The Cossack riots were pogroms carried out against the Jews of modern Ukraine during the 1648 uprising of the Cossacks and serfs led by Bogdan Khmelnytsky (or the "Hamil of Evil" as he was called by the Jews) against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Massacres of the Jews of Poland, Belarus, and today's Ukraine occurred throughout the rebellion, which lasted for many years and during the Russo-Polish War (1654-1667) and the small northern war with the Swedish Empire that ignited them. Nevertheless, the sudden destruction of many communities from the beginning of April–May 1648, until the cessation of the Cossacks' progress in November of that year, is the named source. According to the historian Adam Teller: "In the Jewish collective memory, the events in the summer and autumn of 1648 de