Bohdan Khmelnytsky

Zynoviy Bohdan Mykhailovych Khmelnytsky, born around 1595 into Ruthenian nobility, became Hetman of the Zaporozhian Cossacks while they served under the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1648 he led a successful revolt against the Commonwealth and its magnates, winning battles that carved out an independent Cossack state. Between 1648 and at least 1652, his forces massacred tens of thousands of Poles and Jews and sold more as slaves to Crimean Tatar allies, aiming to eradicate non-Orthodox populations - one of the most traumatic episodes in Polish and Jewish history. In 1654 Khmelnytsky signed the Treaty of Pereiaslav with the Russian Tsar, placing his new Cossack Hetmanate under Russian protection. He died on 6 August 1657, leaving a figure lauded by some Ukrainians as a folk hero and state founder, promoted by Russian and Soviet propaganda as a "unifier," and condemned by others for alliances and policies that caused mass death and enslavement.