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In the middle of the seventeenth century the most illustrious Hetman of the Ukraine, Bogdan Chmelnislcy, completely defeated the Poles and founded the Independent Republic of the Cossacks.
After several years of persistent struggle with the Poles and the Tartars, Bogdan Chmelnisky conceived the idea of contracting a close alliance with Moscovia to save the country, and in 1654 he concluded the Treaty of Pereyaslav. Having heed of military aid from the Muscovites, he recognised the supremacy of the Tsar of Moscow and in return he received guarantees of independence. The Hetman had to be freely elected by the people. He had his army of Cossacks, and, with some reservations concerning Poland and Turkey, he had the right of entertaining diplomatic relations. He also had the same independence in the administration of the country.
But the Tsar of Moscow had no real intention of respecting the Treaty. In the very first year he commenced to violate it with the intention of subjecting the Ukraine. However, more than a century of heroic struggle passed before the Russian Empire triumphed over the tenacity of the Ukrainian people for their country and independence.
One of the best-known and most popular events of this strife is the revolt, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, of Mazeppa, who allied with Charles XII with a view to fighting against Peter the Great.
The victory of the latter was a blow to the Ukrainian liberty, which Catherine II abolished completely.
In 1775 the Russian troops completely surrounded Zaparojie, the celebrated seat of the Cossacks, who were dispersed.
At the same time Galicia, after the partition of Poland, and a little later Bukovina, became part of the Austrian Empire, and up to the second half of the nineteenth century they remained in complete bondage.
The Ukrainian peasants became the serfs of Russian and Polish gentry and of newly made Ukrainian
