Ivan Vygovskii

Vygovskii, Ivan Evstaf’evich 

Date of birth unknown; died 1664. Hetman of the Ukraine from 1657 to 1659.

Vygovskii came from the petty gentry (szlachestwo) of the Ukraine. He served in the Polish Army, and, after its defeat at Zheltye Vody in 1648, the Tatars took him prisoner. Bogdan Khmel’nitskii ransomed him from captivity, and afterward he became general military scribe. Vygovskii belonged to that part of the Ukrainian cossack leadership which tried to separate the Ukraine from Russia and which was oriented toward gentry Poland. He was elected hetman in 1657 after Khmel’nitskii’s death. Vygovskii’s policies continued the course of strengthening large-scale feudal landholding and the serf system in the Ukraine, policies which led to a popular revolt in 1657-58 that was cruelly suppressed by Vygovskii with the help of the Crimean Tatars. In spite of the will of the Ukrainian people, Vygovskii signed the Gadiach Treaty of 1658, under which the Ukraine would again fall under the power of Poland. During the popular revolt of 1659 under the leadership of I. Bogun, Vygovskii was overthrown and fled to Poland. As a result of the intrigues of P. Teteria, hetman of Right-bank Ukraine who feared the rivalry of Vygovskii, the latter was shot on orders of the Polish leaders.

REFERENCES

Solov’ev, S. M. “Getman I. Vygovskii.” Otechestvennye zapiski, 1859, book 11.
Grekov, I. B. “Iz istorii sovmestnoi bor’by Ukrainy i Rossii za osushchestvlenie reshenii Pereiaslavskoi rady (1657-59).” In the collection Vossoedinenie Ukrainy s Rossiei. Moscow, 1954.

V. I. BUGANOV