Pushkar, Martyn

Pushkar, Martyn [Пушкар, Мартин; Puškar], b ?, d 11 June 1658 near Poltava. Cossack leader. From 1648 he was colonel of Poltava regiment. After Bohdan Khmelnytsky's death in 1657, Pushkar, being one of the senior colonels in the Hetman state, was considered a candidate for the hetmancy, but Ivan Vyhovsky was elected instead. That personal slight, coupled with his opposition to Vyhovsky's pro-Polish leanings and alliance with the Crimean Tatars, prompted Pushkar to form a coalition against Vyhovsky with the anti-starshyna Zaporozhian Cossacks led by Otaman Yakiv Barabash. Pushkar received the support of the entire Poltava regiment and many other Cossacks who were opposed to Vyhovsky's policies and his appointment of foreigners to the Cossack starshyna. In November 1657 a Cossack-peasant rebellion against Vyhovsky led by Pushkar and Barabash erupted in the Poltava region. Vyhovsky's army and his Tatar allies crushed the rebellion and razed Poltava in June 1658, killing Pushkar and 8,000 to 15,000 of his supporters in battle. Barabash was captured later and executed.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Korenets’, D. ‘Povstannie Martyna Pushkaria,’ Naukovyi zbirnyk prys’viachenyi profesorovy Mykhailovy Hrushevs’komu ... (Lviv 1906)
Stetsiuk, K. Narodni rukhy na Livoberezhnii i Slobids’kii Ukraïni v 50–70-kh rokakh XVII st. (Kyiv 1960)

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