CHYHYRYN, CHYHYRYN
Most sources that explain the origin of the name of the city use botanical arguments deriving the name from chahar, the “bush”. Another version: a healing and miraculous plant named chyhyr. That´s its name from perhaps the city got its name. Yet another version: the possessive suffix “yn” indicates that the name could derive from a personal name (medieval documents mention a local Tatar named Chyhyr, undoubtedly a strongman).”
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| PHОТО: UKRINFORM |
Chyhyryn has been known since the first half of the sixteenth century as a Cossack zymnyk (a cottage or village where family Cossacks lived when they were not fighting), usually in winter. Over time, Chyhyryn grew into a large farm whose function was to provide Zaporizhzhya Cossacks with food). As times go by Chyhyryn turns into an important outpost of the Polish Commonwealth in the way of the incessant Tatar and Turkish raids into this part of the realm. As regards to the Polish gentry, the town served an advanced threshold to the Zaporizhzhya Host. In addition, Chyhyryn was situated on the road to the Crimea, which of course contributed to its growth and strengthening. In the second half of the 16 century becomes a starostvo center. In 1592 Chyhyryn gets Magdeburg right.
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| PHОТО: UKRINFORM |
The distance from Warsaw, encouraged Ukrainian Cossacks to show resistance to royal power, Chyhyryn lands become one of the centers of resistance against the Catholicization of Ukraine. Here, Orthodox clergy successfully operated under the protection of the Cossacks. In 1627, Cossacks established the Chyhyryn Trinity Monastery (a nunnery after 1735).
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| PHОТО: UKRINFORM |
Bohdan’s days
In any event, Chyhyryn is inseparably connected with the Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytskiy, who was born in the village of Subotiv, near Chyhyryn. His father was a deputy Starosta (elder) of Chyhyryn. During the Uprising Bohdan rather stressed his mother´s Cossack roots and his father´s exploits with the Cossacks of the Host. After the two years of Turkish captivity Bohdan returns to become a registered Cossack and soon becomes a sotnyk, a leader of a hundred and then the regimental scribe. In his rivalry with Chyhyryn deputy elder Chaplinski, Khmelnytskiy found no support from the crown but the enlisted the backing of Cossacks. Religion, ethnicity, and economics factored into this discontent. The history of uprising is totally different story but in 648 - 1660 Chyhyryn became the residence of the Ukrainian hetman and an official capital of Ukraine. Here he held diplomatic meetings with European envoys and made crucial decisions for Ukraine. Khmelnytsky built a new government system and developed military and civilian administration. After the death of Bohdan Khmelnytskiy Chyhyryn starts to lose its capital status and begins what will be remembered as the Ruin.
“I already did more than was thinking before, now I will obtain what I revised recently. I will liberate out of the Polish woe all of the Ruthenian people! Before I was fighting for the insults and injustice caused to me, now I will fight for our Orthodox faith. And all people will help me in that all the way to Lublin and Krakow, and I won´t back off from the people as they are our right hand. And for the purpose lest you won´t attack cossacks by conquering peasants, I will have two, three hundred thousands of them.” Signed: Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the Prince of Ruthenia. After the death of Bohdan, Chyhyryn starts to lose its capital status and begins what will be remembered as the Ruin.
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| PHОТО: UKRINFORM |
Doroshenko and others
In 1669 upon the election of Demian Mnohohrishny as the Hetman of Ukraine, the capital was moved to Baturyn but retains the status of the Hetman´s capital for some time thanks to Hetman Doroshenko. Doroshenko had a considerable diplomatic talent and succeeded in maneuvering between Poland and Turkey, the Crimean Khanate and Muscovy. He fought against both the Commonwealth and Muscovy. In 1669 he signed a treaty with Turkey and started a war with the Poles. In 1674 the Russian army and Romodanovskiy’s Cossacks besieged Chyhyryn. After two weeks of siege, they retreated to the Left Bank, as Doroshenko received military aid from the Turks. But after two years of siege and repeated attacks Doroshenko surrendered before 30-thousand army of the enemy. Chyhyryn ceased to be a capital.
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| PHОТО: UKRINFORM |
The sieges
During the Russo-Turkish War (1676–1681) Chyhyryn became the center of two bloody campaigns (1675–76 and 1677–78). In 1678 the castle of Chyhyryn was blown by the retreating Russian garrison that was stationed there, while the Turkish forces sacked the rest of the city.
The Turks led heavy gun fire and dug trenches under the city fortifications. Turks made it to the middle bastion, made a hole in the wall and stormed in. Defenders took fire on gunpowder and blew up castle in the air. Chyhyryn ceased to exist. In honor of the defenders of the city a stone cross now stands on Castle Hill .
Desolation
Cherkassy lands got desolated and fall in decline. Although Chyhyryn remains the center in 1712 Chyhyryn regiment, it will never regain its former value. In 1793, Cherkassy lands were annexed to the Russian Empire and Chyhyryn became a district town in Kyiv province. By the mid-nineteenth century Chyhyryn was merely a big village. A quarry was opened at the Castle Hill that can be seen to this day. In Soviet times, the authorities immortalized the “historical union of Ukraine and Russia” and opened a multifigural monument to Bohdan Khmelnitsky under which a Cossack is fraternizing with a Moskal.
In 1843 and 1845 Taras Shevchenko visited Chyhyryn. He made a few drawings on local motiffs. His etching titled “The Gifts in Chyhyryn” dedicated to the Cossack Council in 1649 is widely known along with the works “The Subotiv Road to Chyhyryn,” “Chyhyryn Nunnery.” Shevchenko has dedicated many lines of his poetry to Chyhyryn , including “The Dug Up Mound,” “Chyhyryn, Chyhyryn”, “Cold Ravine”, “Why do we love Bohdan.” The seminal poem Haydamaky pays a lot of attention to Chyhyryn. In philosophical monologues the Bard suggests historiosophical understanding of historical content of the eternal struggle for national liberation and the destiny of his people.
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Chyhyryn, oh, Chyhyryn,
Everything is dying,
And your holy glory,
As gray ashes flying...
“Chyhyryn, Chyhyryn”
Wake up all you hetmans,
I wish you would get up
To take a look at your own beloved Chyhyryn
The one you used to build
and where you have ruled!
You would’ve wept hard,
because you would have
not known
The past Cossack glory
in the squalid ruins.
“Haydamaky”
INFO
Doroshenko case
Ivan Briukhovetsky a pro-Russian hetman of Left-Bank Ukrainewas accused of betraying Cossack traditions, gladly taking the title of a Russian boyar and helping the Russians in their political oppression in Ukraine. Doroshenko has ordered to chain Bryukhovetskiy to a cannon gun pending the court announces a verdict. However, the officers that guarded him outside court would not want to wait, fired the gun, and killed Bryukhovetskiy. At the trial they said that Doroshenko, giving orders to chain Bryukhovetskiy has allegedly waved his hand which was taken as the order to execute his rival. Was that a treachery and betrayal? Probably not. Doroshenko was too a diplomat and a politician to afford killing the rival hetman without a court sentence. Doroshenko was dismayed by the death Bryukhovetskiy. Perpetrators were punished - though not very furiously. The body of Bryukhovetskiy was taken to the town Hadyach and buried with honors under the walls of the church that he once built. Only after the funeral Doroshenko proclaimed himself the Hetman on both sides of the Dnieper.
Yevhen VASYLKIV
