Hetman Doroshenko: Bid to Unite Ukraine and Road to Exile in Muscovy

Ukrainska Pravda recalls Cossack hetman Petro Doroshenko, who died on 19 November 1698, aged 71, in the village of Yaropolets, 130 kilometres from Moscow. Born in the Cherkasy region and once ruler of Chyhyryn, he spent the last third of his life in Muscovy, without the right to return home. The article explains how he tried to bring Ukraine together and why the attempt failed.

The goal: one state, one hetman

After the death of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Doroshenko rose against the Poles but could not reach an understanding with Left-Bank Ukraine, where Ivan Samoilovych, loyal to Moscow, remained hetman. Before moving under Muscovite rule, he used the tsar's envoy to demand that there be one hetman on both banks of the Dnipro and that Ukrainian lands be united. Historian Dmytro Doroshenko, the hetman's descendant and a figure of the Ukrainian People's Republic era, described this as his idea of an ideal Cossack state. The Kremlin had no reason to back such demands.

Ottoman protectorate

In 1669 Doroshenko decided to submit to the Ottoman sultan. In August 1672 he met Sultan Mehmed IV for the first time near Kamianets-Podilskyi, received gifts and, together with the Ottomans, besieged the Kamianets fortress. Its swift capitulation shocked the Poles and alarmed Moscow. The terms on which the hetman and his officers accepted the sultan's protection envisaged recognition of the Cossack state within borders from Przemyśl to Sevsk and autonomy for the Orthodox Church. In practice most points were unattainable, and the two sides did not trust each other. Turkish conduct in Ukraine also reduced the protectorate's popularity.

The struggle for Chyhyryn

In 1674 Samoilovych, backed by Moscow, marched on the right bank, took several towns, captured Doroshenko's younger brother Hryhorii and reached the walls of Chyhyryn. The defenders withstood the assaults until the Crimean khan arrived, but that success became a prelude to the hetman's eventual defeat.