Petryk, Petro

Petryk, Petro (Ivanenko), b and d ? Cossack figure at the end of the 17th century, descended from a Cossack officer family in Poltava regiment. In 1691 he abandoned his post of senior scribe at Hetman Ivan Mazepa's General Military Chancellery and fled to the Zaporozhian Sich, where he was elected military chancellor. In 1692 he concluded a treaty with the Crimean Tatars against Muscovy and began a long struggle against the Cossack starshyna and Muscovite ‘landlords.’ With his 500 Zaporozhian followers and Tatar allies he tried to instigate popular revolts in Ukraine in 1692, 1693, 1694, and 1696. Having failed in those attempts he settled in Tatar territory between the Boh River and the Dnipro River and served until 1712 as ‘hetman’ of so-called Khan Ukraine.

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