Kosinskii, Krishtof

Kosinskii, Krishtof 

Year of birth unknown; died in May 1593. Ukrainian hetman. Leader of the cossack and peasant uprising of 1591–93.

A member of the minor nobility of the Poles’e region, Kosinskii became hetman of the registered cossacks in the 1580’s. In December 1591 he led an uprising of the Zaporozh’e Cossacks that grew into a popular uprising against the oppression of the Polish and Ukrainian feudal lords, enveloping the Kiev and Bratslav regions, Volyn’, and part of Podolia. In 1592 the insurgents captured Belaia Tserkov’, PereiaslavP, and Tripol’e, at-tacked the Kiev castle, and routed the detachments of Prince V. K. Ostrozhskii. On Feb. 2, 1593, however, they were defeated near the small town of Piatka (near Chudnov, Zhitomir Oblast, Ukrainian SSR) by Prince la. Ostrozhskii’s troops. Retreating to the Zaporozh’e region, Kosinskii began negotiations with the Russian government, the Crimean Tatars, and Turkey. In May 1593, Kosinskii advanced on Cherkassy with an army of 2,000 cossacks, but he was routed by the troops of Prince A. Vishnevetskii. According to some accounts Kosinskii died in battle; according to others he was treacherously murdered on Vishnevetskii’s orders.