Zolotarenko, Vasyl

Zolotarenko, Vasyl, b ?, d 28 September 1663 in Borzna, Chernihiv region. Colonel of Nizhyn regiment (1655–6, 1659–63). He was a leader of the mutiny that deposed Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky in 1659. He secured Left-Bank Ukraine with Yakym Somko and handed it over to Prince A. Trubetskoi upon his arrival in Nizhyn. Zolotarenko's ambition for the hetmancy made him envious of Somko, on whom he informed to the Russian tsar. At the Chorna rada in 1663, the newly elected hetman Ivan Briukhovetsky ordered the execution of both Somko and Zolotarenko.

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