Voshchilo, Vasilii

Place of birth and death unknown. Leader of an antifeudal uprising of peasants and urban paupers in 1740-44 in Krichev volost (small rural district) in Byelorussia.

Voshchilo was a petty wax merchant (his name is a nick-name taken from vosk, Russian for wax). The rebels who headed the uprising with Voschilo murdered Polish gentry and routed the forces of the Polish king. Voschilo declared himself the grandson of Bogdan Khmel’nitskii. The rebellion was crushed and Voschilo fled to the Ukraine; his subsequent fate is unknown.