Schemes of Ukrainian hetmans. Hetmans of Ukraine. The most famous hetmans
The title of hetman was also used by the leaders of the Cossack uprisings that did not submit to the government of the Commonwealth (see below).
The emergence of the institution of hetmanship in the Zaporozhye Cossacks (1572)[ | ]
In the Kingdom of Poland, as well as in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, there were state posts of hetmans: great hetmans (respectively, crown and Lithuanian), who, in fact, were defense ministers in the corresponding parts of the Commonwealth (on the lands of the Crown / that is, in fact, the Kingdom of Poland / and Lithuania / that is, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania /), as well as full hetmans (also, respectively, crown and Lithuanian), who were the commanders in chief of the active armies of the Crown and Lithuania.
Registered Cossacks, unlike the rest (the grassroots, who were considered slaves in the Commonwealth), received privileges, equating to a no-coat-of-arms gentry (without political rights), and payment for their service. The registries themselves elected their commanders, who were then confirmed in office by the Polish king or the Senate of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The head of the registered Cossacks bore the title “ Hetman of his royal favor of the Zaporozhye Army».
The title of hetman was also used by the leaders of the Cossack movements that were not subordinate to the government of the Commonwealth (K. Kosinsky, S. Nalyvaiko, T. Fedorovich, P. Pavlyuk, J. Ostryanin, D. Gunya, M. Zheleznyak).
Hetman's powers[ | ]
Initially, the hetman was just a military leader, whose power extended only to the registered Cossacks.
The hetman could transfer part of his powers to the mandated hetman, who temporarily performed hetman's duties. Each hetman tried to strengthen the institution of the hetman, to strengthen his power. The most coveted hetman’s desire (as well as the entire Cossack elite) was to obtain equal rights with the gentry estate of the Commonwealth.
Hetmans of the Zaporizhzhya Army after the Khmelnitsky uprising[ | ]
The hetmans began to strive to increase their power at the expense of the army, to heredity; in order not to depend on the noisy military black council, they wanted to consolidate their position either through Poland or through Moscow and did not achieve their goal; except for Bohdan Khmelnitsky, not one of them finished well, they were constantly overthrown by their own.
After several unsuccessful attempts to unite, undertaken by both sides, in 1667 the Andrusiv armistice was concluded, which officially consolidated the division of the Hetmanate along the Dnieper.
Weakening the power of hetmans[ | ]
Troops of Zaporizhzhya on both sides of the Dnieper Hetman and the glorious rank of the Holy Apostle Andrew cavalier Ivan Mazepa
From that time on, the Right-Bank Hetmanate became the arena for the struggle of the Commonwealth, the Ottoman Empire and individual Cossack detachments among themselves. In this struggle, the title of hetman is widely used, which is alternately carried by the henchmen of the warring parties. In these conditions, there is a significant weakening of the hetman's power on the Right Bank.
On the Left Bank, the gradual limitation of the hetman's powers began almost immediately after the division. Here the hetmans were under pressure from two sides at once: on the one hand, their power was steadily reduced by the Russian government; on the other hand, the Cossack elders also did not want their strengthening. As a result, the hetmans, forced to maneuver, often made concessions to one or the other side, gradually losing power.
After the division of the Hetmanate, Chigirin remained the residence of the right-bank hetman; on the Left Bank, the cities of Gadyach, Glukhov, Baturin were successively becoming such residences.
Polubotok attempted a series of reforms:
- Judicial reform:
- Financial reform:
- initiated the submission of collective petitions and petitions to the Senate of the Russian Empire on behalf of the foremen, Cossacks and pospolites in order to abolish the financial subordination of the Hetmanate to the Little Russian Collegium;
- sabotaged the financial orders of the Little Russian Collegium.
- Social reform:
- slow down for a short time incorporation reform [clarify] ;
- to get the Senate to cancel some of Velyaminov's orders.
On May 22, 1723, Polubotok and the foreman were summoned to St. Petersburg “to answer” for organizing anti-Russian activities and inciting the people against the emperor. In St. Petersburg, Polubotok continued to appeal to the emperor and the Senate about the illegal actions of the Little Russian Collegium, demanded its liquidation and proposed to replace it with the General Court of seven persons. On June 23, Peter I, by his decree, forbade the Cossack foreman to hold new elections for the hetman. Some of the elders, who dared to disagree with the king on this issue, were imprisoned. In September 1723, interrogations of Polubotok and the foremen began in the Secret Chancellery. Danilo the Apostle and the foreman brought Kolomack petitions to St. Petersburg on behalf of the entire Zaporizhzhya Army (ukr.)russian, in which they asked for permission to hold the hetman elections and eliminate taxes imposed by the Little Russian Collegium, after which on November 10, 1723, an angry Peter I ordered Polubotok, the foreman and everyone who helped them, to be imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Interrogations lasted for about a year, and in mid-1724 Polubotok's case was referred to the Supreme Court. However, it did not come to trial: on December 29, 1724 Polubotok died in the cell from illness.
The rest of the foremen arrested together with him stayed in the Peter and Paul Fortress until the death of Peter I in 1725.
After that, on the territory controlled by Russia, the new hetman was re-elected only in 1727 (with the permission of Emperor Peter II). It was Daniel the Apostle. Despite some expansion of the territory of the hetman's jurisdiction (under whose authority Kiev was transferred), the dissolution of the Little Russian Collegium and a number of reforms carried out by him, his powers were further curtailed. After the death of the Apostle in 1734, hetmans again ceased to be appointed.
List of hetmans of the Zaporozhye Army[ | ]
| Hetmans of the grassroots Cossacks and registry Troops of Zaporozhye |
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| № | Picture | Name | Years of hetmanship | Comments | |||
| 1 | Ruzhinsky Bohdan |
- | |||||
| 2 | Kosinsky Krishtof |
- | |||||
| 3 | Loboda Gregory |
- | |||||
| 4 | Shaula Matvey |
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| 5 | Vasilevich Gnat |
- | |||||
| 6 | Baybuza Tikhon |
- | |||||
| 7 | Polous Fedor |
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| 8 | Skalozub Semyon |
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| 9 | Cat Samoilo |
- | |||||
| 10 | Sagaidachny Peter |
- | |||||
| 11 | Doroshenko Michael |
- | |||||
| 12 | Ostryanin Jacob |
- | |||||
| Hetmans of the Zaporozhye Army | |||||||
| № | Image | Name | Years of hetmanship | Comments | |||
| 1 | Khmelnitsky Bohdan |
- | Also titled hetman of all Russia . | ||||
| 2 | Khmelnitsky Yuri |
||||||
| 3 | Vygovsky Ivan |
- | Since 1658 he was titled The great hetman principality of Russian. |
||||
| 4 | Khmelnitsky Yuri |
- | |||||
| Hetmans of the Right Bank Troops of Zaporozhye | Hetmans of the Left Bank Troops of Zaporozhye | ||||||||
| № | Picture | Name | Years of hetmanship | Comments | № | Picture | Name | Years of hetmanship | Comments |
| 4 | Khmelnitsky Yuri |
- | 4 | Somko Yakim |
- | Order hetman | |||
| 5 | |||||||||
Dmitry Sinyak
The Pereyaslav Rada of 1654 is still considered to be the unification of Ukraine and Russia. In reality, it was a situational alliance with Muscovy: before it, the Tatars were the allies of the Cossacks, and then the Swedes. And the "alliance" with the hetman turned out to be so disastrous for Muscovy that the butler of the Moscow tsar Vasily Buturlin committed suicide to avoid execution.
"The tsar was drawn to Buturlin and sent a mandate, but they cut off their heads for three of them: first, they were brave khabari from quiet places and castles; the other - well, goodwill the place, the owner of the place wasted; - he won’t make peace with the khan. Knowing at Kiev, the king will not see the failure of the Lviv campaign, and the boyar Vasily Buturlin lost his head on 31 breast in 1655 ".
M. Grushevsky
"History of Ukraine-Rus"
The Tver governor, a close boyar and butler of the Moscow Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov, Vasily Buturlin, was preparing for death. In the morning he went to the bathhouse and defended the service in the church, confessed and received Communion. Then he ordered to remove the upper room and put on his best clothes. Now all he had to do was take a goblet of poison from the table ... But Buturlin could not bring himself to touch the bowl.
Supreme Messenger
The windows of the palace of his cousin Andrei, whom Buturlin, thanks to his connections, managed to put as a Kiev governor, overlooked St. Sophia. Looking at the domes shining in the winter evening sky, the boyar chilly crossed himself and, getting up from the table, began to walk up and down the upper room.
Two weeks ago, an old Moscow friend, boyar Kirill Naryshkin, warned him about the tsar's anger and the threat of imminent execution through a loyal person. And today a Moscow messenger brought Buturlin an order to transfer command of the army to Vasily Sheremetyev and arrive at the Kremlin as soon as possible. Buturlin reasoned this way: if he dies "on the way", his wealth is unlikely to be confiscated from his children. But returning to Moscow, before dying, he may lose everything.
He had no chance to justify himself. Winners are not judged. And he seems to have lost everything.
Buturlin sighed heavily and again looked out the window at the snow-covered triangles of Kiev roofs, over which the crosses of Sophia were drowning in the evening twilight. Two years ago, he was overjoyed when the tsar offered him the high honor of heading the embassy to Hetman Bohdan Khmelnitsky to annex the Ukrainian lands that had previously belonged to the Commonwealth.
Khmelnitsky, whose Cossacks have been at war with the Commonwealth since 1648, tried to negotiate this with the tsar more than once, but he, not wanting a war with the Polish crown, made the final decision only by October 1653. To give the case a legitimate look, the tsar assembled the Zemsky Sobor, which decided: "... Hetman Bohdan Khmelnitsky and the entire Zaporozhian Army with their cities and lands to take under the state's high hand for the Orthodox Christian faith and the holy churches of God ..."
And in November, the Muscovy declared war on the Commonwealth.
When, on the way to Khmelnitsky, Buturlin unfolded the tsar's letter addressed to the Cossacks, even he was surprised to see that the tsar called himself in it the autocrat not only of Great, but also of Little Russia. "A good name for the new Moscow lands, which are still known throughout the world as Ukraine," the boyar thought with a grin.
CZAR'S GRACE. A diploma from Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich on granting Vasily Buturlin a title of nobility, a fur coat, sables and a salary increase for the Pereyaslav Rada. 1655 year
Price of freedom
But with the hetman elite, everything immediately went wrong, as Vasily Buturlin expected. First, Khmelnitsky, against the wishes of the tsar, decided to take the oath not in the holy city of Kiev and not in the capital Chigirin, but in the seedy border Pereyaslav - they say, the importance is not great. Secondly, it turned out that the Cossacks, waging a bloody war, are looking not so much for a "royal hand" as for a military alliance, and do not want to part with their freedom. Therefore, Khmelnitsky immediately demanded that Buturlin be the first on behalf of the tsar to swear allegiance to the Cossacks that he would not betray them to the Polish king, would not violate their rights and liberties, and “would write royal letters on all their estates”.
Buturlin would have lost his head if he accepted such a condition. All he could do was promise. And he promised: and what the Cossacks asked, and even more. "Good subjects always" restore faith to the tsars, "and those for this" keep them in their state gracious salary and contempt, "said Buturlin.
True, they did not believe his promises. And when, on the day of the Pereyaslav Rada, the hetman said with displeasure that he should discuss the position of the Moscow ambassador with the Cossacks, and left the Church of the Assumption, where he was supposed to take the oath, the boyar thought that there would be no annexation of "Little Russia". Soon the Pereyaslavl Colonel Pavlo Teterya and the Mirgorod Colonel Grigory Lesnitsky returned to the church. They again demanded that Buturlin, on behalf of the tsar, undertake written or oath promises in relation to the Cossacks and to all of Ukraine. The colonels insisted that the crown Polish hetmans always did this when concluding such agreements, which the Cossacks had concluded with them more than once.
The boyarin was in despair. What do the Polish hetmans have to do with it? Muscovy has always lived by different rules! He again persuaded, promised, saying that the Polish kings are "not autocrats, they do not keep their oaths, and the state word does not vary." But the colonels stood their ground, answering him one thing: "The Cossacks do not believe." It was just after Christmas 1654 ...
Buturlin looked out the dark window again. "These Cossacks were spoiled by the Polish kings and hetmans," he thought, continuing to walk back and forth in the upper room. - All of them are looking for the law, but they do not understand that in Muscovy the tsar is the law. "
Photo 1
Photo 2
Royal "cats"
That day, in the end, everything was decided by the authority of Khmelnitsky, who ordered: "We swear!"
But there were many who disagreed. Ivan Bohun, Petro Doroshenko, Ivan Sirko, Osip Glukh, Grigory Gulyanitsky, Mikhailo Khanenko and other Ukrainian colonels, whose names Buturlin no longer remembered, did not come to the Assumption Church. There would have been much more of them if the boyar had not sent ahead of time to many of them the royal spies - the steward Rodion Streshnev and the clerk Martemyan Bredikhin with rich gifts. And yet, in the end, surprisingly few Cossacks took the oath - only 284 people.
And when, after the solemn divine service, Buturlin gave the hetman's companions on behalf of the tsar sable fur coats, in the sparse crowd gathered at the church, they heard: "It is not good for the Cossacks to sell themselves for royal cats!" Khmelnitsky, who never tolerated insults, this time as if he did not hear them.
Buturlin remembered well how the next day the people of Pereyaslavl had to be forced into the Assumption Church. He recalled the reports of the beating of the Tsar's envoys with sticks after they tried to swear in the rabble and the gentry in the possessions of the rebellious colonels. The Bratslavsky, Poltava, Umansky and Kropiviansky Cossack regiments, part of the townspeople of Kiev, Pereyaslav, Chernobyl refused to swear allegiance to the tsar ... The Zaporozhye Sich also did not swear allegiance. Although Buturlin later reported to Alexei Mikhailovich that the whole "Little Russia" had been sworn in, he himself knew that his envoys rarely left the regimental cities.
On January 16, 1654, Vasily Buturlin arrived in Kiev and the very next day he swore in part of the city's Cossacks and townspeople. Boyar was very embarrassed that the church hierarchs of Ukraine - Metropolitan Sylvester Kossov of Kiev and Archimandrite of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Joseph Trizna - did not want to swear allegiance to the tsar. Both were well aware that after taking the oath, the Ukrainian church would most likely lose its independence. And they lost only after Khmelnitsky's personal intervention.
WHO OUTSIDE WHOM. Bogdan Khmelnitsky got the maximum benefit from the agreement with the tsar, and a year after the Pereyaslav Rada he was negotiating an alliance with the Swedish king, under whose tutelage he planned to leave after breaking with Muscovy. Portrait of the hetman from an engraving by Wilhelm Gondius,
XVII century
Okhmatovskaya battle
But in Moscow in the winter of 1954, Buturlin was greeted as a hero. The tsar received him kindly, but said that he had to complete the unification of "Little Russia" by signing all the necessary papers with Khmelnitsky. After lengthy negotiations, the so-called March Articles appeared. According to them, Ukraine, being under the protectorate of Muscovy, retained statehood with all the fullness of the hetman's power.
The tsar received a share of the taxes that went to the Ukrainian treasury, and Khmelnytsky's promise not to have relations with the Ottoman Empire and the Commonwealth. To celebrate that he managed to strengthen his influence in Ukraine, Aleksey Mikhailovich then granted Buturlin a title of nobility, a fur coat, four sacks of sables and a 150-ruble bonus to his salary. And also - a part of government duties and income for life.
The boyar took the appointment to the post of commander of an army of 20,000, which next winter was supposed to oppose Poland together with the army of Khmelnitsky as another tsarist favor. Indeed, from the campaigns near Smolensk and Minsk, the Moscow commanders returned as real rich men, shamelessly plundering the population of the conquered territories.
But in January 1655, the boyar, who was approaching the White Church with his army, learned that the Crimean Khan Mehmed IV Giray, who had returned from exile after the death of his younger brother, invited Khmelnitsky to restore the military alliance. And when he was refused, he sided with the Poles and laid siege to Uman, which was defended by Ivan Bohun with his regiment. At the small fortress of Okhmatov near Uman at night, in a severe frost, the first battle of the allies with the Polish-Tatar army took place.
Then Buturlin for the first time realized how much the Cossacks who fought for the seventh year in a row were superior to his archers in military affairs. When a detachment of the crown convoy of the Polish troops of Stefan Czarnecki broke through to the Moscow camp, the archers dropped their weapons and fled, leaving the attackers with trophies, among which were 20 cannons and 300 barrels of gunpowder.
During the raid into Western Ukraine, the biggest problem for Buturlin was Khmelnitsky's categorical ban on robbing Ukrainian cities and villages.
The Cossacks prevented the Poles from developing their success. They built fortifications from what they found in the camp, propping up the barricades with the bodies of the dead. Only thanks to this, the Poles were unable to finally defeat Buturlin's army. Three days later, both sides fizzled out, suffering heavy losses, and Khmelnytsky, taking advantage of the respite, began negotiations with Mehmed Geray. As a result, the khan declared neutrality.
Afterwards, the regiment of Ivan Bohun, who had left the Uman fortress, unexpectedly struck the rear of the Polish army. The Poles were forced to retreat. Under Okhmatov, Buturlin lost half of his army, which for the first time in his life caused a serious anger of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. However, then everything was forgiven to him - the hero of Pereyaslav.
Lviv campaign
During the raid into Western Ukraine, the biggest problem for Buturlin was Khmelnitsky's categorical ban on robbing Ukrainian cities and villages: so the campaign lost all meaning for him. Neither his archers, nor he himself imagined the war except as a series of robberies and robberies, following, like a shadow, after military victories.
However, on the lands between the Dniester and the Bug, on which then waves of Tatar, Polish and Cossack troops swept almost every year, there was especially nothing to profit from. Almost 300 large and small Ukrainian cities lay in ruins, only strong fortresses survived.
In the early autumn of 1655, the united Cossack-Moscow army stormed Kamenets-Podolsky unsuccessfully for three weeks. Buturlin wanted to vent his anger on the inhabitants of small Ternopil, who also offered fierce resistance to the allies - the boyar ordered to cut out all the inhabitants to the last person, but the Cossacks, having learned about this, took up sabers and protected the townspeople. When the indignant Buturlin came to the hetman's tent, Khmelnitsky, discarding diplomacy, told him bluntly: "Are you out of your mind, boyar? There are no counts of our people in the city. And is it chivalrous to kill small children and women?"
Buturlin was furious. Should he, the king's butler, listen to some kind of robber! In war, you need not play as knights, but show the enemy your strength. If Ternopil had been slaughtered then, who knows how many more Polish cities would have surrendered without a fight, saving them people and strength. But Khmelnitsky not only did not allow the massacres, he also spoke out against the forcible resettlement of the inhabitants of the captured cities deep into Muscovy, which Buturlin insisted on. The enmity between the generals grew every day.
However, this did not prevent the united Ukrainian-Moscow scam from defeating the army of the Polish crown hetman Stanislav Potocki near Lvov and taking Lublin, Pulawy, Kazimierz, devastating the lands all the way to the Vistula. Buturlin meticulously ensured that local residents everywhere swore allegiance to the Moscow Tsar. Those who refused were executed. The biggest victory, according to the boyar's plan, was to be the capture of Lvov, the last big city - all the others were taken by Muscovites or Swedes.
Having sent scouts to the city, Buturlin learned that Lvov was protected only by the four thousandth Polish garrison, which obviously could not offer serious resistance to an army ten times outnumbered. He was already rubbing his hands, imagining that he was reporting to the tsar about the oath of Lvov, but strange things began to happen in the Khmelnytsky camp near the Yura church.
MONUMENT TO THE PALACE. The world's only sculptural image of Vasily Buturlin (center), "annexing" Ukraine to Muscovy (who now has a broken nose) to still stands in the center of Kiev, under the Friendship of Peoples Arch
The Hetman began to feast with the Polish ambassadors for several days, negotiating a ransom. Khmelnitsky (whose Cossacks took the fortress on the High Castle by storm seven years ago) refused all Buturlin's proposals to plan a military operation and capture Lviv, citing the inaccessibility of the city walls. And once Buturlin was informed that Lviv citizens were receiving letters from the general clerk Ivan Vyhovsky, the second person after Khmelnitsky, who advises them "not to surrender to the royal name."
One of the boyar's trusted people reported that, demanding surrender from the Lviv residents, Khmelnitsky directly expressed his displeasure with the Muscovites, and his confessor, reading the prayer, did not mention the royal name.
When the hetman finally received the promised 60 thousand gold florins, he lifted the siege without warning Buturlin about it. He was enraged to learn that Khmelnitsky staged a military parade, having led all his 34 regiments - almost 30,000 soldiers - under the walls of Lviv. These regiments did not return to their positions, but went east. Buturlin had no choice but to hastily gather his army of 12 thousand people and follow the hetman.
When Buturlin demanded an explanation, Khmelnitsky said that the army of Mehmed Gerai was approaching Galicia, united with the Nogai, Belgorod and Ochakov Tatars, and the Polish detachment of the Bratslav voivode Peter Pototsky was walking with the khan. The second news shocked Buturlin even more: the great Lithuanian hetman Jan Radziwil accepted Swedish citizenship, and the Swedish king took possession of Warsaw and Krakow. The surviving Polish troops of Stanislaw Potocki have already sworn allegiance to King Charles X and are now considered Swedish troops. "Are we really going to fight Sweden without royal permission?" - asked the boyar Khmelnitsky in a letter.
There was nothing to answer to Buturlin.
Battle of Ozernaya
Vasily Buturlin lost his last chance to return home in triumph after the battle with the Tatars near the town of Ozernaya near Zborov. It lasted all day - November 9, 1655, and by evening, to the great displeasure of the boyar, Khmelnitsky began negotiations. No matter how mad Buturlin was, the hetman stood his ground.
Khmelnitsky not only did not allow the massacre, he also spoke out against the forced resettlement of residents of the captured cities deep into Muscovy
In the end, Mehmed Giray promised "for ever and ever" not to attack Ukraine and to maintain neutrality in relations between Ukraine, Muscovy and Poland. Khmelnitsky, in response, promised that he would break with the Muscovites, would provide military assistance to the Polish king and would not allow the Cossacks to march on the Crimea and Turkey. But for Buturlin, the most painful thing was that the Tatars had to give up the baggage - everything that he and his archers plundered in Poland. Having lost the opportunity to bring rich gifts to the king as compensation for an unsuccessful campaign, the boyar realized that he was gone.
It was not possible to expand the Moscow kingdom, Vasily Buturlin lost most of the army in Poland. The Ukrainians made peace with the fierce enemy of the Russian Tsar - Khan Mehmed Geray, and the Tatars took all the loot from the Poles. It was not difficult to understand that in Moscow Buturlina was waiting for the chopping block.
Khmelnytsky, on the other hand, won. In the eyes of European sovereigns, the official recognition of his power over Ukraine by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich de facto turned Bohdan Khmelnitsky from a rebel into a full-fledged ruler. And having liberated Western Ukraine, the hetman almost achieved his long-standing goal - to bring all ethnic Ukrainian lands under his mace. Finally, Buturlin learned that even near Kamenets-Podolsk, the hetman received the Swedish ambassador and since then has been in secret correspondence with King Charles X (later this resulted in an alliance with Sweden, the development of which was prevented by the death of Khmelnitsky).
Aleksey Mikhailovich was unable to punish the obstinate hetman for all this. But the execution of the butler is in his power. Thinking about it, the boyar again clenched his fists in impotent rage. But he could not change anything. Behind the open window now hung a black impenetrable night, in which neither the crosses of Sophia nor the lights in the houses could be seen. It was also dark in the upper room, but the boyar knew that there was a silver bowl with poison on the table behind him.
The anger of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich against Vasily Buturlin was so great that upon learning of the boyar's death, he ordered his body to be burned. And only at the request of Patriarch Nikon allowed him to bring the remains of his close boyar and butler to Moscow for burial.
Pereyaslav 2.0. Master class on falsification from the Moscow Tsar
In memory of "yatniki Bogdanovi Khmelnitsky
The Cossacks are a unique phenomenon in Eastern Europe, which is not found anywhere else in the world. The homeland of the Cossacks is the lower reaches of the Dnieper. On the islands of this high-water river, the first Sichs were located - fortifications of the Cossack troops.
The hetmans of Ukraine were known far beyond the borders of their lands. The feats of the Cossacks in the struggle against the Ottoman Empire are remembered in many countries of Western and Eastern Europe.
The history of the emergence of the Cossacks
The very concept of "Cossack" is not of Slavic origin. It is referred to as Türkic or it means "guardian", "free man". The first news about the Cossacks dates back to the 15th century. The Crimean Khan's complaint to the Lithuanian prince mentions people who smashed Turkish ships at the mouth of the Dnieper between Cherkassy and Kiev.
After that, in documents and chronicles, the Cossacks are increasingly referred to as militant groups that lived their own way. Their number increased each time at the expense of the "caretakers". This was the name of the enslaved villagers who did not have their own land and in search of a better life left for the sparsely populated lands of the forest-steppe belt of modern Ukraine.
Later they will create their own state of the Zaporozhye Army. This name is due to the fact that the Cossacks settled outside the rapids of the Dnieper. It was there that they built their fortifications and fought against the raids of the Tatars. They were headed by the hetmans of Ukraine.
Creation of the first Cossack Sich
The first hetmans of Ukraine (koshev atamans) are little known. The name of Prince Dmitry Vishnevetsky (1550-1563), who is referred to in folklore as Baida, is associated with the creation of the first Sich. It is known that he was from a family of landowners in Volyn.
In 1553, he gathered a group of Cossacks of 300 people and went beyond the rapids of the Dnieper to fight the Tatars, who devastated the lands and kept the small population of the border territories at bay.
The first Sich was created on the island of Malaya Khortitsa. The Tatars tried several times to destroy this fortification. They succeeded in 1557. Prince Vishnevetsky was forced to leave the Sich. However, he did not stop fighting the Tatars.
The death of the first hetman is shrouded in many legends. It is known that he was captured by the Turkish army in 1563 in Moldavia. He was taken to Istanbul (Constantinople), where he was killed. He was hung by a metal hook over the sea.
Some legends claim that Baida was very impressed with the Turkish sultan and he suggested that he convert to Islam, marry his daughter and become the best warrior. But the Cossack refused and publicly insulted the faith of the Sultan and his entire family. For this, the first hetman of Ukraine was executed.
The first "registers" of the Cossacks
Since the Cossacks increased in numbers and had a special military organization, they became a serious threat not only for the oncoming Tatars, but also for the Polish kingdom. It was he who owned the Ukrainian lands after signing the Union of Lublin with the Lithuanian principality in 1569.
To control this military power, it was necessary to subjugate the Cossacks. Such an attempt was made by Zhigmont August. He offered 300 Cossacks to enter the "register" and receive a certain payment from the king for their service. At the head were the hetmans of Ukraine. However, this number was an insignificant part of those who considered themselves Zaporozhye Cossacks.
The value of the hetman in the Zaporozhye Army
The Sich became the administrative and political center by the 16th century. All power in the Cossack organization belonged to the Sicheva Rada. Each Cossack had the right to vote.
Management of the Zaporizhzhya Sich |
|
Sich glad | Carried out domestic and foreign policy, declared war, made peace, repaired the court, worked with the embassies. |
Hetman (koshevoy ataman) | The highest military, administrative, judicial power. During the war, his power is unlimited; in peacetime, all his decisions were coordinated with the Sicheva Rada. |
Military clerk | Management of the Sich Chancellery, diplomatic correspondence and all documentation. |
Military judge | Court, execution of laws. |
Troop Osavul | Assistant to the hetman in military and administrative affairs. |
It is clear from the table that all power belonged to the Sicheva Rada. The hetmans of Ukraine were limited in their decisions. Moreover, their position was elective, it was not inherited. If necessary, the kosh chieftain could be changed.
The most famous hetmans
The Cossacks have existed since the 15th century. During this time, many hetmans and kosh chieftains were elected to the Sich. They all played a role in history. However, the most famous are the following hetmans of Ukraine.
The list is presented in chronological order of their reign:
- Dmitry Vishnevetsky (Baida).
- Petro Konashevich (Sahaidachny).
- Bohdan Khmelnytsky.
- Ivan Mazepa.
- Kirill Razumovsky.
A separate book should be devoted to each of them. The first representative of the list was mentioned above.
Petro Konashevich (1614-1622)
His name is associated with the era of the heroic campaigns of the Cossacks against the Ottoman Empire. At this time, the Cossacks made many sea raids on Turkish galleys. They freed the prisoners and robbed the captured ships.
It is known that Petro Konashevich was born in the village of Kulchitsy (modern Lviv region) in the family of a small Ukrainian landowner. He received his education at the Ostroh Academy and the Lvov Brotherhood School.
His nickname is associated with the name of the bow and quiver for arrows - sagaidak. Thanks to his skill in archery, he was nicknamed Sagaidachny.
The victory in the Battle of Khotyn in 1621 brought glory and death to the hetman. This battle decided the outcome of the Turkish-Polish war. In addition, she showed that it was possible to defeat the Ottoman army, and stopped the further capture of the European world. Enraged by defeat, the Janissaries killed their own sultan, which led to the further decline of the Turkish Empire.
Badly wounded, he died a few months later in Kiev as the greatest hetman of Ukraine. Sahaidachny divided all his property between his wife and brotherly schools.
Bohdan Khmelnitsky (1648-1657)
Born in 1595 in the family of a Cossack centurion. He also took part in the Turkish-Polish war. His father was killed in it. Khmelnytsky himself was captured by the Turks and sent to Constantinople, where he spent two years in captivity.
After many successful sea campaigns against the Turks, he was appointed a centurion. with the Cossacks took part in the war with Spain on the side of France in 1646. Thanks to them, the Dunkirk fortress was taken.
Khmelnytsky became the one who raised the national liberation uprising in the Ukrainian lands against the Polish omnipotence, which covered all segments of the population. A Cossack state was created, which conducted foreign policy with many countries. In his policy, the hetman was looking for allies from different sides: among the Muscovy, the countries of Europe. He stopped his choice on cooperation with Russia, which he approved with the entire Zaporozhian Army at the Pereyaslav Rada.
Bogdan Khmelnitsky died in 1657. After that, the period of Ruins (devastation) began on the Ukrainian lands. The Hetmanate, like all Ukrainian lands, will be divided between Poland and Russia into the Right Bank and the Left Bank, respectively. Each part has its own hetmans of Ukraine. The list of Cossack leaders has doubled since that time.
Ivan Mazepa (1687-1708)
The most controversial personality among the hetmans is Ivan Mazepa. His intelligence, education, ability to manipulate people allowed him to be hetman for over 20 years.
He was born in 1639, received a good education, was in the service of the Polish king, and later the hetman of Right-Bank Ukraine Petro Doroshenko. While completing the assignment, he was captured and handed over to the Left Bank hetman, but was able to gain a foothold in the new conditions.
He found a common language with Peter the Great, received from him a gift of land and was one of the richest people in Europe. He donated a lot of funds for the development of education, the construction of Orthodox churches. The style of these buildings will eventually be attributed to the Mazepevo or Cossack Baroque.
In the outbreak of the Northern War, Ivan Mazepa (hetman of Ukraine) goes over to the side of Sweden. However, he did not receive the support of the entire Cossacks and was defeated in 1709. Together with the Swedish king Karl Mazepa, he fled to Moldavia, where he died the same year at the age of 70.
His act in Soviet times was viewed exclusively as a betrayal. Modern Ukrainian historians are inclined towards the fact that Ivan Mazepa, first of all, defended his own interests and the Hetmanate.
Kirill Razumovsky (1750-1764)
The last hetman of Ukraine is Kirill Razumovsky. He was an educated young man who was appointed to rule the Hetmanate at 22. The choice was due to the fact that his older brother Alexei was the favorite of the Russian Empress Elizabeth.
He did not look like the former koshev chieftains and spent most of his time in St. Petersburg. However, the period of his reign is rightfully considered the "golden autumn" of the Hetmanate.
With the coming to power of Catherine II, everything changed and in 1764 the last hetman of Ukraine renounced the mace. Part of the Cossacks became the Army of the Loyal Cossacks, later the Black Sea, and even later the Kuban Cossack army. Those who did not submit went over to the side of the Turkish Sultan and founded the Transdanubian Sich.
How many hetmans were there in Ukraine? You will find out who they are from this article.
Who is the hetman?
Hetman is a special name for the highest military leadership in such military-state and state formations as: the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Zaporizhzhya Army and the Commonwealth of the Both Nations.
How many hetmans were there in Ukraine?
During the period of the hetmanship, the Ukrainian state, and this whole 116 years of existence (from 1648 to 1764) had only 17 hetmans... Among them:
1. Bohdan Khmelnitsky - 1648-1657.
2. Ivan Vygovsky - 1657-1659 years.
3. Yuri Khmelnitsky - 1659-1663 years.
4. Pavel Teterya, right bank - 1663 - 1676.
5. Ivan Bryukhovetsky, left bank - 1663 - 1668.
6. Stepan Opara, right bank - 1665.
7. Petro Doroshenko - 1665 - 1676.
8. Koshevoy hetman Sukhovienko - 1668-1669.
9. Demyan Mnogoshny, left bank - 1668 - 1672.
10. Mikhail Khanenko, right bank - 1669 - 1674.
11. Ivan Samoilovich - 1672-1687 years.
12. Ivan Mazepa - 1687 - 1709.
13. Ivan Skoropadsky - 1708 - 1722.
14. Philip Orlik, hetman in exile - 1710 - 1742.
15. Pavel Polubotok, hetman of the order - 1722 - 1724
16. Danilo the Apostle - 1727 - 1734.
17. Kirill Razumovsky - 1750 - 1764.
Also the history of the Cossacks counts 166 times when the positions of the hetman were changed... These were temporary, order hetmans. But these 17 major military commanders have created history by constantly fighting for the independence and well-being of their home country.
Modern Ukraine can also boast of modern Cossack hetmans. Among them were:
* Vladimir Mulyava - 1992-1998.
* Ivan Bilas - 1998-2004.
* Anatoly Shevchenko - since 2002.
* Anatoly Popovich - 2002-2012.
The word hetman, or hetman, is of Czech origin and is the name of a military commander. The hetmanate in Ukraine began with the creation of a registered Cossack army. This historic event took place in 1572. The full title sounded like this: "Hetman of his royal favor of the Zaporozhian Army." Many hetmans of Ukraine were outstanding personalities - in the broadest sense of the word.
Bogdan Mikhailovich Ruzhinsky
The first hetman of Ukraine is Bogdan Ruzhinsky (1575-1576), a Polish prince and magnate. He was also remembered for making an incredible campaign against the Crimea, the stronghold of the Tatar army. He devastated their patrimony, freed the captives. Almost immediately after that, he practically destroyed a number of Turkish cities (Trabzon, Sinop, Istanbul). They say that the reason for the Cossack's violent campaigns against Muslims lay in personal hatred for the fact that they killed his wife and mother, but this is not known for certain.
And the hetmans would have remained ordinary military leaders, if not for the events of 1648 - then the troops of the national hero of Ukraine, hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky began full-scale military operations against Poland in order to liberate their land.
Bogdan - Zinovy \u200b\u200bMikhailovich Khmelnitsky
At the beginning of that year, he forced the Polish garrison to flee from the Zaporizhzhya Sich and received a new title from his army - hetman of the Zaporozhye Army, and in fact he became the ruler of Ukraine. Victory after victory, Hetman Khmelnytsky liberated Ukraine from the Poles (and this was just a year!). The uprising in Ukraine lasted from 1648 to 1657. 
Then, in 1648, the liberation movement began in Belarus - they were also helped by the Cossacks of Bohdan Khmelnitsky. Having concluded an agreement with Russia, Hetman Khmelnitsky began to be called the title Hetman of His Blessed Tsarist Majesty of the Zaporozhye Army.
Khmelnitsky again turned to Moscow and began to persistently ask the tsar to accept him as citizenship. On October 1, 1653, a Zemsky Sobor was convened, at which the issue of accepting Bohdan Khmelnitsky with the Zaporozhye army into Russian citizenship was decided in the affirmative.
On January 8, 1654, a Rada was assembled in Pereyaslavl, at which, after Khmelnitsky's speech, pointing out the need for Ukraine to choose one of the four sovereigns: the Turkish Sultan, the Crimean Khan, the Polish King or the Russian Tsar, and surrender to his citizenship, the people shouted: "We will (that is, we wish) under the Russian Tsar"! 
Pereyaslavl Rada in 1654 
After the death of Khmelnitsky, a civil war broke out, since the left-bank part of his army did not support the elected new hetman Ivan Vyhovsky.
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Ivan Evstafievich Vygovskaya
Some of the Cossacks advocated reunification with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, some - for unity with the Russian Empire. This period is known in the history of Ukraine as "Ruina", i.e. "Ruin". Bohdan Khmelnytsky's ally Pavel Teteria went over to the side of Poland. After receiving the title of punishment (i.e. acting) hetman Teteria tried to usurp power and become hetman (after the defeat of Moscow by Yuri Khmelnitsky in 1662). There were five colonels who appropriated the title of hetman, but it was Teterya who was appointed to the right-bank Ukraine and remained so until 1665.
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Pavel Ivanovich Teterya
He was replaced by Hetman Doroshenko. Petro Doroshenko not only pushed aside the possibility of a new unification of the Cossack lands, but practically destroyed it with his activities.
Pyotr Dorofeevich Doroshenko
And although Vyhovsky was soon forced to relinquish his powers due to the pressure on him by the masses, Yuri Khmelnitsky (son of Bohdan Khmelnitsky) who replaced him at the post could not stop the war and went over to the side of the Commonwealth.
Yuri Bogdanovich Khmelnitsky
Left-bank Ukraine then chose a new leader. Hetman Somko became it. At the same time, the Zaporozhye Army was finally divided: into those who submitted to Russia, and those who submitted to the Commonwealth.
Yakim Semyonovich Somko
Several times after that, they again tried to "bring Ukraine together", but neither one nor the other side succeeded in this. The result was the Andrusiv truce (1667), which consolidated the division of the country's territory along the Dnieper River. 
It is noteworthy that after these events, civil wars began in the Commonwealth in parallel with the struggle against the Ottoman Empire. The power of the hetmans then greatly weakened, and in 1707 Ivan Mazepa (being the hetman of the left bank of Ukraine) occupied the right bank. Hetman Mazepa seized power, taking advantage of the internal strife of the Commonwealth and the invasion of the Swedish troops into Poland.
Ivan Stepanovich Mazepa
King Carl XII of Sweden and Hetman Mazepa at the Battle of Poltava 
The weakening of the hetmans' power did not stop - Russia did not want to see strong rulers, and the Cossack foreman, who had his privileges, did not need it. From 1672 to 1687 Ivan Samoilovich was the hetman of the left-bank Ukraine. He was one of the main participants in the coup against Russia, although he later found a way to negotiate with the emperor. He was accused of treason (allegedly it was because of him that the first campaign of Russian troops against the Tatars failed, although this is not so), and besides, the people's hatred of the hetman because of his despotism, bribery and arbitrariness did their job. Denunciation, and hetman Samoilovich was relinquished from the title, arrested and exiled to Nizhny Novgorod, and then to Novolsk.
Ivan Samoilovich Samoilovich
The weakening of the hetman's influence was accelerated by Mazepa's transition to the side of the Swedish king Charles XII. Hetman Skoropadsky (1646-1722, hetman in 1708-1722) could already feel the consequences of that misconduct - since 1709 he was constantly accompanied by a Russian official who controlled his political and military decisions. Immediately after the death of Ivan Skoropadsky, the hetman's powers were transferred to the Little Russian Collegium, which was directly subordinate to the Russian Senate.
Ivan Ilyich Skoropadsky
Not long after his death, Pavel Polubotok went to Peter I to petition for autonomy for Ukraine, which greatly angered the emperor. For this, the order hetman Polubotok was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he died in 1724.
Pavel Leontievich Polubotok 
Although Karl XII and Ivan Mazepa lost the war, for some time the hetmanate still lived on the right bank of Ukraine. Philip Orlik became Mazepa's successor. Hetman Orlik was elected by Mazepa's supporters in 1710 and held this title right up to his death in exile in 1742.
Philip Stepanovich Orlik
After the Battle of Poltava in 1709 and the death of Skoropadsky, the Russian Empire did not allow the Zaporozhye Sich to elect hetmans for a long time. This was again allowed only in 1727 by Emperor Peter II. The Hetman Apostle was even more narrow in rights than his predecessor, despite the liquidation of the Little Russian Collegium and the receipt of even more lands in his department, incl. Kiev. Daniel the Apostle died in 1734, and again the appointment of hetmans was abolished.
Daniel Pavlovich Apostle
The last hetman of Ukraine in the Russian Empire is Kirill Razumovsky. He was appointed in 1750 and resigned in 1764.
Kirill Grigorievich Razumovsky
The last point in the era of the Ukrainian hetmanship was put by Empress Catherine II. By her decree, she abolished the hetman title, subsequently recreated the Little Russian Collegium and created the post of governor-general.
