#cossaks

So, most of Ukrainian lands are under the rule of Poland. It was not good: locals were mostly considered "lower", "useless but for hard work" people, called bydło (cattle). Elites were aggressively polonized. Now, keep in mind that idea of nation is from 19th century. The most important part of identity of 17th century person was religion. And Orthodox Christianity were HEAVILY discriminated in by Polish Catholics. At the same time, Muslim Ottoman Empire with Crimean Khan were very close, making occasional raid for goods and people for slave markets. To oppose them and run from polish serfdom, able and strong men ran away to free, unsettled steppes. They gather in military formations (Sitch) with elected leaders and swear to protect Christianity (well, at least declared to). That's how you get cossaks (one of possible origins of the word - Turkic "free man").

At some point, a lot personal shit happened to one wealthy Ukrainian guy, Bohdan Khmelnytskyi. In 1648, he decided to avenge that shit, things got waaay out of hands, and suddenly he became a leader of what we call National-Liberation war, while the kindest Polish word for it would be Khmelnytskyi Insurrection (duh, oppressors and oppressed have different optics). The rebellion was very bloody, yet effective (duh, 17th century) and led to a creation of Zaporizhian Host or Cossak Hetmanat, very peculiar militaristic country with elements of direct democracy.

The main trouble was maintaining borders of this new country. Polish lords obviously wanted to deal with insurgence, Crimean khan still rans regular raids for Ottoman slave markets. So Khmelnytskyi desperately needed to make new allies. Now remember, that the strongest identity in 17th century is religious one?

You have Catholic Poles in the West/North, Muslim Tatars and Osmans in the South, and suddenly, very much Orthodox Muscovite tsar on the East. Natural ally, right?

So Khmelnytskyi makes a big council in Pereyaslav, that will go in history as Black Council. Yeah, you guessed, it didn't end well. Some cossaks did not want to join Muscovites in any way, but they were overruled. So it was decided that Zaporizhian army would provide Tsar with a protection from West/South, while swearing allegiance for Orthodox monarch.

Funny thing, we do not know what exactly was in the first Treaty. The document was "lost", MULTIPLE TIMES. Each time, Moscow procured the "copy" with more and more restrictions. The period after the Treaty was literally called Ruin: Zaporizhian Host were drowning in wars, teared apart right in the middle, with separate Hetmans on two banks of Dnipro. But why did that happened?

Khmelnytskyi underestimated Muscovites. The thing is, back in 17th century it was a rather... unmodern country. Unlike Ukrainian lands within Poland, it was very isolated from European economy, culture, and education. Muscovite court still pretty much looked like Byzantine, tsars were mostly very autocratic, aggressive to foreign influences. Meanwhile, Ruthenian (lets use European name for then-Ukrainians for now) scholars were often European educated and up to middle of 18 century were prominent influencers in the area.*

I guess, Khmelnytskyi hoped for mutual respect, but unlike yours truly, he haven't had an uni exam in history of Russian political studies. By that time, pretty much all scholars, even opponents, agreed on one idea: Moscow has a holy mission. A mission to be the future center of (at least Christian) world. Moscow was gonna be the third Rome, they said. And to become this center of the world, you need to eliminate any possible "competitor", like Kyiv. What do you mean Kyiv never expressed this ambition? But what if it will? (Ah, you can always bet on history repeating itself) In addition, control over original, core territory of Rus can justify Moscow's claim of being the successor of the great principality. That would make Muscovite tsar rightfully call himself the ruler of all Rus. You know, RUSSIAN RULER.

Yep, that's it. That's the part where the word Russian as a name for Muscovite becomes a thing.

In 1694, young 22-year old tsar Peter, after the 12 years of his mother's regency, became an independent sovereign. The guy desperately wanted Tsardom of Muscovy be modern and cool, so he implemented a lot of reforms. Like, making Western garbs and hair fashion OBLIGATORY for aristocracy and... Well, he tried push some industrialization, but the fashion gig was much more successful.

Also, he invested heavily in navy and invading new lands, so this navy can actually have some ports to exist in. You can read more about it, if you google "Peter's window to Europe".

Oh, and he decided to build a new capital in his name, in the worst place he could find, climate- and land-wise. Tens of thousand serfs (slaves) died to build it. You know it as Saint Petersburg.

Peter had a good friend and advisor in then-hetman Ivan Mazepa. Mazepa was much older, quite clever, and was very much European-leaning guy, like Peter himself. Due to being old and clever, at some point of Peter's Great Conquest for Greatness (against Sweden), Mazepa realized he was going to be fooled, big time. Despite being "friends", Peter was going to leave Mazepa alone to fight Sweden's ally (Polish king) and moreover, he was going to "relieve" Mazepa from hetman position in favour of some Moscow dude. Ouch.

Outraged by blatant violation of Budapest Memorandum Pereyaslav Treaty guaranties, Mazepa decided to switch sides, but unfortunately, Sweden's got fucked big time in the battle of Poltava. Mazepa is pronounced the biggest traitor since Judas, the reason of his actions is conveniently forgotten. Ukrainian lands and people are fucked even bigger time then Sweden, since now everybody is punished as traitor en mass. They're not reliable, so let's cut their freedoms even more, just in case.

Meanwhile, another clever, Western educated Ruthenian guy returns to Kyiv - Theophan Prokopovych. Philosopher and theologists, he had some cool reforming ideas for clergy, and he was not afraid to implement them. Peter was loving it: together they reformed the canon of Orthodox Christianity in Tsardom in a way, that gave tsar even more control over clergy. Peter's new buddy also had some ideas about ruling. He was a Machiavelli of a sort and written a bunch of advices for tsar. Later, this ideas would be called enlightened absolutism. Those ideas made Peter think. What if he's good enough to be an actual emperor? That's a cool name, and he's conquesting alright. Moreover, he has this nice piece of original Rus, filled with people who are almost like his own, but slightly worse, since they are traitors. Well, potential ones.

So why not become "most excellent and great sovereign emperor Pyotr Alekseevich the ruler of all the Russias: of Moscow, of Kiev, of Vladimir, of Novgorod..."? (full title is too fucking long, google it yourself)

And just as the empire with the fresh name of Russia was pronounced in 1721, it became hellbent on proving its title. The idea of "Russia" itself was created as an empire and it never had any experience of being anything else. Even nowadays.

The next part is going to be about the historic period of actual Russian Empire, from the death of Peter to the World War I. It will be about the nature and practices of its imperialism that are still very much in use now.