Treaty of Pereyaslav

Timeline

1. 1648–1653Zaporozhian Cossack Hetmanate · UkraineIn 1648 Khmelnytsky led a Cossack uprising against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, establishing the Zaporozhian Cossack Hetmanate. In repeated fighting with Poland, Khmelnytsky sought protection from the Crimean Tatar Khanate and then the Ottoman Empire, neither of which provided reliable military support, so he turned to the Muscovite tsar for aid.
2. 1654Pereyaslav · UkraineKhmelnytsky convened a council of Cossack elders and received the Muscovite envoy Vasily Buturlin at Pereyaslav. The Cossack leaders present swore allegiance to Tsar Alexis I. Buturlin refused to swear a reciprocal oath on the tsar's behalf to the Cossacks, merely reiterating the tsar's pardon and protection. This oath ceremony laid the political foundation of the agreement, but the two sides held fundamentally different understandings of its nature.
3. 1654Moscow · RussiaA Cossack delegation went to Moscow, where Tsar Alexis I signed the Articles of March (23 clauses in all), confirming that the Cossack Hetmanate would retain its military establishment (60,000 registered Cossacks), its judicial authority, and its administrative autonomy, and could conduct its own foreign relations (except with Poland and the Ottomans), with revenues going to the Cossack treasury. Russia thereby acquired suzerainty over Cossack territories and declared war on the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.