Petrazhytsky-Kulaha, Ivan

Petrazhytsky-Kulaha, Ivan [Петражицький-Кулага, Іван; Petražyc'kyj], b ?, d 1632 in Kaniv. Hetman of the registered Cossacks in 1631–2. He petitioned the Polish Sejm to grant privileges to the Cossacks, demanded that it allow them to participate in the election of the Polish king after the death of Sigismund III Vasa, and defended the rights of the Ukrainian Orthodox church. Together with the Zaporozhian Host he petitioned Metropolitan Petro Mohyla to fund a new school at the Kyiv Epiphany Brotherhood. His attempts to prevent Zaporozhian sea campaigns against Turkey and his pro-Polish policies antagonized the Zaporozhian Cossacks, and at the Cossack council in Maslovyi Stav in September 1632 he was deposed. Soon thereafter he was executed.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]