Mukha rebellion

Mukha rebellion. One of the first popular rebellions against the oppressive rule of Polish magnates. Named after its leader Petro Mukha, the revolt erupted in Pokutia in 1490 and soon spread throughout most of southeastern Galicia. It was supported by the Moldavian voivode Stephan. The 10,000-man rebel army (mostly Ukrainian and Moldavian peasants, but also burghers and Orthodox petty gentry from Pokutia) took the fortified towns of Sniatyn, Kolomyia, and Halych and killed many Polish nobles and burghers. Their advance on Lviv was halted by a combined force of the Galician magnates’ levy en masse, a Polish royal army, and Prussian mercenaries. Many of the rebels died in battle near Rohatyn, and Mukha and the survivors fled to Moldavia. In 1492 Mukha returned to Galicia to revive the rebellion. He was captured near Kolomyia, and died, according to one account, in a Cracow prison. Volodymyr Hrabovetsky’s book about the rebellion was published in Kyiv in 1979.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]