Gunia, Dmitro

Dates of birth and death unknown. One of the leaders of the struggle of the Ukrainian peasants and cossacks against the oppression of the Polish nobility in the I630’s.

Gunia took part in the battle of the rebels against the Polish troops at Kumeiki in December 1637. After the surrender of the weakened rebel troops, he fled to the Zaporozh’e Sech’ (a self-governing Ukrainian cossack territory). In the spring of 1638. Gunia joined the peasant-cossack uprising led by la. Ostrianin. In the beginning of June 1638, Ostrianin and some of the cossacks went to the territory of the Russian state. However, the majority of the rebels, electing Gunia as hetmán, continued the struggle. They retreated to the mouth of the Starets River and to the Dnieper, and consolidating their forces, they held out until the end of July. Gunia managed to escape to Russia with a cossack detachment. In 1640 he led a naval attack of Don and Zaporozh’e cossacks against the Turks. The subsequent fate of Gunia is unknown.