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Doroshenko (Дорошенко) Petro Dorofeevich
(1627—1698)

Petro Doroshenko was a Cossack political and military leader, Hetman of Right-bank Ukraine (1665–1672) and Russian voyevoda.

Petro Doroshenko was born in Chyhyryn (Chigirin) to a noble Cossack family. He was a grandson of Cossack Hetman Mykhailo Doroshenko who held the bulava in the 1620s.

During the Khmelnytskyi Uprising, Doroshenko joined Bohdan Khmelnytsky in his fight against the Polish domination of Ukraine. Doroshenko held the rank of polkovnyk, commanding a regiment under Khmelnytsky and his successor Ivan Vyhovsky. Between 1657 and 1658 he helped Hetman Vyhovsky to suppress pro-Russian uprising of Iakiv Barabash and Martyn Pushkar a bloody fratricidal conflict, resulting in some 50,000 deaths.

Hetman Pavlo Teteria promoted Doroshenko to the rank of his chief (general) yesaul in 1663. Doroshenko became the leader of the Cossack starshyna and elements within the ecclesiastical authorities who opposed 1654 Treaty of Pereyaslav. Supported by Crimean Tatars and Ottoman Turkey in 1665, Doroshenko crushed the pro-Russian Cossack bands and became Hetman of Right-bank Ukraine.

During negotiations with Russian Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich Doroshenko rejected the 1667 Treaty of Andrusovo that divided Ukraine between Russia and Poland and refused to accept Polish rule over western Ukraine. Doroshenko unsuccessfully proposed to the Russians to make him Hetman of all Ukraine, independent from Poles and allied to the Tsardom. After negotiations collapsed, Petro Doroshenko and his men crossed into Left-bank Ukraine supporting an uprising against Ivan Briukhovetsky in 1668. Following Briukhovetsky's execution they proposed Demian Mnohohrishny as new Hetman of eastern Ukraine.

However, Doroshenko was defeated by pro-Russian Cossacks of Left-bank Ukraine led by Ivan Sirko and voyevoda Grigory Romodanovsky's Streltsy. In a final bid to preserve his power in Ukraine, Doroshenko signed a treaty with the Turkish Sultan Mehmed IV that recognized the Cossack Hetmanate as a vassal of the Ottoman Empire. This was very unpopular with the majority of deeply Orthodox Christian Cossacks and proved to be a serious mistake on the part of the Hetman. Most of his supporters deserted to his pro-Russian rivals, while at the same time Poles led by Jan Sobieski invaded Ukraine. Turkish counter-invasion which stopped the Polish invasion and laid sieges to Kamianets-Podilskyi (it has been captured and sacked) and Lviv in 1672 gave Doroshenko a brief respite, but soon more troubles followed. Thousands of inhabitants of Podolia were enslaved by Turks, while Crimean Tatars devastated Right-bank Ukraine. In 1674 Cossacks led by new pro-Russian Hetman Ivan Samoylovych together with Prince Grigory Romodanovsky deposed Doroshenko from his last stronghold at Chyhyryn. After his defeat in what became known as the Chyhyryn Campaigns, Doroshenko was arrested and brought to Moscow never to return to Ukraine.

In 1676 Petro Doroshenko asked new Russian Tsar Feodor III to forgive him and promised his loyalty. In 1679 he was appointed voyevoda (governor-duke) of Vyatka in central Russia, and after a few years was granted an estate and principality of Yaropolch in Volokolamsk Uyezd. Petro Doroshenko died in 1698 near Volokolamsk. To this day he remains a controversial figure in Ukrainian history. Some consider him a national hero who wanted an independent Ukraine, while to others he was a power-hungry Cossack Hetman who offered Ukraine to a Muslim Sultan in exchange for hereditary overlordship of his native land.

Ukraine, 1998, Petro Doroshenko