Ivan Sulyma
Encyclopedia
Life and Death
Son of Mykhailo Sulyma, Ivan came from a petty noble (szlachtaSzlachta
The szlachta was a legally privileged noble class with origins in the Kingdom of Poland. It gained considerable institutional privileges during the 1333-1370 reign of Casimir the Great. In 1413, following a series of tentative personal unions between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of...
) family. He was born in Rogoszcze (next to Chernihiv
Chernihiv
Chernihiv or Chernigov is a historic city in northern Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Chernihiv Oblast , as well as of the surrounding Chernihivskyi Raion within the oblast...
). He served as an estate overseer for Stanisław Żółkiewski and later the family of Daniłowicze who inherited his lands; for that service in 1620 he was awarded three villages: Sulimówka, Kuczakiw (today Kirove) and Lebedyn. All the villages today belong to the Boryspil Raion, Kiev Region
Kiev Oblast
Kyiv Oblast, sometimes written as Kiev Oblast is an oblast in central Ukraine.The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Kyiv , also being the capital of Ukraine...
. His sons included Stepan (d. 1659), a captain of Boryspil
Boryspil
Boryspil is a city located in the Kiev Oblast in northern Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Boryspil Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast....
company, and Fedir (d. 1691), a colonel of Pereiaslav regiment.
He was becoming increasingly popular among the unregistered Cossacks
Registered Cossacks
Registered Cossacks is the term used for Cossacks formations of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth armies.-Establishing:The registered cossacks were created on the King's edict of Sigismund II Augustus on June 5, 1572 confirming the orders of the Crown Hetman Jerzy Jazłowiecki. The first senior ...
, leading them on campaigns to plunder Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
and other Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
vassal territories. For organizing a revolt on an Ottoman slave galley and freeing Christian slaves he received a medal from Pope Paul V
Pope Paul V
-Theology:Paul met with Galileo Galilei in 1616 after Cardinal Bellarmine had, on his orders, warned Galileo not to hold or defend the heliocentric ideas of Copernicus. Whether there was also an order not to teach those ideas in any way has been a matter for controversy...
himself. Eventually, Sulyma reached the rank of the hetman
Hetman
Hetman was the title of the second-highest military commander in 15th- to 18th-century Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which together, from 1569 to 1795, comprised the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, or Rzeczpospolita....
, which he held from 1628 to 1629 and 1630 to 1635.
In 1635, after returning from an expedition to Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
against the Ottomans, he decided to rebel against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...
, which at that time controlled most of the Cossack territories, and whose nobility was trying to turn militiant Cossacks into serf
SERF
A spin exchange relaxation-free magnetometer is a type of magnetometer developed at Princeton University in the early 2000s. SERF magnetometers measure magnetic fields by using lasers to detect the interaction between alkali metal atoms in a vapor and the magnetic field.The name for the technique...
s. On the night of 3 to 4 August 1635 he took the newly constructed Kodak fortress
Kodak fortress
Kodak fortress was a fort built in 1635 by the order of Polish king Władysław IV Vasa and the Sejm over the Dnieper River, near what was to become the town of Stari Kodaky...
by surprise, burning it and executing its crew of about 200 people under Jean Marion. Soon afterwards however his forces were defeated by the army of hetman
Hetman
Hetman was the title of the second-highest military commander in 15th- to 18th-century Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which together, from 1569 to 1795, comprised the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, or Rzeczpospolita....
Stanisław Koniecpolski and Sulima was turned over to the Commonwealth by Cossack elders or starshina
Starshina
Starshina, or Starshyna , initially was a Cossacks officership, but in Soviet times was used as the top non-commissioned officer.Among Cossacks and in Ukraine, starshina was a collective noun for categories of officership or a military elite: junior starshina , general starshina , military...
. Together with several other leaders of his rebellion, Hetman Sulyma was executed in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
on 12 December 1635. At first, the Polish King Władysław IV Waza, known for his friendly attitude towards the Cossacks, was hesitant to execute Sulyma, especually since he was a person upon whom the Pope himself bestowed his medal. However, pressured by the nobility who wanted to show that no rebellions against the 'established order' will be tolerated; the order for an execution was given; after being tortured, Sulyma was cut to pieces and his body parts were hung on the city walls of Warsaw.