Parallels to Khmelnitsky's Revolt?

Queen Boudica.

Her husband Prasutagus was ruler of the Iceni tribe who had ruled as a nominally independent ally of Rome and left his kingdom jointly to his daughters and the Roman Emperor in his will.

However, when he died, his will was ignored — the kingdom was annexed as if conquered, Boudica was flogged, her daughters were raped, and Roman financiers called in their loans.

Well, read something more about the revolt first. Khmelnitsky's Revolt took place more than a century before partitioning of Poland so it didn't really influence it. Plus Cossacks weren't really peaceful guys. I'm not saying Polish nobility were great. They were not. Their attitude towards Cossacks was one of the reasons of the revolt. (their attitude towards the Polish state later influenced weakening of the state and partitioning of Poland but that's another story). They only thought of their own well being, often had wars against each other (the rich ones are said to have been able to form armies of several thousand men)

The funny thing is that the rebellion 'freed' Cossacks from Poland but brought Ukraine right under Russian control.

Additionally, when you think of casualties, was it really worth it? You mentioned tens of thousands, probably we're talking of hundreds of thousands. And it all ended with getting under tzarist control having allied with the khan first and so on and so forth. In my humble opinion, few things in history are either black or white.

As for 'messing with the wrong guy and changing history', I'd mention William Wallace , Hannibal and Spartacus. All of them were symbols of people fighting an enemy who seemed to have more power than they did.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/1...