Daniil Pavlovich Apostol

Born Dec. 4 (12), 1654; died Jan. 17 (28), 1734. Hetman of the Left-bank Ukraine (1727–34) and representative of the cossack high command.

Apostol was famous as a military leader; he took part in the campaigns against Turkey and the Crimea and in the Northern War. In 1708, Apostol joined the traitor I. Mazeppa but soon abandoned him. In 1722 he participated in the Russian army’s Persian campaign. Between 1723 and 1725, Apostolov was involved in P. L. Polubotok’s cause, in connection with a demonstration of part of the cossack command, which had demanded restoration of their former privileges. With the permission of the tsarist government he was elected hetman in 1727. He aided the growth of the large-scale feudal landowning system in the Ukraine and of the policy of turning Left-bank peasants and some cossacks into serfs. After Apostol’s death elections to the position of hetman were prohibited.