The Khmelnytsky Uprising, was a Cossack rebellion in Ukraine between the years 1648–1657 which turned into a Ukrainian war of liberation from Poland. Under the command of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the Zaporozhian Cossacks allied with the Crimean Tatars, and the local peasantry, fought several battles against the armies and paramilitary forces of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The result was an eradication of the control of the Polish szlachta and their Jewish intermediaries, and the end of ecclesiastical jurisdiction for the Latin Rite Catholics over the country. The Uprising has... taken on a symbolic meaning in the story of Ukraine's relationship with Russia. It resulted in the incorporation of Ukraine into the Tsardom of Muscovy at the Pereiaslav Agreement, where the Cossacks swore an oath of allegiance to the tsar. This, according to the poet and artist, Taras Shevchenko, brought about his people's 'enslavement' under Russia.
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