Ivan Samoylovych

Ivan Samoylovych was the Hetman of Left-bank Ukraine from 1672 to 1687. His term in office was marked by further incorporation of the Cossack Hetmanate into the nascent Muscovite Tsardom and by attempts to win the Right-bank Ukraine from Poland-Lithuania.

Rise to power

Samoylovych's father was a priest in a village near Zhytomyr. Ivan first rose to prominence during Ivan Briukhovetsky's revolt against Tsardom of Russia. After Briukhovetsky's execution he supported Demian Mnohohrishny as a new hetman and swore allegiance to the Russian Tsar. Securing Mnohohrishny's deposition, he was elected the Hetman of the Left-Bank Ukraine in Konotop on June 17, 1672.

Samoylovych's principal ambition was to control the Right-bank Ukraine, where two rival hetmans, Petro Doroshenko and Mykhailo Khanenko, were active. In 1674 he joined his Cossacks with the Russian forces under Prince Grigory Romodanovsky against Doroshenko. After the latter's deposition, Samoylovych let him live in peace on the left bank of the Dnieper.

Zgon

In 1677 the Turkish sultan proclaimed Yuri Khmelnytsky a successor to Doroshenko, and invaded the right bank, and laid siege to its capital Chyhyryn. Although Samoylovych and Romodanovsky were generally successful in their operations against the Turks, the Russian army unexpectedly withdrew to the left bank on behest of the Tsar Alexis. By that time, the Russian government decided to de-populate the right bank altogether and to resettle its Cossacks in the areas controlled by Samoylovych. His son Semion was put in charge of these policies, known as zgon.

Conflict with Galitzine

In 1679 Poland invited Vasily Galitzine (prime-minister of Russia) to join the Holy League against the Turks. The Eternal Peace Treaty between Poland and Russia ran contrary with Samoylovych's plans to annex the right bank of the Dnieper, which still remained under Polish dominion since the Treaty of Andrusovo. Samoylovych attempted to persuade Russian boyars in the Polish treachery but, failing in his design, sent an angry letter to the king of Poland. Despite subsequent apologies, this incident would eventually contribute to his downfall.

In 1687 Galitzine and Samoylovych failed in their Crimean campaigns against the Crimean Khanate on account of steppe fires. It was rumoured that it was Samoylovych who had set the steppe on fire, because he preferred the Tatars to the Poles. Galitzine, meanwhile, was exasperated at Samoylovych's friendship with Prince Romodanovsky, his old political rival, and finally resolved to replace him with a more tractable Cossack.

In June 1687 Ivan Mazepa used the popular discontent with Samoylovych's haughty manners and high taxes to accuse him of separatism. Thereupon his youngest son, Hryhory Samoylovych, was incriminated in slandering the Tsar and executed in Sevsk. The old hetman and his family were arrested and exiled to Tobolsk in Siberia, where he died in 1690.

Pavlo Teteria

Pavlo Teteria (born ? – died in 1670 in Adrianopolis) was Hetman of Right-bank Ukraine (1663–1665). Before his hetmancy he served in a number of high positions under Bohdan Khmelnytsky, and Ivan Vyhovsky.

When the Khmelnytsky Uprising broke out he served as a regimental secretary of Pereyaslav; shortly after he was appointed the deputy of the general secretary. Later he assumed the post of the Pereyaslav colonel, while still continuing to act as deputy general secretary. He was one of the Ukrainian delegates that were sent to conduct the Treaty of Pereyaslav.

Teteria participated in the negotiations aimed at uniting Ukraine back into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. When a civil war between Right-bank Cossacks and Right-bank Cossacks broke out, he openly supported pro-Polish policies, and was elected Hetman in the Right-bank Ukraine in 1663.

Biography

He was the son in law of hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, when he married his daughter Olena Khmelnytsky in 1660. Teteria was educated at the Kyivan Mohyla College and he was member of the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood. He joined the Cossack army when the Khmelnytsky Uprising broke out in 1648. He began his official service as a regimental secretary for the Pereyaslav regiment. Shortly after he became the deputy of the general secretary. He was part of the delegation that accompanied Tymofiy Khmelnytsky to Iaşi to marry Ruxandra the daughter of the Moldavian Voivode Vasile Lupu. On July 1653 Teteria assumed the position of colonel of Pereyaslav, while still maintaining the office of deputy general secretary.

Teteria and along with Samiilo Bohdanovych-Zarudny were part of the Ukrainian delegation sent to Moscow in April to conduct the Treaty of Pereyaslav with the Tsardom of Russia, which placed the Cossack Hetmanate and the Zaporozhian Host under the protection of the Tsar. When Vyhovsky was proclaimed hetman, he was made the chancellor secretary to the hetman. He participated in the negotiations of the Treaty of Hadiach, which would restore Ukraine back into the Commonwealth, as a third and autonomous state, under the ultimate sovereignty of the King of Poland. The treaty led to a civil war known as The Ruin, when he openly supported pro-Polish policy and pressured the young, and unexperienced Yuri Khmelnytsky to abdicate.