Editing Cossacks (section)

====Relations with neighbours====

As a result of the mid–17th century Khmelnytsky Uprising, the Zaporozhian Cossacks briefly established an independent state, which later became the autonomous [[Cossack Hetmanate]] (1649–1764). It was placed under the [[suzerainty]] of the Russian Tsar from 1667 but was ruled by local hetmans for a century. The principal political problem of the hetmans who followed the [[Pereyaslav Council|Pereyeslav Agreement]] was defending the autonomy of the Hetmanate from Russian/Muscovite centralism. The hetmans [[Ivan Vyhovsky]], [[Petro Doroshenko]] and [[Ivan Mazepa]] attempted to resolve this by separating Ukraine from Russia.<ref name="auto"/>

Relations between the Hetmanate and their new sovereign began to deteriorate after the autumn of 1656, when the Muscovites, going against the wishes of their Cossack partners, signed an armistice with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in [[Vilnius]]. The Cossacks considered the Vilnius agreement a breach of the contract they had entered into at Pereiaslav. For the Muscovite tsar, the Pereiaslav Agreement signified the unconditional submission of his new subjects; the Ukrainian hetman considered it a conditional contract from which one party could withdraw if the other was not upholding its end of the bargain.<ref name="auto1">{{Citation|last1=Plokhy|first1=Serhii|title=The Battle of Konotop 1659|chapter=Konotop 1659: exploring alternatives in East European history|pages=11–19|publisher=Ledizioni|isbn=978-88-6705-050-5|doi=10.4000/books.ledizioni.374|year=2012|doi-access=free}}</ref>

The Ukrainian hetman Ivan Vyhovsky, who succeeded Khmelnytsky in 1657, believed the Tsar was not living up to his responsibility. Accordingly, he concluded a treaty with representatives of the Polish king, who agreed to re-admit Cossack Ukraine by reforming the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to create a third constituent, comparable in status to that of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The [[Treaty of Hadiach|Union of Hadiach]] provoked a war between the Cossacks and the Muscovites/Russians that began in the fall of 1658.<ref name="auto1"/>

[[File:Stanisław Masłowski (1853-1926), Cossacs, ca 1900, drawing, 29 x 36,5 cm.jpeg|thumb|left|''Kozacy'' (Cossacks), [[drawing]] by [[Stanisław Masłowski]], {{circa|1900}} ([[National Museum in Warsaw]])]]
In June 1659, the two armies met near the town of [[Konotop]]. One army comprised Cossacks, Tatars, and Poles, and the other was led by a top Muscovite military commander of the era, Prince [[Aleksey Trubetskoy]]. After terrible losses, Trubetskoy was forced to withdraw to the town of [[Putyvl]] on the other side of the border. The battle is regarded as one of the Zaporizhian Cossacks' most impressive victories.<ref name="auto1"/>

In 1659, [[Yurii Khmelnytsky]] was elected hetman of the Zaporizhian Host/Hetmanate, with the endorsement of Moscow and supported by common Cossacks unhappy with the conditions of the Union of Hadiach. In 1660, however, the hetman asked the Polish king for protection, leading to the period of Ukrainian history known as [[The Ruin (Ukrainian history)|The Ruin]].<ref name="auto1"/>