Table of contents:
- A military career dedicated to an idea
- Long captivity and meeting with the Pope
- Capture of Kodak and glory throughout Europe
- Betrayal and execution
Video: For which the Pope awarded the Ukrainian hetman, or How the Cossack surprised the whole of Europe
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
The life of Ivan Sulima is given little attention in historical science compared to other Ukrainian hetmans. However, it was this leader who wrote the history of the nation, laying down his life for courageous principles and glorious traditions. Having built a successful military path in the ranks of the Polish army, the small-scale nobleman gave up everything and decided to defend solid ideas, going to the Zaporozhye Sich. Quickly becoming one of the comrades-in-arms of Hetman Sagaidachny, he took with him Kafa (present Feodosia), went to Turkish Constantinople (modern Istanbul), thundered all over Europe with the capture of the Kodak fortress. Surprisingly, he achieved a personal meeting in Rome with Pope Paul V, who eventually awarded a Cossack from Ukraine for his high merits in the fight against Islamic expansion.
A military career dedicated to an idea
Ivan Sulima comes from the family of a serving nobleman of the Chernihiv region. After receiving a quality education, the future hetman served the Polish commander Stanislav Zholkiewski. For excellent service, the crown chancellor granted Sulima several villages in his personal possession. Any prospects opened up before the young gentry. However, Ivan Mikhailovich disposed of his future in a very unpredictable manner. The measured life on the estates did not attract him, and he slept and saw himself in military campaigns and sea battles.
Without hesitation, Sulima dropped everything and went to the Zaporizhzhya Sich to join the Cossack brotherhood. His outstanding natural abilities quickly allowed him to gain authority among the Cossacks, and respect in the eyes of the commanders. Regularly elected as the chieftain of the kosh, Sulima accompanied Pyotr Sagaidachny on campaigns to the Crimea, and in the company of the first Sich commanders traveled to Ottoman Constantinople itself.
Long captivity and meeting with the Pope
During one of the anti-Turkish sea campaigns, the dashing Sulima was captured by the Ottomans. Since the Cossack was a strong and physically hardy young man, the Turks did not take his life, but themselves a slave. Shackled, according to historians, he served as a captive oarsman in the Ottoman military gallery for more than 10 years. But all these long, difficult years, Sulima was just waiting for an opportunity to free himself from the shackles. And this moment came when the Cossack was swimming in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
The situation developed in such a way that, seeing in the Islamic expansion of the early 17th century a real threat to the Christian world, Pope Paul V equipped the fleet. His decision was supported by the secular Italian authorities, contributing to the war against Turkey. As soon as the ship, on which Sulima was in the ranks of the slave rowers, approached the shores of Italy, the Ukrainian hetman took the initiative into his own hands. Somehow, having confused the head of the guard, the Ukrainian managed to knock off the shackles and, with the help of the rest of the involuntary, seize the ship. The quick-witted strategist Sulima avoided encounters with the enemy in open sea waters and a few days later moored on a captured ship near Rome.
Having heard of such adventures, Italian sailors provided the Cossacks with food and clothing. In Rome, Sulima arranged an audience with Paul V. The Pope at that time was perhaps the main figure in the European resistance to Turkish influence. Europe was eager to liberate the lands seized by the Ottoman Empire, seeing in the Ukrainian Cossacks a worthy potential for such purposes. Pope Paul V awarded Sulima a gold medal for special merits in opposing Islamic enslavement, and personally presented the Cossack with a medallion with his image.
Capture of Kodak and glory throughout Europe
Returning after many years to the Sich, Ivan Sulima creates a new flotilla from the Cossacks to resume sea voyages. His well-known merits, authority and military skills were seen by the Cossacks as undeniable. When in 1628 Hetman Grigory Cherny made an unsuccessful march to the Crimea, the Cossacks denied him the right to own a mace (formally he remained the registered hetman) and handed this symbol of power to Sulima. Inspired by such trust, the hetman made a series of campaigns to the Turkish-Tatar territories, and in 1633 he organized a large military expedition to Azov.
The Cossacks did not touch the fortress itself, being content with large booty and heading for the Dnieper as part of an uprising against the Poles. Here the Cossack squadron was trapped by the enemy fleet. But the experienced sailor Sulima was too smart to agree so easily to an open sea battle. Waiting for the onset of night, he took the Kodak fortress that stood in his way, interfering with free movement between Zaporozhye and the volosts. Europe was perplexed: how the unknown Ukrainian "robbers" took and simply entered the unapproachable crown of engineering talent with a siegeless lightning-fast operation. That event can be compared for contemporaries with approximately the same picture if Somali pirates in light boats seized a destroyer equipped according to the latest military scientific developments.
The Kodak Fortress was a brilliant project by the eminent engineer from the arij Guillaume le Vasseur de Beauplan. The structure was a dense ring of several reliable fortifications ever built by the Commonwealth. For the construction of this, as expected, indestructible structure from the meager military budget of the republic, about 100 thousand Polish zlotys were donated. But the French assured the customer that it was worth it. Therefore, a daring slap in the face from the half-savage Cossacks, who in a matter of hours destroyed the myth of the famous bastion, rang out loudly throughout Europe.
Betrayal and execution
Having dealt with the fortress, Sulima summoned help from the Sich to capture Chigirin, Korsun and Cherkassy, which remained under Polish oppression. But the arrival of the crown troops to the place of conflict disrupted plans for the further advancement of the uprising. The situation was complicated by the betrayal of the Ukrainian registered colonels who had transferred to the Polish camp. Bribed Karaimovich and Barabash fraudulently entered the Cossack ranks and seized Ivan Sulima. The captive chieftain was taken to the Polish commander Adam Kisel, along with five closest associates. Warsaw decided to execute a compatriot, and on December 12, 1635, Sulima was stripped of his head and quartered.
Another no less famous Ukrainian hetman became famous not for military campaigns. Ivan Mazepa is known as a person who easily changes his patrons. And there are a lot of myths about his personal life.
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