CHYHYRYN AS A HETMANATE FORTRESS CITY

Castle Hill, Chyhyryn / wikipedia.org

One weekend it occurred to me to look up where Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s residence had been located — and what it looks like today. That is how I found myself in the Cherkasy region, in Chyhyryn, the first capital of the Hetmanate.

Hetmans, hetmans, if only you could rise,
Rise and look upon that Chyhyryn,
The one you built, where you once ruled!..

 

Taras Shevchenko, Haidamaky

The origin of geographical names is an exceptionally fascinating thing — a sequence of riddles and puzzles. The same goes for the name of the town Chyhyryn. One assumption is that it comes from the miraculous chyhyr-herb that once grew in this area. Others believe that the town received its name from the Turkic word «chyhyr» (road): since the 15th century, a trade route from Kyiv to Crimea passed not far from Chyhyryn Hill. This is precisely the path along which the Tatars most often intruded — though the landscape made it possible to hold them back.

The point is that the town was protected on the south by Zamkova Hora (also called Kamyana Hora), which the Tiasmyn River encircles in a wide arc. On the east, north, and west, the slopes of the hill are very steep. That is why it was a convenient place to position a fortress. The earliest mentions of Chyhyryn as a fortress town — one of the Cossack wintering sites — date back to the first half of the 16th century.

THE FIRST FORTIFICATIONS IN A STRATEGIC LOCATION

hyhyryn’s fortifications — a small wooden castle — first appeared at the end of the 16th century. It was built by order of the Polish King Sigismund III, who in 1589 issued a charter granting the lands of the Chyhyryn region to Oleksandr Vyshnevetsky (the starosta of Cherkasy, Kaniv, and Korsun) and permitting him to found a castle and a town there. The people of Chyhyryn were to perform guard duty, pay the beekeeping tithe, and so on. Three years later, the king granted the town Magdeburg rights, which made its residents independent from the starosta’s administration and gave them their own court and council to govern city affairs.

The document also stated: «…to our town Chyhyryn, by this same letter, we grant a city seal, a coat of arms — three arrows. Such seals, for the exercise of municipal rights, our Chyhyryn townspeople, they themselves and their descendants, shall use». The issuance of this universal was proof that Chyhyryn had become an important military-administrative and trade-craft center. Twice a year, major fairs took place in Chyhyryn; every week, smaller markets were held; and a beautiful town hall rose in the city center. At that time, Chyhyryn was part of the Kyiv Voivodeship of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and when, at the end of the 16th century, the peasantry rose up against feudal oppression, the people of Chyhyryn took part in nearly all uprisings against the Polish nobility.

In the 1630s, the castle underwent a significant reconstruction. It was strengthened with three rows of massive wooden walls along the perimeter of the fortress and surrounded by moats filled with water. It was precisely in the 1630s that the powerful Koniecpolski magnate family took possession of Chyhyryn. The Cossacks of Chyhyryn were outraged by their tyranny, but for a time they endured it, believing that change would come… And the long-awaited changes began with the rise of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, whose name is inseparably linked with the growth and flourishing of Chyhyryn during his hetmancy in 1648–1657.

THE TOWN’S GOLDEN AGE

In 1638, Bohdan became the sotnyk of Chyhyryn, and ten years later, in 1648, the Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host. Soon afterward, at the head of a Cossack detachment, he liberated Chyhyryn from the rule of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. From that moment on, the ancient Cossack wintering site became the hetman’s residence — effectively the capital of Ukraine — for nearly three decades. The capital city consisted of the Small Town on the hill — the castle and fortifications — and the Large Town at the foot of the hill. Both were protected by a wall.

The total length of the town walls measured 750 meters, and the fortifications of the city amounted to about three kilometers. One of the provisions of the Zboriv Agreement of 1649, which de facto confirmed the appearance of a new state — the Zaporozhian Host — on the political map of Europe, stated the following: «Chyhyryn, the town, as it is within its borders, shall always remain with the mace of the Zaporozhian Host…» Under the protection of strong walls and the oversight of skilled warriors, Chyhyryn entered a period of peace. It became one of the largest cities of Ukraine at the time — precisely during Khmelnytsky’s rule. More than 50,000 inhabitants lived there then.

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CRAFTS, TRADE, AND EDUCATION

As a consequence of the Liberation War of 1648–1654, trade and various crafts developed rapidly. Chyhyryn became one of the important craft centers of Ukraine. Here they forged swords and sabers, spears, produced rifles, gunpowder, and more… Primary schools were established at local churches and the monastery — most townspeople, including women, were literate. Meanwhile, families of the Cossack elite and wealthy burghers employed tutors at home. Bohdan Khmelnytsky himself had a Latin teacher, as well as a physician and a surgeon.

The city also became a center of European diplomacy; envoys of the Ottoman Empire, the Crimean Khanate, Moldavia, Transylvania, Sweden, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Muscovite Tsardom visited here: «The envoys of powerful states knew well the road to the modest Cossack town of Chyhyryn. Not Moscow, the Third Rome, but Chyhyryn became the place where the fate of Eastern Europe was decided», remarked the Ukrainian scholar, historian, and archaeologist Natalia Polonska-Vasylenko (1884–1973).

And the traveler Paul of Aleppo, who stayed in Chyhyryn in 1655, wrote his own impression: «The city fortress has no equal in all the land of the Cossacks in terms of the height and size of the hill on which it is built, its vastness, and the strength of the marshes and waters surrounding it. For this reason, it is very strong…»

THE DEATH OF KHMELNYTSKY AND THE DECLINE OF CHYHYRYN

With the death of Bohdan Khmelnytsky in 1657, the decline of Chyhyryn began. The city then served as the residence of Hetmans Ivan Vyhovsky, Yurii Khmelnytsky, and Petro Doroshenko. In 1676, Chyhyryn lost its status as the capital of the Ukrainian Cossack state. The Ottomans launched two military campaigns against Chyhyryn. The first took place in the summer of 1677, when a 120,000-strong army reached the city walls and laid siege to it. Chyhyryn was defended at the time by Hetman Ivan Samoilovych with 20–25 thousand Cossacks and Moscow voivode Hryhorii Romodanovsky with 32 thousand troops.

Although the Turks had a significant numerical advantage, after three weeks of heavy fighting they failed to achieve anything and were eventually forced to flee into the steppe. In the spring of 1678, the Scottish military engineer Patrick Gordon designed an additional bastion-type fortification on the southern outer side of the castle, built according to the Dutch system. But already that summer, the Ottomans made a second attempt to capture Chyhyryn. This time, their 200,000-strong army took the fortress after a month-long siege — it was defended by only 12 thousand Cossacks.

The defenders set fire to the powder stores and blew up the castle. The city was destroyed to its foundations, but even then the Turks were unable to hold it: their army was exhausted, and constant, aggressive raids by the Zaporizhian Cossacks led by Ivan Sirko continued… So the Turks withdrew from Chyhyryn. Under the so-called «Eternal Peace», the treaty between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Muscovite Tsardom signed in May 1686, Chyhyryn became «no man’s land». However, its Cossack spirit did not disappear. When the Cossack-peasant uprising known as Koliyivshchyna began in Right-Bank Ukraine in 1768, it was Chyhyryn and the surrounding territories that became its center.

CHYHYRYN’S APPEAL TO CREATORS

After the Right-Bank Ukraine was incorporated into the Russian Empire as a result of the 1797 reform, Chyhyryn became a district town of the Kyiv Governorate. Throughout the 19th century, it was visited by well-known ethnographers, historians, and writers: P. Chubynsky, M. Kostomarov, I. Repin, P. Kulish, and others. In 1843 and 1845, Taras Shevchenko visited Chyhyryn. He made several drawings… His well-known etching Gifts in Chyhyryn (1844) and his works Chyhyryn from the Subotiv Road (1845), The Chyhyryn Maiden Monastery (1845) are associated with these visits.

Shevchenko also dedicated many poetic lines to Chyhyryn, including those in the poem Haidamaky, with a quotation from which we began this story… In 1967, a monument to Bohdan Khmelnytsky appeared atop Zamkova Hora. Since then, the hill has been called Bohdan’s Hill. Today, it is home to the Bohdan Khmelnytsky Castle Hill Park. In 1989, the Chyhyryn Historical and Cultural Reserve was established, which incorporated the complexes of Chyhyryn, Subotiv, and the Khmelnytskyi Yar area. In 1995, the institution was granted national status.

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