Yeven Metzulah [“The Deep Mire” - history of the persecutions of the Jews in Russia and Poland under Bogdan Chmielnicki in 1648-49]

THE FIRST HEBREW WORK DEALING WITH THE GEZEROTH TA”CH VE’TA”T - THE CATASTROPHIC COSSACK MASSACRES OF 1648 AND 1649. The persecutions and massacres perpetrated by the Cossacks under the leadership of Bogdan Chmielnicki during the years 1648-48, resulted in the death of some two hundred thousand Jews and the plunder of hundreds of communities. The work provides a detailed account of the history of these tragic events. The author charts the progress of the war between the Cossacks and the Poles and recounts the massacres perpetrated in important Jewish communities, focusing especially on Nemirow, Tultshin and Polnoh where the numbers of Jews slain ran into the thousands. Hanover gives a brief description of the Polish government of the time and of its relations with the Cossacks, and indicates the causes which led to the Cossack outbreak. He also gives a very vivid picture of Jewish life in Poland. The work is an important historical document and has been widely translated, it places Hanover among the very best of historians of the seventeenth century. Hanover himself was a resident of Zaslov in Volhynia which was attacked by the Cossacks. He managed to escape and later settled in Livorno, Italy. On the significance of this historical treatise, see M. Waxman, Vol. II, pp.484-5. Regarding the title of the book: “In late Hebrew "Yavan" denotes the Russians, because they belong to the Greek Catholic Church; therefore Nathan Nate Hanover calls his description of the Chmielnicki persecution "Yeven Metzulah" after Psalms LXIX.” JE