Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny (Ruthenian: Петръ Конашевич Сагайдачный;ВЂршЂ на жалосный погреб зацного рыцера Петра Конашевича Сагайдачного, гетмана войска єго королевскои милости запорозкого ; ; born – 20 April 1622) was a political and civic leader and member of the Ruthenian nobility, who served as Hetman of Zaporozhian Cossacks from 1616 to 1622. During his tenure, he transformed Zaporozhian Cossacks from irregular military troops into a regular army and improved relations between the Cossacks, the Orthodox clergy and peasants of Ukraine, which would later contribute to the establishment of a modern Ukrainian national consciousness. A military leader of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth both on land and sea, Sahaidachny is best known for the significant role his troops played in the Battle of Khotyn against the Ottoman Empire in 1621, as well as the Polish Prince Władysław IV Vasa's attempt to usurp the Russian throne in 1618. The Zaporozhian Cossacks under his leadership were more efficient at fighting the Ottoman Empire than such major European powers as the Republic of Venice and Habsburgs. Sahaidachny reportedly took part in 60 battles without losing a single one.
In 2011 Sahaidachny was canonized by the Orthodox Church of Ukraine as a Right-Believing hetman. On 20 April 2022 he was further declared by Epiphanius of Kyiv to be patron saint of the military forces of Ukraine.
Early life
Petro Konashevych was born into an Eastern Orthodox family of the Western Ukrainian nobility, at the village of Kulchytsy (Przemyśl land), in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The village was in the Ruthenian Voivodeship, from Sambir. Based on the preserved memorial record of the Sahaidachny family, historians believe that Sahaidachny's father was called Konon (or Konash), after whose death Petro's mother took monastic vows ("nun Mokryna"). Elisey, who is mentioned with the surname Kaznovsky, is probably Sahaidachny's maternal grandfather.
Due to the lack of direct written sources, it is not known exactly when Petro Konashevych was born. Olena Apanovych indicates the years 1577–1578, and Petro Sas has the date around 1582. Based on the assumption that in those days, children were usually named after a saint whose date of birth was close, Sahaidachny was roughly born around June 29 (July 9) 1582, on the feast of the apostles Peter and Paul. In 2010, the 440th anniversary of the birth of Hetman Petro Sahaidachny was celebrated at the state level.
Modern historians believe that during the years 1589–1592, he received his primary education in Sambir. From 1592 to 1598, he studied at the Ostroh Academy in Volhynia, which at that time was experiencing a period of prosperity and where well-trained teachers worked. During the years 1594–1600, the rector, as well as the teacher of the Greek language, was Cyril Lucaris, then the Patriarch of Alexandria and of Constantinople.
The city of Ostroh was a major center of Eastern Orthodox culture, theology and ideology, in which many works directed against Catholicism and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, formed by the Union of Brest, were produced. The intellectual and ideological atmosphere of Ostroh formed Sahaidachny's beliefs and political views as a zealous defender of Orthodoxy, who consistently defended the rights and interests of his Church throughout his life. During his studies, Sahaidachny wrote Explanation about the Union, in which he defended the Orthodox faith. This work was highly appreciated by contemporaries, in particular the Lithuanian chancellor Lew Sapieha, who called the work "the most valuable" in his letter to Josaphat Kuntsevych.
According to Volodymyr Antonovych, after graduation, Sahaidachny moved to Lviv, and later to Kyiv, where he worked as a home teacher, as well as an assistant to Kyiv land court judge Yan Aksak. Petro Sas suggests that during his studies at the Ostroh School, Sahaidachny decided to join the Zaporozhian Cossacks.
With the Zaporozhian Cossacks
Joining the Zaporozhian Army At the end of the 1590s and until the beginning of the 1620s, the main activity of the Zaporozhian Cossacks was aimed at obtaining means for their material existence. It came down primarily to service as military mercenaries, self-imposed stops, and contributions, as well as the seizure of military trophies, material values, prisoners, attacks on merchant ships, ambassadorial convoys, etc. War trophies, including cannons, jewels, as well as rich captives captured during looting expeditions, allowed the Cossacks to arm themselves well and act as a powerful military force. The Ottoman Empire and its vassals and, in certain periods, Muscovy, were the object of predatory attacks by the Zaporozhians. The Zaporozhians justified their activities primarily as protecting their native land from the enemy, which was carried out in the form of preemptive strikes on its territory and the liberation of Christian prisoners from captivity.
At the end of the sixteenth century, apparently, in the second half of 1598, Konashevych joined the Zaporozhian Host. From Cassian Sakowicz's Poems, it is known that Konashevych spent a long time among the Zaporozhians, gaining authority with his courage and intelligence. It was in Zaporizhzhia that Konashevych began to be called "Sahaidachny" (from Ukrainian сагайдак - quiver) as a skilled archer. The surname "Sahaidachny" was quite common among Cossacks in the middle of the seventeenth century, especially in the Dnieper and Bratslav regions. Armed with a quiver, a well-trained archer could shoot from eight to twelve arrows per minute, which sometimes flew 500 paces.
Wallachia and Livonia campaigns
In the autumn of 1600, the Great Crown Hetman Jan Zamoyski organized a Moldavian–Wallachian military campaign, which was joined by several thousand Cossacks led by Gavril Krutnevych. The purpose of this campaign was to support Yeremia Mohyla (Petro Mohyla's uncle) and to restore the influence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in Moldavia since it had been taken over by the Wallachian lord Michael the Brave in May. Sahaidachny participated in this campaign as a Cossack. On October 28, 1600, in the Battle of Bucov near the village of Bucov in Wallachia, the Polish troops defeated Michael the Brave.
At the beginning of 1601, the king of Poland, Sigismund III Vasa, announced the accession to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth of Estonia, which previously belonged to Sweden. The Zaporozhian Cossacks responded to the king's call, and during 1601–1602 they took part in the military operations of the Polish-Swedish War. Among the other Cossacks, there was Sahaidachny, which was first under the leadership of Samuil Kishka, and from the beginning of 1602, Gavril Krutnevich.
The registered Cossack army was independent, separate in its structure and organization. The total number of combat personnel was 2,032 soldiers; 100–200 self-employed peasants were with the caravan. The army consisted of four regiments of 500 people each, artillery, and a convoy. The head of the campaign, Jan Zamoyski, entrusted the Zaporozhians with the functions of reconnaissance and ensuring a safe zone around the main royal army. Despite the military successes, the campaign turned out to be very expensive for the treasury of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. There was a lack of money to pay the soldiers, there was not enough warm clothing, food, ammunition, and fodder for the horses. The war dragged on, and the Cossacks saw it as absolutely hopeless. In the first days of September 1602, the Zaporozhians marched to Ukraine, overloaded with booty, and wounded and sick soldiers. Upon returning home, sensing their power and the helplessness of the crown government, the Cossacks resorted to looting, taking revenge on the nobility and burghers of Polotsk and Vitebsk, who helped the punitive troops suppress Severyn Nalivaiko's rebellion. In 1603, the Cossack army returned to Ukraine.
Zaporozhian sea campaigns
The period from 1603 to 1614, due to the lack of preserved verified written sources, is considered a "dark" period in Sahaidachny's biography. At that time he took an active part in the Cossack sea and land campaigns against the Ottomans and the Tatars of the Crimean Khanate. Only under such conditions could he be entrusted with the hetman's mace during the campaign to Kafa in 1616. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Cossack war booty became an important geopolitical factor in the Black Sea basin. First, it caused constant tension in Polish-Ottoman relations. Secondly, the attacks of the Zaporozhians caused colossal economic losses to the Ottoman Empire, reduced its military power, and also had a deterrent effect on the Tatars, as they limited their opportunities to devastate Ukrainian lands. The Zaporozhians carried out their sea campaigns under the political slogan of fighting the enemies of the Holy Cross, and their main target was rich Ottoman and Tatar cities. They attacked several fortresses at the same time, but the main thrust was directed at the main objective of the campaign while trying to destroy the Ottoman fleet in ports and at sea.
One of such campaign attributed to Sahaidachny was the sea campaign to Varna in the summer of 1606. During this campaign, the Cossacks captured a fortress that had been considered impregnable before. The storming of Varna ended with the destruction of all coastal fortifications and Ottoman ships that were on the raid. The result of the battle was the liberation of several thousand prisoners, the Zaporizhia captured significant trophies and 10 Ottoman galleys with cargo and crew. Because of this campaign, the Sultan issued an order to block the Dnieper near the island of Tavani with an iron chain and block the Cossacks, but these measures were ineffective.
In 1607, the Zaporozhians conducted a major campaign against the Crimean Khanate, during which they captured and burned Perekop and Ochakiv. In 1608 and the beginning of 1609, Sahaidachny carried out a sea campaign on 16 "seagull" boats to the mouth of the Danube, during which an attack was made on Kiliya, Bilhorod, and Izmail. In 1612, a Cossack flotilla consisting of 60 seagulls carried out successful campaigns against enemy fortifications at Gozliv, Babadag, Varna, and Mesembria.
In 1613, the Cossacks made two campaigns on the Ottoman coast, and at the mouth of the Dnieper, they defeated the Ottoman flotilla and captured six Ottoman galleys.
In August 1614, the Zaporozhians on forty seagulls went to the shores of the Ottoman Empire: They captured Trebizond, besieged Sinop, captured the castle, knocked out the garrison, and destroyed the entire fleet of galleys and galleons that were on the raid.
In 1615, 80 Cossack seagulls approached Constantinople, where they burned to the ground the harbors of Mizevni and Archioka, along with the fleet stationed there. The Ottoman sultan sent a whole flotilla in pursuit of the Cossacks. However, the Ottoman flotilla was defeated in sea battles near Zmiiny Island and near Ochakiv, and the Cossacks captured the Ottoman admiral Ali Pasha.
Zaporozhian Cossack leader Receiving the Hetman mace In February 1615, Konashevych was already an influential Cossack colonel commanding a detachment of up to 3,000 Cossacks. This is known from the letter of Łukasz Sapieha, who complained to his brother Lew about Sahaidachny, who was in the Kyiv region and did not want to come to the aid of units of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and ordered his Cossacks to retreat. As Łukasz Sapieha pointed out, Sahaidachny wanted to use the help of the Crimean Tatars to oust the soldiers from Ukraine, because the Cossacks felt hatred for them.