The Concept of "Democratic, Peasant-Bourgeois-Cossack Revolution in 1648–1649" of Academician Pokrovskyi

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to reveal the views of the famous historian of the first third of the 20-th century M. Pokrovskyi (1868–1932) on the events of the mid-17th century in Ukraine. The methodology of the research: Modern historiography confirms the revolutionary nature of the events of the mid XVIIth century in Ukraine. Similar positions were expressed in historical science at the beginning of the last century, and serve as a guide for modern researchers. However, M. Pokrovskyi's views on this issue are not taken into account. Therefore, the historical-genetic method is based on elucidating the origins of the concepts of revolutionary change in Ukraine in the mid-XVIIth century. As a result of its use, an analysis of M. Pokrovskyi`s scientific heritage wasconducted. The scientific novelty of the article is to clarify the views of the famous historian of the first third of the 20th century M. Pokrovskyi (1868–1932) on the events of the mid-17th century in Ukraine, which have not been specifically studied before. Conclusions: The events in Ukraine in the mid-XVIIth century M. Pokrovskyi identified as a bourgeois revolution. As a bourgeois class, the scholar considered the cossacks, a way of life associated with commodity-money relations. Pokrovskyi also assessed the social aspirations of the peasantry as bourgeois. At the same time, the interests of the cossacks and peasants, according to the scholar`s view, were fundamentally different. The chronology, territorial location and organization of the cossack and peasant demonstrations also differed. But during 1648–1649 there was an alliance of cossacks and peasants against the Polish nobility. In the following period, the cossacks set out to transform their class into a privileged feudal state, opposed themselves to the peasant masses, and the cossack and peasant revolutions diverged in the directions of their development. According tothe scholar`s view, the Polish government was looking for opportunities to reconcile with the cossacks, but attempts were unsuccessful. Pokrovskyi explained Bohdan Khmelnytskyi's alliance with the Russian state by the existence of a threat from the Polish-Russian alliance against Ukraine.