xodz,should be disregarded because it i s a corruption of a d if fi cu lt t ex tby a primitive scribe; kbnixii also occurs in Old Church Slavonicknixii-Supr where it i s a natural result of the dissimilation of tw os tops a fte r the loss of b. The Old Ukrainian scribe restored the jerbut retained the Old Church Slavonic consonant; xrxa i s an anticipatory misspell ing; and xroui, which remains a completely isolatedexample , can only be a scribal error.Not only are particular examples unsatisfactory, but the ent ire searchfor y/h behind x i s unacceptable. Whether "g" was [ g ] or ft/h], itcontinually retained its phonemic identity, distinct from /x/, and therei s no more reason to expect those tw o letters to be confused than,say, b and p, or t and d. Such confusions are pos sib le only forforeigners accustomed to a language that has x b ut not h or vice versa,such as Rumanian and Hungarian. Actually, in Moldavian char terssuch confusions are by no means rare, e.g., pana Hrynkova panaXrynka Mr. Hrynko gen sing 1414, Tyhomyrovo selye villageof Tyxomyrovo 1420, ouxorskx ouhorskyx Hungarian bc p 11423, moxylu = mohylu mound acc sing 1425, Xavrylovcy GN= Havrylovci 1503 and many more.7 In the Transcarpathiandialects that were in constant contact with Hungarian, such confusionaffected even some native words: nexay nchay let Kap 1640, nehajUK 1695, Mo nahaf instead of StU nexj; also, Myxal PN becameMyhal Michael apparently attested since 1492.8 But th is situationdoes no t appear in any record of the Old Ukrainian period.b In the roots gnv- ire and gnoj-, rarely g?,n drive, afterprefixes ending in z, the initial consonant i s omitted in some OldUkrainian texts, e.g., raznvavi, Izb 1073, iznjjetb Izb 1076, raznvasGB, P . 27; Iz b 1073, f. 232v; A. Gorskij and K. Nevostruev, Opisanie slavjanskixrukopisej Moskovskoj sinodalnoj biblioteki, vol. 3, pt. 1 . Moscow, 1869 ; reprint Wiesbaden, 1964, p. 259; Kopko, p. 76 ef. also F. V. Marel in Slavia 3 2 [ 19 63 ] 424.For a more detailed discussion see my Teasers and Appeasers Munich, 1971, pp. 159ff.M . Costchescu, Documentele Moldovenecti inainte de tefan cel Mare, vol. 1 Iai,1931, pp. 103 , 111, 135, 159, 168; I. Bogdan, Documentele lu i .tefn cel Mare, vol. 2Bucharest, 1913, p. 225 .

8 J Valica in Slovanskj sbornIk vJnovanj... Franttfku Pastrnkovi Prague, 1923,p. 14; Ju. Javorskij, Novye rukopisnye naxodki v oblasti starinnoj karpatorusskojpismennostiXVJ-XVIII vekov Prague, 1931, P . 116; I. Pankevy in Naukovyj zbirnykMuzeju ukrajinskoji kultury v Svydnyku 4 Preiov, 1970: 90 .


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1 4 2 GEORGE Y. SHEVELOVthey are explicable by the hypercorrect a tt itude toward developing hprothesis. In Old Ukrainian the form used in 1 1 5 1 i s completely isolated.It can only be understood in light of the current treatment of h in foreignwords, assuming that the word in question was borrowed as a high styleexpression from Czech MoCz hospoddf; otherwise, the word i s attestedin Old Ukrainian as gospodarb in a text of Church Slavonic provenance,PS 11th c, with the meaning "master, owner" only. It i s likely thatin loanwords of the time prevocalic h- was no t rendered at all or elsereplaced byj-, possibly subsequently i.e., h+V- > V- > j+V-. ThusON HQskuldr PN became Askoldb e.g., Hyp 862, Hkon PN-JakunbHyp 945, Hvaldr PN-Javolodb Hyp 1209, 1211, Helgi, Helga PN-Olbgb , Olbga Hyp 964, 1096 a.o.; cf. as late as 1434 oldovaly payhomage p 1 pret based on P holdowali.4 In this context, the formospodar- does not prove the presence of the native h in 1151, but ratherits absence.d Intervocalic velar i s missing in the Cyrillic inscription Ana rbina,presumably made by a Kievan cour tier in the Latin charter issued in

the names ofKing Philippe I ofFrance and his mother Queen Ann fromKiev in 1063. Th e second word in the text i s a transliteration ofLa reginaor Fr reine queen. However, the lack of g before i cannot be deemeda reflection of the Old Ukrainian pronunciation: in France by thattime, g before front vowels had changed into either] or , and the wordshould have sounded something like [rjina]. Moreover, had g changedinto y or h by that time, foreign -j would be rendered by the Cyrillic"g". The case is, at any rate, i rrelevant for the problem of the soundvalue of "g" in Old Ukrainian.153 . Written records do , however, contain some ob lique mate ria l forestablishing the chronology of the spirantization of g. The fol lowingmay be taken into consideration:a In the name "George" there i s an interchange of "g" with [ d ] andA Reader in th e History of th e EasternSlavic Languages New York, 1968, p. 6. The chartersare quoted from Rozov, p. 30; Jarotenko, P . 287; Arch Sang 1 1887: 56. Se e alsoV. Demjanuk in ZIFV 1 5 1927: 238 .14 Sinajskij paterik, ed . V. Golylenko and V. Dubrovina Moscow, 1967, p. 6! andpassim. The Hypatian Chronicle is quoted with reference to the year of entry. Oldovalyis quoted by Jarotenko, p. 287 , from a somewhat unreliable publication.Th e text commonly referred to as "the s igna ture ofAnna Jaroslavna" in M . Prou,Recueildes actes dePhilippe pr roi deFrance Paris, 1908, p. 48 . The final partof the charteris reproduced in ASP/i 42 1929: 259. For this texts bearing on the problem of Usee E. Melnikov in Slavjanskoe jazykoznanie, AN SSSR Moscow, 1959, p. 119.


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CHRONOLOGY OF H AND NEW G IN UKRAINIAN 143j: Gurgevbskyi Hyp 1091, ko Gurbgovu Hyp 1095, iz Gurgeva Usp12th c-Jurbgii Hyp 1224, Jurbeva Hyp 1 174-Djurdi Hyp 1135,sb Djurgem, Hyp 1157. In this word g i s etymological, j goes backto Greek change g y > j before front vowels Gr fthpyto; cf.anbelomb angel dat pl-Hyp 1110 based on Gr dyyXo but [d]points to the pronunciation of [ g ] rul ing out h.16 The concentration of[ d ] forms i s observed in the mid-twelfth cen tu ry . They could no thave been introduced by the f if teenth-century Russian copyist of thechronicle and must go back to the original text. One m ay infer thatin, let us say , 1135-57, g had not y et changed in to or h.b There are cases of foreign g being rendered as k: Vilikailb, VykynibPN Hyp 1215, Lonbkogveni PN Hyp 1247 render Li Villegayle,

Wigint-Lengvenis, respectively; in grcik-, gercjukb duke from GHerzog Hyp 1235, 1252 k renders German g, while "g" stands forGerman h. In charters, Olkrta PN gen 1352 Volhynia?, KediminoviaPN gen 1363, area of Novhorod-Siversk render Lithuanian namesAlgirdas, Gdiminas.7 Ifaka in Hyp 1 2 5 1 "i proide aku plnjaja"is based on Li gas haystock, aginys pale,18 this i s another instance of substituting k for foreign g. Such substitutions make sense ina language that does no t have g. Characteristically, they occur inentries of the thirteenth century. It may be inferred , therefore , thatby 1215, g had changed in to y.c Prevocalic and intervocalic h, not g, i s easily subject to interchange wi th sonantic spirants v and j, and vice versa . Such cases maybe noted in the time after Old Ukrainian. In Modern Ukrainian, forexam ple, one finds horobc sparrow-cf. R vorobj, Br verabj,P wrbel , Sk vrabec, Bg vrabec; jurb crowd-cf. R gurb, B rhurm, P hurma herd; odjahatysja dress-cf. R odevt , B r adzjavc,P odziewa doublet odvajusc odhajusja in Adelp 1591; butlater h prevails: odehlysja-KTS 1618, odhan e-PB 1627, okhalnoeIS Interchanges of g and g with d and d are also frequent in MoU dialects, e.g.NKiev, Nernihiv gte for StU dija; gerddn necklace, from Rm gherddn collar, inSKiev is dordank; Hucul lgin ldin lad, from Hg legny; in StU dzjglyk stoolgoes back to P zydel, G Siedel, etc. The spellings dju- are reminiscent of the SCpronunciation with d, but OSC spellings of this word are either with gu - g/u- Gurgevike1380, Gjurgb 1368 or with - Zorbgi 1289, Zurgb 12th c Monumenta Serbica, ed.F. Miklosich [ V ie nna, 1 8 58 ; r ep ri nt ed Graz , 1964], pp. 1 95 , 1 77 , 56, 7.17 Rozov, pp. 5 , 8 . For Lithuanian counterparts see K. Buga, Rinkriniai raltai, vol. 1Vilnius, 1958, pp . 2 46 , 2 56 , 227. Cf. also Kediminovia in the "Psalter of Florence1384 ," p. 18, quoted from the original unpublished manuscript the courtesy of ProfessorCarlo Verdiani.18 So assumed b y A. Hensorskyj, Halycko-volynskyj litopys Kiev, 1961, p. 96 .


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CHRONOLOGY OF H AND NEW G IN UKRAINIAN 1 4 5omitted.23 In Pid1jaja, the city name Hrubeschow founded in 1400i s attested in this form since 1446.24 There are occasional spellings withg Bogdano PN-Lviv 1376, mogilla 1378, Bogdanowicz PN-Peremyl1427 but they are eas ily explained by Polish written tradition.25The presence of y or h since 1334 is indisputable: however, thiscannot be traced back any further in written records because earlierones do no t exist.In the Transcarpathian regions , where relevant records seem to dateback to 1215, h i s attested since 1229, but g often appears afterwards:Golosa PN 1215,26 Galich GN 1240, Gallicia GN 1254, Mylgozt PN1266, Mogula GN 1266, BeregGN 1263, Igrischtya GN 1377 vs. Halicierex 1229, HillinuaRN = hlynna of clay 1270, Kemonahurka GN =Kamenna hurka stone mountain 1336 , Doiha GN 1336, 1337 ,Hwrniach GN = hurnjak, Hyrip GN = hryb hill 1370, villaPothoren = Podhoren under hill 1389, Horbach PN 1393 ; cf. alsoBeregh GN 1261, 1285, Ungh - Ugh RN 1285 , 1288.27 The interplayof g and h forms is understandable when one considers the complexityof the nationality situation in the area. Here Ukrainian settlementsexpanded alongside Rumanian,Hungarian, and, in part, Slovak, Polish,and Bulgarian ones , and scribes who wrote in Latin were, as a rule,Hungarian . Hungarians and Rumanians who learned the name of avillage with g could have preserved this form after g had changed inthe language of the Ukrainian population, and could have continuedto use the corresponding form in writing. Conversely, h forms had23 Materjaly i prace Komisjijzykowej, vol. 2 Cracow, 1907, p. 398.24 S. Warchol, Nazwy miast Lubelszczyzny Lublin, 1964, p. 73 .25 Cf. a spellingwithgin this name aslate as 1723 Bokhdanenko [Pyrjatyn town records]:Storoenki,familnyj arxiv, vol. 1 Kiev, 1908, p. 23 .26 As reproduced in the 1550 edition of Regestrum Varadinense: see J . Karcsonyi andS. Borovszky, Regestrum Varadinense Budapest, 1903, pp. 176, 163 .27 ArpOdkori djokmnytar [Magyar trtnelmi emlkek-Monumenta Hungariae historica, ed. G. Wenzel Budapest] 4 1862: 328; 6 1867: 477; 7 1869: 283 , 361;8 1870: 261; Zsigmondkori oklevltdr, vol. 1 Budapest, 1951, p. 311 ; V. Belay,Mramoros megye trsadalma s nemzetisgei Budapest, 1943, p. 144; F. Maksai,A kzpkori Szatmdr megye Budapest, 1940, p. 146; F. Lnyay, A nagylnyai svsrosnamnyi Lnyay-csalad eredete Budapest, 1941, pp. 137, 138 , 142. Al l otherdata is quoted from L. De Dezsb, Oerki p0 istorii zakarpatskix govorov Budapest,1967, p. 61 , with reference to Nagymihdlyi s sztdrai grdf Sztray csald oklevltra, andD. Csnki, Magyarorszdg tortnelmifoldrajza a Hunyadiak kordban, publications whichwere not available to me; unfortunately, however, Dezsbs references are sometimesimprecise. Se e also I . Pankevy, Narys istoriji ukrajins kyx zakarparts kyx hovoriv, vol. 1Prague, 1958= Acta Universitatis Carolinae, Philologica 1, pp. 3 7 f., and in Slavia 241955 235. Cf . J . Dzendzelivskyj and P. Cuka in Movoznavstvo 2 1968 81.


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146 GEORGE Y. SHEVELOVno written tradition and must be taken at their face value . Even withutmost caution, it may still be sa id th at, at least in some local it ies,y or h was present no t later than from 1229.28This conclusion i s indirectly confirmed by the fact that Hungarianand Rumanian names of villages founded in the fourteenth centuryhavepreserved theirg to this day, even among the Ukrainian population:Csengava-M0U yngava, Negova-Njagovo from Rm NeagaPN a.o. This may mean that in the four teenth century the changeg > y was no longer operative, which presupposes that it began aconsiderable time earlier.5. In light of the preceding data, the spirantization ofg should be placedin the late twelfth or the early thirteenth century. It was asweeping change: g was no t preserved in any position except in thecluster zg. Th e change occurred throughout Ukrainian territory. Usingthe avai lable data , it i s impossible to establish definitively the originalcenter of its irradiation, although it was probably in the west or southwest of the country . Moreover, it was shared with Belorussian, fromwhich it probably spread to South Russian not necessarily immediately;unfortunately, documentation from that area i s virtually non-existent.The spirantization of g in Czech i s documented from about the sam etime 1169, in Slovak from 1108; in Upper Sorbian g apparently existeduntil the end of the thirteenth cen tu ry . Yet, as shown in section 1-babove, in Slovak and Czech it actually occurred before the loss ofjers, i.e., presumably in the tenth century. Thus, there were s evera lindependent areas of spirantization of g, certainly at least three-Czechand Slovak; Ukrainian, Belorussian, and South Russian; and UpperSerbian-and perhaps more if Slovak implemented spirantization independently from Czech, and South Russian independently from Belorussian not to mention dialects of Slovene and Serbo-Croatian. Thecluster zg was maintained without change in Belorussian and Slovak,as w ell as in Ukrainian.Questioning the reasons for these changes is a special topic thatwill only be touched upon in this article. A n attempt to d eal w ithit was made by Trubetzkoy.29 In brief outline, the following answer,which partially modifies his views, can be given.28 Examination of the names of towns and villages of Ukrainian origin in Moldaviawh ic h wer e probably founded in the thirteenth century leads to the same conclusion:Cf . Horodfyte, Horodea, Doihasca, Hali;a, Hlina a.o. Se e E. Petrovici in RmSI 4 1960.29 In F s Miletk, pp. 272 if. Andersens attempt to view this as a manifestation


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CHRONOLOGY OF H AND NEW G IN UKRAINIAN 147The principal motivation for the change g > y seems to have beenmorphophonemic: by the twelfth century the alternants were spirants:

g::znoga foot : nozE : nka. It would have been more consis tent to havethe first alternant also a spirant. Such a pattern exis ted in the alternation:x : : smuxa fly muse:muka. The third velar was a stop and had no spirantsas alternants:

k :5: cruka hand: ruc: ruCka. Th e change g > y introduced the completeidentity of two series:

y:i:z as x::sTh e morphophonemic motivation for the spirantization of g is stronglyconfirmed by its preservation after z. In the c luste r zg, the alternationwas no t with f but with , and, probably, no t with z but with i-i.e.,it precisely paralleled not the x series, but the k series

zg: j: z3 as k: 5: c.It i s only logical that g underwent no spirantization in that cluster. Thismakes superfluous Andersens suggestion [558 ff.] that the reasons forthe preservation of g in th e c lu ste r zg can be found only in thelanguage situation b efo re th e loss of jers.There was no re sistance on th e part of the phonemic system. It wasasymmetrical:

k-gx

and so it remained after the change:kx -7.

The s top g was no longer a phoneme: its preservation in the c luster zgwas phonemically irrelevant because y was no t admitted in this positionexcept on morphemic boundaries between prefixes and roots, of thetype MoU uzhIrja slope, clearly a special case.The subsequent shift of y to a more back, pharyngeal art icula tionof h was phonemically and morphophonemically inconsequential;

of the alleged Proto-Ukrainian switch to the contrast tense vs. lax is not borne outby the factual data.


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148 GEORGE Y. SHEVELOVacoustically, the tw o sounds are nearly identical.3 Since the languagehad no other pharyngeal consonants , this area was open to optionalinroads without any ensuing phonemic shift. The switch from y to hwas probably accelerated by the development of prothetic h- thesixteenth century at the latest. For a prothetic consonant the pharyngeal articulation was, so to speak, natural. When h arose in prothesis,the existence of two articulations, h and y, became excessive and hwas generalized. With this interpretation the change y > h can betentatively placed into the sixteenth century.3 South Russian, whichdeveloped no prothetic h-, still preserves y . In Belorussian, whereprothetic h- only appears in the southwestern dialects, h and y arein competition but y i s said to prevail see DABM, maps 47 , 48.6 . Frontal exposure of Middle Ukrainian to the Western languagesbrought about, among other things, a flood of Western words with gfor which the language had no precise equivalent. On the other hand,the subsystem of velars had a vacancy for g because k lacked a voicedcounterpart

x-yThis created prerequisites for the reintroduction of g, which was absentin Old Ukrainian from the late twelfth or early thirteenth century.The reintroduction ofg i s usually placed in the la te fourteenth century

because at that time after 1387 a special digraph was introduced insecular writings to denote g: kh ;32 Khyrdyvyd PN Ch Lczyca 1388,Khastovt PN Ch Cracow 1392, Ydykhyc Ch Cracow 1393 . Butcertain circumstances call for cau tion. Avail ab le evidence ind icatesthat the custom started in Polish chanceries. The first instances of itsus e by scribes in the Ukraine seem to date to 1424 Svytrykhaylo PN-Ch Snjatyn. Perhaps scribes better acquainted with Latin and Polishorthographic habits were dissatisfied with the non-distinction between3 0 In those dialects that do not admit voiced consonants in word-final position andbefore voiceless consonants, x characteristically appears as an alternant of h, e.g.,Esnix], StU snih snow.3 1 The chronology of the change y > h must have been different-to wit, not laterthan the late thirteenth century-in those Southwestern dialects that shifted ky, xy to ki,xi but preserved hy unchanged. Whether they had prothetic h at that time is uncertain.3 2 It recalls the Greek digraph with the same sound value. But Greek uses thetwo components in reverse order, e.g., MoGk yithi gas, yKpt gray and, as ProfessorIhor evenko kindly informs me, the Greek digraph hardly appeared before thefifteenth century.


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CHRONOLOGY OF H AND NEW G IN UKRAINIAN 149g and h in the Cyrillic written documents they issued, especially inproper names all the earliest records concern such names, and therefore l aunched that digraph. Its use in the fifteenth century seems tohave been limited primarily to proper names, such as Son "khu.skovySjudat sing Ch 1446, Puni. Exceptionally, it was also used in somechurch books, but there, too, for proper names Khomoru GN accGomorrah-Antonovec Acts and Epistles 15th c. One comes acrossit in other words only f rom the sixteenth century: khmaxom" buildingdat p 1 Lstr Kremjanec 1552, khrunty land property nom p 1Krex 1571, o dyfthonkhax" diphthong bc p 1 LZ 1596. By thevery end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth,attempts were made to use the Roman letter g or to introduce thespecia l new Cyrillic letter I: Jgoura figure ClOstr 1599, gronocluster PB 1627, etc.; but the use of kh lasted into the eighteenthcentury Jakhello PN-Hrabjanka 1710.From these facts we can infer that the spellings of kh in the fourteenthand fifteenth centuries do not necessarily point to the reintroductionof g in the Ukrainian language outside of Transcarpathia and possiblyBukovyna.34 Rather, they may have been an orthographic deviceto preserve in Cyrillic writings the identity of proper names asspelled in the Roman alphabet. It i s most likely that g was reintroduced

Rozov, pp . 38 , 47, 48 , 99; Arch Sang , p. 43; M. Karpinskij in RFV 1 9 1888 70;AJuZR pt. 7, 2 1890: 28; I. Ohijenko, Ukrajinska literaturna mova XVI-ho St.,vol. 1: Krexivskyj Apostol 1560-x r. Warsaw, 1930, p. 511 ; LZ, p. 88 ; Pamjatkyukrajinsko-ruskoji movy i literatury, vol. 5 Lviv, 1906, p. 201; PB, p. 48;H. Hrabjanka, Dstvyja prezlnoj y ot naalapoljakov krvavloj nebvaloj brany BohdanaXmelnyckoho Kiev, 1854, p. 18.The use of the digraph kh may best be understood if one assumes that scribes inPoland introduced it on the precedent of HG kh. In OHG and MHG writings morespecifically, in the Bavarian and Austrian scribal schools kh was a graphic variantof ch with c = [k] to denote an affricated k; however, its sound value was hardly knownto scribes in Poland. They saw the sign used, and since one for [g] was needed, theyintroduced it with that sound value. Less plausible is the possibility of patterning earlyU kh on the Low German scribal fashion in MLG of using h after various consonants, including k, without any sound value, as a sophistication device. See H. Paul,Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik Halle, 1944, p. 77 ; A. Lasch, MittelniederdeutscheGrammatik Halle, 1914, p. 136.For Bukovyna an earlier date for the reintroduction of g may be accepted, on thebasis of the form dialectal Carpathian kl/aga whey ferment, borrowed from OldRm 8k1ag La coagulum, prior to the loss of I in Rm MoRm cheag [ka-]; cf.zgljaganoe moloko in Lucidarium 1636 Karskij, p. 544; the root-initial g from k byassimilation: cf. E. Vrabie in RmSI 1 4 [1967] : 110, 153f.. It is probable that Bukovyna was also instrumental in the transmission of gyrlyga to other regions of theUkraine see section 1-c above.


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1 5 0 GEORGE Y. SHEVELOVinto spoken Ukrainian in the sixteenth century, and that possibly eventhen it was at first a feature of the educated. This would explainwhy Meletij Smotryckyj 1619 placed the letter g alongside f, ks,ps, and th as being strannaja foreign "slavjansku jazku i krom syxsostojaty mohuu" and specifically warned against confusing g and hby referring to the example odygjtrya, a rarely used foreign word, vs.hora mountain, a commonly used Slavic one 1619. This alsoaccounts for the occasional, unexpected use of kh in foreign wordsin place ofh e.g., kholdovat pay homage-Ch 1393, Molodeno-fromP holdowaC! or even in nat ive words khlynjl clay gen sing- LSF1 595.36 On the other hand, g was certainly accepted in the commonlanguage no t later than ca. 1600 : this was the time of the first Ukrainiansettlement in what is now the southern part of the Vorone oblastof the RSFSR, and these dialects do , indeed , have g e.g., gnttjawicks, gerljga shepherds stick, etc..37

Columbia University

APPENDIX 1: ABBREVIATIONS OF SOURCE TITLES

Adelp = Adelphotes: Hrammatyka dobrohlaholyvoho ellynoslovenskaho jazka1591

Arx = Th e Gospel ofArchangel 1092BGV = Besdy na evangelija by St. Gregor the Great 12th cCh = charterClOstr = Cleric of Ostrih: Otpys na lyst... Ypatya; Ystorya o... florenskom synod

1598GB = "XI I I slov Grigorija Bogoslova" 11th cHyp = Hypatian ChronicleIz b = IzbornikIzm = Izmarahd 1462-1496Kap = Kapytovskyjs Didactic Gospel written in Galicia before 1640Krex = Acts and Epistles ofKrexiv MonasteryLaur = Laurentian ChronicleLG = The Gospel of LuckLSF = Documents of the Lviv Stavropygian Brotherhood" M eletij Smotryckyj, Hrammatiki slavenskija pravilnoe syntagma, ed. 0. HorbatschFrankfurt-am-Main, 1974, pp. 8, 11 . Odygytrya, literally "guide", was applied tocertain icons of the Holy Virgin.36 Rozov, p. 43; M. Xudai, Leksyka ukrajinskyx dilovyx dokumentiv kincja XVI-poatku XVII St. Kiev, 1961, p. 53 . H . Solonska in 0. 0. Potebnja i dejaki pytannja suasnoji slavistyky Xarkiv,1962, p. 243 .


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CHRONOLOGY OF H AND NEW G IN UKRAINIAN 151Lst = Lustracija censusLZ = Lavrentij Zyzanij, Hrammalyka slovenskaPA = The Pandects of AntiochusPAK = Poltavski a kt ov i k ny hy [ Town r ec or ds of Poltava]PB = Pamva Be rynda: Leksykon slavenorosskyjPom = pomjanyk [Book of commemorationlRetetDG = The Didactic Gospel of Reietylivka by the priest Semyon TymofevyStud = The Studion StatuteUK = K1ju, anthology of Ugija [Transcarpathia]Usp = Uspenskij sbornik [Anthology of the Uspenskij Cathedral]Vyg = Manuscript ofVyg and Leksa MonasteriesXG = The Gospel of Xolm CheimZist = ZlatostrujZSO = ytyje Savy Osvjaiennoho [The life of St. Sava]

APPENDIX 2: REFERENCES, WITH ABBREVIATIONSAJuZR = Arxiv Jugo-zapadnoj Rossii Kiev.Andersen = Henning Andersen. "Lenition in Common Slavic." Language 45

1969.Arch Sang = Archiwum ksiqql Lubartowiczw Sanguszkdw w Slawucie Lviv.ASPh = Arc/ziv fr slavische Phulologie.DABM = Dyjalektalahiny atlas belaruskaj movy. Minsk, 1963F s Mileti = Sbornik v est na prof L. MiletM. Sofia, 1933.GB = A. Budilovi. Issledovanie jazyka drevneslavjanskogo perevodaXIII slov Grigorija Bogoslova. St. Petersburg, 1871.Hyp = AN SSSR , Polnoe sobranie russkix letopisej. Vol. 2: Ipatevskajaletopis. Moscow, 1962.IORJaS = Izvest,ja Otdelenija russkogo jazyka i slovesnosti [of the Russian

Academy of Sciences] .Izb 1073 = Izbornik velikogo knjazja Svjatoslava Jaroslavia 1 07 3 go da.St. Petersburg, 1880.I zb 1076 = Izbornik 1076 goda . Edited by V. Golyienko eta!. Moscow, 1965.Jaroienko = V. Jaroienko. "Ukrajinska mova v moldavs kyx h ramot axXIV-XV vv." Zbirnyk Kornisi ji dlja doslidzennja istorfl ukra

jins koji movy [of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences] . Vol. 1 .Kiev, 1931.

Karskij = E. Karskij. Trudy po belorusskomu i drugim slavjanskim jazykam.Moscow, 1962.

Kopko = P . Kopko. Issledovanie o jazyke "Besed na Evangelja" sv.Grigorja Velikogo papy rimskogo pamjatnika juznorusskogo XIIveka. Lviv, 1909.

KTS = Kyryl Trankvilion Stavroveckyj. Zercalo bohoslovyy.LZ = Lavrentij Zizanij. Hrammatika slovenska. Edited by G. Friedhof.Frankfurt-am-Main, 1972.P B = Leksykon slavenoroskyj Pamvy Beryndy. Edited by V. Nimuk.Kiev, 1961.RFV = Russkjjfilologieskij vestnik.RmS1 = Romanoslavica Bucharest.Rozov = V. Rozov. Ukrajins k i hramoty. Vol. 1 . Kiev, 1928.


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152

ZIFVZNTZSPhZUNT

GEORGE Y. SHEVELOV

BgBrCCeCh S 1CSCzEFrGGNGPGrHGHgKPLaLiMmMoMold

= Bulgarian= Belorussian= century, centuries= central= Church Slavonic= Common Slavic= Czech= eastern= French= German= geographical name= Galician and Podilljan= Greek= High German= Hungarian= Kievan and Polissjan= Latin= Lithuanian= Middle= mid= Modern= Moldavian

= northern= Old= Old Church Slavonic= Old Norse= Osmanli= Polish= personal name= Proto-Ukrainian= Russian= river name= Rumanian= southern= Serbo-Croat ian= Slovak= Slavic= Slovene= standard= Turkic= Ukrainian= Upper Sorb ian= western

Sobolevskij, OerkiUsp

= A. Sobolevskij. 0erki i: istorli russkogo ja:yka. Kiev, 1884 .= LJspenskij sbornik XII-XIII vv. Edited by S. Kotkov. Moscow,

1971.= Zapysky Istoryio-/ilolohinoho viddilu [of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences].= Zapysky Naukovoho tovarystva imeny Tarasa evenka.= Zeitschrift fr slavische Phulologie.= Zapysky Ukrajins koho naukovoho tovarystva Kiev.

APPENDIX 3: OTHER ABBREVIATIONSN0OCSONOsmPPNPURRNRmSSCSkSISnStTcUUSW

Grammatical terms are abbreviated according to traditional forms.


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THE HEBREW CHRONICLESON BOHDAN KHMELNYTSKYI

AND THE COSSACK-POLISH WAR*

BERNARD D. WEINRYB

INTRODUCTION: JEWS IN THE UKRAINE

In contrast to the open question of early Jewish settlement in KievanRus and the adjacent region i s the undeniable continuity of Jewishsettlement in other areas of the Ukraine. Among these are th e provinceof Kaffa-Theodosia in the south and the Galiian and Volhynianregions in the west.Kaffa, which was a colony of Genoa from 1260 to 1475, developedinto a commercial center with acces s to the Mediterranean . AlthoughGenoa itself may have been inimical to Jews at that time, here they metwith little discrimination. Jews f rom both the West Italy, possib ly alsoPoland and the East migrated to the province and settled there.Nevertheless, th e area s total Jewish populat ion remained small thelarge numbers quoted in some stud ies were b ased on misreadings ofthe t ravelogue by Schiltberger, a German who was t he re sometimebetween 1394 and 1427.2Most of the Jewish settlers in Kaffa seem to h av e b een of ItalianSephardic-Oriental origin-at least, this i s indicated by the names of* A brief report about the chronicle of Nathan Hanover was read by the author at theAAASS meeting held in New York City on 18 -21 April 1973.

Bernard D. Weinryb, Th e Beginnings 0/East European Jewry in Legend andHistoriography and Bookiore 6 1963: 111-129, Pt. 2 in ibid. 111975-76: 57-75. Philip Friedman, "The Millenium of Jewish Settlement in the Ukraine and in Adjacent Areas.""The Millenium of Jewish Settlement in the Ukraine and in Adjacent Areas," Th eAnnals oft/ic Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S. 7 1959: 1483-1516;I. Malyshevskii, "Evrei v Yuzhnoi Rusi i Kieve v X-XII vekakh," Trudy Kievskoidukhovnoi akademii, 1 87 8, n o. 6, Pp. 565-602.2 Valentin Langmantel, Hans Schulthergers Reisebuch, nach der NOrenberger Handschrifi herausgegeben Tubingen, 1885, p. 63. This tells of two kinds of Jews rabbanite and Kafaite in Kaffa, each having a synagogue of their own. The next sentencereads, "Es sein auch 1 1 1 1 [4] thausendt heuser in der Vorstadt [there are also in thesuburb four thousand houses]." Most of those who quote Schiltberger assumed thatthe Jews had 4,000 houses, but this is not so.


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1 5 4 BERNARD D. WEINRYBthe Jewish community leaders appearing in a document dated 1455.After the Turks took Kaffa in 1475 and during the subsequent periodof Turkish-Tatar rule, a number of Jewish immigrants from AsiaPersia, Babylonia, and Yemen arrived, which apparen tl y causedincreased tension with in the Jewish community.4 Some Jews may haveimmigrated to Kaffa and the Crimea during the next few centuries, butthe area s J ew ish populat ion remained small: in 1783, shortly afterthe province was conquered by Russia, J ew s in Kaffa numbered 293,while th e total Jewish population in the Crimea was estimated at2,800.The Jewish population developed along different lines in the Galicianand Volhynian regions. Here, too, the number of Jews was very smallduring the times of the Galician-Volhynian state 1199-1349, but insubsequent centuries it increased as the number of Jews in Polandrose and some migrated eastward . It should be emphasized, however,that these beginnings were very modest indeed.The main sources about Jews in Galicia and Volhynia are written in

Hebrew and d ate from the end of the twelfth or the beginning of thethirteenth century for.western Poland, including Silesia, we have somegeneral documents from the mid-twelfth century. These are accountsof the journeysmade by Rabbi Isaac Durbalo from Germany or Franceand by Rabbi Eliezer ben Isaac from Bohemia Prague through Rusthe Hebrew term Rusyah was used during the Middle Ages and later todesignate Galicia or "Red Rus," Volhynia, Ruthenia, the northernparts of Belorussia, and possib ly a lso Pod illi a [Podolia]. The Jewsthese rabbis mentioned may have been only a few individuals. But th iswas no t true of th e J ewish communities the same Eliezer described inhis letter to Rabbi Jehuda Hachassid of Regensburg died 1217,writing that "most J ews in Poland, Rusia , and Hungary are unlearnedin Jewish lore, because of poverty" or "adversity," since dohak, theHebrew expression he used, has both meanings. Their Jewish communities, he continued, cou ld no t pay the salary of a cantor or rabbi,and therefore "hire themselves whomever they [can] find to fulfill thefunctions of cantor, judge, and teacher for their children, and promisehim all these [ gif ts ]." E li ezer exp re ssed th e fear that unless these

Evreiskaia starina 5 St. Petersburg, 1912: 68-69.Jakov ben Moshe "of Kiev" tried to integrate the different groups 1510-ISIS

and also compiled a unified prayer book, Makhzor Ka/a.Regesty i nadpisi: Svodmaterialov dlia istorii evreev v Rossii, vol. 3 St. Petersburg,1913, nos. 2303-2304.


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THE HEBREW CHRONICLES ON BOHDAN KHMELNYTSKYI 155individuals received the gifts promised, they would forsake their duties,leaving the Jews "w ith out T orah , w ithout a judge, and withoutprayer."6 This correspondence evokes the image of small groups ofJews, probably new settlers, trying to live according to Jewish traditionbut lacking the education and f inancial resources to support thenecessary functionaries. It also in dicate s th e Western Bohemian,German provenance of the settlers, both by the interest the Westernrabbis took in their situation and by the fact that these communitieswere ready to comply with the instructions of a "foreign" rabbi.The few fragments of information about the next two centuries available to us indicate that there were J ew s in L viv Lww b efo re th ePolish king Casimir the Great annexed the city and granted it Magdeburg law autonomy 1356. A few years later 1364 Casimir extendedto the Jews of Lviv the Polish privilege of 1264, originally granted byPrince Boleslas of Kalisz for Great Poland, and this later became thebasis for the legal status of the Jews in Poland.7 Some Jews mustalso have lived in Volhynia during the fourteenth century, for in granting a privilege to Lithuanian Jewry in 1388, the Lithuanian duke Vitoldextended it to the Jews ofVolodymyr andLutsk, as well. During thenext century Jews are mentioned in several more places: Drohobychin Galicia; Halych, Rohatyn, and Pidhaitsi Podhajce within theHalych palatinate; Hrubeshiv in the Cheim Kholm region; and Kievin the Ukraine primarily, it seems, during the second half of thecentury.8 The new settlers, some of whom were tax-farmers, sometimes gathered other Jews around them, thus laying the foundationsfor a community.Yet, the number of Jewish inhabitants continued tobe small, as can be inferred from documents connected with theexpulsion of Jews from Lithuania 1495 by the Archduke Alexanderlater king of Poland. The lists of those in Volhynia and Kiev thenpart of Lithuania who converted to Christianity so as to be allowedto remain and of those expel led whose property was confiscated,as well as the account of their return and recovery of property 1503,

Jehuda had forbidden gifts of food and the like to be given rabbis at weddings andsimilar occasions: this correspondence is found in Responsa R. Meir b. Baruch ofRotenburg [Hebrew], vol. 3 Lviv, 1860, no. 112. See also Bernard D. Weinryb, Th eJews of Poland, 2nd ed. Philadelphia, 1976, p. 24.

For particulars, see Weinryb, Jews of Poland, pp. 33ff.8 Jakub Winkler, "Z dziejw ydw w Drohobyczu," Biuletyn Zydowskiego InstytutuHistorycznego hereafter Biuletyn, no.71-72 1969, pp. 3 9 if; Elbieta Horn, "Poloenieprawno-ekonomiczne ydw w miastach ziemi Halickiej," Biuletyn, no. 40 1961, p. 3 .


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THE HEBREW CHRONICLES ON BOHDAN KHMELNYTSKYI 157in nine towns prior to 1565; by the first half of the seventeenth centurythey resided in more than twenty. During the fifteenth century onlyabout a dozen Jews lived in three or four places in the Halych region;by 1569 there were ninety-five Jewish families in many others.11 Jewsare mentioned in Hebrew and other sources as living in about fiftylocations in the Ukraine during the sixteenth century and in anadditional sixty-five in the first half of the seventeenth century.2The following computations by Professor S . Ettinger reveal a considerable growth in the Jewish population.3

Ca. 1569 Ca. 1648No. of No. oflocalities No. of localities No. of

where Jews Jews where Jews Jewslived lived

Volhynia 1 3 3,000 46 15,000Podillia 9 750 18 4,000Kiev 33 18,825Bratslav 2 1 8 13,500Totals 24 3,750 115 51,325The lives of Jews in the southern frontier regions developed somewhatdifferently than in Poland . The r ecurr ing Tatar incursions into thearea persuaded the population, including the Jews, to join a defensemilitia headed by Polish officials starosty and others. The settlerswere obliged to drill regularly with guns and cannon, and organizedgroups, such as artisan guilds, were charged with the defense ofcertain sections of the city walls, the manning of cannons, and thesecuring of gunpowder.Jewish participation in these defense act iv it ies i s mentioned in therabbinic responsa of the sixteenth century.4 From the first half of

M. Horn, "2ydzi wojewdztwa Be!zkiego w pierwszej polowie XVII w.," Biuletyn,no. 3 7 1958, PP. 22-61; E. Horn, "Poloenie prawno-ekonomiczne," pp. 5-19 .12 Here we mean the palatinates of Volhynia, Podillia, Bratslav, and Kiev.1 3 5 Ettinger, "Jewish Participation in the Colonization of the Ukraine [Hebrew],"Zion 2 1 1956: 107-124 ff. Translations of titles in Hebrew and Yiddish are by theauthor.14 Responsa are answers to questions asked by and of learned men or legal authorities.The questions were usually preserved along with their replies, thus forming documentary


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158 BERNARD D. WEINRYBthe seventeenth century this information becomes much more abundant.We learn about the existence of a number of synagogue-fortresses i.e.,synagogues buil t wi th turreted fortresses surmounted by cannon whichwere to be manned by Jews. Th e one in Lutsk was built in this fashionbecause the king made it a condition 1626 for the construction ofthe synagogue. Other synagogue-fortresses existed in Luboml Volhynia, Sharhorod Podillia, Brody, Ternopil, Zhovkva lkiew, Terebovlia Trembowla, Janov, Budzanov, and some other towns, usually those owned by the nob il ity . 5 Possibly there was also one inLviv, which had two Jewish communities-one ins ide the city and theother outside its walls, in the suburb Krakowskie Przedmiecie. Jewsparticipated in the general defense of L viv, as evidenced by a document dated 1626 in which an official attests: "the Jews are, in accordance with the old customs, participating actively in guarding anddefending the city ... Throughout the whole period the Jewish guardshave d one their duty day and night ... properly following the ordersof the commanders."6 In some places Jews served as commandersor co-commanders of mili ta ry operat ions . In the city of RiashivRzeszw, where all citizens, including Jews, were required to ow na rifle and a specified amount of ammunition, one of the three commanders was a Jew, another was a burgher, and the third lived inthe suburbs. Defense dutie s were later transferred to the artisanguilds, among them th e J ew ish artisan guild.Frontier conditions in the south, the unsafe roads, the lurking dangerof Tatar attacks and the likelihood of captivity had some impactupon the Jews. The various occupations with which they wereassociated-leaseholding, estate and town management, tax collect ing,and toll-farming--offered Jew and non-Jew the opportunity to practicefinancial abuse or to be accused of such and to exercise controlover the lives of the local population. For example, leaseholdingwas frequently linked with the exercise of certain legal powers:the right to adjudicate the people of a given estate or town and topass even a death sentence was sometimes transferred from the ownerto the leaseholder. This served to identify the Jew with the P olishlandlord whom he r epresented . Also, the J ew ish leaseholders andmaterial fo r historical research. See Bernard D. Weinryb, "Responsa as a Source fo rHistory," in Essays presented to the Chief Rabbi Israel Brodie on the Occasion ofhis 70th Birthday London, 1967, pp. 399-417.1 5 E. Horn, "Poloenie prawno-ekonomiczne," p. 28 .1 6 M . Balaban, 2ydzi lwowscy na przelomie XVI i XVII w. Lviv, 1906, pp. 98 , 449.


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THE HEBREW CHRONICLES ON BOHDAN KHMELNYTSKYI 159tax-farmers could, and sometimes d id , b eh ave like the P olish landlords. Their a tt itudes were often influenced by the necessi ty to maintain good relations with the landlords and their administrators, including h igh s ta te officials. All th is served to bring some Jews closerto the life-style and behavior patterns of the non-Jew and to developfeelings of superiority, arrogance, and self-reliance among them.The discrepancy between these Jews and the Christian stereotype

of the Jew was noted by observers. Cardinal Commendoni, whomade two journeys to Poland during the second half of the sixteenthcentury and who also visited the Ukraine, wrote that many Jews livedth ere and , unlike Jews in other regions, were not despi sed. On thecontrary, they owned land, engaged in a large variety of occupations, andwere prosperous, respected people. Outwardly, they d id not differ fromChristians; they were permitted to have swo rd s and bear arms, andenjoyed r ights s imilar to those of others. The sel f-assurance of theseJews sometimes resulted in arrogance toward th e J ew ish communityand disdain for the rabbi.7The Jews involvement in widespread enterprises, most of whichconcerned the general populat ion , brought about a certain laxity in thepreservation of Jewish laws and traditions non-observance of the holySabbath, use of leaven on Passover, hybridization of animals, feedingnon-J ewish workers non-Kosher food, handling pigs or other nonKosher animals, etc..8 Other Jews b ecame lax about adherence toJewish rituals as they participated with non-J ews in defense activit iesand quasi-military exercises. As mentioned ab ove, this obligatorydefense act iv ity comprised training by non-Jews, periodic exercisesin the use of weaponry, and responsibility for the defense of city wallson a pa r with o th er citizens, as well as th e d efense of the turretedsynagogues built especially for defense purposes.This mingling wi th non-Jewsmay have spread to some other areas oflife in the Ukraine, where J ew s w ere no t segregated in ghettos andusually lived alongside Christians. The result was again a certainlax ity in fulfi ll ing the s tr ic t Jewish rel igious code. T his m ay be sub-1 7 Mentioned is a leaseholder of royal revenues who first agreed to a decision ofthe Jewish court and later reneged on his agreement 1555, saying "I do not wantto fulfill anything that Jews [the Jewish Court] decided. I wanted only to see if Jewswould pronounce judgment upon me or what kind of Jew would force me to beadjudicated by them" Responsa Rabbi Solomon Luria, no . 4 [FOrth, 1718].

Casuistically, some officially symbolic arrangements were made, such as thesymbolic transfer of a business to a non-Jew, but from the complaints of the rabbisand preachers it would appear that these were only partially adhered to.


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160 BERNARD D. WEINRYBstantiated by several facts: in 1553 the Jews of Ostroh "forgot" toprepare the citron esrog and other items needed to celebrate theFeast of Tabernacles; meat was apparently not alw ay s prepared inproper Kosher fashion; and some J ew s were gambling, drinking, anddancing on holy days.9These forms of secularization in day-to-day life may also h ave beenconnected with the reported illiteracy among J ews, some ofwhom couldno t read one word of Hebrew. The batter may also have influenced

the reported "loafing" and "cr ime" among J ew s in the suburbs of Lviv,where they lived together with non -J ews and where, according toBalaban, Jewish thieves , h ighwaymen, and robbers joined non-Jewsin attacking Jews and Christians alike.20Some Jews appa rent ly formed f ri endships with Ruthenians in the

Ukraine . The writings ofNathan Hanover indicate that this was so, asdoes a story told by a rabbi from Volhynia about Christians borrowing clothing and jewe lr y f rom Jews to wear to church services andreturning them promptly afterwards.21 Jews also associated with theCossacks. In his dramatization of the beginning of the Cossack revolt,Hanover created a Jewish character who befriends Khmelnytskyiand advises him how to escape from jail.22 There i s evidence thatsome Jews joined the Cossacks in their sporadic raids and evenbecame Cossacks themse lves , sometimes remain ing J ew ish b ut moreoften converting to Christianity. Documentation of these occurrencesranges from an order forbidding Jews and bu rghe rs f rom taking partin Cossack raids implying that they were doing so to rabbinicalsources reporting the death of a Jew during a raid and a Jewishwomans demand for a divorce because he r husband participated insuch raids. A Hebrew responsum mentions the untimely death of aJ ewish Cossack hero, named Boruch or Bracha, who was killed in1 6 1 1 nearMoscow; from the context we know that he was one of elevenJews, but it is unclear whether the others were also Cossacks.23Jewish names appear in the Cossack registers of 1649 and earlier,while converted Jews are also mentioned as Cossacks in rabbinicalsources. Other information indicates that in some p la ce s Jews under19 Responsa Luria, nos. 8, 20, 69 , 94, 101; see also Weinryb, Jews of Poland, p. 89.20 Benjamin Solnik, Responsa Masot Benjamin [Hebrew], no. 62; M. Balaban, Zpdzilwowscy, pp. 213 , 443ff., 504.2 1 Solnik, Responsa Masot Ben/amin [Hebrew], no. 86 .2 2 Hanover, Yevein Met:ulah, pp. 26ff.23 Responsa Bach Hayeshanot [Hebrewl, no. 27; Responsa ofMeir of Lublin [Hebrew],no . 137.


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THE HEBREW CHRONICLES ON BOHDAN KHMELNYTSKYI 1 6 1attack by the Cossacks in 1648 "converted to Christianity and joinedthe Cossack forces"; certainly there were some converted Jews amongthe Cossacks in the Ukraine. A few of them may even have attainedrelatively high standing , as was indicated by a pastor from Stettinwho accompanied a Swedish ambassador on a visit to the Ukraine1657: after an audience with Khmelnytskyi, he reported that thelatters treasurer was a baptized Jew.24The relatively small measure of segregation in the Ukraine also ledto cooperation between Jews and non-Jews in yet other activities. InUkrainian cities and towns, Jews and non -J ews upon occas ion actedjointly against .non-residents by asking the authorities to limit thelatters economic possibilities Lutsk 1576? or joined forces againstan attack by a nobleman or some other person Lokachi 1588, Ternopil1614, Terebovl ia 1646 . On the other hand, the success of some Jewsand their role in the economy antagonized Christian burghers andlower class nob le s, who frequently complained that Jews overchargedin collecting tolls and other revenues. Their fear that the J ew s wereintent on destroying their businesses prompted a whole series of complaints, charging that the J ew s w ere ruining the cities Kovel 1616,spreading ou t and harming trade Kiev 1618, and monopolizing themarkets Pereiaslav 1620. 25 Other objections were that Jewish tax-farmers refused to a llow the burghers to sell beer or other beveragesZhytomyr 1622, that they ruined the market by overcharging on tolls,and that they spread out too far Lutsk 1637, Terebovlia 1638, 1645.In 1647, almost on the eve of the Khmelnytskyi revolt, the burghers ofLviv asked the bishop of Kamianets to intercede for them befo re th ePolish Diet and seek action to rescue "the poor city [living] on thelast drop of blood" because of the Jews who had seized and ruinedall business and reduced the citys income.26 In fac t, at the end of thesixteenth and during the first half of the seventeenth century severaldecrees, usuall y result ing f rom petitions by concerned groups, wereissued limiting Jewish activity in the Ukraine.2724 Weinryb, Jews of Poland, pp. 186-187; W. Lipiski, Z dziejw Ukrainy Kiev,1912, P. 373. J . Shatzki, Introduction to Yevein Metzulah in Gzeires Tach [Yiddish]Vilnius, 1938, pp. 12, 40-41, 124; SI. Borovoi, "Natsionalno-osvoboditelnaia voinaukrainskogo naroda protiv poiskogo vladichestva ...," Istoricheskie zapiski 3 1940:93 , 103 , 117 .25 E. Horn in Biuletyn, no. 37 , Pp. 35, 30; Regesty i nadpisi, vol. 1 , nos. 747 , 752,753, 757, 7 63 , 8 13 .26 Regesty i nadpisi , vol. 1 , no. 867.27 s Ettinger, "The Legal and Social Status of the Jews in the Ukraine from the15th to the 17th century [Hebrew]," Zion 201955: 150ff.


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12 BERNARD D. WEINRYBThere is too little information to discern clear ly the attitude of theUkrainians toward the Jews and the extent to which they participated

in anti-Jewish complaints. In cities such as Lviv, where the Ukrainianswere themselves a minority not necessarily numerically, but in termsof having no voice in the city council, neither they nor the Armenians,another minority, joined the Jews in demanding concessions from thecity council. On the contrary, each group sought concessions for itself,although the Ukrainians joined the Armenians in complaining beforethe c ity counc il that the J ew s w ere securing all the business in thecity.28 Their grievances, which stress how much worse they were treatedthan the Jews , g ive the impression of having arisen more f rom Christianteachings about the inferiority of Jews than from facts or a generalstriving for improved status. Also at about this time-that is, the 1 640s-the Synod in Kiev decided to forb id Greek Orthodox women to serve asdomestics for Jews.The Ukrainian urban population no doubt included individualswith both anti- and pro-Jewish sentiments, for several documentsmention cooperation between Jews and Christians. In SvynukhaSwinucha Jews and Chris tians reacted in unison to a noblemansattack, and in Lokachi they made a combined assault on a noblemanscourt 1588. Similarly, in the first half of the seventeenth centuryJews and burghers jointly defended Ternopil f rom the attack of anoblemans administrator 1614 and reacted against a nobleman inTerebovlia 1646. Burghers in Ternopil and the city council inRohatyn also actively defended Jews befo re the author iti es .29The peasants apparently identified Jews with their Polish oppressorsalthough one occasionally finds a case where a peasant sought helpfrom a Jew, even against th e ad vice of his own cle rgyman. A fewinstances of conflict between Jews and the Greek Orthodox clergy areknown to have occur red, as did instances when the clergy defendedJews.3 But when the Pol ish overlord took a Jews s ide against a GreekOrthodox clergyman, the latter often found an anti-Jewish "reason"for his humiliation.3 Despite the Jews, or converts, among th em ,the Cossacks, too, were apparently not pro-Jewish and often behaved28 Balaban, 2ydzi lwowscy, p. 449 .29 Regesty i nadpisi, vol. 1 , no. 1588; E. Horn, "Polozenie prawno-ekonomiczne."30 Ettinger, "Status of Jews," p. 148.31 This happened to a Greek Orthodox priest in Andreev near Lutsk who forbadehis parishioners to buy meat from Jews 1647. A nobleman induced the Jews to takethe priest to court, where he was convicted and fined thirty zloty Regesty i nadpisi ,vol. 1 , no. 867.


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THE HEBREW CHRONICLES ON BOHDAN KHMELNYTSKYI 163hostilely toward th em . A ttack s on Jews occurred during the revoltsof Taras 1630 and Pavliuk 1637-39, and in Lubien Lubny andLiakhovychi Lachovice hundreds of Poles and J ew s were killed.32Historians have obse rved that Jews living in other places and atother times, under rulers whom they, too, served as tax-farmers,contractors, leaseholders, and administrators, "were easily associatedin the popular mind with the forces of governmental and classoppression ... they [non-Jews] saw first of all the immediate agentsof oppression and struck at them whenever the latter became unbearable. The defenselessness of these [Jews] made them the moreobvious targets of popular resentment as religious antagonisms hadlong prepared the ground for Jew-baiting demagogues."33 Somethingof this may also have been true of the Polish-Cossack-Jewish relationship in Poland.

THE HEBREW CHRONICLESThe shock genera ted by the annihilation of tens of thousands ofJewish lives, the thousands of conversions to Christianity, and thesuffering and destruction of hundreds of Jewish communities stimulatedthe writing of elegies, penitential hymns, dirges, and other commemorations of the dead. In the religious society of the Jews, these servedto remember the departed, to pray for the forgiveness of sins thatwere supposed to have led to all these tribulations, to ask God fordeliverance from exile and, often, to call for revenge on their enemies.Such writings, usually composed in a ritualistic form, often describedthe incidents and circumstances that had caused Jewish suffering.34As mentioned above, r abb inica l r esponsa also provide us with

var ious data . For example, according to Jewish law a woman whosehusband had disappeared could obtain permission to remarry onlyupon the tes timony , before the rabbinical court, of person s who hadwitn es sed h is death; such te st imony descr ibed the circumstancesinvolved, which were often violent ones. A number of memoirs,usual ly writ ten years later by witne sse s to some catastrophe, have32 Hanover, Yevein Metzulah, p. 22 .

Regesty i nadpisi , vol. 1 , nos. 81 8, 82 0, 82 4.Salo W. Baron, "The Jewish Factor in Medieval Civilization," Proceedings ofthe Academy for Jewish Research 1 2 1942: 39.Some excerpts are found in Jonas Gurland, Beitrage zur Geschichte der Judenverfolgungen reprint of BeithOtzar Hasfrut; P e r e m y l l , 1887.


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1 6 4 BERNARD D. WEINRYBalso been preserved, and these, too, sometimes contain considerablehistorical data.The mainstays of Jewish reporting on those year s, however, are theHebrew chronicles. Six of th ese a re known to have been published:1 . Nathan Nata Hanover. Yevein Metzulah. Venice, 1653. An

English translation by Rabbi Abraham J . Mesch, entitled Abyss ofDespair, appeared in New York in 1950; the booklet was also transla ted into Russian, Polish, Yiddish, French, and German.2 . Meir Samuel of Szczebrzeszyn. Zok Haitim [Troubled times].Cracow, 1650. Later plagiarized, appearing in Venice in 1656 under

an author named Joshua ben David of Lviv.3 . Sabbatai Hakohen. Megilat E/b [Scroll of gloom]. Amsterdam,1651. Originally published with Selichot.4 . Gabriel ben Yehoshua Shusberg. Petach Teshuva [Gates of peni

tence]. Amsterdam, 1651.5. Samuel F eivel b en Natan of Vienna. Tit Hayavein [The mire].Amsterdam [1650].6 . Abraham ben Samuel Ashkenazi. Zaar Bath Rabim [Tribulationsof the many ]. Venice [n.d. ] .35With one exception no. 5, the chroniclers may be regarded as"participant observers," since they lived in Poland during the times

they described, although most later fled.The Hebrew chronicles may, in general, be regarded as the earliestwrit ten accounts of the events they describe. Published almost immediately 1650-1653, they were no t "corrected" or "improved" underthe impact of subsequent developments, as were most chronicles inother languages. Therefore, the facts and attitudes they contain maybe considered contemporary with the events themselves.There are differences in form, and partially in content and attitude,among the chronic les, a lthough all are written in Hebrew moreexactly Hebrew-Aramaic, which is influenced by the language of theTalmud and other rabbinic writings. For instance, Samuel Feivelben Natans Tit Hayavein is essentially a list of locations with the numberof persons killed in each, written in the following form: "Chmiel

No scholarly edition of any of these booklets exists, although a number have beenbegun since the nineteenth century. The best Hebrew edition of Hanovers YeveinMetzulah is the one arranged by Israel Halperin and published in Israel in 1945.Bibliographical information about editions, translations, and excerpts is found in theappendix of Borovois "Natsionalno-osvoboditelnaia voina," pp. 121 - 124 .


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THE HEBREW CHRONICLES ON BOHDAN KHMELNYTSKYI 165[Khmelnytskyi] with his Cossacks went to ... where there were onehundred and fifty householders and almost all perished."36 Anotherdissimilarity is that Meir of Szczebrzeszyns Zok Haitim no. 2 iswritten in a rhyme-like form while the others are generally in simpleprose.The intent of all the authors was to recount certain events and

bring their s ad message to Jewish survivors and re fugees and thoseliving in other lands. Since their viewpoint was that of the sufferingJews, they depicted the oppressors of the Jews as archenemies. Instriking b ack w ith their pens, as it were, they were also trying tomake a shattered world comprehens ible to both themselves and totheir people. One chronicler, Gabriel ben Jehoshua Shusberg, authorof Petach Teshuva no. 4, had another purpose, as well. As a religious Jew he believed that h is people were persecu ted because theyhad sinned and, as his title, which translates as "Gates of penitence,"indicates, he was calling upon them to repent.37 He considered itsinful that Jews kept inns w ith taverns and that J ewish sac red itemswere not being properly prepared. Therefore-possibly for shock effect-he warned his readers that in Bar some J ew s were boiled in whiskeykettles as punishment forhaving served as informers and having libeledthe rabbi and Jewish community leaders.3Although the chroniclers wrote in Hebrew , th eir vernacular wasYiddish. Thus, they were "translating" into a literary form ratherthan writing in a l iving language. Thi s sor t of writing often creates thekind of "translation complex" known to historians in connectionwith the Latin of medieval European documents. Th e writer waslikely to be less than precise in his expressions, since he tendedto use literary clichs, metaphors, and certain concepts w ith littleregard for their appropriateness in a given context. Also, mostrabbinic writers ofthat time were unaware of the scientific developmentsamong their European contemporaries . For example, even Hanover,apparently the most we ll- in fo rmed of the six chroniclers, knew nomathematics. Hence, it i s not surprising that in referring to groupsof people the chroniclers use b ibl ical metaphors such as "thousands

36 The names of many places are corrupted, possibly because the author was notfamiliar with the geography or with the Slavic language." Similarly, the events of 1939-1945 were viewed as "divine punishment" by someextremely orthodox individuals.38 Shusberg, Petach Teshuva, Pp. 25, 31 , 40.


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166 BERNARD D. WEINRYBand tens of thousands" or "as many as the grains of sand on the seashore," and that the f igures they do mention are often meaningless.39Writing in the traditional manner and using accepted allegoriessometimes obscured the real meaning of a text or the real attitudeof its author. For i ns tance, there was a long-standing tradition inJewish writ ing that every mention of an enemy be followed with aHebrew acronym mean ing "may his name be blotted out." Hanoveradheres to this tradition in writing about Khmelnytskyi whereas theother chroniclers generally do not. Yet, Hanover seems to havebeen the most tolerant of the six toward Khmelnytskyi, at timesseeking to modify his "case" against the Cossacks with "explanations" and excuses. It should also be noted that these authors hadeither been eyewitnesses of the massacres or spoken with others who hadlived through them and escaped to the West. Their perceptions andattitudes must surely have been affec ted by this emotionally-charged,refugee a tmosphe re .4 Indeed, as we shall see, the chronicles mainvalue may lie more in the attitudes and orientations they divulge thanin the facts they relate.The somewhat pro-Polish orientation of Jews may have becomef irmer during th e y ears of tribulation and the aftermath,4 since they

See below for differing totals on the number of victims. There are also discrepancies about the numbers killed in certain cities and about the sizes of thevarious armies. For these see Weinryb, Jews of Poland, p. 362. It may also w ell b ethat "participant observers" in any great catastrophe live through the event psychologically "outside of time and outside reality," so that any figures they remember areunrealistic. At any rate, one researcher who interviewed survivors of the Hitler holocaustmaintained that "accounts given of the number of deportees, number of dead, etc.,are nearly always unreliable" K. Y. Ball-Kadury, "Evidence of Witnesses: Its Valueand Limitations," in Yad Vashem Studies 3 [Jerusalem, 1959]: 3, 84.40 Hanovers psychological and socioeconomic situation at the time he wrote andpublished the booklet may be gauged by the end of his introduction. Although he hadfound some temporary shelter in a p ri va te " h ou se of study," he may have b eenneedy, fo r he advertises his "commodity" and asks the public to purchase hiswork. He writes: "I dealt at length on the causes which led to this catastrophe, when theUkrainians revolted against Poland and united with the Tatars, although the twohave always been enemies. I recorded all the major and minor encounters,., also thedays on which those cruelties occurred, so that everyone might be able to calculatethe day on which his kin died and observe the memorial properly... I have writtenthis in a lucid and intelligible style and printed it on smooth and clear paper. Therefore buy ye this book at once, do not spare your money so that I may be enabledto publish [another book]" Hanover, Hebrew, Pp. 16-17; English, P. 25. Quotationsfrom Hanovers work are cited by "Hebrew" to indicate the Halperin edition, translated by this author, and "English" to indicate the Mesch translation. The wordingof the latter has in places been modified b y this author.41 See Weinryb, Jews of Poland, pp. 156-176 .


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THE HEBREW CHRONICLES ON BOHDAN KHMELNYTSKYI 167felt that Jews and Poles had a sort of mutual destiny and both hadsuffered comparable losses. And, a ft er a ll , no other group was preparedto defend Jews-neither the Cossacks, the Moscovite Russians thetsar had given orders that Jewish refugees not be permitted acros s theborder, the Swedes, nor any other group. In those cities that refusedto admit the Cossacks or to surrender their Jews Lviv, Zamostia[Zamo], Zhovkva, Buchach [Buczacz], Komarno, Brody, the Poleswere usually responsible. Jewish survivors and refugees a lso b ecamenostalgic about their real or fancied former glory in Poland,42 andapparently had a psychological need to continue to rely on Poles orChristians generally.43 Hanover emphasizes the strong bond betweenPoles and Jews and explains it in two different contexts , wi th dif feringexplanations. In telling the story of how Kryvonis tookTulchyn in June1648, and how both Poles and Jews were killed despite an understandingthat the Poles would be let alone, he says:When the nobles heard of this they were str icken with remorse and hencefor th suppor ted the Jews and did not deliver them into the hands of thecriminals. And even though the Ukrainians repeatedly promised the noblesimmunity they no longer b elieved them. Otherwise no J e w would havesurvived.44Hanovers second explanation regards the "information service" theJews allegedly o rgan ized . He says that during a lull in the war, Khmelnytskyi sent letters to the nobility expressing regret for havinginitiated the war and advising them to return to their estates. A t thesame time, the Cossacks, who were planning a new offensive, dispatchedsecret messages to the Ukrainians exhorting them to prepare to kill allPoles and Jews alike:When the thing became known to the Jews through their friendly Ukrainianneighbors and also through their own spies who had been placed in all theirsettlements, they notified the noblemen. Immediately messages were sent forthfrom community to community by means of horse riders informing the Jewsand the nobles of daily developments. In recognition of this the nobles42 Hanover ends his book with a chapter describing this "glory": many of theelegies contain such short descriptions of the lost "goods," mostly referring to possibilities for prayer and study in pre. 1648 Poland.

By contrast, Jewish survivors of World War II tended to distrust Christiansociety, as is expressed in the statement "Every cynical sign [by Christians] ofsympathy would only desecrate the holy shadows of our martyrs," quoted in PeterMeyer, B. D. Weinryb et al., Th e Jews in the Soviet Satellites Syracuse, N.Y., 1953,p. 245 .

Hanover, Hebrew, P. 43 .


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168 BERNARD D. WEINRYBbefriended the Jews exceedingly and became united with them i n one unionhad i t not been for this act ion there would have been no stand for the Jewishremnant.45Hanovers account of Count Jeremi Wiiniowieckis activities at thistime must h av e b een an exaggeration, for he gives the impressionthat Wiiniowiecki made rescuing the J ew ish population his principalendeavor:Count Jeremi Winiowiecki w a s a friend of Israel ... with him escaped somef i v e hundred J e w s . He carried them as o n the wings of eagles until they werebrought to their destination [reported as Winiowiecki left for Lithuania].46Later we are a lso to ld that after the Nemyriv onslaught Winiowieckiset out with a command of 3,000 men to revenge the Jews. Clearly,Hanover considered Winiowiecki the greatest of general s, one whoshould have become commander of th e P olish army. The chron ic le rbelieved that this was prevented by the intrigues of Khmelnytskyi orth e Polis h commander Ladislas Dominik apparently he had heardsomething about the ir d if fering attitudes, and even attributed Winiowieckis sudden death to poisoning by h is enemie s there were,it seems, rumors to this effect in some Polish circles.In our context the factual accuracy of these stories i s irrelevant.What i s important i s the kinds of attitude they reflect. Obviously, atleast some Jews believed they could rely on support from th e Polishruling class and identified t hemse lves with the Poles: "God waswith us and the king" writes Hanover about the 1 6 5 1 victory near

Berestechko Beresteczko.47 Aside from the attitudes that Hanoverand other chroniclers have preserved, some factual information i s tobe gained if we compare certain events as reported by Hanover withdocumented accounts, as, for example, the following versions aboutthe Zboriv Peace 1649:HANOVERS VERSION DOCUMENTARY INFORMATIONAfter relating the Polish armys d i f f i - Official materials, comprising a diarycultiesnearZbarazh and Zboriv, Hano- from the front and some corresponver reports that Adam Jerzy Ossoliski dence, tell about a letter Khmelnytskyi[Lublins starosta] was sent to the Tatar wrote to the king seeking forgivenessking to ask for peace. It was agreed and requesting to b e taken back bythat the Polish king would pay him Poland. He offered the excuse that the

Hanover, Hebrew, pp. 43 , 35; English, pp. 58 , 47 .46 Hanover, Hebrew, p. 30 .Hanover, Hebrew, P. 80 .


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THE HEBREW CHRONICLES ON BOHDAN KHMELNYTSKYI 169200,000 gold pieces and when Khmelnytskyi [Chmiel] heard this he beganto f e a r for his l i f e . He went t o Zborivand kneel ing a t the kings feet tearfullydeclared that " all that he had done wascaused by the nobles themselves." Hebroached many subjects but the kingwas too proud to converse with himan d re plie d th ro ugh an intermediary[Hanover proceeds to give some detailsabout the conditions agreed upon].

HANOVERS VERSION

"The Polish army prevailed and reinforced ... they struck a severe blowat the Tatars and Ukrainians. The Tatarking escaped to his land .... He tookthe oppressor Chmiel with him intocaptivity because the latter did not inform him of the strength of the Polishkings army. High-ranking Tatar soldiers and the nephew of the Tatarking became prisoners of the Polishking. Cossack forces escaped in theevening, leaving the whole camp intact

[Later Hanover relates how Khmelnytskyi paid the Tatars a high ransomfor his release]."

starostas oppression had caused him todo what he had done. H e later sentrepresentatives who officially soughtthe kings pardon. Th e latter replied inthe affirmative on the same day, andKhmelnytskyi arrived a few days laterfor the ceremony of swearing loyaltyto the king. In a later letter th e k in gaddresses Khmelnytskyi as "my faithful one wierny."

DOCUMENTARY INFORMATIONinc luding diaries, l et ters to the princei n Warsaw, official documentsAfter the defeat the T atar khan isknown to have fled with Khmelnytskyiand a small group following him. Thethemes ofKhmelnytskyis being takencaptive by the Tatars and the khansanger at the Cossacks deception aboutthe size of the Polish army appear inthese documents i n various forms. Onepiece says that Khmelnytskyi followedthe khan a s either a captive or a freeman, while several others state definitely that he was a captive. Also the "fact"of Khmelnytskyis having foo led thekhan abou t the size of the Polish armyis repeated in several documents. Acorollary to Hanovers tale aboutKhmelnytskyis release is found without mention of the high ransom hewas forced to pay in a message fromthe hospodar of Moldavia to HetmanPotocki, saying that the khan departedfor the Crimea leaving Khmelnytskyibehind "together with 1 0 0 horsemen."48

This comparison shows that Hanovers report and official or semiofficial versions agree, except on a few minor deta ils. One gets thesame impression in comparing accounts of the defeat of the Tatarsand Khmelnytskyis army at Berestechko two years later 28-30 June1651.

Th e material is from Dokumenty ob osvoboditelnoi voine ukrainskogo naroda, 1648-1654 Kiev, 1965, nos. 104, 161, 163, 173 , 211 , 215, 217, 220, 222, 231-34, 236-37.


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17 0 BERNARD D. WEINRYBOf course, it i s not our task here to determine Khmelnytskyis situationafter Berestechko. What does concern us is that, again, the facts inHanovers tale do no t differ significantly from those in official orsemi-official accounts. Although three of the other five Hebrewchroniclers also show pro-Polish sympathies, their works, by contrast,modify the facts considerably, du e in part to their different writ ingstyles this also applies to their stories about Wiiniowiecki.The only author who seems to have been anti-Polish i s Gabriel benYehoshua Shusberg no. 4, who sometimes uses deroga to ry terms

"wicked" or "villainous" in references to Poles or noblemen. He i salso more emphatic in stressing the treachery of the Poles in thefew cities where they d ece ived th e Jews. For examp le , h is accountof the Jews flight from Ostroh toward Dubno Sabbath, 26 July 1648is told from a different viewpoint than Hanovers, who was amongthose fleeing. Shusberg writes that "Polish noblemen together with agroup of wicked men aroused a false fear among the f leeing Jews inorder to be able to rob them and seize their wagons." Writing aboutthe ransom Lviv paid to Khmelnytskyi, he reports that the citycouncil and the noblemen wanted to surrender the citys Jews toKhmelnytskyi, but the Jewish representative persuaded them not todo so; instead, the Jews paid 200 ,000 zlo ty as ransom. Actual ly , theJews paid only a part of the ransom; the larger portion was paid bythe city.49

KHMELNYTSKYI, THE COSSACKS, AND THE UKRAINIANSHanover was the only Hebrew chron ic le r to analyze the reasons forthe Ukrainian Cossack revolt. He believed that these were two: theoppression of the Greek Orthodox Ukrainians, and the role of Jewsas tax-farmers and estate manager s. The latter, he claimed, "ruledin every part of Rusia [the Ukraine], a condition which aroused thejealousy of the peasants and resulted in the massacres." He believedthat religious oppression was responsible for the impoverishment ofthe masses: "they were looked upon as lowly and inferior beings andbecame the s laves and handmaids of the Polish people and the Jews."Hanover wrote that, except for the Cossacks, "the Ukrainians were awretched and enslaved lot, servants of the dukes and the nobles. Thenobles l ev ied heavy taxes upon them and some even resorted to

Shusberg, Petach Teshuva, pp. 3 4, 38, 41 .


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THE HEBREW CHRONICLES ON BOHDAN KHMELNYTSKYI 171cruelty and torture."5 His assessment of th e c au se s for the Cossackuprising is, of course, very similar to what others were saying, includingthe Ukrainians. For Hanover, however, understanding by no meansmeant acquiescence: he seems to have pu t the matter aside as he goeson to tell more about the attacks on the Jews.Although, as we have mentioned, Hanover usually calls Khmelnytsky i "oppressor" and often adds the Hebrew formula "may his name beblotted out" that was customary in Hebrew ra bb in ic wr itin g whenspeaking about an enemy, one of his stories indicates that Jewsnot only informed on Khmel nyts ky i, bu t a lso advised and helpedhim. An informer, says Hanover, was Zekharia Sobilenki, "the governorand administrator of Chyhyryn"; a close friend was the Jew, JacobSobilenki. Hanovers story begins by describing the Cossack s confrontation with th e Pole s. Apparently Hanover did not know aboutthe role of Czapliski or that of a woman named Helena. Accordingto him, Khmelnytskyi was a very wealthy Cossack officer fromChyhyryn, owning sheep, ox en, and cattle, "a man of sinister design,sly, andmighty at war." Before his death General Stanislas Koniecpolskitold his son, Alexander, to have Khmelnytskyi killed. When Alexandermarried, he and his bride t raveled to Chyhyryn, ostensibly to collectsome wedding gifts but actually to plan an attack on the Tatars. InChyhyryn Alexander seized half of Khmelnytskyis wealth, and inretaliation the latter informed the Tatars of Koniecpolskis designs.The Jew Zekha ria, hav ing overheard Khmelnytskyi boasting abouthis contact with the Tatars, informed Koniecpolsk i. Alexander hadKhmelnytskyi arrested and left orders that he be beheaded. However,when Cossack officers visited him in jail, Khmelnytskyi persuadedthem to plan h is rescue. Hanover dramatized this meeting wi th thefollowing speech by Khmelnytskyi, which may have been intended toreflect some general a tt itudes among the Cossack leadership of thetime:Why a r e you keeping silent? Know that t h e people of Poland are becomingmore haughty each day. They enslave our people with hard work .... No t onlyare the nobles our masters, bu t even the lowliest of a l l nations [ t h e J e w s ] r u leover u s . Today this i s being done to me; tomorrow they will do it to you.Afterwards they w i l l p l o w the field with our people as one plows with oxen. If youheed my counsel, you w i l l approach the officer of the thousand and plead withhim to release me in your custody, on the occasion of the festival of baptism,which i s to be held tomorrow. At night you and I w i l l escape, together with

Hanover, Hebrew, p. 50 .


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172 BERNARD D. WEINRYBour belongings, b y way of the ferry boats behind the Dnieper. There w ew i l l take counsel together as to what t o do against the Polish p e o p l e . 1 1Hanover goes on to describe the collusion that Khmelnytskyi arrangedwith the Tatars and their initial successes in the spring of 1648, whichresulted in a number of Polish nobles, among them the former secretaryof Genera l Koniecpolski, joining the Cossacks.

In relating the Cossack-Tatar conques ts , Hanover , like the otherHebrew chronic lers , describes the atrocities perpetrated against theJews and th e Pole s. He also emphasizes that the Ta ta rs , unl ike theCossacks, did not kill their J ew ish captives b ut brought them toConstantinople for r ansoming. Another favorite theme is that theCossacks victories were due to their deceit and cunning, an exampleof which was Khmelnytskyis flight from Chyhyryn. Thus , in thesummer of 1648, during the first lull in the fighting and the interregnum in Poland following King Ladislass death, Khmelnytskyisent messages of sympathy and peace to th e P olish nobles at thesuggestion of his advisers, while simultaneously organizing the Tatarsand Ukrainians for battle. At Nemyriv, the Cossacks devised flagsresembling the Polish ones and thus tricked the Jews who weredefending the fortress in to opening its gates. The Poles and Jews ofTulchyn acted cooperatively and successfully repulsed the attacksof Khmelnytskyis army. However, Kryvonis convinced the Polesthat they would no t be harmed if they surrendered the citys Jews andtheir possessions. After Tulchyns Jews had been kil led , the Cossacksdevastated the city and murdered all its Poles. In Polonne, Ukrainianmercenaries called haiduky, who lived nearby and were to defend thecity walls, defected, allowing the Cossacks to capture the stronghold.A t tim es, main ta in s Hanover, only tr icke ry saved Khmelnytskyi

and his arm y from total destruction. In describing an importantbattle near Konstantyniv, Hanover emphasizes that the Ukrainianswere being bad ly bea ten until Khmelnytskyi rescued the situationby cunningly asking for a one-d ay respite, k nowing that Tatarreinforcements were on their w ay ; when these arrived, the Poleswere forced to flee. Khmelnytskyi also prevented the appointmentof Wiiniowiecki as chief commander by convincing the Tatars tor elea se the Pol ish commanders they held prisoner.But Hanover also relates some positive things about the Cossacks.For example, he tel ls howKhmelnytskyi and the Cossacks sold booty51 Hanover, Hebrew, P. 57.


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THE HEBREW CHRONICLES ON BOHDAN KHMELNYTSKYI 173f rom Walla ch ia to Jews during a period of peace, although he i sunclear just when th is occur red. His depiction of urban Ukra in iansi s at times positive, at others, negative. About one town he writes thatthe Ukrainians "appear as friends of the Jews and speak to thempleasantly and comfortingly, but lie and are deceitful and untrustworthy"; elsewhere, he speaks of Ukrainians who are "neighborsand friends." The dichotomy holds as Hanover speaks about specificcases. He writes

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