“All with one spirit,” was the answer.
The hetman now said: “May the Lord our God strengthen us under the strong hand of the Tsar.”
The people shouted back in one voice: “God confirm us! God give us strength to be one for the ages!”
The hetman, the army, and the representatives of Southern Russia took the oath of allegiance to the Tsar. The result of this action was a war between the Commonwealth on one side, and Northern and Southern Russia on the other. The Commonwealth being thus occupied on the east, Sweden decided to attack on the west.
The war between Russia and the Commonwealth lasted thirteen years, and ended with a truce of thirteen years more, made at Andrusovo. By this agreement the city and province of Smolensk went to Russia, and all the left bank of the Dnieper, while Kieff was to be occupied by Poland after two years. This truce became a treaty during the reign of Sobyeski. Kieff remained with the Russians, and peace was unbroken till the second half of the following century, when all Russia west of the Dnieper was restored to the East in nearly the same limits which it had before the Tartar invasion; excepting the territory included in Galicia, and known as Red Russia.
Jeremiah Curtin.
Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of Ethnology,
November 25, 1891.