On January 18, 1654 the Pereyaslavl Rada of the Zaporozhia Army gathered in the town of Pereyaslavl and swore allegiance to the Russian Tsar. The Pereyaslavl Rada is considered a historical act of reunification of the "Greater and Lesser Russias," as the reunification of Russia and Ukraine was called in Soviet historiography. However, over the past few years since the collapse of the USSR the understanding of the role and importance of the Pereyaslaval Rada among the broader political and intellectual circles of Ukraine has undergone significant changes. Some regard the appeal of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky to Russian Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich for patronage and the subsequent joining of the Russian state by the left-bank area of Ukraine as a mistake, almost a betrayal that led to the loss of Ukrainian statehood and national independence. Others insist that the decision of the Pereyaslavl Rada was an agreement of two equal sides on the creation of a confederation of two independent states.
A senior researcher at the Center for the History of the Peoples of Russia and Inter-ethnic Relations of the Institute of Russian History at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Andrey Marchukov, shares his opinion on the subject.
