DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE OF THE BATTLE OF BERESTECHKO AS A SOURCE OF DIRECTIONS FOR ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH OF THE PERIOD OF THE UKRAINIAN COSSACKS

Abstract

The tragedy of the Ukrainian Cossacks, peasantry, and bourgeoisie at Berestechko is reflected in sources, memoirs of contemporaries, researchers' works, folk poetry, and fiction. For example, an annotated bibliography dedicated to the 340th anniversary of the Battle of Berestechko. The article examines some documentary evidence about the course of the Battle of Berestets in June 1651 near the villages of Pliasheva and Soloniv in Volyn. From the point of view of modern historiography, the author analyses Ukrainian, Polish and Moscow sources, documents, letters, charters and reports on the course and consequences of the battle. A small proportion of sources of Ukrainian origin is pointed out. Among the materials relating to the situation in Ukraine immediately after the Battle of Berestets, the author pays special attention to one of the orders of Hetman B. Khmelnytsky (dated 7 July 1651). The Battle of Berestets was widely reflected in the sources of that time, both official and private. It is stated that some of the official documents were included in the works of seventeenth-century chroniclers and were published in the nineteenth century. Despite the subjective coverage of events in these documents, they are a valuable source for covering the events of 1651. They were especially useful to the researcher of Berestechko I. K. Sveshnikov and continue to be relevant for future archaeological research of both the Battlefield of Berestechko and the period of the Ukrainian Cossacks in general. The novelty of the study lies in the very formulation of the topic. Further scientific searches for new documentary sources in order to design new archaeological research seem promising. Only the results of excavations, data from written and iconographic sources allowed and will allow us to recreate in general terms the appearance of the Ukrainian Cossack and peasant of the period of the National Liberation War, to open hitherto unknown pages from the Cossack life and participants and the course of the Berestetska battle itself.