Khmelnytsky pogroms

The Khmelnytsky pogroms were pogroms carried out against the Jews of modern Ukraine during the 1648 Khmelnytsky Uprising of the Cossacks and serfs led by Bogdan Khmelnytsky against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Khmelnytsky appears prominently in Jewish accounts such as the "Abyss of Despair", though the worst of the violence was actually committed under his subcommander Maksym Kryvonis.

Massacres of the Jews of Poland, Belarus, and today's Ukraine occurred throughout the rebellion, which lasted for many years, as well as during the Russo-Polish War (1654-1667) and a smaller northern war with the Swedish Empire that ignited the riots. Nevertheless, the sudden destruction of many communities from the beginning of April to May 1648 until the cessation of the Cossacks' progress in November, during the war's first year, is the source of the name. According to the historian Adam Teller: "In the Jewish collective memory, it is the events of the summer and fall of 1648 that characterize the uprising as a whole". Therefore in Hebrew and Yiddish, these events became known as Gzeyres Takh Vetat (גזירות ת״ח ות״ט), meaning the "[evil] decrees of 5408–9" of the Hebrew calendar (of 1648–1649).

Thousands were slaughtered or died of starvation and epidemics, and many others fled, were sold into slavery, or converted. The number of Jews killed by the Cossack rebels in 1648 was estimated at several thousand to 20,000. It is estimated that all the parties – the Cossacks, the Russians, the Swedes, their allies, and the Poles themselves, who massacred Jews on suspicion of collaborating with the invaders – killed between 40,000 and 50,000 Jews in total over this period.

Background

In 1569, with the establishment of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, large tracts of today's Ukraine were transferred from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to the rule of the Kingdom of Poland.