Severin Nalivaiko
Nalivaiko, Severin
Year of birth unknown, in the settlement of Gusiatin, now Ternopol’ Oblast; died Apr. 11 (21), 1597, in Warsaw. Leader of an antifeudal peasant and cossack uprising in the Ukraine. Son of an artisan.
Nalivaiko fought in cossack campaigns against the Turks and Tatars. In October 1594 he led an uprising in the Right-bank Ukraine. After retaliating against the magnates and the szlachectwo (Polish nobility or gentry) in Volyn’, he sought to join up with insurgent Byelorussian peasants. An offensive by Polish troops forced Nalivaiko to retreat to the Ukraine, where he joined the insurgent registered cossacks. After fighting with the Polish Army near Belaia Tserkov’ and in the Ostryi Kamen’ area, the insurgents crossed the Dnieper and near the city of Lubny built a fortified camp, to which the Poles laid siege.
On July 7 (17), 1595, the leadership of the registered cossacks turned Nalivaiko and other leaders of the uprising over to the Polish command. Nalivaiko was executed after two years of incarceration and torture. Nalivaiko’s name is repeatedly mentioned in the work of T. G. Shevchenko and K. F. Ryleev (the poem Nalivaiko); the Soviet Ukrainian writer Ivan Le wrote the historical novel Nalivaiko.