As a person of mixed Jewish ✡/Eastern European background, who was born in Kyiv and lived there until the age of 16, I learned about the rebellion in Ukrainian History classes, and the violence against the Jews was deffinitely not emphasized (if mentioned at all). It was presented more as an example of early Ukrainian nationalism and rebellion against mistreatment of the locals by the Polish landowners. That part of the world has a complex history with various competing interests, so it is great to see a video that presents a balanced view! 👏
Very good video. One correction/addition: the modern perception of Khmelnitsy is far from being uniformed in Ukraine. Many (including nationalist leaning people) consider him an unsuccessful politician and even traitor who sold his peoples rights and freedoms to Moskovia.
Khmelnitsy was an Orthodox Christian, so I think having him form a closer relationship with Russia makes sense. I've heard some historians (not Russian propagandists ) claim he even called himself a little Russian.
I never had a course from Paul Magocsi when I was U of T, and I never had a course from Lubomyr Luciuk when I was at RMC, so I'm very pleased to have had a lecture on Ukrainian history tonight from a Canadian scholar of Ukrainian history!
I'm really enjoying your presentations since they provide context to the larger picture of European history. As for the events described here it reminds us all that, while profitable, being a middleman doesn't win you many friends. My first boss in New York was the grandson of a rich Irish immigrant who booked passage back to the old country in 1920 just for the pure joy of participating in burning down the manor house and businesses of the Anglo Irish in the district of his origin. Then there were the Flemish in London who were wiped out in the Wat Tyler rebellion. Just never stops.
Thank you, Dr.. Abramson! I just finished watching episodes 1-90 over the last couple of weeks . That should tell everyone what i thought of your lectures. You've cleared up a lot of events for me. Three of my grandparents are from a small shtetls near L'viv.
Thank you. Always an uneasy history. I recently found out that my great great grandfather was paying a special tax that was imposed on him for *Shabbos* candles. I saw a tax document with his name on it. Jews in parts of Lithuania were subjected to a “Jewish tax” on candles used for religious purposes. This video may explain why much of my family ended up in Lithuania. My late father was very explicit about the fact that his father’s father’s side fled the Spanish Inquisition, and ended up in Poland, but he never told me why they left Poland.
I very much appreciate your highly informative Jewish history postings on RU-vid. Regarding the casualties of Tach v'Tat, the Shach, in the introduction to his Selichot for Chaf Sivan, estimated the total as approximately 100,000.
When I was a kid decades ago I read "With Fire and Sword " in translation, - part of a trilogy by Henryk Diencowitz. I think it was written about this time period.
I think you mean Henryk Sienkiewicz (yeah, I know, Polish spelling is a bit weird 😉). Sienkiewicz is probably the most popular Polish author ever (although now not nearly as he used to be). He got some international acclaim too, winning the Nobel prize in 1905. Internationally his most popular novel was _Quo Vadis_ about the ancient Rome during Nero's reign. In Poland it was definitely the Trilogy. Have you read the other two parts? _The Deluge_ (the middle one) is my favorite.
@@Artur_M. I only read with Fire and Sword and it was great. The third I think is Fire in the Steppe. Would love to read the whole series. Quo Vadis is great too. He was awesome. I read them on my own I'm high school in the winter. The snow provided a good ambiance.
Very interesting. This balanced explanations put in better perspective to understands, what are the motives in underlying resentment pointed at the jews.
I’ve been looking forward to this , Dr Abramson, as you’ve referred to this period more than a few times. I disappeared into the Wikipedia rabbit hole around this period for a few hours this week , so it’s as if I’ve done the reading for a class. Enjoy your day.
Interesting lecture, thank you! Just a small correction - the monument to Bohdan Khmelnytsky in Kiev is not located on the "Maidan", but on St. Sophia square.
Great stuff thank you for being willing to be honest with the historical truth, many other historians would write the cause of this event off as “antisemitism” and not expand any further.
When I was a kid, Taras Bulba was one of my favorite movies. This lecture is about that period. Tony Curtis played a Cossack. Guess money will triumph over heritage.
It's interesting how you say that the recovery was fairly rapid. One of the narratives when talking about the Baal Shem Tov in Chabad schools was the devastation on Jewish life because of the uprisings. Many people don't take into account how there was a lull and then it continued on into Lithuania where people like the Shach relocated to what would be called Moravia. What is defined as rapid?
Very interesting lecture: this is the historical background to "The Slave" by Isaac Bashevis Singer which was on the final year certificate for secondary school in Australia for decades. If one has not read it, they should.
The "big city" near my grandfather's village was called Proskurev, but is now called Chmelnitsky. While the language spoken in the village was doubtless Jewish, my grandfather's city language was Russian, not Ukrainian or Polish. (He was born ca 1900). What can I learn from those details? That the Russians may have been big brothers to the Ukrainians, but grabbed the place for themselves, imposing their language? And why would they have changed the name (in Soviet times) to a name honoring someone so, um, controversial -- for lack of a better word? He also told me of a time he was in shul as a youngster and, standing there among the locals was someone in Cossack dress. The congregants were petrified, and suspected no good would come of it, but when they heard him praying in Hebrew they knew there was something odd afoot. He explained that his family had always traveled with Cossacks, became able horsemen, and generally fit into society as people often do -- but they were still Jewish. Of course, he told us of Ukrainian antisemitism too -- especially that this village could expect a Tulsa EVERY Christmas, thanks to a large gift of liquor given to soldiers to enjoy during their holiday leave. In short, among the things I'd heard from gramps, from this particular video, and in the fact that the current Ukrainian President is Jewish (something that will NEVER happen in say, Hungary), I still don't have a clear feeling for the spirit of the times -- then or now -- in the region. But every fragment indeed helps me understand either history, or how profoundly I will never understand it.
The reason the Soviets loved Khmelnytsky was because they used him as the historic figure to prop-up the concept of "brotherhood" and unification between Russian and Ukrainian people. It was important for the Soviet Union to "glue" all of these different republics and ethnicities as if they always had common history, and often would use these kind of historical figures, despite their controversial past. It was easy in a totalitarian society to "edit" and re-write the history. Because of this, Khmelnytsky was glorified and the city of Proskurov renamed in his honor. Also, the historic town of Pereyaslav was renamed to "Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky" because it was in that town that the Pereyaslav Articles were signed between the Cosacks (Khmelnytsky's son, since Bogdan was already dead by then) and representatives of the Tsar. Regarding present-day Ukraine - just to add, not only is the current president Jewish, but when he became president, at that time the prime-minister (Groysman) was also Jewish (not to mention many mayors and oligarchs who are also Jewish in Ukraine). So religion and ethnicity doesn't seem to play that huge a role in elections or politics in Ukraine, and you are totally correct in that this is really a unique phenomenon in Europe (I certainly can't picture a Jewish leader getting elected in most other countries). There is still some anti-semitism of course, but nothing systemic and not engrained in the modern population, from my personal experience. Also, based on recent polling data, Ukraine had the lowest "negative" attitude towards Jews among Eastern European countries.
@@pavelvodov1516 Thanks so much for a knowledgeable reply. Do you know if the current residents of Khmelnytsky speak Russian exclusively, or is Ukrainian used also? If both, is one or both groups commonly biligual? My grandfather's wife was from nearby Vinnitsia, also a Russian speaker. Is the contemporary language makeup of that city similar? When I was young, I didn't understand that I was not ethnically Russian, though the children of White Russian refugees in my 1960s home town in the suburbs of New York made it clear that I was most assuredly not one of them :)
@@dactylntrochee I would say the more common case in Ukraine today is that people in cities such as Khmelnitsky are bilingual and easily switch from Ukrainian to Russian and vice-versa depending on the situation. I haven't been to Khmelnitsky itself, but I was in that region recently (2019) in the city of Kamianets-Podolsky and also I have in-laws from a village not far from Khmelnitsky. In Kamianets, the younger generation (under 30) more often spoke Ukrainian, but the older generation (over 50 or so) defaulted to Russian. My in-laws first language was Ukrainian, although they did grow up during the 50's-60's Soviet period when everything was standardized to Russian across all republics. This was very common that in most cities during Soviet Ukraine, Russian became the first language, however in the villages or small towns in those same regions across western or central Ukraine, Ukrainian was more common. I grew up in Kiev in the 80's and distinctly remember there was a certain stigma when someone spoke Ukrainian, because this meant that they likely came from a village and people could even make fun of that. Nowadays, the attitude towards Ukrainian language is completely reverse and is sort of a source of pride. I actually passed through Vinnitsia on that trip, and yes, the language dynamic is also very similar there, very much depends on what age demographic you speak to. The language "map" of Ukraine is very much tied to history and which region was under which empire's control until what period. If you look at regions that were under Austria/Poland up until WW2 (1939) such as Lviv, Ternopil, Volyn region, Ukrainian remained dominant there in cities or villages even during the Soviet period. However, the regions like Vinnitsia, Khmelnitsky, Zhytomir, Kiev (all also with a large Jewish population), were already part of the Russian empire (since at least 1795, the last partition of Poland) and then the Soviet Union, and so because of this, Russian began to dominate there in the cities. Even the eastern corner Donbass region was majority Ukrainian at the turn of the 20th century (according to the census), but because of the influx of labor from Russia and other republics after WW2, Russian language began to dominate. Interesting to hear about your experience growing up in NY. A lot of us have Jewish roots to the same region, roughly in modern-day Ukraine, however I often encounter people considering their roots as "Polish", "Russian", or "Ukrainian", depending mostly on the time period of the immigration :-) Even in the Ukrainian community, there is a clear difference between those who immigrated before the Russian revolution (who are now 2nd/3rd generation, their Ukrainian is somewhat different and hard to understand, it is almost it's own community), and the modern-day Ukrainian immigrants.
@@pavelvodov1516 First, thanks for the patient tour of the region's history and current nuances. There's no substitute for on-site eyes and ears. Second, just a curio -- this conversation sent me to Google Maps (what a treasure!), which put into focus an old family question: why my grandfather's mother (born around 1860) spoke Romanian. Google shows the southern edge of greater Khmelnitsky to be only 12 miles from Moldova, and he was a villager, perhaps even south of Proskurov. Insofar as their daily language was Jewish, I imagine there was no sense of being foreign on anybody's part.
@@dactylntrochee My Grandfarther also came from Proskorov and my grandmother came from Chorny- Ostrov. Who knows they may have been friends.Such a small world.
My late father was born in ALEXANDROV, now ZAPOROZHYE, and was rescued as an orphan from the RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. and brought out to SOUTH AFRICA in 1924 as a young boy. I visited ZAPOROZHYE in JUNE 2017 and found reference to his birth, Boris and SHUL membership of my grandfather in 1912, thanks to the LUBAVITCHER RABBI EHRENTREAU and the HEAD ARCHIVIST. Searched the cemeteries for my late grandparents burial sites who passed either as a result of pogroms or the SPANISH FLUE at roughly the same time. Would love to have more literature covering this period.
In most siddurim one will find the selichot for 20th of Sivan . It was first instituted by Rabeinu Tam for the blood libel and the massacre of the Jews from Blois 1171 CE. . For two hundred years it was dormant again reintroduced after the Reindfleish massacres of Jews in Austria, and the martyrdom of the Mordechai and his brother in law R’ Meir (הגהות מיימונית)in Nuremberg.1298 Again dormant until 1648 and rededicated as a remembrance of the Chelmenitzky raids . And the slaughter of the martyrs of Nemirov . A special El Malei Rachamim for their remembrance is chanted . This custom only survives in the Belz community as far as I know.
@@HenryAbramsonPhD Yes Dr. The Tosfot Yom Tov survived the massacres as he was in Krakow at the time as we Read in his Megillat Eiva . The raiders didn’t penetrate Poland proper . Interestingly I pray in a shul called after the Tosfot yom tov , where it’s absolutely forbidden to speak throughout the tefilla . There are more such Shuls around the world. The Mi Sheberach shlo ledaber b’shat hatefilla is recited before יקום פורקן.
Thanks for a wonderful Jewish History Lab program as usual! I was wondering if there is evidence of an international or even regional outcry to the Khmelnitski uprising much like there was surrounding the Ancona Affair a century earlier?
From wikipedia: In Jewish history, the Uprising is known for the concomitant outrages against the Jews who, in their capacity as leaseholders (arendators), were seen by the peasants as their immediate oppressors.[4][5] However, Shmuel Ettinger argues that both Ukrainian and Polish accounts of the massacres overemphasize the importance of the Jewish role as landlords, while downplaying the religious motivation for Cossack violence.[6]
Sir, I love your in-depth research, court advisors (Spain) debt collectors and the new testament, the protocols at at time when the Red shields were the top of banking in europe have been the bane of Jews for nearly 2 thousand years
Little Russia means original Russia (meaning Kievan Rus). Greater Russia means Russia after expansion. Not like you explained Dr Harry. Thanks for your work
This is fascinating, doc. Thank you for sharing. I have a question, and you may have already answered. How did we get from the end of this video, where the independence of Ukraine is symbolized by slaying our ancestors, to the first Ukrainian republic, where Yiddish was an official language (even on currency)? Is it possible that relationships were better over time, or the fact that there was this border shift - and including Yiddish was merely used to help expedite commerce? I'm very interested in your thoughts, and I appreciate your efforts. Shalom!
For hundreds of years mothers would pass on to their children. Don’t forget what chelmenitzky did to us . They were also very brutal as they would cut the stomach of a pregnant woman and remove the foetus and put a kitten inside . And other cruel and vicious things. This was very much like today we try to say never forget about the Holocaust.
@@HenryAbramsonPhD thanks Dr. Will try getting his book . The Holy R’ Shamshon of Osropoli was among the Martyrs. Since I’m a descendant of the Panim Meirot who was a nephew of the Shach . My grandmother told us the story legend of his flight with his daughter. Their separation and reunion at this tumultuous time. Don’t remember the details .
I also heard about that stomach cutting and inserting a cat inside. Do you really believe that happened? Let's try to look at it logicaly - can you even imagine catching a stray cat with your hands in a battlefield. The cat is probably scared and stressed to death, so I think a cossack who would try it will end without his eyes. So with all do respect I just can't see how it's possible to insert a cat into someone's open stomach (where the cat is probably not happy to go), not to mention that until it happens the person would be dead anyway. I would like to see where am I wrong about it...
@@dimager2003 many communities beyond the Dnieper, and close to the battle field, such as Pereyaslaw, Baryszowka, Piratyn, and Boryspole, Lubin and Lachowce and their neighbors, who were unable to escape, perished for the sanctification of His Name. These persons died cruel and bitter deaths. Some were skinned alive and their flesh was thrown to the dogs; some had their hands and limbs chopped off, and their bodies thrown on the highway only to be trampled by wagons and crushed by horses; some had wounds inflicted upon them, and thrown on the street to die a slow death; they writhed in their blood until they breathed their last; others were buried alive. The enemy slaughtered infants in the laps of their mothers. They were sliced into pieces like fish. They slashed the bellies of pregnant women, removed their infants and tossed them in their faces. Some women had their bellies torn open and live cats placed in them. The bellies were then sewed up with the living cats remaining within. They chopped off the hands of the victims so that they would not be able to remove the cats from the bellies. The infants were hung on the breasts of their mothers. Some children were pierced with spears, roasted on the fire and then brought to their mothers to be eaten. Many times they used the bodies of Jewish children as improvised bridges upon which they later crossed. There was no cruel device of murder in the whole world that was not perpetrated by the enemies." - Nathan ben Moses Hannover, The Abyss of Despair (Yeven Metzulah), chapter IV It is common phenomenon in our history to see others say we Jews exaggerate . Alas we’re not to far in time from our biggest calamity since the destruction of the temple, and there are deniers or those that say we’re exaggerating. Although most of us until today are still effected by the aftermath and know by first hand accounts the hell we went through. These type of comments we filter in our minds as the ones that want to deny even that the temple of Solomon stood on Temple Mount . We understand the agenda and nuances behind them . These type of comments are meant to add salt on the wound. הַרְנִ֤ינוּ גוֹיִם֙ עַמּ֔וֹ כִּ֥י דַם־עֲבָדָ֖יו יִקּ֑וֹם וְנָקָם֙ יָשִׁ֣יב לְצָרָ֔יו וְכִפֶּ֥ר אַדְמָת֖וֹ עַמּֽוֹ׃ {פ} O nations, acclaim God’s people! For He’ll avenge the blood of His servants, Wreak vengeance on His foes, And cleanse His people’s land. (Deuteronomy 32:43)
The author needs to correct lecture as he reflects Russian history propaganda and factually incorrect. 1. Cossaks were not Russian serfs escaping masters. Russia then was called Muscovite Duchy. No connection to Kievan Rus, today Ukraine. Cossaks were survivors of Khazars and Ukrainians, they spoke Ukrainian. Russian language was then unexitent, as Mucovites spoke Tatar and Finno-Ugric languages. For business Muscovites used Church Slavonic, old Bulgarian. 2. There was and still is a difference between Orthodox churches in Ukraine and Russia/Muscovy. The Ukrainian church was certified by Constantinople, but Muscovite was not. It still exists as a sect. In fact, Moscow church was originally established by Tatars and was part of Nestorian christian world. Only later, did muscovite rulers made a church reform in 1666. 3. It is very likely that the only reason why Chmielnicky went against the Jews was that he wanted to trade with Hanseatic league along Baltic sea, which was then a client of Moscow and did not admit Jews. Hanse excluded Poland and Lithuania and was started by Germans. Muscovites did not permit Jews to settle among them. 4. Chmielnicky did not sign a treaty to join Moscow, as Russians present, without showing any documents. Chmielnicky made a strong treaty with the Ottoman empire, which is the subject of the Repin's painting. It passed the tzar's censure!
In English, approximately like this: h - mel - NIT - ski. All those y's and single quotes and stuff is for the original Ukrainian pronunciation for which English doesn't really have the sounds. In English it translates to something like Hopson since Khmel means hops, and nitsky is a generic last-name ending meaning "of the clan of".
@@ferdinanddaratenas3447 I would suggest "Chemelnitsky". I believe that there should be a "e" somewhere at the beginning of the word. Another possibility from wikipedia: "Khmelnytsky".
The term "Cossack " is of Turkic origin ; the Turkic Kazakh people of. Kazakhstan. are the origin of the term Cossack . Kazak means "nomad " or something to that effect in. Turkic . The Kazakh language is very similar to Turkish but the Kazakhs.are racially mongoloid and. some are descended from Mongols who adopted a Turkic language .
Brilliant historian. Just a note. I was in LA during the Riots. The Korean Shop owners set themselves apart from the general cause of the injustice of R King by gouging the black communities they were in. They did this during the earthquake as well. Nothing like being there.
A journalist friend of mine in LA confirmed what you say here. In New York City they owned a lot of produce stands and habitually would ring up items at a higher weight than what the scale read. Happened to me and others. Back in the 90s big problems between black and Korean communities over this.
So you think the Korean shop owners should reduce the prices and sell at a loss? If you have brains, you would understand that small shops have higher running costs than big supermarkets. Large supermarkets can buy their products in bulk or produce them themselves and so on. And nobody expects you to shop with them. It's your choice. If you don't want to shop with a small business, don't.
It is so cruel. The thing which pains me is still there is no change in the world. We see a good number of people behaving like those people in medevial europe. Jews were never given the citizenship. I don't see any country other than india where jews are not persecuted. I hear things like genocide of Palestinian people. Genocide word means killing lakhs of people by wicked dictators. If we look at the Palestinian population we can see an increase in their population. I am seeing extremely voilent jew hating people like George gallows. Every war is voilent. We all know about Hiroshima Nagasaki. Lakhs of civilians died in that bombing. Chechen war more than 30 percent civilians lost their life. Chinese genocide of ughyurs. These are horrible things. These are powerful countries they can get away. But when jews try to defend themselves we see so much voilent protests. Jewish population should have been around 200 million if there was no Holocaust. World has to change. They should not commit the same crimes they did for thousands of years on jews. Most of the people have that sense of justice. Some people behave in this way mainly because of their hate for jews.
Very informative, thank you but from my understanding, most Ukrainians were not Orthodox but were Bysantine rite/ liturgy but were Catholic and under the Roman Pope as opposed to most Poles being Latin liturgy/ rite Catholic. The Ukrainians that were Greek Orthodox, not under the Pope I believe tended to be more on eastern boarder closer to Russia in proximity as well as in culture. We see this continuing today with Putin claiming this part of Ukraine is really more Russian. I don't believe it was the poles who made the majority of yhe Ukrainians become under Rome but the more truly Ukrainian population as opposed to more Russian types were Catholic Byzantine Uniate on their own history and culture.
yes, there are Unite Martyrs in RC calendar killed by Russians (and the orthodox church). St.Andrzej Bobola was martyred in Chmielnick's time of Uprising in horrible tortures.
@@matthelme4967 The Ukranian Byzantine Catholic Church was suppressed and made to go underground as illegal by both Czarist Russia under Catherine the Great and since the Bolshevic revolution and through the period under Soviet control. Many of its leaders, priests and people killed or exiled to Siberia. Putin is continuing this trend.
oy vey. this guy is making up his own history. chmielnicki uprising was about cossak registry in the commonwealth, not orthodox vs. catholic, or polish vs. ukrainian (they didn't even consider themselves ukrainians but ruthenians, ukrainian is term made up by aystrians in 19th century, similar to today's term; palestinian) nor about jews. Commonwealth had complete religious freedoms, hence jews migrating and settling there. There were catholics, protestants, orthodox christians, armenian christians, muslim tatars, jews living there, as well as people of different ethnicity and sub-ethnicity; Poles, sigimaitas (today called lihuanians), ruthenians (lithuanians, belorussians, ukrainians, lemkos, boikos, huculs), germans, estonians, livonians (latvians), tatars (mongols), armenians and jews. Furthermore, those rich landowners definitely lived there on their estates for two reasons; they would never trust anyone else to run their estates for them and they were the first line of defense against ottomans, moscovites, sweeds and tatars, as they were obligated by the commonwealth law to keep and organize military forces ("Noble Host", mass mobilization from the local population of lesser nobility). Jews were not there to manage these grand estates nor to collect the taxes. Tax collection was a government matter. Also the "higher" secular education was not really available to them so they did not posses the skills and knowledge required for that. They were allowed to run small enterprises, mostly inns and small trading posts. Their economic impact on the region was minimal. chmielnicki was a commonwealth army hetman (field marshal) and considered himself a citizen on commonwealth of the ruthenian nationality. The uprising was due to the commonwealth not agreeing to expand the number of registered cossacs. cossacs were land pirates of various ethnicity, pillaging mostly ottoman lands from the commonwealth territory preventing upholding the peace treaty between the commonwealth and the ottomans.
