Jews and the Cossacks’ struggle for Ukrainian state in the middle of the 17th century

Abstract

The article research the problem of the interrelations between Ukrainian Cossacks and Ukrainian Jews during the National-Liberation War in the middle of the 17 th century. On the base of the new historical sources it argue that stereotypical image of the Ukrainian-Jewish coexistence in the Early Modern must be reconsidered. During 1617 centuries the Jews active penetrated in the Cossack society/ The article point out that the Cossacks-Jewish confrontations in the 1648-1649 wasn’t ethnic conflict but it was caused by the economic and religious interests. The thesis that the Cossacks’ approaches to the Jewish population of Ukraine had been basing on the aim to deprive the Cossacks State (Hetmanate) of the Jews radically contradict the historical documents which were published by scholars recently. Also above-mentioned sources deny the apocalyptic information of Hannover’s chronic regarding the Cossacks’ strategy to the Jews from the Kievan region, Podillia and Volyn’. The many Jews took active part in the formation of the Hetmanate and were the largest non-Ukrainian groups of the new Ukrainian elite after the Moldovans and protected the idea of the Hetmanate in the 16 century as a first wave of the Ukrainian political migration.