Ivan Briukhovetsky

Who was Ivan Briukhovetsky?

Ivan Briukhovetsky was a pro-Russian hetman of Left-Bank Ukraine from 1663 to 1668. For background see The Ruin

He was a registered Cossack, belonging to the Chyhyryn Company. Early in his career he served as Bohdan Khmelnytsky's courier and diplomatic emissary. He was elected Kosh otaman of the Zaporozhian Sich. At the Chorna rada of 1663 he was elected Hetman of the Left Bank with the support of Moscow.

However Briukhovetsky reign and cruelty worked against him, early on he arrested and executed his opponents namely polkovnyks Samko and Vasili Zolotarenko, for support he signed the Moscow Articles of 1665, which placed Left Bank Ukraine under direct control of the Tsar. In return, Briukhovetsky acquired the title of Boyar, properties, marriage to Prince Dolgoruky's daughter. This treaty went on to be called the "Briukhovetsky treaty" and caused massive rebellion in Ukraine. His popularity among the Clergy fell when he suggested that Moscow to appoint and send a metropolitan to the Kievan Metropolia.

As his domestic policies failed Briukhovetsky put the blame on the Russian authorities and with the Cossacks rebelled in an attempt to save his reputation, but it was too late. Faced with his failures as hetman, in 1668 in the town of Budyshchi, a cossack mob killed him by chaining him to a cannon and beating him to death.