Chorna rada of 1663

The Chorna rada of 1663 (Ukrainian: Чорна рада) was a Cossack Rada meeting on 17-18 June, 1663 till near Nizhyn, Ukraine. Where thousands of common cossacks, Zaporozhians, Ukrainian peasants, and including the Cossack starshyna where assembled to elect a new Hetman of Left-bank Ukraine. The main candidates were Acting hetman Yakym Somko, Nizhyn colonel Vasyl Zolotarenko, and Koshovyi Otaman Ivan Briukhovetsky. The starshyna proposed and supported Yakym Somko who was planning to reduce Muscovy influence in left-bank Ukraine, and restore Ukraine on both sides on the Dnipro, and opponent Zolotarenko choose to support Somko as well. But the common cossacks proposed Briukhovestsky who promised to lower taxes, and the tsar as well supported Briukhovetsky candidacy hoping to use him to increase Muscovy influence in the left-bank.

But the majority opted to elect Briukhovetsky who admired his proposed policies and elected him the new hetman. As the disputes grew over the elections the situation worsened for Somko and Zolotarenko, both sought the protection from the Russian officials who were present as spectators. But the officers arrested them both and handed them over to the newly elected hetman. Briukhovetsky had them imprisoned, and executed in Borzna on September 28, 1663.

External links

• encyclopedia of ukraine entry
• Pereiaslav 1654: a historiographical study by John Basarab