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Battle of Monastyryshche(Ukrainian:Битва під Монастирищем. Polish: Bitwa pod Monasterzyskami)-Battle during Khmelnytsky Uprising in 20-21 March 1653 near Monastyryshche. Cossacks under command of Ivan Bohun stoped Polish advance on Cossack Hetmanate.

Background
At the time of the Battle of Monastryshche in the spring of 1653, there were about 2,500 Cossacks under the command of Ivan Bohun.Taking into account the spring roadlessness, flooding of rivers and streams, as well as the considerable distance between hundreds, as well as diseases and other important reasons, the Cossacks of the Kalnytskyi Regimentdid not have the physical opportunity to arrive at the assembly points on time. Under such critical conditions, Ivan Bohun was able to gather only the nearest hundreds of Cossacks. It was not for nothing that the Polish magnate Stefan Czarnieckiwas considered one of the best generals of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Being quite a strategist, he predicted these circumstances in advance. Therefore, the corps led by him advanced almost unhindered along the "Black Path" through the territory of the Kalnytskyi regiment in March 1653.

The noble armored banners of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealthnumbered more than 15,000 nobles, soldiers and German Landzknechts, that is, well-trained hired professional troops, as well as more than 10,000 train servants and well-armed servants. This 25,000-strong Polish punitive corps, using the tactics of mobile cavalry units, moved along the "Black Way" in an extremely rapid march from Northeast Volhynia. In order to terrify the Cossacks, Czarnieckigave the order to plunder the territory "with fire and sword". Men and women, children and old people were brutally tortured, hanged and impaled. Property was looted, homes were burned... Flying Polish units destroyed small Cossack outposts and fortified towns. Thus, the small Cossack fortresses of Samohorodok, Pohrebyshche, Pryluka, Lypovetsand many other Cossack villages and hamlets were burned to the ground. Colonel Ivan Bohun learned about the mass advance of the enemy through his territory already when the Poles were practically "on the threshold" of the regimental town of Kalnyk.

There was no time for meetings, because in early spring almost all Cossacks were at home. Caught by surprise, Colonel Ivan Bohun sent messengers to the hundreds closest to Kalnyk to block the advance of Polish units on the "Black Road" to Uman. According to the alarm, only three hundred Cossacks of the Kalnytsky regiment were gathered: the Kalnytsky, Balabaniv, and Terlytsky hundreds and the Tsybulivsky hundred of the Uman regiment, that is, about 400 Cossacks altogether. Having such a small detachment, Colonel Ivan Bohun, being one of the best strategists of the, Zaporozhian army made the only correct decision - to block the "Black Way" in the direction of Uman.

The Battle
Fierce battles near Monastyryshchebetween Polish punishers and Cossacks began on March 20 and continued non-stop for two days. From the middle of the fortress, the Tsybuliv hundredsof the Uman Regimentof centurion Kgrozdenko and part of Ivan Bohun’scavalry defended it. After a two-day assault, as Samiilo Velychkowrites, the Poles set fire to the palisade in several places, and also set fire to the castle. At night, under the cover of smoke, which thickly covered the fortress and its surroundings, Ivan Bohunled about a hundred cavalry from the Avramiv fortress. This small Cossack unit put on coats, with the wool turned up in the Tatar fashion, and went to the rear of the Poles, using the "Galay Dam", which connected the village with the fortress through a deep ravine. The Cossacks, together with Bohun, hit the Poles in the rear at the most dramatic moment of the battle. This is how the participants of that battle - the Polish noblemen V. Kahovsky and Twardowski- write about it: "The army broke into the outskirts of the city, they already captured the fortress rampart, the centurion Kgrozdenko was already killed, they already saw out the keel (the rampart of the rampart). Everyone hoped that the city was about to be captured...". Shlyachtych Twardowski also recalled that after the unexpected appearance of Ivan Bohunin the rear of the Polish convoy, the Polish army was gripped by terror. The Cossacks in their coats turned inside out with Tatar predatory screams and howls, en masse hit the Polish banners in the backs, which were swollen from the battle: "Ours, as if scalded, threw their wagons and loads, wounded and sick. They ran so much that they ran seven miles overnight..." A chronicler of the war of liberation wrote that "the Polish army was scared to death, not only abandoned its assault, but left its wagons with all the wealth and rich booty, as well as with sick and wounded people, as if scalded, ran from Monastyryshcheback to Kovel, and great damage, and saw and knew his shame..."

The escape route of the crown army passed along the road past the Cossack settlement of Letychivkaand a dense oak forest. For six versts (about 7 km), the entire road towards the hundred-hundred-year-old town of Tsybuliv,along which the Poles slept "until the forest", was abundantly covered with the bodies of German mercenaries and Polish honor guards, cut to a stump.

Samiilo Velychkoreports that the Poles fled in panic in the direction of the town of Tsybulivand names the losses of the Poles as more than 6,000 killed, and the convoy they abandoned near Monastyryshche. The Polish banners, although panicking, were frightened, but did not lose complete control. While retreating with battles, they made the so-called "turnaround" maneuver. Fleeing in the direction of the Cossack settlement of Tsybuliv, they turned back along the forest road along the branch of the "Sokolivsky path", which now passes through the village of Antonina to the crossing and fords through the Hirskyi Tikych in the area of ​​the village of Knyzha Krynytsia, in order to be able to continue looting Cossack villages and farms that have not yet been burned. obtaining provisions for the soldiers and fodder for the horses. The remnants of the Polish penal corps once again went on the "Black Way" and hurriedly marched to Volhynia, on the border of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

At the same time,Bohdan Khmelnytsky himself rushed from Umanto help Ivan Bohunwith several regiments, but he was too late. After learning about the brilliant victory of the Cossacks under the guns of Ivan Bohun- "He was very pleased and laughed at the Polish nobility."

Sources and Literature
V.S Stepankov Monastyryschenska oborona 1653[Archived 20 April 2016 at the Wayback Machine.] // Encyclopedia of History of Ukraine: in 10 volumes / editor: Valeriy Smoliy  (head) and others. ; Institute of History of Ukraine. — K. : Naukova Dumka, 2010. — T. 7: Ml — O. — 728 p. : fig. —9789660010611

Literature:

Kostomarov N. I. Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, vol. 2. St. Petersburg, 1884

Kersten A. Stefan Czarniecki 1599—1665. Warsaw, 1963

I. P. Krypyakevich Bohdan Khmelnytskyi. Lviv, 1990

Hrushevskyi M. History of Ukraine-Rus, vol. 9, part 1. K., 1996

Smoliy V. A., Stepankov V. S. Ukrainian national revolution of the 17th century. (1648—1676): Ukraine through the ages, vol. 7. K., 1999

Ciesielski T. Od Batohu do Żwańca. Wojna na Ukrainie, Podolu i o Mołdawię 1652-1653. Zabrze, 2007.