Yuri Khmelnytsky (1641–1685), younger
son of the famous Ukrainian Hetman Bohdan
Khmelnytsky and brother of Tymofiy
Khmelnytsky, was a Zaporozhian Cossack political and military
leader. Although he spent half of his adult life as a monk, he also was Hetman of
Ukraine on several occasions — in 1659-1660 and
1678–1681 and starost of Hadiach.
Yuri Khmelnytsky
was born in 1641 in Subotiv near Chyhyryn in central Ukraine. In 1659 the Cossack Rada elected
the 17-year-old Yurii as their hetman in Bila Tserkva, replacing the deposed Ivan Vyhovsky. The young
hetman faced problems: the uneasy alliance with the Tsardom of Russia and the
ongoing wars against Poland-Lithuania and against the Crimean Khanate.
In 1659 the
parliament (sejm walny) of Polish–Lithuanian
Commonwealth granted him nobility. On 24 March 1661 he
became starost of Hadiach.
During the
latter conflict, Yuri Khmelnytsky's Cossacks were defeated near the town of Korsun, he was captured by the Poles and later pledged loyalty to king Jan II Kazimierz of
Poland-Lithuania (reigned 1648-1668). This provoked a civil war within Ukraine
in 1661, when the new ataman Yakym Somko led the
pro-Moscow Cossacks against Yuri and his new Polish allies. At the battle near
the town of Pereiaslav in the summer of 1662 Somko's Cossacks and the Russians under Grigory Romodanovsky defeated Yuri Khmelnytsky.
After the
defeat, Khmelnytsky entered an alliance with the Crimean Khanate, but this
resulted in little beyond massive looting and raiding of Ukrainian towns and
villagesby the Tatars. Thereupon Yuri gave up his hetman title and became a
monk at the Mharsky Monastery in the autumn of 1662. Between 1664 and 1667 the hetman Pavlo Teteria imprisoned
him in Lviv.
After his
release, in 1672 he participated in a campaign against the Tatars and was
captured near Uman and brought to Constantinople, where he was allowed to live in a Greek Orthodox monastery. In 1676 — after the Sultan's ally, Petro Doroshenko, surrendered to
the Russians — the Porte decided to use Khmelnytsky's famous name to reinforce
their claim to the Right-bank Ukraine starting the Russo-Turkish
War (1676–1681).
In 1678 the
Turkish army captured Chyhyryn and declared Yuri Khmelnytsky as a new hetman of Ukraine, although in reality he was only a
puppet for the Ottoman Sultan.
Ottoman Turkish army with
Yuri in tow captured and burned down Kaniv and other Ukrainian towns. He then retired to
his Sultan dictated capital at Nemyriv in Turkish
occupied parts of Ukraine, as a vassal of sultan Mehmed IV until
1681, when the Turks removed him from power due to his unstable mental health
and unprecedented cruelty. Two years later, he was briefly re-instated by the
Poles. Finally in 1685 the Turks captured Yuri and executed him (strangled) in Kamianets-Podilskyi.
Unlike his
father, Yuri was unable to master the very complex situation he faced and was
often manipulated by foreign powers.
Related post: Petro Doroshenko
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