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Petro Doroshenko

Petro Doroshenko (1627–1698) was a prominent Ukrainian military, political, and statesman, Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host (1665–1676). Faced with the threat of the partition of Ukraine between Moscow and Warsaw under the Truce of Andrusovo of 1667, he initiated the creation of a military-political alliance with the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate, aimed at ensuring the unity (sobornist) and independence of the Ukrainian state.

Overview

Petro Doroshenko came from a renowned Cossack officer (starshyna) family (grandson of Hetman Mykhailo Doroshenko). Elected hetman in 1665, he pursued a policy of uniting the Left-Bank and Right-Bank Ukraine under a single mace (bulaava).

In response to the separate agreement between Moscow and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1667), Doroshenko concluded an alliance with Sultan Mehmed IV. The Korsun Agreement of 1668 officially proclaimed the Ottoman protectorate ("subjection to the sultan") on the model of the Wallachian and Moldavian principalities, while preserving the inviolability of the Cossack order and liberties. During his rule, the state independence of the Zaporozhian Host was confirmed by the Buchach Peace Treaty of 1672, and the church parishes of the Cossack state were placed under the canonical jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (the Brăila Metropolitanate).

Key Details / Subtopics

  • Alliance with the Ottoman Empire: July 1667 — start of negotiations; January 1668 — Chyhyryn council of the officers; March 11, 1668 — Korsun General Council on the acceptance of the Porte's protectorate.
  • Unity of Ukraine: In June 1668, Doroshenko's army crossed the Dnieper, destroyed the pro-Moscow hetman Briukhovetsky, and proclaimed Doroshenko hetman "on both banks of the Dnieper."
  • Church policy: He supported Metropolitan of Kyiv Yosep Tukalsky-Neliubovych; he promoted the removal of the commemoration of the Muscovite tsar in Ukrainian churches and the submission of parishes to the Ecumenical Patriarchate (the Brăila Metropolitanate).
  • Buchach Peace (18.10.1672): An international treaty in which the Ottoman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth recognized the independence of Ukraine under Doroshenko.