But, Pavel Mikhnovich

(pseudonym of P. M. Pavliuk). Date of birth unknown; died 1638. Leader of a peasant and cossack uprising in the Ukraine during 1637-38.

Early in August 1637, But and his followers set out from Zaporozh’e; their appearance was the signal for a mass uprising throughout the Left-bank Ukraine. The rebels drove out their Polish and Ukrainian landlords and proclaimed themselves cossacks. In December 1637 in the village of Kumeek, troops of the Polish nobility led by Hetman N. Pototskii defeated the rebels. But and some of the rebels retreated to Chigirin to raise new troops and prepare ammunition. Later, during negotiations with Pototskii, But was betrayed, captured, and executed in Warsaw.