Voinarovsky, Andrii

Voinarovsky, Andrii [Vojnarovs’kyj, Andrij], b ca 1689, d ca 1740 in Yakutsk, Siberia. (Portrait: Andrii Voinarovsky.) Hetman state political and military figure. He was the son of a highly placed Volhynian aristocrat and O. Mazepa, the sister of Hetman Ivan Mazepa. He completed his studies at the Kyivan Mohyla Academy. He was considered to be one of Mazepa's most trusted aides and his confidant. The hetman sent him on various special missions, including an attempt to allay Russian suspicions in October 1708 by visiting Aleksandr Menshikov's headquarters in the Siversk region and explaining the gradual approach of Mazepa's army. When Mazepa made his break with Muscovy, Voinarovsky became the primary liaison officer between the Ukrainian and the Swedish armies. After the defeat at the Battle of Poltava he conveyed Charles XII to Turkey. After Mazepa's death he inherited the hetman's estate. This precipitated a break with other Cossack starshyna and Pylyp Orlyk. In 1711–12 he lived in Istanbul as the special envoy of Charles XII. He remained in Turkish-controlled territories until 1715, with sojourns in Wrocław and Vienna. On 12 October 1716, en route to Sweden, he was seized by agents of Peter I and handed over by the Hamburg Senate to the Russian authorities. He was taken to Saint Petersburg and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. In 1723 he was exiled to Yakutsk, where he lived in penury for 16 years. He was last heard from in 1737. The Decembrist Kondratii Ryleev wrote a poem about him, which was translated into German by A. von Chamisso and into Ukrainian by Sviatoslav Hordynsky.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Borshchak, I. Voinarovs’kyi—sestrinok het’mana Ivana Mazepy, druh Avrory Kenigsmark i sybirs’kyi v'iazen’ (Lviv 1939)
Vynar, L. Andrii Voinarovs’kyi: Istorychnyi narys (Munich–Cleveland 1962)

Arkadii Zhukovsky

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