Piotr Kroll Od ugody hadziackiej do Cudnowa. Kozaczyzna między Rzecząpospolitą a Moskwą w latach 1658–1660 [From the Hadziacz Agreement to Cudnów. The Cossackdom between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Muscovy in the Years 1658–1660]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2008. ISBN: 978-83-235-0496-2

Piotr Kroll: Od ugody hadziackiej do Cudnowa. Kozaczyzna między Rzecząpospolitą a Moskwą w latach 1658–1660 [From the Hadziacz Agreement to Cudnów. The Cossackdom between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Muscovy in the Years 1658–1660]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2008. 452 pp. ISBN: 978-83-235-0496-2.

The events discussed in this monograph were preceded by a series of dire misfortunes, all of which eventually led to a decline of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a major land power in Eastern Europe. The Cossack revolt in Ukraine, accompanied by the uprisings of the serfs and the military assistance from Crimea in 1648, brought about several defeats of the Commonwealth’s armies, invasions of it by Muscovy in 1654 and Sweden in 1655 – the latter was also aided by Brandenburg and Transylvania in the following years. Only alliances with Austria and other states, military reversals of Sweden, defeat of Transylvania, as well as separate arrangements with Muscovy, Brandenburg and the Cossack Ukraine, saved the Commonwealth from partitions which were already formulated by the close of 1656.

The developments in 1658‒1660, which are discussed and analysed by the author, brought about better times for the Polish-Lithuanian state. They represented chiefly a tug-of-war over Cossack Ukraine between the Commonwealth and Muscovy. In this contest the Commonwealth scored two notable successes: the Union of Hadziacz (Hadiach) and the Treaty of Cudnów (Chudniv). The former event may be described as an unprecedented seventeenth-century European political accomplishment. Concluded on 16 September 1658, then ratified by the Warsaw Diet on 22 May 1659, this real union transformed the dual Commonwealth into a triune Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian federation. The latter event followed a significant military victory. The treaty, which was signed on 17 October 1660, ended a conflict with the Cossack-Muscovite adversaries and appeared to raise the Commonwealth to its former status of a great power. Cudnów, in the view of the author, resulted in negative consequences for Ukraine, for it inaugurated a process which caused a partition of Ukraine between the Commonwealth and Muscovy. Thus, the creation of an independent Ukraine – a policy which was pursued by the Cossack Hetman Bohdan Chmielnicki (Bohdan Khmel’nyts’kyi) and followed by his successor Jan Wyhowski (Ivan Vyhovs’kyi) – became an extremely difficult goal to attain for the future Cossack leaders.

Although the events of the years 1658–1660 have been researched to some extent by various Polish historians – mention can be made, among others, of Ludwik Kubala, Franciszek Rawita-Gawroński and Zbigniew Wójcik – the monograph of Piotr Kroll is, nevertheless, very significant. The author is adjunct professor of history at the Institute of History of the University of Warsaw, specializing in research devoted primarily to seventeenth-century military history of Poland and Cossack Ukraine. It should be noted that his monograph is based on archival materials and published primary and secondary sources. The book represents a required scholarly apparatus: bibliography, footnotes, maps, indices and appendices. The seven maps and three appendices prove to be very useful for the examining of troop formations and route tracing of military operations.

If some criticism has to be made with regard to this publication, it must be directed to the author’s lack in the full utilization of archival sources, particularly those found in the fonds of the Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv drevnikh aktov in Moscow. However, having used extensively the published primary sources in various collections of documents, such as those in “Akty Moskovskogo gosudarstva”, and “Akty”, as well as “Arkhiv Iugo Zapadnoi Rossii”, including documents cited by Mykhailo Hrushevs’kyi in his vol. 10 of “Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy”, it can be said in the author’s defence, that no major damage occurred to his research and analysis.

Overall, Piotr Kroll’s monograph, “Od ugody hadziackiej do Cudnowa”, is recommended to both scholars and readers in general, that is to say, all those who have some interest in the history of Poland, Russia and Ukraine in the second half of the seventeenth century. This book, which is characterized by deep analysis and erudition, represents a new major scholarly undertaking relating to crucial developments in Eastern Europe. For the reasons pointed out above, it will, undoubtedly, hold a strong and influential position, for some time to come, in Polish historiography.

Andrew B. Pernal, Calgary, AB, Kanada