Zorka, Samiilo

Zorka, Samiilo [Зорка, Самійло], b and d ? According to Samiilo Velychko he was a Cossack chronicler and a scribe at the Zaporozhian Sich, and later he became senior secretary to Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky. He reportedly wrote a Diiariiush (Chronicle-Diary) of the events of 1648–57 in Ukraine, which has not been preserved, but which Velychko claims to quote in his own work. Velychko’s chronicle also contains Zorka’s eulogy delivered at Khmelnytsky’s funeral. Certain scholars (Ivan Franko, Vladimir Ikonnikov, Ivan Krypiakevych, Mykhailo Marchenko, and Mykola Petrovsky) claim that Zorka was a fictional personality, and therefore that his chronicle never existed, but others (Volodymyr Antonovych, Orest Levytsky, Mykhailo Maksymovych, and Kornylo Zaklynsky) maintain that he was a real person.

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