Sulyma, Ivan

Sulyma, Ivan, b ? in Rohoshchi, Chernihiv region, d 12 December 1635 in Warsaw. Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host in 1628–9 and 1630–5. A member of the petty gentry, he served as an estate manager for the Polish magnate Stanisław Żółkiewski and his heirs, the Daniłowicz family, in the Pereiaslav region. For that service the villages of Sulymivka, Kuchakiv, and Lebedyn were placed under his control in 1620. He later left for the Zaporozhian Sich, where he was first elected hetman in 1628. He took part in several campaigns against the Crimea and Turkey and received a golden portrait medal from Pope Paul V in recognition of his efforts. While returning with an army of nonregistered Cossacks from a campaign against Turkey in August 1635, he laid waste the Polish fortress of Kodak, which had recently been built on the Dnipro River to contain the Cossacks, and killed all of its German mercenaries and its commander. A group of registered Cossacks, wishing to curry favor with Commonwealth officials, subsequently handed over Sulyma, along with other members of the Zaporozhian leadership, to the Poles. The hetman was executed in Warsaw.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]