Chyhyryn campaigns, 1677–8

Chyhyryn campaigns, 1677–8. The last attempts of the Ottoman Porte to conquer Ukraine. The campaigns followed on the conquest of Podilia in 1672. The Porte's plan in 1677 was to capture the strategic town of Chyhyryn on in Right-Bank Ukraine and to install Yurii Khmelnytsky as its vassal, with the titles of Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host and Prince of Sarmatia (Ukraine). The first offensive began in the summer of 1677; a Turkish-Tatar army of 100,000–120,000 men under the leadership of Ibrahim Pasha besieged Chyhyryn, which was defended by Hetman Ivan Samoilovych with 20,000–25,000 Cossacks and by the Russian voivode G. Romodanovsky with 32,000 Russian troops. Because of the town's strong fortifications and the determination of the Cossack and Russian forces, the Turks had to withdraw. In the summer of 1678 they tried once again to capture Chyhyryn, converging on the town with almost 200,000 troops, led by Kara-Mustafa. Although the Cossack-Russian forces had been increased to 120,000, they were not able to hold the town, and after a month of hard fighting the Turks took Chyhyryn, which was by then reduced to rubble. Weakened by the fighting and frequent attacks by Ivan Sirko, the Turks soon also abandoned Chyhyryn. After signing the peace Treaty of Bakhchysarai with Russia in 1681 the Ottoman Porte stopped its campaigns into Ukraine.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Davies, B. ‘The Second Chigirin Campaign (1678): Late Muscovite Power in Transition,’ in The Military and Society in Russia, 1450–1917, ed E. Lohr and M. Poe (Leiden 2002)