Samoilovych

Samoilovych [Samojlovyč]. A Cossack starshyna family, founded by Samuil, who was a priest in Khodorkiv, in the Skvyra region, before becoming pastor of Krasnyi Koliadyn, in Pryluky regiment. Three of his sons, Vasyl, Martyn, and Tymotei, were priests in Lebedyn and Romny, and Ivan Samoilovych was hetman of Ukraine from 1672 to 1687. Ivan's son, Semen Samoilovych (b ca 1660, d 19 May 1685; buried in the Kyivan Cave Monastery), served as acting hetman (1679–80) and as colonel of Starodub regiment (1680–5); he married M. Sulyma, the granddaughter of Hetman Ivan Sulyma. Ivan's second son, Hryhorii Samoilovych (d 11 November 1687), served as colonel of Chernihiv regiment (1685–7) and as acting hetman (1687); he married the daughter of Hetman Ivan Briukhovetsky. He was arrested by Muscovite forces at the Cossack General Council held near Kolomak (see Kolomak Articles) and was beheaded in Sevsk. Hryhorii's son, Ivan, was a military fellow of Nizhyn regiment in 1736. Ivan's youngest son, Yakiv (d 9 July 1695), who took over as colonel of Starodub regiment (1685–7), was subsequently arrested along with his father and exiled to Eniseisk and then Tobolsk, Siberia, where he died. Ivan's nephew, Mykhailo Samoilovych, was colonel of Hadiache regiment (1678–87) and a court functionary in Moscow from 1685; for his participation in a plot against Hetman Ivan Mazepa he was exiled to Tobolsk in 1692.

Oleksander Ohloblyn

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]