Haydamak

They were formed in reaction to the Commonwealth's actions that were directed to reconstitute its orders[clarification needed] on territory of right-bank Ukraine,[1] which was secured following ratification of the Treaty of Perpetual Peace with the Tsardom of Russia in 1710.

[2] The word has been adopted into Ukrainian from the Crimea and the neighbouring region, where it has been used in some Kipchak, Oghuz and Slavic languages.

However, Ukrainian folklore and literature generally (with some notable exceptions) treat the actions of the haidamaks positively.

The haidamak movement consisted mostly of local free Cossacks (not members of any host) and peasantry (kozaky and holota), and rebels.

The latter raids occasionally deteriorated to common robbery and murder, for example in the so-called Matsapura case in the Left Bank in 1734.

Based in the lands of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, they moved into the south of the Kiev Palatinate, generating a near-complete rebellion by Right-Bank Ukraine.

In captured territories the nobility, Ukrainian Catholics, Jesuits and above all the Jews, were murdered en masse (see Massacre of Uman), which led to a quick response by the Polish army.

This final chapter of Haydamaka history was unique in large part due to the support the rebellion enjoyed not only among the peasantry, but also among the Poles and the Jews marginalized and rendered destitute by the Russian Empire.