Slobodyshche, Treaty of

Slobodyshche, Treaty of (aka Treaty of Chudniv). A pact signed in Slobodyshche, near Chudniv, in eastern Volhynia, on 27 October 1660 by Yurii Khmelnytsky and Poland. It followed Khmelnytsky's shift to the Poles and the defeat of Russian forces near Liubar. The treaty abolished the Pereiaslav Articles of 1659 and re-established formal ties between Ukraine and Poland. Although the Ukrainians insisted on the full reinstatement of the terms of the Treaty of Hadiach of 1658, the Poles, represented by Stanisław Rewera Potocki and J. Lubomirski, did not agree to a provision for a separate Ukrainian state structure. The treaty thus granted Ukraine a limited autonomy under hetman rule, with obligations to ally with Poland against Muscovy and to refrain from attacking Crimean Tatar territories. It was approved by a Cossack council in Korsun, but Left-Bank regiments headed by Yakym Somko and Vasyl Zolotarenko maintained their allegiance to Muscovy. That split marked the beginning of the division of Ukraine into the zones of Left-Bank Ukraine and Right-Bank Ukraine.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]