Petr Sagaidachnyi

(also P. K. Ko-nashevich-Sagaidachnyi). Year of birth unknown; born in the village of Kul’chitsy, now in Sambor Raion, L’vov Oblast; died Apr. 20 (30), 1622, in Kiev. Ukrainian political figure and military commander, hetman of the registered cossacks.

Sagaidachnyi was of noble (szlachtd) origin. He fought in and led campaigns of the Ukrainian cossacks into the Crimea and Turkey in 1614, 1615, 1616, and 1620. He played a prominent role in the battle at Khotin in 1621, in which a 40,000-man cos-sack host joined with the Polish Army and struck a decisive blow at the Turkish troops of Sultan Osman II. In exchange for services rendered to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita), Sagaidachnyi ǀtried ǀ to ǀstrengthenǀ the status of the registered cossacks and broaden the privileges of their elite and to ease the national and religious oppression in the Ukraine.

In 1620, Sagaidachnyi was instrumental in restoring in the Ukraine the Orthodox hierarchy, which had been abolished after the Brest Union of 1596. Sagaidachnyi and his host joined the Kiev Brotherhood. In 1620, with the liberation movement in the Ukraine on the rise, he sent envoys to Moscow, where they announced the willingness of the registered Zaporozh’e Host to serve Russia. Sagaidachnyi died of wounds he received at Khotin.