Turbai uprising

Turbai uprising (Турбаївське повстання; Turbaivske povstannia). A revolt in Turbai village, Myrhorod county, Katerynoslav vicegerency, in 1789–93, sparked by a dispute about Cossack status. Until 1727, when Hetman Danylo Apostol removed them from the register and listed them as his serfs, most of the town residents were town Cossacks. After appealing to the colonel of Myrhorod regiment, Vasyl Kapnist, 76 of them were reregistered as Cossacks in 1738. In 1776 the Bazylevsky family purchased the town and raised demands on the serfs, who reacted by refusing corvée and petitioning the Russian Senate to restore their Cossack status. The Senate ruled in 1788 that the families of the 76 men who had been reregistered in 1738 possessed Cossack status. When the local authorities, prompted by the Bazylevsky family, delayed the implementation of the Senate decision, the people revolted. They stormed the manor, killed three members of the Bazylevsky family, took over Turbai and several adjacent villages, and elected their own local hetman, judge, and secretary. Mindful of events in France, the authorities hesitated and attempted to negotiate a compromise. After long, futile talks they decided to make an example of the rebels and in 1793 moved in with a large force. The leaders of the uprising were sentenced to death (later commuted to life imprisonment in Siberia), secondary figures were subjected to public lashing, and the rest of the inhabitants (approximately 2,300) were resettled in Kherson gubernia and Tavriia gubernia. The village was renamed and was known as Skorbne for almost two centuries. It is now in Hlobyne raion, Poltava oblast.

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