Battle of Konotop. Battle of Konotop Election of Vygovsky as hetman

Battle of Konotop- an armed conflict in 1659, one of the episodes of the Russian-Polish war of 1654-1667. It happened near the city of Konotop, near the village of Sosnovka, between the Russian army of Prince Trubetskoy and the Cossacks of the Ukrainian Hetman Vygovsky, who acted in alliance with the Crimean Tatars and Poles, as well as with foreign mercenaries. The Russian cavalry was defeated in the battle, after which Trubetskoy’s main forces had to lift the siege of Konotop. The consequence of the events near Konotop was the strengthening of opposition to Vygovsky and the latter’s defeat in the political struggle.

Background

The Battle of Konotop took place during a period that in Ukrainian historiography is usually called “Ruina” (Ukrainian “Ruїna”). This period, which began almost immediately after the death of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, was characterized by civil war in most of the territory of present-day Ukraine, during which the warring parties turned to the neighbors of the Hetmanate for help, which led to intervention from Russia, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Crimean Khanate.

The prerequisites for an armed civil conflict in the Hetmanate were laid under Bohdan Khmelnitsky, who, after the peace between Alexei Mikhailovich and John II Casimir in 1656, concluded an alliance treaty with King Charles X of Sweden and Prince Yuri Rakoci of Sedmigrad. According to this agreement, Khmelnitsky sent 12 thousand Cossacks to help the allies against Poland.

After the death of Khmelnitsky in the beginning of the turmoil, Yuri Khmelnitsky became hetman, with the support of the Russian state. A little later, in an atmosphere of acute contradictions, Ivan Vygovsky was finally elected hetman of the Hetmanate (Korsun Rada on October 21, 1657), who concluded the Gadyach Treaty with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1658, openly siding with Poland and Lithuania in the Russian-Polish War. To attract Mehmed IV Giray to his side, he had to swear allegiance to the Crimean Khan.

Chronicle of the Samoid:
“...with all the senior officers, and the colonels and centurions with all the rabble, they swore allegiance to the Khan of Crimea on the fact that they would not retreat, and there the khan, with the sultans and all the Murzas, swore allegiance to the Cossack, that they would not retreat in that war, as they would strike with wax Moscow."

Progress of the battle

The battle was preceded by the siege of the Konotop fortress by the royal army. On June 29, 1659, the Cossack hetman Ivan Vygovsky (25 thousand troops), together with the Tatars of Mehmed IV Girey (30 thousand) and the Poles of Andrei Pototsky (3.8 thousand) defeated the cavalry of Semyon Pozharsky and Semyon Lvov (from 20 to 30 thousand) and the Sloboda Cossacks of the punished Hetman Ivan Bespaly (2 thousand). After the feigned retreat of Vygovsky’s Cossacks, who lured the detachment of Pozharsky and Lvov to a swampy place, the Tatars unexpectedly struck from an ambush and defeated the Russian cavalry. Both governors were captured, where Lvov died from his wounds, and Pozharsky was executed for spitting in the face of the Crimean Khan. Mehmed-Girey and Vygovsky staged a mass execution of all prisoners.

The Tatars’ attempt to build on their success and attack Trubetskoy’s army, which was besieging Konotop, was thwarted by the actions of Russian artillery. At the same time, with the appearance of a strong Polish-Tatar group in Trubetskoy’s rear, the strategic situation in the Konotop area changed. Further besieging Konotop, having a large enemy in the rear, became pointless. Trubetskoy decided to make a breakthrough. According to the reconstruction of events carried out by military historian V. Kargalov, governor Alexei Trubetskoy applied the tactics of a walk-city: he ordered the troops to move in a ring of baggage carts, which, when closed, formed a kind of mobile fortress. Under the cover of the convoy, foot soldiers repelled the attacks of the Tatar cavalry with rifle and cannon fire, and detachments of noble cavalry counterattacked from the openings between the Tatar carts. As a result, regiments of soldiers, reiters and noble cavalry crossed in perfect order to the right side of the Seim and took refuge in the Putivl fortress.

Losses

According to the Cossack “Chronicle of the Samovidets” of the 17th century, Trubetskoy’s losses in the Konotop clash and during the retreat amounted to 20 to 30 thousand people. According to Russian archival data, “In total, in Konotop at the big battle and on the withdrawal: the regiment of the boyar and governor Prince Alexei Nikitich Trubetskoy with his comrades of the Moscow rank, city nobles and boyar children, and newly baptized Murzas and Tatars, and Cossacks, and the Reitar system of the initial people and reitar, dragoons, soldiers and archers were beaten and 4,761 people were captured.” According to S.M. Solovyov, more than 5 thousand prisoners were captured alone.
“The flower of the Moscow cavalry, which served the happy campaigns of 1654 and 1655, died in one day, and never after that could the Tsar of Moscow bring such a brilliant army into the field. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich came out to the people in mourning clothes and horror gripped Moscow...”

Two okolnichy died or were executed after the battle: S.R. Pozharsky, S.P. Lvov, steward E.A. Buturlin, 3 attorneys: M.G. Sonin, I.V. Izmailov, Ya.G. Krekshin, 79 Moscow nobles and 164 residents. There are 249 “Moscow ranks” in total. Semyon Pozharsky, by order of the khan, was executed at his headquarters. As S. Velichko writes about this, Pozharsky, “inflamed with anger, cursed the khan according to Moscow custom and spat between his eyes. For this, the khan became furious and ordered the prince’s head to be cut off immediately in front of him.”

Meaning and consequences of the battle

The immediate consequence of the clash at Konotop was the fall in the political authority of the rebellious Hetman Vygovsky, the legitimacy of whose election to the post of Hetman after the death of Bohdan Khmelnytsky initially remained in doubt. Actually, the battle of Konotop was an attempt to strengthen Vygovsky’s political and personal power by military measures, which the population of Left Bank Ukraine refused to recognize. The result was just the opposite. Immediately after Trubetskoy’s retreat to Putivl, peasant and urban uprisings broke out in Ukraine. Popular anger was fueled by the actions of the Crimean Tatars allied with Vygovsky, who shamelessly plundered Ukrainian settlements and took women and children into slavery. Almost simultaneously with the development of events around Konotop, the Zaporozhye Koshevoy ataman Ivan Serko attacked the Nogai uluses. And at the beginning of the year, the Don Cossacks organized an ambush on the Samara River, which begins on the territory of modern Donbass, and cut off the road to a three-thousand-strong detachment of Tatars led by Kayabey, who was hastening to unite with Vygovsky. All these events forced the Crimean Khan to leave Vygovsky and leave with the main forces for Crimea. Soon, the cities of Romny, Gadyach, and Lokhvitsa that rebelled against Vygovsky were joined by Poltava, which had been pacified by Vygovsky in the previous year. Some clergy spoke out against Vygovsky: Maxim Filimonovich, archpriest from Nezhin, and Semyon Adamovich, archpriest from Ichnya. By September 1659, the following took the oath to the “white king”: Colonel Ivan Ekimovich of Kiev, Colonel Timofey Tsetsyura of Pereyaslavl, and Anikei Silin of Chernigov.

Very soon, the Cossacks of the Kyiv, Pereyaslovsky and Chernigov regiments, as well as the Zaporozhye Cossacks under the command of Ivan Sirko, nominated a new hetman - Yuri Khmelnitsky. At the Cossack Rada in the town of Garmanovtsy near Kiev, the election of a new hetman took place. In Garmanivtsi, the ambassadors of Vyhovsky, Sulim and Vereshchak were hacked to death, who had signed the Gadyach Treaty a little earlier (an agreement between Vyhovsky and the Poles, which provoked the military campaign of 1659). Vygovsky fled from the council in Garmanovtsy. In October 1659, the Cossack Rada in Bila Tserkva finally approved Yuri Khmelnytsky as the new hetman of Ukraine. Vyhovsky was forced to renounce power and officially transfer the hetman's kleinodes to Khmelnytsky. Soon Vygovsky fled to Poland, where he was subsequently executed.

After the next election of Yuri Khmelnitsky, in 1659 he signed a new agreement with the Russian kingdom, which, due to Vygovsky’s betrayal, significantly limited the power of the hetmans.

The Russian-Polish War of 1654-1667, an episode of which was the Battle of Konotop, eventually ended with the Truce of Andrusovo, which entailed the division of the Hetmanate along the Dnieper into the Right Bank and the Left Bank. This was a consequence of the split and the legal consolidation of the realities in the Hetmanate itself, since the bulk of the Cossacks on the Left Bank wanted to join the Russian state, while on the Right Bank pro-Polish aspirations had the upper hand.

Controversy between the Foreign Ministries of Russia and Ukraine

On June 10, 2008, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed "bewilderment and regret" at Ukraine's desire to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Battle of Konotop. The Russian Foreign Ministry considers this event simply “a bloody battle due to yet another betrayal by another hetman.”

The head of the press service of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Vasily Kirilich, said that the celebration of historical dates, including the 350th anniversary of the Battle of Konotop, is an exclusively internal matter of Ukraine.

Memorial complex in memory of the Battle of Konotop

On February 22, 2008, in the village of Shapovalovka, Konotop district, Sumy region, a cross and a chapel were erected on the site of the Battle of Konotop. On the same day, a museum exhibition “The History of the Battle of Konotop 1659” was opened there.

As part of the preparations for the celebration of the 350th anniversary of the Battle of Konotop, the Ukrainian authorities announced an open competition for the best project proposal for the creation of a historical and memorial complex of Cossack honor and valor in the city of Konotop and in the village of Shapovalovka.

On March 11, 2008, President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko signed a decree to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Battle of Konotop.

In the same decree, Viktor Yushchenko instructed the Council of Ministers of Crimea and the Sevastopol city administration to study the issue of renaming streets, avenues, squares and military units in honor of the heroes of the Battle of Konotop. In a long list of festive events

The outcome of the Battle of Konotop, however, did not strengthen Vygovsky’s position in the ongoing civil war in the Hetmanate and did not prevent his imminent overthrow.

The Battle of Konotop took place during a period that began almost immediately after the death of Khmelnytsky in 1657 and was characterized by a struggle for power among the Cossack elite in the Hetmanate. Some of the foremen of the Zaporozhian Army, having betrayed their oath to the Russian Tsar, went to serve the Polish king, whose troops had managed to expel the Swedes from the country by that time. The betrayal of part of the Cossack elders allowed the Poles to resume a very unsuccessful war for them in the east and change the situation in their favor.

Before his death, Khmelnytsky wanted to transfer the mace to his only son Yuri (the eldest son Timofey, on whom Bogdan had pinned his hopes, died in the Moldavian campaign of 1653). Such a decision not only corresponded to the dynastic traditions common to the political culture of that time, but could also cool the ambitions of the elders and stop civil strife. After the death of Khmelnitsky, in the ensuing turmoil, the hetman’s will was formally carried out: at the Chigirin Rada in 1657, the Cossack elders assigned hetman duties to the clerk Ivan Vygovsky, but only until Yuri reached adulthood. A little later, part of the Cossack elite, with the secret support of the Polish gentry, appointed Ivan Vygovsky as Cossack hetman (Korsun Rada on October 21, 1657). Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich approved the election of the hetman.

From the very beginning of his hetmanship, Vygovsky was unpopular among the left-bank Cossacks, finding support from the right-bank regiments. As the Greek Metropolitan Michael of Colossia, passing through Little Rus' in December 1657, said: “The Trans-Dnieper Cherkasy people love Hetman Ivan Vygovsky. And those on this side of the Dnieper, those Cherkassy and all the mob, do not like him, but are afraid of the fact that he is a Pole, and so that he and the Poles do not have any advice.” .

Seal of the Great Hetman I. Vygovsky

Calling on the Crimean Tatars for help, Vygovsky brutally dealt with the rebel Poltava in June 1658. This event marked the beginning of the civil war, which later became known as “Ruin”. In August 1658, the hetman began military operations against Russian troops: two sieges of Kyiv, attacks on border Russian fortresses, and encouragement of Tatar raids on Russian lands. As the author of the “Chronology of Highly Glorious Hetmans” wrote: “This Vygovsky, due to his lust for power, betrayed the Russian state and gave many cities, towns, villages and villages of Little Russia to the Horde for plunder.”. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, not wanting war, began negotiations with Vygovsky about a peaceful resolution of the conflict, which did not bring results. In the fall of 1658, the Belgorod regiment of Prince Grigory Romodanovsky entered Ukraine. During the campaign, Cossacks opposed to Vygovsky plundered Lubny and Piryatin. Voivode Prince Romodanovsky and "Cherkasy colonels" tried to prevent this, but could not stop them. The Cossacks declared that the inhabitants of these cities were their “They ravaged, burned the houses, and handed over their women and children to the Tatars”, “...and they beat many brothers” .

In November, Vygovsky sued for peace and confirmed his allegiance to the Russian Tsar. Romodanovsky went to winter quarters in Lokhvitsa. But already in December, having united with the Tatars and the Polish detachment of Potocki, Vygovsky resumed military operations, attacking Russian troops in Lokhvitsa and Bespaly’s Cossacks in Romny. Vygovsky’s actions posed a threat to the southern borders of the Russian state, which, first of all, caused the large campaign of the Russian army against the Hetmanate. The immediate reason was the increasing frequency of reports from Cossacks loyal to the Russian Tsar about Vygovsky’s preparation of a new campaign against Kyiv.

On March 26, 1659, Prince Alexei Trubetskoy moved against Vygovsky. At this time, news was received that Vygovsky “He sent Grishka Gulenitsky from Cherkasy and the Tatars to Konotop, from where they come to Putivl and to Rylsk and to Sevesk, and those towns in the districts and villages and villages are burned and ruined, and people are beaten, and they are completely killed.” .

Having instructions to first persuade Vygovsky to peace, and not to fight, Trubetskoy spent about 40 days in negotiations with Vygovsky’s ambassadors. After the final failure of the negotiations, Trubetskoy decided to begin military action. On April 20, Prince Trubetskoy approached Konotop and besieged it. On April 21, the regiments of Prince Fyodor Kurakin, Prince Romodanovsky and Hetman Bespaly approached Konotop. The regiments formed three separate camps: Trubetskoy’s regiment stood near the village of Podlipnoye, Kurakin’s regiment “on the other side of the city,” and Romodanovsky’s regiment west of Konotop. On April 29, not wanting to waste time on a siege, the prince ordered an assault on the city. The attack ended in vain, 252 people were killed and about 2 thousand were wounded. Trubetskoy again switched to siege tactics, which, however, was complicated by the lack of large-caliber artillery. During the siege, Trubetskoy led several expeditions to the Cossack fortresses - Borzna, Baturin, Goltva and Nizhyn. The most serious resistance was provided near Nezhin and Borzna. Prince Romodanovsky with the Belgorod regiment was sent to the latter. Expecting strong resistance, Trubetskoy gave Romodanovsky several hundreds of nobles and Reiter regiments of Colonels Zmeev and Fanstrobel, but the number of troops turned out to be excessive. The fortress was taken at the cost of killing only 18 people and injuring 193 people.

Despite the delay at Konotop, the campaign developed successfully for the Russian army. By the beginning of June 1659, the situation of the besieged became critical, the townspeople demanded to surrender the city. Desertions began, and Gulyanitsky, who led the defense of the city, feared a riot among the townspeople. Gulyanitsky wrote to Hetman Vygovsky: “Our strength is no longer there: such heavy and kindly strong attacks and prey are carried out against us every day and night; They’ve already dug into the ditch, and they’ve taken the water away from us, and they’re scorching the place with fire cannonballs, but we don’t have gunpowder or bullets with which to fight; The Cossacks also have no livestock, and the conmi have all fallen. Have mercy, have mercy, kindness, quickly hurry up, and let us help... We, being in such grave trouble here, can harrow like crazy for a week, but then we can’t support ourselves, we’ll go away.”. The situation changed when the Crimean army and the main forces of Vygovsky approached Konotop.

Strengths of the parties

Russian army

During the siege of Konotop, three Russian armies of princes Alexei Trubetskoy, Grigory Romodanovsky and Fyodor Kurakin, as well as the army of Hetman Ivan Bespaly, were concentrated near the city.

At the time of the Battle of Konotop, due to losses and the sending of V. Filosofov’s order to the Romen garrison, there were 5,000 people in Prince Kurakin’s regiment. In June 1659, the regiment of Prince Trubetskoy was joined by: the soldier (reinforced engineering) regiment of Nikolai Bauman - 1500 people, the Reiter regiment of William Johnston - 1000 people, Moscow and city nobles and boyar children - 1500 people.

Thus, the total number of Russian troops at the time of the battle was about 28,600. Hetman Ivan Bespaly's detachment consisted of 6,660 Cossacks.

Coalition of Tatars and Vygovsky

Of the Polish detachment of Andrzej Potocki, who arrived to help Wygowski in December 1658, only the dragoon regiment of Colonel Jozsef Lonczynski (about 600 people in 11 banners) went to Konotop.

Progress of the battle

1st stage: encirclement of the detachment of Prince Semyon Pozharsky by the troops of the Crimean Khan

Tatar archer

Pozharsky's detachment, numbering about 6 thousand people, was ambushed. The Russian detachment was opposed by a 40,000-strong army, which included Crimean Tatars under the command of Khan Mehmed IV Giray and mercenaries. Pozharsky tried to turn the detachment towards the main attack of the Khan’s troops, but did not have time. Having fired thousands of arrows, the Tatars went on the attack. Of the reitar assigned to Pozharsky, only one regiment (Colonel Fanstrobel) “managed to turn the front and fire a volley from carbines right at point-blank range at the attacking Tatar cavalry. However, this could not stop the Horde, and after a short battle the regiment was exterminated.". According to Naima Celebi, “Tatar deadly arrows splashed like rain” .

Having a significant superiority in manpower, the Tatars managed to surround Pozharsky’s detachment and defeat it in close combat. According to Gordon, “The khan, being too quick for the Russians, surrounded and defeated them, so that few escaped”. The Cossacks of Hetman Bespaly also died, who wrote to Alexei Mikhailovich: “... in that battle, Sovereign, during the battle of Prince Semyon Petrovich Lvov and Prince Semyon Romanovich Pozharsky, everyone was mortally beaten, by force, Sovereign, through the troops of Vygovsky and the Tatars, several dozen people made their way into the army to the camp.”. Prince Semyon Pozharsky himself, fighting his enemies to the last opportunity, “I cut many people and extended my courage to greatness”, was captured.

The stubborn nature of the battle is evidenced by the descriptions of the injuries of those who managed to escape from the encirclement and get to Trubetskoy’s camp: Boris Semenov, son of Tolstoy, “cut with a saber on the right cheek and nose, and shot with a bow on the right hand below the elbow,” Mikhailo Stepanov, son of Golenishchev Kutuzov (ancestor of the great Field Marshal M.I. Kutuzov) “cut with a saber on both cheeks, and on the left shoulder, and on the left hand,” Ivan Ondreev’s son Zybin, “was cut on the head with a saber and shot along the right temple from eye to ear with a bow.” .

Hetman Vygovsky did not participate in this battle. Cossack regiments and Polish banners approached the crossing a few hours after the battle, at the second stage of the battle, when Pozharsky’s detachment was already surrounded.

2nd stage: defense of the crossing of the Kukolka (Sosnovka) river by Prince Grigory Romodanovsky

Having received information about the clash between Pozharsky’s detachment and large enemy forces, Trubetskoy sent cavalry units from the voivodeship regiment of Prince Grigory Romodanovsky to help: about 3,000 horsemen from nobles and boyar children, reiters and dragoons of the Belgorod regiment. Vygovsky’s troops came towards the crossing. Having learned from those who escaped from the encirclement that Pozharsky’s detachment had already been destroyed, Romodanovsky decided to organize a defense on the Kukolka River. To reinforce Romodanovsky, the reserve regiment of Colonel Venedikt Zmeev (1,200 people) and 500 nobles and boyar children from the voivodeship regiment of Andrei Buturlin were sent to Romodanovsky.

Having a threefold numerical superiority at the Kukolki crossing, Vygovsky was unable to achieve success. Romodanovsky, dismounting his cavalry, fortified himself on the right bank of the river near the village of Shapovalovka. The battle continued until late in the evening, all attacks of the Vygovites were repulsed. The author of the “Rhymed Chronicle” writes that Vygovsky even "burrowed into the ground" - “sat down in the trenches with dragoons and cannons”, But “Vygovsky’s Cossacks with guns attacked little, because due to the strong resistance of Moscow they did not want to be in danger”. Due to the low morale of the Cossacks, many of whom were recruited by force under the threat of giving their families into slavery to the Tatars, Vygovsky had to rely on Polish-Lithuanian banners.

By the evening, the dragoons of crown colonel Jozsef Lonczynski and the mercenaries of Vygowski (Lithuanian captain Jan Kosakovski) managed to take the crossing in battle. Sources do not report successes in the battle for crossing the Cossacks. Vygovsky himself admitted that it was "The dragoons were knocked out of the crossing" Russian units. However, the decisive factors in Romodanovsky’s defeat were the enemy’s entry into the rear of the defenders and the outflanking maneuver of the Crimean Khan from the Torgovitsa across the Kukolka (Sosnovka) River. Defector from Bespaly's regiments “having run from the Zadnepryans to Vygovsky... for a pardon he showed for himself a secret crossing in a swamp, a mile from there, which Moscow did not know about”(“Rhymed Chronicle”). “The Tatars at that time, coming from both sides, attacked the sovereign’s military men and mixed up regiments and hundreds of the sovereign’s military men.”, recalled the Don Cossacks E. Popov and E. Panov who participated in the battle. Romodanovsky had to retreat to the convoy of the army of Prince Trubetskoy. The retreat of Prince Romodanovsky ended the first day of the battle.

The siege of the camp of Prince Trubetskoy and the retreat of the Russian army

A mile from Konotop, Vygovsky and the khan tried to attack Trubetskoy’s army. This attempt again ended in failure. According to the prisoners, the losses of Vygovsky and the khan amounted to about 6,000 people. In this battle, Vygovsky’s mercenaries also suffered heavy losses. The hetman’s brothers, Colonels Yuri and Ilya Vygovsky, who commanded the mercenary banners, recalled that “at that time, during the attacks of the Cossack army and Tatars, many were killed, and the mayor, cornets, captains and other initial many people were killed”. The losses of the Russian side were minimal. Hetman Bespaly reported to the Tsar: “The enemy made cruel attacks on our camp, Sovereign, and, for the mercy of God... we fought back against those enemies and did not cause any hindrance, and we beat many of those enemies during the retreat and on the march, and we came, Sovereign, to the Seim River, God gave Great" .

Losses

Song of doom
Prince Semyon Pozharsky

Beyond the river, crossing,
Behind the village of Sosnovka,
Near Konotop, under the city,
Under the white stone wall,
In the meadows, green meadows,
Here are the royal regiments,
All regiments are sovereign,
And the companies were noble.
And from far, far away, from an open field,
Whether from the wide expanse,
If black crows flocked in a herd,
We were getting ready and coming together
Kalmyks with Bashkirs,
The Tatars were full of words
On the sovereign's shelves.
(excerpt)

According to Naim Chelebi, initially they wanted to release the Russian prisoners for a ransom (according to the usual practice of that time), but this was rejected “far-sighted and experienced Tatars”: we “... must use every effort to strengthen the enmity between the Russians and the Cossacks, and completely block their path to reconciliation; we must, without dreaming of wealth, decide to slaughter them all... In front of the Khan’s chamber, they cut off the heads of all significant captives, after which each warrior separately put to the sword the captives who fell to his share.” .

According to Russian archival data, “In total in Konotop at the big battle and on the withdrawal: the regiment of the boyar and governor Prince Alexei Nikitich Trubetskoy with his comrades of the Moscow rank, city nobles and boyar children, and newly baptized people, Murzas and Tatars, and Cossacks, and the Reitar system of the initial people and Reitar, dragoons, soldiers and archers were beaten and 4,769 people were captured.". The main losses fell on the detachment of Prince Pozharsky. The Reiter regiment of Antz Georg von Strobel (Fanstrobel) was almost completely lost, the losses of which amounted to 1070 people, including a colonel, lieutenant colonel, major, 8 captains, 1 captain, 12 lieutenants and warrant officers. The Zaporozhye army, according to the report of Hetman I. Bespaly, lost about 2,000 Cossacks. The cavalry accounted for the main losses of the army; during the entire battle, the infantry lost only 89 people killed and captured. The total losses of Prince Trubetskoy's army during the retreat to Putivl amounted to about 100 people.

Two okolnichi died or were executed after the battle: S. R. Pozharsky and S. P. Lvov, steward E. A. Buturlin, 3 attorneys: M. G. Sonin, I. V. Izmailov, Ya. G. Krekshin, 79 Moscow nobles and 164 residents. Total 249 "Moscow officials". Semyon Pozharsky, by order of the khan, was executed at his headquarters. The centurion of the Nezhinsky regiment Zabela, who was present at the execution of Pozharsky, told Prince Trubetskoy: “The khan questioned the devious prince Semyon Romanovich about the Tatar beating, but what kind of beating was unknown, and the okolnichy prince Semyon Romanovich spoke disgustingly to the khan and reprimanded the traitor Ivashka Vygovsky for treason under the khan. And for that, the de khan of the okolnichy prince Semyon Romanovich ordered him to surrender before him ... ". The reason is also given that Prince Pozharsky spat in the face of the Crimean Khan.

Trubetskoy had to leave three siege mortars, one of which was heavy, and four siege guns in the trenches near the city "that were lying on the ground", 600 cores and 100 grenades.

Vygovsky's losses amounted to about 4 thousand people, the Crimean Tatars lost 3-6 thousand people.

Historiography of the issue of the number and losses of armies near Konotop

In a number of narrative sources (Vygovsky's report, Polish reports of the 17th century, the chronicles of Samovidets and Velichko), the size of the Russian army is estimated from 100 to 150 thousand people, and losses from 30 to 50 thousand people. These data are also repeated by historians of the 19th century. So, according to Russian historian Sergei Solovyov, Trubetskoy’s army consisted of 100-150 thousand soldiers, and losses at Konotop amounted to about 30 thousand. His saying is known that “the flower of the Moscow cavalry, which made the happy campaigns of 1654 and 1655, died in one day.” Recently, these figures have been repeated by a number of Ukrainian historians. Yu. A. Mytsyk reports that “under the walls of Konotop a general battle took place between Russian and Ukrainian troops... then 50 thousand of the Moscow cavalry lay dead on the battlefield.” Kiev historian A.G. Bulvinsky concludes that the battles near Konotop in terms of “the total losses of the warring parties (40,000 people) ... surpass the famous battles of Korsun, Berestechko, Batog, Drozhi-pol and Chudnov.”

At the same time, participants in the battle on Vygovsky’s side cite colossal figures for the hetman’s losses - 12,000 dead Cossacks alone.

Such an assessment of events, as well as the number of participants and losses on the Russian side, is not confirmed by most modern historians, including Western ones. According to the American historian Brian Davis, “Solovyov’s statement is true only in the sense that at least 259 of those killed and captured belonged to officer ranks - tenant and above.”

Historians such as A.V. Malov, N.V. Smirnov, I.B. Babulin criticize the biased approach of Ukrainian researchers to sources. N.V. Smirnov notes that, for example, A.G. Bulvinsky, “judging by the marks on the sheets of use of RGADA documents, many Russian documents about the Battle of Konotop were known. However, he chose to use only one of them in his work, which does not relate to the battle of June 28, 1659 at all.”

In order to assemble a huge army of 100-150 thousand people, Russia had to send almost its entire army to Ukraine. According to the mobilization capacity of the Russian state in the middle of the 17th century, it is known that “according to the annual list (estimate) of 1651, the total number of military people was 133,210 people, having increased over the last twenty years by 40 thousand people, or 45%. These were: nobles and boyar children - 39,408 people (30%), archers - 44,486 (33.5%), Cossacks - 21,124 (15.5%), dragoons - 8107 (6%), Tatars - 9113 ( 6.5%), Ukrainians - 2371 (2%), gunners - 4245 (3%), foreigners - 2707 (2%) and serf guards."

It should be noted that historians have identified very serious inaccuracies in the narrative sources that Ukrainian authors prefer to use. The reports of Vygovsky and the Polish participants are partly propaganda sheets; they were distributed and quoted, acquiring new details and details. Hetman Vygovsky in his letter to Pototsky announced that “Romodanovsky did not run away.” The Polish chronicler Karachevsky reports that “There were several princes there on that campaign, not one left, everyone disappeared there, especially Prince Grigory Romodanovsky,... Andrei Buturlin...”. The Polish author of “Advice from the Camp” (Vygovsky) wrote: “The most important Moscow foreman who was then with the army: the first is Prince (Andrei) Vasilyevich Buturlin, Trubetskoy’s comrade; the other is Prince Semyon Romanovich Pozharsky, okolnichy; third - Grigory Grigorievich Romodanovsky; fourth - Prince Semyon Petrovich Lvov; fifth - Artamon Sergeevich Matveev, Streltsy Colonel of the Tsar's Order; sixth - Reiter Colonel Venedikt Andreevich Zmeev; the seventh is Colonel Streltsy Strubov. This foreman, like the troops, didn’t even lose his foot.” Although it is known that Grigory Romodanovsky, Andrei Buturlin, Artamon Matveev, and the future Duma General Venedikt Zmeev continued to serve for many more years.

Meaning and consequences of the battle

Trubetskoy's army, having suffered serious losses, could no longer take part in military operations on the territory of the Hetmanate. Voivode Sheremetev remained cut off in Kyiv and was forced to resort to punitive raids on surrounding towns and villages to avoid another attack. There were no longer barriers to the devastation of the southern borderlands of Russia - right up to Voronezh and Usman. In August 1659, the Crimeans made campaigns against 18 volosts, most of which were located beyond the Belgorod abatis line. As a result, 4,674 estates were burned and 25,448 people were captured. Trubetskoy was ordered to redeploy to the area between Putivl and Sevsk to repel further attacks.

According to the testimony of the Swedish diplomat A. Müller, in early July 1659 in Moscow, panic reigned among the townspeople who feared an attack by the Crimean Tatars; Rumors spread that Trubetskoy had lost more than 50 thousand people. This had an impact on the Russian-Swedish peace negotiations taking place at that time: on July 7, the Russian government agreed to return all Swedish prisoners of war to their homeland and urgently expelled the Swedish ambassadors. All sorts of criminals took advantage of the anxiety: from Kashirsky, Kolomensky and other districts, people fled to the cities, frightening the inhabitants with the Tatar offensive and, at the same time, robbing the roads and ruining villages. On August 6, Alexei Mikhailovich sent his siege commanders to six monasteries that were located near Moscow. The Tsar invited Patriarch Nikon to move from the unfortified Resurrection Monastery to the more reliable Kalyazin Monastery. In August, by order of Alexei Mikhailovich, intensive earthworks were carried out to strengthen Moscow. Solovyov claims that “the tsar himself and the boyars were often present during the work; "Nearby residents with their families and belongings filled Moscow, and there was a rumor that the sovereign was leaving for the Volga, for Yaroslavl."

However, after the clash at Konotop, the political authority of Hetman Vygovsky, the legitimacy of whose election to the hetman post after the death of Bohdan Khmelnytsky was initially questioned, fell even more. Disappointed with the hetman, Vygovsky's associates decided to overthrow their leader. Actually, the battle of Konotop was an attempt by military measures to strengthen the political and personal power of Vygovsky, which the Cossacks refused to recognize. The result was just the opposite. Immediately after Trubetskoy’s retreat to Putivl, peasant and urban uprisings broke out in the Hetmanate, fueled by the actions of the Crimean Tatars allied with Vygovsky, who robbed peasant and Cossack settlements and took women and children into slavery.

By the grace of God, from the great sovereign
Tsar and Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich,
All Great and Small and White Russia
autocrat, and many states and lands
Eastern and Western and Northern fatherland
and the grandfather and the heir and the sovereign and
owner, our royal majesty,
troops of the Zaporozhye recruit, before ours
royal majesty decree, hetman Ivan
Fingerless and the entire Zaporozhye army and
mob our great merciful sovereign
word.
In the current year 167, July on the 26th day...
declaring to us the great sovereign the faithful
service like you, being with our great
the sovereign's neighbor, the boyar and the governor
and the governor of Kazan, with Prince Alexei
Nikitich Trubetskoy with comrades and military personnel
people, near Konotop against traitors
stood and thought, and how are you and our
the great sovereign with military men against
our great sovereign traitors
Ivashki Vyhovsky and Cherkas and against
The Crimean Khan and the Tatars fought... And we
great sovereign, our royal majesty,
you, our royal majesty's subjects,
for your faithful services, we graciously congratulate you
we praise...
Written in our reigning city of Moscow,
summer 7167, August on the 5th day.
Sealed by state seal
seal, under the smooth bush.

His recent comrade-in-arms Ivan Bogun also spoke out against Vygovsky, raising an uprising in Right Bank Ukraine. At this time, Vygovsky besieged Gadyach, which was defended by Colonel Pavel Okhrimenko (Efremov) with 2 thousand Cossacks and 9 hundred "city people". The siege dragged on. Vygovsky and “The Crimean Khan stood with all his might for three weeks and attacked with cruel attacks”. During the siege of Gadyach “Prince Alexey Nikitich Trubetskoy... and Hetman Bezpaloy... sent from themselves to Zaporozhye to Serk so that he would repair the fishery over the Crimean uluses”. Zaporozhye Koshevoy ataman Ivan Serko attacked the Nogai uluses, fulfilling the instructions of Prince Trubetskoy and Hetman Bespaly. This forced the Crimean Khan to leave Vygovsky and leave with the army for Crimea. After this campaign, Ivan Serko with the Zaporozhian army moved against Vygovsky and defeated Colonel Timosh sent to meet him by Vygovsky with the army.

Soon, the cities of Romny, Gadyach, and Lokhvitsa that rebelled against Vygovsky were joined by Poltava, which had been pacified by Vygovsky in the previous year. Some clergy spoke out against Vygovsky: Maxim Filimonovich, archpriest from Nezhin, and Semyon Adamovich, archpriest from Ichnya. By September 1659, former allies of Vygovsky in the Battle of Konotop took the oath to the “White Tsar”: Kiev Colonel Ivan Ekimovich, Pereyaslavl - Timofey Tsetsyura, Chernigov - Anikei Silich.

Cossacks of Vygovsky's mercenaries, “who were Poles and Germans in Pereyaslavl, and in Nezhin, and in Chernigov, and in other places... they beat all three thousand people to death”. Colonel Timofey Tsetsyura brought the Kyiv governor Vasily Sheremetev “the banner of the traitor Ivashka Vyhovsky, and the cornet of Major Jan Zumir”. Chernigov Colonel Anikei Silich captured Colonels Yuri and Ilya Vygovsky, Major Zumer (Zumir) and others. On September 12, the prisoners and banners were sent to Moscow.

Colonel Timofey Tsetsyura, who fought on the side of Vygovsky near Konotop, told Sheremetev that the colonels and Cossacks fought with Russian military men “out of great captivity, fearing the traitor Ivashka Vygovsky, that he ordered many colonels who did not want to listen to be flogged, and shot and hanged others, and gave many Cossacks with their wives and children to the Crimea as Tatars” .

The Cossacks of the Kyiv, Pereyaslav and Chernigov regiments, as well as the Zaporozhye Cossacks under the command of Ivan Serko, nominated a new hetman - Yuri Khmelnytsky. At the Cossack Rada in the town of Garmanovtsy near Kiev, the election of a new hetman took place. “And the banner and the mace and the seal and all sorts of things the Troops took from Vygovsky and gave to Yuri”. In Garmanivtsi, the ambassadors of Vyhovsky, Sulim and Vereshchak were hacked to death, who a little earlier had signed the Gadyach Treaty - an agreement between Vyhovsky and the Poles, which provoked the military campaign of 1659.

On October 17, 1659, the Cossack Rada in Bila Tserkva finally approved Yuri Khmelnytsky as the new hetman of the Cossacks. Vyhovsky was forced to renounce power and officially transfer the hetman's kleinodes to Khmelnytsky. At the Rada, the entire Zaporozhian Army “was carried out under his Great Sovereign by the autocratic hand in eternal citizenship as before.” Vygovsky fled to Poland, where he was subsequently executed on charges of treason.

After his election, Yuri Khmelnytsky signed a new treaty with the Russian Empire in 1659, which significantly limited the power of the hetmans. The Russian-Polish War of 1654-1667, an episode of which was the Battle of Konotop, eventually ended with the Truce of Andrusovo, which entailed the division of the Hetmanate along the Dnieper into the Right Bank and the Left Bank. This was a consequence of the split and the legal consolidation of realities in the Hetmanate itself, where by 1663 the situation was consolidated with the election of two hetmans - pro-Polish on the Right Bank and pro-Russian on the Left Bank.

The greatest benefit from the Battle of Konotop was the Crimean Khan, who in August 1659, devastating the lands of Yeletsky, Livensky, Novosilsky, Mtsensky, Kursk, Bolkhovsky, Voronezh and other districts, drove more than 25,000 people to Crimea.

In 1667, by order of Hetman Ivan Bryukhovetsky, in memory of the Orthodox soldiers who died in the battle, the wooden Ascension Church, better known among the people under the name Sorokosvyatsky, was built. Now in its place stands the Holy Ascension Cathedral.

Battle of Konotop and modern times

Various interpretations by historians

A number of Ukrainian historians (Mikhail Grushevsky and others) evaluate Vygovsky’s actions that led to the Battle of Konotop as a struggle for independence. Ukrainian historians actively began to study the activities of Hetman Vyhovsky in the late 90s of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. The term “Ukrainian-Russian war” even appeared in Ukrainian historiography, which was the subject of, in particular, the dissertation of the Kyiv historian A. G. Bulvinsky “The Ukrainian-Russian War of 1658-1659.” A feature of modern Ukrainian historiography of the Hetmanate period is that, as a rule, narrative sources are taken as the basis for scientific research. At the same time, chronicles, letters, memoirs and similar texts, often recounting events from third parties and sometimes contradicting each other, are declared the most authoritative source.

According to the historian A.V. Marchukov, “the modern state existence of Ukraine also determines the tendency towards an appropriate depiction of the past, designed to lay a historical foundation for independence, demonstrate the deep national and state traditions of Ukraine and the Ukrainian nation and prove the legality and legitimacy of its existence as a subject of international relations ".

Among Russian historians (for more details, see section), in connection with the critical approach to the research methods of a number of Ukrainian colleagues, other data on the composition of armies, etc., a different understanding of the battle, its meaning and role in the historical context prevails.

Events and policies

Notes

1. At the time of the battle, the project of creating an autonomous Grand Duchy of Russia had already been rejected by the Polish Sejm. “Under the influence of the Polish public and the strong dictate of the Vatican, the Sejm in May 1659 adopted the Gadyach Treaty in a more than truncated form. The idea of ​​the Russian Principality was generally destroyed, as was the provision for maintaining an alliance with Moscow. The liquidation of the union was also cancelled, as well as a number of other positive articles.”. Tairova-Yakovleva T. G. Ivan Vygovsky // Unicorn. Materials on the military history of Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages and Early Modern times. - M., 2009, issue. 1. - P. 249. - ISBN 978-5-91791-002-4
2. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 15.
3. Bulvinsky A. G. Ukrainian historical magazine. - K., 1998, No. 3. - P. 77.
4. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 13.
5. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. June 28, 1659. - M.: Tseykhgauz, 2009. - pp. 13-16. - ISBN 978-5-9771-0099-1
6. Davies B. L.. - Routledge, UK: Taylor & Francis, 2007. - P. 128-131. - ISBN 978-0-415-23986-8
7. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 14.
8. Babulin I. B. Prince Semyon Pozharsky and the Battle of Konotop. - P. 69.
9. Novoselsky A. A. The struggle of the Moscow state with the Tatars in the second half of the 17th century // Research on the history of the era of feudalism (Scientific heritage). - M.: Nauka, 1994. - P. 25. - 221 p. - ISBN 5-02-008645-2
10. Smirnov N.V. How the decline began near Konotop... (myths and reality) // Works on Russian history. Collection of articles in memory of the 60th anniversary of I. V. Dubov. - M.: Parad, 2007. - P. 334-353.
11. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 36.
12. Bulvinsky A. G. Battle of Konotop 1659 r. // Ukrainian historical magazine. - K., 1998, No. 4. - P. 35.
13. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - pp. 37-39.
14. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - pp. 23-24.
15. From the press conference of Tatyana Tairova-Yakovleva, director of the Center for the Study of the History of Ukraine at St. Petersburg State University. lenta.ru (10-07-2010). Archived from the original on August 28, 2011. Retrieved September 3, 2010.
16. “We, Bogdan Khmelnytsky, hetman, with the Army of your Tsar’s Majesty Zaporizhian, do not resist your wisdom above this” Golubtsov I. A. Two unknown letters from the correspondence of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich with Hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky in 1656 // Slavic Archive. - M., 1958.
17. In 1658, near Varva, the following confirmed their oath: G. Gulyanitsky, T. Tsetsyura, I. Skorobogatko, as well as the Pereyaslavsky, Kanevsky and Cherkasy regiments with all the senior officers. In Kyiv, on November 9, 1658, the following oaths were confirmed for the entire Zaporozhian Army: I. Vygovsky, O. Gogol, A. Beshtanka, O. Privitsky. But soon they changed their oath again. For details see: Bulvinsky A. G. Babulin I. B. ISBN 978-5-91791-002-4
18. Chentsova V. G. The Eastern Church and Russia after the Pereyaslav Rada 1654-1658. Documentation. - M.: Humanitarian, 2004. - P. 116. - ISBN 5-98499-003-2
19. ... Vygovskaya sent his envoys to the king, Pavel Teterya and Tarnovsky, to beat him with his forehead... And those envoys, being in Warsaw, swore allegiance to the king and the entire Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth... the Crimean Khan and the Horde made an alliance with Vygovsky near Bykov, and then Vygovsky and the colonels swore allegiance to the khan that they all be with him and help him fight against any enemy... 1659, October (not earlier than the 14th) - From the questioning speeches of the captured Polish-German mercenary Ivan Vygovsky, Major Jan Zumer. (RGADA, original)/O. A. Kurbatov, A. V. Malov “Documents on the beginning of the civil war in Ukraine during the hetmanship of Ivan Vygovsky,” in press
20. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 4.
21. Babulin I. B. The campaign of the Belgorod regiment to Ukraine in the fall of 1658 // Unicorn. Materials on the military history of Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages and Early Modern times. - M., 2009, issue. 1. - ISBN 978-5-91791-002-4
22. Babulin I. B. The campaign of the Belgorod regiment to Ukraine in the fall of 1658 // . - pp. 262-264.
23. Chronology of highly famous noble hetmans // South Russian Chronicles, opened and published by N. Belozersky. - Kyiv, 1856. - T. 1. - P. 115.
24. Babulin I. B. The campaign of the Belgorod regiment to Ukraine in the fall of 1658 // . - pp. 275-278.
25. Bulvinsky A. G. Pokhіd kn. G. G. Romodanovsky to Ukraine in the spring of 1658. // New politics. - 1998. No. 1. - P. 23.
26. Babulin I. B. The campaign of the Belgorod regiment to Ukraine in the fall of 1658 // Unicorn. Materials on the military history of Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages and Early Modern times. - M., 2009, issue. 1. - pp. 283-284. - ISBN 978-5-91791-002-4
27. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 9.
28. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 10.
29. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 12.
30. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 7-17.
31. Babulin I. B. Prince Semyon Pozharsky and the Battle of Konotop. - Institute of Russian History RAS. - St. Petersburg. : Russian Symphony, 2009. - pp. 63-70. - ISBN 978-5-91041-047-7
32. Soldier formation.
33. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 11.
34. Babulin I. B. Prince Semyon Pozharsky and the Battle of Konotop. - P. 67.
35. Mitsik Yu. A. Add-ons. No. 3. 1659, linden 23 - Tabir of Hetman Vigovsky near Putivl. - News sheet (“avizi”) about the victory near Konotop // Hetman Ivan Vigovsky. - K.: KM Academy, 2004. - P. 73-74. - ISBN 966-518-254-4
36. Kroll P.Źrodło do dziejow bitwy pod Konotopem w 1659 roku z Archiwum Radziwiłłow w Warszawie // Studia historyczno-wojskowe. - 2008. - Vol. II. 2007. - P. 280. - 320 p. - ISBN 9788389943293
37. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 18, 23.
38. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 22.
39. Kazim-Bek M. A. Comparative extracts from different writers related to the history of the Seven Planets // Journal of the Ministry of Public Education. - St. Petersburg. : Printing houses of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1835, No. 6. - P. 356.
40. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - pp. 22-23.
41. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 24.
42. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 26.
43. The outflanking maneuver of the Khan's army from the side of the Traders is reconstructed by Babulin based on the location of the Crimean Tatar troops at the first stage of the battle; the sources indicate only one direction, indicated on the diagram from the side of Vygovsky's troops. The Khan's army could have maneuvered from this side.
44. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 25.
45. Solovyov S. M. History of Russia from ancient times. Chapter 1. Continuation of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich. Archived from the original on August 19, 2011. Retrieved September 23, 2010.
46. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 27.
47. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 28.
48. Babulin I. B. Prince Semyon Pozharsky and the Battle of Konotop. - P. 110.
49. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 33.
50. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 33-35.
51. Babulin I. B. Prince Semyon Pozharsky and the Battle of Konotop. - P. 111.
52. Babulin I. B. Prince Semyon Pozharsky and the Battle of Konotop. - P. 112.
53. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 35.
54. Babulin I. B. Prince Semyon Pozharsky and the Battle of Konotop. - P. 121.
55. Babulin I. B. Prince Semyon Pozharsky and the Battle of Konotop. - P. 123.
56. Babulin I. B. Battle of Konotop. - P. 35.

On July 8, 1659, the Battle of Konotop began - one of the most controversial episodes in history. In Ukraine it is called the victory of the Ukrainian army over the Russian. For Russian historians, this battle is just an episode of the Russian-Polish war, overshadowed by the civil strife of the Cossacks.

Split

Troubles and discord in the Hetmanate appeared under Bohdan Khmelnytsky. In particular, discord emerged after the treaty of alliance with Charles X, which the hetman concluded in 1656. According to the agreement, Khmelnitsky undertook to send 12 thousand Cossacks to help the Swedish king for the war with Poland, with which not long before the Moscow Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich had made peace. The hetman himself supported this peace.
Ivan Vygovsky, who received hetmanship after Khmelnytsky’s death, turned out to be a much more controversial figure. If he still found support among the right-bank Cossacks, he was clearly unpopular among the left-bank Cossacks. The split, which was geographically marked by the Dnieper line, defined two vectors: the first with Hetman Vygovsky was oriented towards Poland, and the second with Hetman Bespaly was oriented towards the Moscow state.

Invasion or pacification?

Against the backdrop of the struggle for power in the Hetmanate, as well as the raids of Vygovsky’s Cossacks and Crimean Tatars on border Russian fortresses, Alexei Mikhailovich intended to persuade the hetman to peace. But after unsuccessful attempts to reach an agreement, the Moscow Tsar decides to send an army under the leadership of Alexei Trubetskoy to establish order in the troubled lands.

This is where fundamental disagreements begin with Ukrainian historiography, which calls the campaign of the Russian army nothing less than an invasion of Ukraine and interference in the internal political affairs of another state.
Were there any grounds for a military campaign? According to the “Chronology of the Highly-Glorious Clearly Noble Hetmans”: “This Vygovsky, due to his lust for power, changed the Russian state and gave many cities, towns, villages and villages of the Little Russians to the Horde for plunder.”

What for Moscow was a threat to the security of its southern borders, in the eyes of Ukrainian historians is only a manifestation of the desire for national self-determination.
Tatyana Tairova-Yakovleva, director of the St. Petersburg Center for the Study of the History of Ukraine, takes a rather balanced approach to assessing the confrontation: “The essence of the conflict was the degree of autonomy of the Ukrainian hetmanate and the desire of the Russian governors to expand their powers there.”

Son vs father

Vygovsky twice swore allegiance to the Russian Tsar, and twice betrayed him. Ultimately, in September 1658, the hetman signed the Gadyach Peace Treaty with Poland, according to which Little Russia was to once again become part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. At the same time, an alliance is concluded with the Crimean Khan Mehmed-Girey. Now, in the person of strong neighbors, Vygovsky had good support for confronting Moscow.

The chronicler Samoilo Velichko then wrote: “Vygovsky threw himself back to the Poles, bringing a great imprisonment, much rebellion, bloodshed and extreme ruin to Little Russian Ukraine.” According to some estimates, in the first year of the new hetman's reign, Ukraine lost about 50 thousand inhabitants.

Even in the camp of his comrades - the detachment of Ivan Gulyanitsky, who defended Konotop from Trubetskoy's troops, they were dissatisfied with Vygovsky's policy. And the Little Russian Cossacks with Hetman Bespaly completely sided with the Russian Tsar. “A terrible Babylonian pandemonium... One place is fighting against another, son against father, father against son,” wrote an eyewitness to what was happening.
In the battle with the Moscow army, Vygovsky used “coalition forces”, which included Poles, Lithuanians, Germans, Crimean Tatars and his own regiments. Vygovsky spent a million rubles inherited from Khmelnitsky to prepare for the battle.

Adventure or trap?

The key episode of the Battle of Konotop was the defeat of the cavalry led by Pozharsky and Lvov near the Sosnovka River. The Russian cavalry, carried away by the pursuit of Cossack detachments and German dragoons, was surrounded by the Tatar army of Mehmed-Girey of many thousands and was almost completely destroyed.
However, it is not known for certain whether this was an unforgivable gamble on the part of the Russian commanders, which allowed the detachment to go deep behind enemy lines and get stuck in the soft river sand, or whether it was a trick by Vygovsky, who lured the Russian army into a deadly trap. Few managed to escape from the encirclement.

Strengths of the parties

Ukrainian and Russian data on the number of troops on both sides differ greatly. The first claim that the Ukrainian lands were invaded by a 100,000-strong, and according to some sources, 150,000-strong Muscovite army. In particular, these data are taken from the works of the Russian historian Sergei Solovyov, who cited similar figures.

According to Solovyov, the losses of Russian troops were significant - about 30 thousand. But the Ukrainian historian Yuri Mytsyk determines an even greater number of deaths. In his opinion, “then 50 thousand of the Moscow cavalry lay dead on the battlefield.”
True, obvious inconsistencies periodically appear in the calculations of Ukrainian researchers. Thus, Igor Syundyukov writes that the Tatars came from the rear and were able to “surround the tsar’s army, divide it into separate detachments and completely defeat it.”

At the same time, the author counts at least 70 thousand people in the Russian army, and at Vygovsky’s disposal, according to his data, there were “16 thousand soldiers plus 30-35 thousand Tatar cavalry.” It is difficult to imagine that a 70,000-strong army was surrounded and completely defeated by troops whose number barely exceeded 50,000.
Russian historians, in particular N.V. Smirnov, note that Moscow could not assemble an army of 100-150 thousand people, otherwise the Russian state would have to send all its troops and even more to Ukraine. According to the Rank Order, the total number of military men in 1651 was 133,210 people.

The following data appears in Russian historiography: the Moscow army with the Cossacks of Hetman Bespaly did not exceed 35 thousand people, and on the part of the “coalition forces” there were approximately 55-60 thousand. The losses of the Russian army amounted to 4769 warriors (mainly the cavalry of Pozharsky and Lvov) and 2000 Cossacks The enemy, according to Russian historians, lost from 3,000 to 6,000 Tatars and 4,000 Cossacks.

Historical metamorphoses

In March 2008, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko signed a decree to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Battle of Konotop. In particular, he instructed the Cabinet of Ministers to consider the issue of renaming streets, avenues and squares in honor of the heroes of the Battle of Konotop. The same instruction was given to the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Crimea and the Sevastopol city administration.
Yushchenko called the Battle of Konotop “one of the biggest and most glorious victories of Ukrainian weapons.” However, the comments of high-ranking officials do not explain who was defeated and what they mean by “Ukrainian weapons.”

The decree caused quite a strong public response, both in Ukraine itself and in Russia. To “bewilderment and regret” on the part of Moscow, Kyiv responded that the celebration of historical dates is an internal matter of Ukraine.
Historian Dmitry Kornilov sees this as an attempt by Ukrainian politicians to once again “kick Russia”, and the assessment of the role of the Russian state in that tragic conflict is of secondary importance.

“Almost none of the historians wants to admit an absolutely indisputable fact: the Ukrainian people simply did not want to betray Moscow, the people were faithful to the decisions of the Pereyaslav Rada,” the researcher notes. Ukrainian historians and politicians continue to ignore the unpleasant fact of the division of Ukrainian society into “anti-Moscow” and “pro-Moscow” parties.

In Ukraine, one of the most important events in the history of Square and Europe is considered the great battle of Konotop in 1659, when 15,000 Ukrainians under the command of Hetman Vyhovsky destroyed 150,000 Russian invaders and the entire flower of the Russian nobility.

In 2008, President Yushchenko signed a decree to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Battle of Konotop. This great victory is sometimes celebrated in Ukraine almost as “Victory Day in the Second World War” - with historical reconstructions and the presence of top officials of the state, monuments were built, commemorative coins were issued. In Crimea and Sevastopol, the administration was instructed to consider renaming streets in honor of the participants in this battle.

Commemorative coin of the victory over the Russians at Konotop. Congratulations to Russians on the 350th anniversary of the Battle of Konotop during a speech by President Yushchenko

Monument to the victory over the Russians at Konotop

Surprisingly, in Russia little is known about this terrible tragedy and shameful page in our history. How did it really happen?

The Battle of Konotop is one of the episodes of the Russian-Polish War, which lasted from 1654 to 1667. It began when, after repeated requests from Hetman Bohdan Khmelnitsky, the Zemsky Sobor accepted the Zaporozhye army with people and lands into Russian citizenship. During this war, Russia, barely recovered from the difficult times of unrest, had to fight not only with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (the union of Lithuania and Poland with the occupied lands of the Russian voivodeship (Little Russia)), but also with Sweden and the Crimean Khanate, that is, in general something, with everyone.

Dying, Bohdan Khmelnytsky bequeathed the hetmanship to his son Yuri, but part of the Cossack elite, with the secret support of the Polish gentry, appointed Ivan Vygovsky, a gentry who had once served in the regular troops of the Polish king Vladislav IV, as Cossack hetman. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich approved the election of the hetman. However, ordinary Cossacks did not like the hetman, especially in the eastern part of Little Russia. As the Greek Metropolitan of Colossia, Michael, who was passing through Little Rus' in December 1657, said, “ The Trans-Dnieper Cherkasy people love Hetman Ivan Vygovsky. And those on this side of the Dnieper, those Cherkasy people and all the rabble, do not like him, but are afraid of the fact that he is a Pole, and so that he and the Poles do not have any advice.” As a result, the hetman betrayed the tsar and went over to the side of the Poles, accepting the title of “Great Hetman of the Russian Principality” (note, RUSSIAN, not Ukrainian).

Vygovsky's actions, aimed at new subordination to the Polish Crown, caused strong resistance among the Cossacks. The Zaporozhye Sich, Poltava and Mirgorod regiments opposed Vygovsky. In order to impose his power on the Cossacks by force, Vygovsky had, in addition to the Polish king, also swear allegiance to the Crimean Khan Mehmed IV Giray, so that he would provide him military assistance.

Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, not wanting war, began negotiations with Vygovsky about a peaceful resolution of the conflict, but they did not bring results. In the fall of 1658, the Belgorod regiment of Prince Grigory Romodanovsky entered Ukraine.

In November, Vygovsky asked for peace and confirmed his allegiance to the Russian Tsar, and in December he again changed his oath, uniting with the Tatars and the Polish detachment of Potocki.

On March 26, 1659, Prince Alexei Trubetskoy moved against Vygovsky. For 40 days Trubetskoy tried to persuade him to resolve the matter peacefully, but to no avail. After which he led his army to the siege of Konotop.

This is how many troops the Russian army had (lists from the discharge order dated April 11, 1659):
The army of Prince Trubetskoy - 12302 people.
Army of Prince Romodanovsky - 7333.
Prince Kurakin's army - 6472.

At the time of the Battle of Konotop, due to losses and the sending of V. Filosofov’s order to the Romen garrison, there were 5,000 people in Prince Kurakin’s regiment. In June 1659, the regiment of Prince Trubetskoy was joined by: the soldier (reinforced engineering) regiment of Nikolai Bauman - 1500 people, the Reiter regiment of William Johnston - 1000 people, Moscow and city nobles and boyar children - 1500 people.

Thus, the total number of Russian troops at the time of the battle was about 28,600 people.

The total number of the coalition of Tatars and Vygovsky:

The army of Khan Mehmed Giray: about 30-35 thousand people.
Cossack regiments of Hetman Vygovsky: 16 thousand.
Polish-Lithuanian mercenaries: from 1.5 to 3 thousand.
Total: the total number of troops of Vygovsky’s coalition ranged from 47,500 to 54,000 people.

That is, 28,000 versus 47,000-54,000. It is unclear where Ukrainian historians got the remaining 122,000 “polite people” from. Apparently, Putin is personally to blame for falsifying Russian historical documents (it was he who persuaded Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich to do this in exchange for a discount on gas). And the certificates with lists of servicemen, according to which Russian troops then received their salaries, were specially changed...

The battle itself

On June 28, 1659, the Crimean Tatars attacked the small mounted guard detachments guarding the camp of Trubetskoy’s Russian army. Prince Pozharsky, with 4,000 servicemen and 2,000 Zaporozhye Cossacks loyal to the Russian Tsar, attacked the Tatars of Nureddin Sultan Adil-Girey and the German dragoons, defeated them, defeated them and drove them in a south-eastern direction. Note, about 6000, not 150000!

Scotsman Patrick Gordon described what happened: “ Pozharsky pursued the Tatars through the road and swamp. Khan, who had been standing unnoticed with his army in the valley, suddenly burst out of there in three huge masses like clouds.”

Pozharsky's detachment of about 6 thousand people was ambushed. The Russian detachment was opposed by an army of almost 40 thousand, which included Crimean Tatars under the command of Khan Mehmed IV Giray and mercenaries. Pozharsky tried to turn the detachment towards the main attack of the Khan’s troops, but did not have time. Having fired thousands of arrows, the Tatars went on the attack. Of the reitar assigned to Pozharsky, only one regiment (Colonel Fanstrobel) “managed to turn the front and fire a volley from carbines directly at point-blank range at the attacking Tatar cavalry. However, this could not stop the Horde, and after a short battle the regiment was exterminated.” Having a significant superiority in manpower, the Tatars managed to surround Pozharsky’s detachment and defeat it in close combat. This was no longer a battle, but a beating by an enemy who outnumbered the Russian vanguard by 6 times. At this moment, that is, to the preliminary analysis, when the outcome of the battle was already practically decided, Vygovsky approached with his 16,000. This, in fact, is what his Great Victory consisted of.

So we may not be talking about the death of 150,000 Russian troops, but about the destruction of the 6,000th vanguard, which broke away from the main forces (22,000 people) and was ambushed. And even this local defeat of the Russian army was inflicted not by Hetman Vygovsky, with his right-bank Cossacks, but by the Crimean Tatars.

The further fate of the Russians who were ambushed was sad. According to Gordon, “The khan, being too quick for the Russians, surrounded and defeated them, so that only a few escaped”. The Cossacks of Hetman Bespaly also died, who wrote to Alexei Mikhailovich: “... in that battle, Sovereign, during the battle of Prince Semyon Petrovich Lvov and Prince Semyon Romanovich Pozharsky, everyone was mortally beaten, by force, Sovereign, through the troops of Vygovsky and the Tatars, several dozen people made their way into the army to the camp.”. Prince Semyon Pozharsky himself, fighting his enemies to the last opportunity, “I cut many people and extended my courage to greatness”, was captured.

Pozharsky himself was executed by the khan already in captivity, when he called Vygovsky a traitor and spat in the khan’s face. The rest of the prisoners were also executed. According to Naim Chelebi, initially they wanted to release the Russian prisoners for a ransom (according to the usual practice of that time), but this was rejected by the “far-sighted and experienced Tatars”: we “...must use every effort to strengthen the enmity between the Russians and the Cossacks, and completely block their path to reconciliation; we must, without dreaming of wealth, decide to slaughter them all... In front of the Khan’s chamber, they cut off the heads of all significant captives, after which each warrior separately put to the sword the captives who fell to his share.”

The stubborn nature of the battle is evidenced by the descriptions of the injuries of those who managed to escape from the encirclement and get to Trubetskoy’s camp: Boris Semenov, son of Tolstoy, “cut with a saber on the right cheek and nose, and shot with a bow on the right hand below the elbow,” Mikhailo Stepanov, son of Golenishchev Kutuzov (ancestor of the great Field Marshal M.I. Kutuzov) “cut with a saber on both cheeks, and on the left shoulder, and on the left hand,” Ivan Ondreev’s son Zybin, “was cut on the head with a saber and shot on the right temple from eye to ear with a bow.”

Further military operations of the coalition against Russian troops were not particularly successful.

On June 29, the troops of Vygovsky and the Crimean Khan advanced to the camp of Prince Trubetskoy near the village of Podlipnoye, trying to take the camp under siege. By this time, Prince Trubetskoy had already completed the unification of the camps of his army. An artillery duel ensued.

On the night of June 30, Vygovsky decided to attack. The attack ended in failure, and as a result of a counterattack by the Russian army, Vygovsky’s troops were driven out of their fortifications. During the night battle, Vygovsky himself was wounded. A little more, and Trubetskoy’s army “would have taken possession of (our) camp, for they had already broken into it”, - the hetman himself recalled. The troops of the hetman and khan were driven back 5 versts.

Despite the success of the night counterattack of Trubetskoy's army, the strategic situation in the Konotop area changed. Further besieging Konotop, having a large enemy in the rear, became pointless. On July 2, Trubetskoy lifted the siege of the city, and the army, under the cover of Gulyai-Gorod, began to retreat to the Seim River.

Vygovsky and Khan tried to attack Trubetskoy’s army again. And again this attempt ended in failure. According to the prisoners, the losses of Vygovsky and the khan amounted to about 6,000 people. In this battle, Vygovsky’s mercenaries also suffered heavy losses. The hetman’s brothers, Colonels Yuri and Ilya Vygovsky, who commanded the mercenary banners, recalled that “at that time, during the attacks of the Cossack army and Tatars, many were killed, and the mayor, cornets, captains and other initial many people were killed”. The losses of the Russian side were minimal. Hetman Bespaly reported to the Tsar: “The enemy made cruel attacks on our camp, Sovereign, and, for the mercy of God... we fought back against those enemies and did not cause any hindrance, and we beat many of those enemies during the retreat and on the march, and we came, Sovereign, to the Seim River, God gave Great
On July 4, it became known that the Putivl governor, Prince Grigory Dolgorukov, came to the aid of the army of Prince Trubetskoy. But Trubetskoy ordered Dolgorukov to return to Putivl, saying that he had enough strength to defend against the enemy and did not need help.

According to Russian archival data, “In total in Konotop at the big battle and on the withdrawal: the regiment of the boyar and governor Prince Alexei Nikitich Trubetskoy with his comrades of the Moscow rank, city nobles and boyar children, and newly baptized people, Murzas and Tatars, and Cossacks, and the Reitar system of the initial people and Reitars, dragoons, soldiers and archers were beaten and 4,769 people were captured.". The main losses fell on the detachment of Prince Pozharsky, who was ambushed on the first day. Not 150,000 or even 30,000, but 4,769. Almost all of them died in the battle with the Tatars, and not with the rich lad and hetman of the Russian principality Vygovsky.

After the retreat of the Russian troops, the Tatars began to plunder Ukrainian (although the word “Ukraine” did not exist at that time) farms (on the left bank of Ukraine), burned 4,674 houses and captured more than 25,000 civilian peasants.

What do we end up with?

1. Ukrainians did not participate in the Battle of Konotop. The hetman of the self-proclaimed RUSSIAN principality Vygovsky and the subjects of this RUSSIAN principality, respectively, Russians, mainly right-bank Cossacks, took part.

2. If we assume that those Russian Cossacks were still the ancestors of today’s Ukrainians and they can to some extent be called proto-Ukrainians, although they themselves did not consider themselves such, then even in this case all the credit goes to Vygovsky, who betrayed his kings 4 times ( 2 times Polish and 2 times Russian), and his Cossacks is that: a) he set the Tatars against the Russian and Zaporozhye Cossacks and b) took part at the final stage in finishing off the Russian vanguard, despite the fact that against the 1st Russian there were 8 Tatars, Cossacks, Lithuanians and Germans.

3. The Russian army was not defeated, but under pressure from a numerically superior enemy it was forced to lift the siege of Konotop. The pursuit of the Russian army was unsuccessful and resulted in heavy losses on the part of the coalition and minimal losses on the part of the Russians. Russian losses amounted to only 4,769 people killed and captured, that is, approximately 1/6 of the army and 2,000 left-bank Cossacks. Vygovsky and the Tatars lost from 7,000 to 10,000. The Russian-Polish war itself ended in the victory of our state, Smolensk, present-day eastern Ukraine, was returned, and our enemies were defeated and soon ceased to exist.

After 150 years, Lithuania, Poland, the Russian Voivodeship, the Crimean Khanate, the Nogai hordes and others, part of the Swedish kingdom and the Ottoman Empire became part of the Russian Empire.

And what are our Ukrainian brothers celebrating?

The victory of the 35,000-strong Tatar army over 4,000 Russians and 2,000 Zaporozhye Cossacks lured into the swamp.

Who is being honored?

A man who considered himself the hetman of the RUSSIAN principality, betrayed his sovereigns 4 times, set the Tatars against his people and began an era called “Ruin” in Ukraine.

Where did the 150,000-strong Russian army and 30,000-50,000 killed come from?

And strangely enough, in the mid-19th century in the works of our compatriot Solovyov, who was criticized by historians and even his own friends during his lifetime, not only in Russia, but also abroad.

According to American historian Brian Davis, “Solovyov’s statement is true only in the sense that at least 259 of those killed and captured belonged to the ranks of officers. Based on the number of officers and nobles, Solovyov drew the number 150,000.

It must be said that in 1651 the total number of military men in Russia was 133,210 people. What part of this army do you think Russia could send to fight the rebellious hetman if it waged military operations from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and the main enemy forces were concentrated in the north-west of the country near the borders with Sweden, Poland and the Baltic states, and Was it necessary to leave garrisons in cities and fortresses - from Irkutsk to Ivan-Gorod and from Arkhangelsk to Astrakhan? The country was restless: after all, Razin’s uprising would soon begin...

You can argue about the number of armies as much as you like and invent as much as you like, but under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich there was such a thing as lists of regiments and reports of losses by rank order. The lists of losses from the Rank Order are not a chronicle or annals of a private person who does not have accurate information, but a documentary report provided by the governor directly to the tsar. The paperwork documentation of Russian orders was compiled primarily in the interests of control over the finances and supplies of the armed forces, therefore it was carefully monitored and only real numbers were written, and this information is the only correct one, hence the human-accurate numbers of warriors included in the regiments and the exact number of Russian casualties. And there was a strong spread of losses among Vygodsky’s army and the Crimean Tatars: they simply did not keep such statistics, but estimated the number by eye or as anyone wanted...

In 1654, the Zaporozhye army accepted the citizenship of the Russian Tsar, and this began the Russian-Polish war. At first it went well for the Russian troops; a temporary Vilna truce was signed. But after the death of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnitsky, a struggle for power in the Hetmanate began among the Cossack elite. Some of the Cossacks went over to the side of the Poles. Khmelnitsky wanted to give the mace to his son Yuri, but he was still small. Therefore, during Yuri’s early childhood, the hetman’s duties were performed by the clerk Ivan Vygovsky, who later, with the support of part of the Cossacks and the Polish gentry, became hetman. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich approved his election. However, Vygovsky was not popular with the left-bank regiments, who were afraid that he was a Pole.

Hetman Ivan Vygovsky

In 1658, Vygovsky finally took the side of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the war and concluded the Gadyach Treaty with it, according to which he was promised the creation of the Russian Principality. However, the Sejm approved only the title of Great Hetman, but not the creation of a principality. The Cossacks were dissatisfied with their subordination to Poland; the Zaporozhye Sich and other Cossack regiments opposed Vygovsky. To strengthen his position, the hetman turned to the Crimean Khan Mehmed IV Giray for support and swore allegiance to him.

With the troops of the Crimean Tatars, Vygovsky managed to brutally suppress the Poltava uprising in June 1658. This became the beginning of the civil war in the Hetmanate, called “Ruin”. Already in August, the hetman opposed the Russian troops: he participated in the sieges of Kyiv, encouraged Tatar raids, and attacked Russian fortresses. The troops of Prince Grigory Romodanovsky entered Ukraine, who was supported by the Cossacks who opposed the hetman. Already in the fall, Vygovsky requested a truce and confirmed his loyalty to the Russian Tsar. But in December, having united with the Tatar and Polish troops, he again went against the Russian troops. Vygovsky became a threat to the southern borders of the Russian state, and after rumors about Vygovsky’s new campaign against Kyiv, a large campaign of Russian troops against the Hetmanate was organized.

Tatar archer

Prince Alexei Trubetskoy, who moved against Vygovsky in March 1659, first tried to persuade the hetman to peace and spent about 40 days in negotiations. When it became clear that it was impossible to reach an agreement, Trubetskoy besieged Konotop, where Vygovsky sent Tatars, who robbed and burned neighboring villages, ravaged cities and took prisoners. The troops of princes Kurakin and Romodanovsky, as well as Hetman Bespaly, came to the rescue. Trubetskoy tried to take the city by storm, but the attack failed. 252 people were killed and about 2,000 were injured. The prince returned to siege tactics. By June 1659, the townspeople demanded to surrender the city, and desertions began. But the situation was turned around by the main forces of Vygovsky and the Crimean army approaching Konotop.

On June 28, 1659, the Crimean Tatars attacked the guard detachments guarding the camp of Trubetskoy’s Russian army, after which they fled across the Kukolka River. A detachment of four thousand was sent to the river under the command of princes Semyon Pozharsky and Semyon Lvov, and the Cossack Cossacks, loyal to the Russian Tsar, also went with them. In total, the total number of Russian troops was 28,600 people, and Bespaly’s detachment was 6,660 Cossacks. The coalition troops, which included Crimean Tatars, Polish mercenaries and the troops of Vygovsky himself, numbered more than 50,000 people.

Reconstruction of the first stage of the battle, Pozharsky’s detachment was ambushed.

When Pozharsky’s detachment chased the Tatars, he was attacked from the rear by the khan’s troops emerging from the forest. The 6,000-strong detachment could not resist the 40,000-strong army of Mehmed IV Giray. The Tatars surrounded Pozharsky's troops and defeated them in close combat. Few were saved; Pozharsky himself, who fought to the last, was captured. Vygovsky did not participate in the battle; he and the Poles arrived when a detachment of Russian troops was surrounded.

Trubetskoy, having learned about the state of affairs, sent Pozharsky to help the cavalry units of Prince Romodanovsky’s regiment, but Vygovsky’s troops had already arrived. Romodanovsky, having learned that Pozharsky’s detachment had been destroyed, began organizing the defense on Kukolka. About 2,000 more people went to help him. Even having a threefold superiority in numbers at the river crossing over an almost 5,000-strong detachment of Russian troops, Vygovsky was unable to achieve success. All attacks of the Vygovites were repulsed, there was a weak morale in the Cossack ranks, since many were recruited under the threat of giving their families into slavery to the Tatars. Vygovsky was forced to rely on Polish-Lithuanian banners. By evening, Vygovsky still managed to take the crossing with a fight. Romodanovsky had to retreat to the convoy of Trubetskoy’s army.

The next day, the Vygovites and Tatars moved to the camp of the Russian troops and tried to besiege it. An artillery duel ensued, and by nightfall Vygovsky decided to storm, but the attack failed. Vygovsky was wounded, his troops were thrown back 5 versts to the positions occupied before the crossing was taken. For two days everything was quiet.

Battle of Konotop

Trubetskoy understood that it was pointless to besiege Konotop, having an enemy army of many thousands in the rear. He lifted the siege of the city and began to retreat under the cover of a moving convoy. Khan and Vygovsky tried to attack the retreating people, but the attack failed and they lost about 6,000 people. Soon, governor Dolgorukov came out from Putivl to help Trubetskoy with his troops, but Trubetskoy turned him around, declaring that he had enough forces for defense. On July 4, Russian troops began crossing the Seim River, which ended only on July 10. During it, Khan and Vygovsky again tried to attack the Russian army and fired artillery; they smashed several carts, but did not cause much damage. On July 10, Trubetskoy and his army came to Putivl.

At first they wanted to give the Russian prisoners for ransom, but the Tatars were against it. In total, 4,769 people were killed and captured in the Konotop battle. The main losses fell on Pozharsky's detachment. Pozharsky himself was executed in captivity, as were 249 “Moscow officials.” Bespaly's Cossacks lost about 2,000 people, and Trubetskoy's about 100 people during the retreat to Putivl. Vygovsky's losses amounted to about 4,000 people, the Crimean Tatars lost 3,000-6,000 people. Vygovsky, who wanted to strengthen his legitimacy and authority with this battle, eventually lost all respect. Disappointed comrades decided to overthrow the hetman.