Monument to a Hetman

On the occasion of the festival of the Protection of the Virgin, the village of Vyhiv near Korosten – birthplace of Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky – saw large festivities to mark the unveiling of a monument to this outstanding figure of Ukrainian history. After Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s death in 1657 he became head of the Cossack state. However, his attempt to cancel the Pereyaslav agreement and renew the union with Rzecz Pospolita on the condition of Ukraine’s broad autonomy within it (under the Hadiach Treaty of 1658) cost him his hetman club. In 1664 he was executed by the Poles for alleged treason.

The monument erected by sculptor Ihor Zarichny and architect Oleksandr Koliada is made up of a large bust Ivan Vyhovsky’s set on a three-meter pedestal of black granite. It was constructed with the active participation of the Polissia Sich Cossacks’ regiment in Zhytomyr oblast and supported by sponsors who included entrepreneurs, private persons, and the Zhytomyr Region State Administration. State Secretary of the Ministry of Fuel and Energy Volodymyr Lushkin, the Head of the Zhytomyr Oblast State Administration Mykola Rudchenko (who that same day were conferred the ranks of Cornet General and Colonel General respectively by Hetman of Ukrainian Cossacks Ivan Bilas), and Ataman of the Polissia Sich Anatoly Shevchuk in their speeches called for union among the people and for the common good. (Before calling for the good of the common people, the high-ranking officials arrived to Vyhiv in brand-new Jeeps, Audis, and Mercedeses, looking somehow out of place among Vyhiv’s modest houses).

Mr. Bilas told The Day that erecting monuments to Ukraine’s outstanding hetmans, in accordance with the National Program for Reviving and Developing Cossack Traditions, would continue. Next year it is planned to unveil a Pantheon of Hetmans’ Glory in Kyiv.