In one of the sea campaigns, the hetman burned the outskirts of Istanbul, and in the land campaign he besieged Moscow
States are created by people, many of them leave an unforgettable mark on history. If we recall the outstanding figures of Ukraine’s past during the turbulent 17th century, then next to Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky we can place first of all Hetman Petro Konashevich-Sagaidachny. On April 20 (10), 1622, this military-political figure died from wounds received in the grandiose battle of Khotyn.
Sagaidachny received the nickname in the Sich
The future famous hetman of the Zaporozhian Army was born in July 1582. His homeland was the village of Kulchytsy in the Sambir region. Descended from the Orthodox gentry family of Konashevich-Popeley from Podgorye, coat of arms “Pobug”. The nickname Sagaidachny, which he received in the Sich, comes from the word “sagaidak” (a tight and flexible Cossack bow with a leather bag or wooden case with arrows). This man was just as flexible depending on the circumstances.
Petr Konashevich studied at the Sambir church school, and then entered the Ostrog Higher School (in the future – the Academy). This university, well known not only in Ukraine, was under the auspices of the tycoon, the powerful Prince Vasily-Konstantin Ostrozhsky – the defender of Ukrainian Orthodoxy. Among the school's figures, we note such iconic figures of Ukrainian and Belarusian culture as the writer and teacher Gerasim Smotritsky, the printer Ivan Fedorovich (Fedorov), the poet Andrei Rimsha, one of the outstanding artists of medieval icon painting, Theophanes the Greek.
Peter was for some time a teacher of the children of the Kyiv voivode Stefan (Jan) Aksak. Then he joined the ranks of the registered Cossack army.
Konashevich-Sagaidachny is called a participant in the Livonian and Moldavian wars at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, but there are practically no specific facts about his life in those years. In 1612, near Bila Tserkva, the Cossacks led by him defeated the Tatar horde and freed five thousand captives. In the same year, a Cossack flotilla of 60 seagulls led by Sagaidachny carried out a series of attacks on Ottoman cities on the Black Sea – Varna and Mesembry (modern Bulgaria), Babadag (Romania) and Gezlev (Evpatoria in the Ukrainian Crimea).
According to the testimony of the Polish chronicler Jacob Sobieski, Konashevich “burned the outskirts of Constantinople” in one of the sea campaigns.. Obviously, they were referring to the memorable campaign of 1615 for the Cossacks, when they burned two suburbs of the Sultan’s capital – Mizivna and Arkhioki.
As the outstanding Ukrainian historian Mikhail Grushevsky wrote, in 1616 Sagaidachny “moved to the forefront of Ukrainian life”. First as a successful Cossack naval commander and military leader. It was this year that Sagaidachny led the Cossacks’ campaign against Kafa (Feodosia), where there was the largest slave market on the Black Sea, and then the ports of Trebizond and Sinop. The Cossacks liberated tens of thousands of Christians and took two large Turkish ports by storm.
Elected hetman four times
Jacob Sobieski left us the most complete portrait of Sagaidachny: “he was a man of great spirit, who always looked for danger himself, easily risked his life, was the first in battle, very wary in the camp, silent and cautious at meetings, taciturn in all kinds of conversations, very harsh towards the Cossack self-will, executed for misdeeds”. Since 1616, he was elected hetman four times.
The naval campaigns of the Cossacks could provoke the Ottoman Empire into a large-scale war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. At the end of 1616, King Sigismund III Vasa sent his emissaries to Kyiv with a “Cossack commission” to put the Ukrainians within strict limits – political and legal.
But it was not there. Ukrainian historian Natalya Yakovenko wrote: “…researchers based on the materials of the tax censuses of 1616 and 1622. number about 9-10 thousand in the steppe part of the Kyiv Voivodeship. Cossack households, that is, at least 50-60 thousand. people who lived “on Cossack law”, not at all sharing the government’s view of themselves as a social anomaly” (“Essay on medieval and early modern Ukraine”, “Critique”, K., 2005).
Let’s not forget about the “Cossack hundreds” of magnates and latifundists, the Cossacks of the Vishnevetsky princes in the Lubny region… It was almost impossible to carry out the king’s order.
At the end of October 1617, Pyotr Kononovich became hetman of the Zaporozhye Army for the second time.. He actively participated in the campaign against the Muscovite kingdom in 1617-1618.. to help Prince Vladislav, who was located near the capital. There were about 20 thousand people in the Cossack army, while the Poles were left with six thousand zholners (the mercenaries deserted due to non-payment of money).
The Cossacks of Konashevich-Sagaidachny, having passed Putivl, Livny and Yelets with victories, approached Moscow on October 1, 1618, uniting with the allies, led by the Lithuanian hetman Jan-Karol Chodkiewicz. However, the Allies were unable to capture the city.. An important reason for the unsuccessful assault was the flight of two French sappers to the Muscovites, who betrayed Khodkevich’s plan to the enemy. The tactics of the allied forces during the siege were predictable, so a powerful fortification system helped the city’s defenders withstand the assault.
Negotiations have begun. At the end of October 1618, Sagaidachny sent an 8,000-strong army to Serpukhov and Kaluga. City posts were captured. On January 11, 1619, the Deulin Truce, beneficial to Warsaw, was signed between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Muscovite Kingdom.. According to its results, the Polish-Lithuanian state regained the Smolensk region and the Novgorod-Seversk land.
Back at the end of 1618, Peter Konashevich-Sagaidachny with the entire Zaporozhye Army entered the “League of Christian Militia”. The League, the main organizers of which were the Vatican and the Venetian Republic, became an important factor in the opposition of Christian countries to Ottoman expansion. After this, Konashevich-Sagaidachny conceded the hetman’s mace twice more and still returned it to his own hands.
On July 29, 1619, at a council in Kyiv, about a thousand Cossacks swore allegiance to Hetman Konashevich-Sagaidachny. However, King Sigismund III Vasa was not going to fulfill the promises he made after the campaign on Moscow.
“In October, when the Rostavy Treaty was concluded in 1619, Konashevich-Sagaidachny and his senior officers managed to largely level the anti-Cossack program of the government commissioners. At the same time, the clauses of this document regarding the expulsion of Cossacks from the Zaporizhzhya Army and the limitation of their place of residence on the territory of the kingdoms posed a considerable threat to the Cossacks, first of all the “new” Cossacks (Petro Sas, “Polkovodets Petro Sagaidachnyi”, K., “Clio”, 2021).
The hetman was in no hurry to fulfill the Rostavitsky agreement, because the majority of Cossacks did not recognize it. In 1620, after the campaign against Perekop, Sagaidachny again temporarily yielded the mace and left for Kyiv, where there were many supporters among the Cossacks and townspeople. Yakov Borodavka (Nerodich), who had pro-Moscow views, became the hetman.
In Kyiv, our hero paid great attention to matters of education. In 1620, he and “the whole army” joined the Kiev Brotherhood. The Kiev-Brotherly School (in the future Kiev-Mohyla Academy) owes its foundation largely to Konashevich-Sagaidachny. He actively supported the ordination of Metropolitan Job Boretsky of Kiev on October 9, 1620 by Patriarch Theophan of Jerusalem…
The last most famous act in the life of the hetman was participation in the Polish-Turkish war of 1620-1621. The small Polish army was defeated near Tsetsora (a village in Romania, in the district of Iasi. – Ed .) in October 1620. The great crown hetman Stanislav Zholkiewski died in the battle, and 24-year-old Bohdan Khmelnytsky was captured.
Only the Cossacks could defend the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Sahaidachny was not a hetman at that time, but retained influence among the Cossacks. At the negotiations in Warsaw, the purpose of which was to obtain guarantees from the king (increasing the register, expanding the rights of the Cossacks, protecting the Orthodox faith, paying money), Sagaidachny extended a helping hand to the agonizing state. In June 1621, at the Cossack Rada in the Sukhaya Dubrava tract, a decision was made on the participation of the Cossacks in the war.
Military operations took place near the Khotyn fortress. The Cossack army approached from the east, and Sagaidachny with a small detachment from the north. There were more than 40 thousand Cossacks, up to 33 thousand Poles. They were opposed by 200 thousand Turks and Crimean Tatars. In the midst of searching for the main part of the army, Sagaidachny’s detachment encountered the Tatars. The commander was wounded by a poisoned arrow. The Allies managed to form a united front near Khotyn. Sahaidachny was again elected hetman. His predecessor Yakov Borodavka was convicted and executed at the Rada.
The Turkish army carried out several fierce attacks on the Cossack regiments. The Ukrainians showed iron stamina, excellent training and discipline. Having an advantage over the Ottomans in mobility and coherence, they repelled the attacks (the Cossack artillery performed excellently), and then launched a counteroffensive, broke into the Turkish camp and almost captured it. However, the numerically superior Ottomans launched a counterattack. The Cossacks retreated, maintaining battle order. This battle took place on September 22, 1621.
The Battle of Khotyn continued for several more weeks. The Turks and Tatars, who lost about 70-80 thousand soldiers in the battles, were forced to sign a peace beneficial to the Poles.
Konashevich-Sagaidachny died in Kyiv on April 20 (10), 1622. The hetman was buried in the Epiphany Church of the Kyiv Brotherhood. Before his death, he made a will, according to which he bequeathed all his property to the Kiev, Lutsk and Lviv fraternal schools.
In the memorial of Ukrainian renaissance literature “Poems for the Funeral Cellar of the Noble Knight Pyotr Konashevich-Sagaidachny, Military Hetman of His Royal Grace of Zaporozhye”, which was composed by the church figure, writer-polemic Kasiyan Sakovich, we read:
“Everyone can say this about the hetman:
There was a righteous hetman – give him peace, God!
Had for a great reward of his own,
How, breaking out of captivity, will give freedom to someone.
So war can happen in the world for one reason:
To turn away one's own and other people's wrongs.
Be, noble hetman, glorious forever and ever,
May Christ in heaven heal you.”
We must remember the great commander and politician, a wise man, whom contemporaries called “the happy Cossack leader”. Petro Konashevich-Sagaidachny is the real pride of Ukraine…
Personal life and unhappy marriage
As for his personal life, it is known that Sagaidachny’s wife was Anastasia Povchenskaya (1587 – after 1624) from the Volyn gentry. Married as a minor, no later than early 1603. The following year, a son was born – Lukasz (his traces are lost after 1619 due to death or other reasons). The marriage was unhappy because the husband was constantly on campaigns and in the Sich.
Anastasia lived in her husband's house in Kyiv. She had a very difficult character, constantly argued over lands and villages with neighbors and relatives. Maybe that’s why the hetman, before his death, transferred literally all the property to fraternal schools in Ukraine and churches.
In 1624, the not so old widow of Pyotr Kononovich married a second time – to Ivan Pyonchinsky. In July, she raided the estate of Fyodor Darovsky in Vyrva. A trial was supposed to take place in Kyiv, but Anastasia did not appear. Apparently, she left the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and her traces were also lost in history…