Ukraine War Day #720: Tucker Carlson And The Khmelnitsky File – Part I

“The Khmelnitsky File” – it sounds like the title of a spy thriller, no? Or maybe sci-fi: Within this trove of documents is contained the key to decrypting the archives of an ancient, alien civilization, along with their matter-bending and time-travelling technology. But first, one must decode ancient runic symbols of the Old Church Slavonic alphabet… Paging Professor Robert Langdon! No, forget Langdon, we have reporter Matvei Malgin to help us decipher these interesting clues.

One of the more interesting moments in the famous (or perhaps infamous) Carlson-Putin interview was when Putin handed Tucker a portfolio of Russian historical documents. Copies of original source material consisting of letters written by Ukrainian Hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky to the Russian Tsar.

These archives, along with Putin’s 30-minute lecture on Russian-Ukrainian history to his American audience (with lots of kudos to Putin’s simultaneous interpreter, who did a superb job as translator!), are meant to open American eyes to the historical truth. Which is almost 360 degrees away [little joke there] from the fake history and outright lies as propounded in Ukrainian textbooks!

Tucker: ”Er… is this going to be on the test?”

For example, Ukrainians teach that, in the 17th century there was a certain “Ukrainian Cossack State”, which they regard as a forerunner to their current nationhood.

Not so, retorts Putin. Read these letters. Read ’em and weep.

In addition to “Cossack statehood”, Ukrainians base their national myth on the notion that they are the inheritors to Kievan Rus. That they are the “true Russians”, and the current residents of Russia itself are imposters, the “mordva“, in other words products of racially inferior Asiatic tribes posing as Slavs. Ukrainians also claim that the daughter of Yaroslav the Wise, who married a French King, was a Ukrainian maiden. This type of nonsense is taught in all the Ukrainian schools and propagated to the masses via popular culture.

Putin, assuming that the American people know anything about any of this, can actually point to Ukraine on a map, and are deeply invested in the Ukrainian mythology, has set about to refute these myths, using Tucker as his means of communication. Tucker, the CIA agent.

[yalensis: My favorite moment in the interview: Tucker asks bluntly: ”Who blew up NordStream?” Putin responds equally bluntly: ”You did!” Tucker (without missing a beat): ”It wasn’t me. I was busy that day.” Putin: ”No, I mean YOU, the CIA!”]

Khmelnitsky Epistles

So, what is actually contained in these epistles from the Russian archives?

Putin to Carlson: “Here are documents from the archives. These are copies. Here are the letters of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, the person who controlled the government in that portion of the Russian lands that we currently call the Ukraine. He wrote to Warsaw, demanding that their [Cossack] rights be respected. And when his demand was refused, he started writing letters to Moscow, with a request to take them [the Cossacks] under the strong hand of the Russian Tsar. Here are copies of these documents. I am giving them to you as a souvenir. The packet includes a translation into Russian [from the Surzhik dialect], and then somebody can translate for you into English.”

Malgin: We [reporters] lack a table of contents of what was actually handed over to Tucker, but our [Russian] historians are fully cognizant with the contents of Khmelnitsky’s epistles to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, as well as to the Polish King. These letters have been published many times and were even compiled into the contents of one book, entitled The Documents of Bogdan Khmelnitsky (Kiev, 1961).

Khmelnitsky was literate in several languages. When he wrote to the Tsar, he used his own spoken dialect, which was Surzhik (similar to modern Russian-Ukrainian, but with a hefty dose of Polish vocabulary). Whenever he wrote to the Polish King Jan II Kazimierz, or to any of the Polish noblemen, he wrote in Polish. When he wrote to the Swedish Princess, he used Latin.

Of note, and facilitating the current Russian claim to these lands, is that nowhere and no how, in any of his letters, in any language that he used, did Khmelnitsky ever used the words “Ukraine” or “Ukrainian”. Instead, he called himself a Zaporozhian. For example, here is a fragment of a letter* from June 8, 1648 (*footnote: ЦГАДА, ф. 124. Малороссийские дела, оп. 3, № 28, л. 2 (подлинник). Опубл.: Памятники КК. – Т. I. – С. 219–221; Акты, относящиеся к истории южной и западной России., Т. 3., стр. 207–208):

“To Your Tsarist Greatness from your humble servant, Bogdan Khmelnitsky, Zaporozhian Hetman in the service his Merciful King…” Khmelnitsky was in the service of the Polish King at the time, but also professing himself as the humble servant of the Russian Tsar. Ukrainian Nationalists, of course, dismiss all of this as Khmelnitsky’s grotesque act of treason. But the key point being, that the Hetman never describes himself as a Ukrainian, even though the word “Ukraine” was in use at the time, as a loose designation of Russia’s western border regions.

During the Soviet period, Soviet historians described this particular letter as “a communication of Khmelnitsky’s victories over the Polish army, and the desire of the Ukrainian people to unify with Russia.”

Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich

In this letter to the Tsar, Khmelnitsky describes two major grievances of the Cossacks against the Polish King, the first being religious oppression of the Orthodox Cossacks. Here is a fragment written in the original Surzhik:

 «…радостно пришло нам твою царскую велможност видомим учинити оповоженю вири нашое старожитной греческой, за которую з давних часов и за волности свои криваве заслужоние, от королей давних надание помир[ем] и до тих час от безбожних ариян покою не маем».

[yalensis: The piece doesn’t give a translation into Russian, and my Surzhik isn’t as good as it used to be, but I can understand certain words or phrases like “trying to oppress our ancient Greek religion and impose their own godless Arianist sect…]

Attempting to enlist the Tsar’s help against this forced Polonization and Catholization, the Hetman proposes the following:

«Зичили бихмо соби самодержца господаря такого в своей земли, яко ваша царская велможност православний хрестиянский цар, азали би предвичное пророчество от Христа Бога нашего исполнилося, што все в руках его святое милости. В чом упевняем ваше царское величество, если би била на то воля Божая, а поспех твуй царский зараз, не бавячися, на панство тое наступати, а ми зо всим Войском Запорозким услужить вашой царской велможности готовисмо, до которогосмо з найнижшими услугами своими яко найпилне ся отдаемо»

[something about your Gracious Autocrat, Orthodox Christian Tsar, may you fulfill the prophecy of Jesus Christ and take us into your hands with holy mercy, and thus we implore your Tsarist Greatness, if it should please God, to bring your rule into the land, and we, with our Zaporozhian troops will serve Your Tsarist Greatness as your humble servants…]

In other words, Khmelnitsky just had it up to here with the Polish Catholics and the haughty way they treated the Orthodox Cossacks and the local people. But the key point here, he always calls himself a Zaporozhian, and never a Ukrainian. This is important, somehow, in Putin’s quest to debunk the myth of Ukrainian statehood…

[to be continued]