Khmelnitsky, Yuri Bogdanovich

Born in Subotov in the family of Bogdan Khmelnitsky and Anna Somko .

First Hetmanism

Even during the life of his father, Yuri Khmelnitsky was elected hetman, then proclaimed hetman after the death of Bohdan Khmelnitsky. The hetman’s power, however, turned out to be beyond the power of a sixteen-year-old youth, and he lost it to Ivan Vygovsky , and he himself went to study at the Kiev Theological Academy.

Second Hetmanism

In 1658, Vygovsky concluded a Gadyachsky treaty with the Poles , which caused discontent among the Cossacks . Shurin Bogdan Khmelnitsky, Yakim Samko , hoping to become a hetman himself, called a Cossack parliament at the town of Germanovka , which deposed Vygovsky. Yuri Khmelnitsky sent to Zaporozhye a trusted servant of his father, Ivan Bryukhovetsky , and asked the Cossacks to support his candidacy for hetmanism. At a parliament near the Bila Tserkva, Yuri was unanimously declared hetman, and then at a parliament near Rzhishchev it was decided to petition the tsar to expand the rights of the Little Russian people, in the sense of strengthening the hetman’s power and confirming the independence of the Little Russian church hierarchy.

Voivode Alexei Trubetskoy did not accept this petition and demanded the convocation of a new parliament in Pereyaslav . Here in October Yuri was again elected hetman, from whom the tsarist administration demanded that they sign updated Pereyaslavl articles that severely limited the hetman’s power and the autonomy of the Zaporizhzhya Army.

The position of the new hetman was extremely difficult in view of the impending war with Poland and the discord between the aspirations of the foreman and the people within Little Russia . First of all, Yuri Khmelnitsky occupied the capital Chigirin , where the warehouse of the Cossack artillery and the treasury of Vygovsky were located.

In 1660, the boyar Vasily Borisovich Sheremetev made a large detachment from Kiev against Poland. Yuri was to take part in this campaign and went with the Cossacks for the Russian army. The Russian-Cossack army of Sheremetev was stopped near Lubar , where the voivode took up defense, trying to wait for Khmelnitsky to approach. When it became clear that Khmelnitsky would not come, Sheremetev began to withdraw the army to Chudnov , where he hoped to connect with the hetman. Under the town of Chudnov, Sheremetev was surrounded by the Polish-Tatar army. Having besieged the governor, the Poles with the Tatars marched against the hetman and besieged him near Slobodische . Under pressure from a group of right-bank colonels led by the general convoy Timofey Nosach, Yuri entered into negotiations on October 15 and surrendered to the Poles under the terms of the Slobodischensky treatise , which tightened the terms of the Gadyachsky treaty ^[1] . Yuri took the oath of allegiance to the king in front of the Polish commissar Stanislav Benevsky , whose influence he has since submitted to. The surrender of the hetman disastrously affected the situation of the Russian-Cossack army of Sheremetev, although most of the Cossacks did not follow the hetman and remained in the governor's camp. November 4, Sheremetev capitulated ^[2] .

When the rumor about Yuri’s citizenship spread to the Poles on the left bank of the Dnieper , the hetman’s uncle Yakim Somko raised Cossack regiments there. The struggle between him and Yuri continued with varying success throughout 1661 . In the fall of 1661 and the summer of 1662, Yuri Khmelnitsky unsuccessfully besieged Somko in Pereyaslav . The Cossacks of Khmelnitsky and the Crimean Tatras were distinguished by extreme cruelty on the left bank, for example, the population of the ancient city of Lukoml was completely slaughtered or driven into Tatar slavery, after which it was forever desolate.

To the aid of Somko came the royal regiments from Sloboda Ukraine under the command of Prince Grigory Romodanovsky . Yuri began to retreat beyond the Dnieper and on June 16 in the battle of Kanev suffered a devastating defeat from the troops of Somko and Romodanovsky. Yuri managed to stop the advance of the tsarist and left-bank Cossack regiments on the Right Bank only with the help of the Crimean Khanate in the battle of Buzhin . This, however, could not restore the authority of the hetman as a military leader. At the end of 1662, Khmelnitsky convened a parliament in Korsun , refused hetmanism and decided to get a haircut as a monk. Pavel Teterya was elected the new hetman of the Right Bank.

In Polish and Turkish captivity

Yuri was tonsured at the Korsun Monastery and received the name of Gideon. But monasticism did not give him rest. Pavel Teterya began to suspect him of the desire to again take the place of hetman, Yuri was arrested in 1664 , taken to Lviv and put in a fortress. He was released only in 1667 , after the death of Teteri .

In 1668, he supported the pro-Turkish course of the hetman Petro Doroshenko . In 1669 he was captured by the Tatars and sent to Istanbul . Yuri was treated kindly in Turkey and placed in one of the Greek monasteries. He stayed there for several years until the Turkish government needed it.

Third Hetmanism

In 1676, Petro Doroshenko gave up hetmanism and surrendered to the power of Russia, but the Turkish government did not give up claims to the Right-Bank Ukraine. The Turkish army advanced towards Chigirin . Turkey decided to replace Doroshenko with the hetman of Yuri Khmelnitsky, who threw off his monastic cassock and accompanied the Turkish army. It was assumed that he would carry the title of not only the hetman of Zaporizhzhya, but also the prince of Sarmatia and rule Right-Bank Ukraine as a Turkish vassal.

The campaign of the Turks in 1677 was unsuccessful. Yuri was thinking about running away to the Christians , but the Turks were watching him closely. In 1678 Chigirin was taken by the Turks and destroyed; Russian troops left the Dnieper. Right-bank Ukraine was extremely ruined. Yuri Khmelnitsky settled in Nemirov and ruled under the supervision of the Turkish Pasha . Constant requisitions, penalties, executions in fits of insanity forced the Turkish government to remove Yuri Khmelnitsky from hetmanism in 1681 .

Fourth Hetmanism

The Moldavian ruler Duca was appointed in his place, but at the end of 1683 he was captured by the Poles, and Yuri Khmelnitsky was again appointed in his place.

The constant aimless executions and oppressions of the people forced the Turkish Pasha to arrest Yuri. At the end of 1685 he was brought to Kamenetz-Podolsky , sentenced to death and strangled, and his body was thrown into the water.

• In 2001, a postage stamp of Ukraine dedicated to Yuri Khmelnitsky was issued.

• List of hetmans of Ukraine