Kochubei, Vasilii

Born 1640; died July 14 (25), 1708, in the village of Borshchagovka, now in Pogrebishche Raion, Vinnitsa Oblast. Ukrainian statesman and military figure. He was born into a wealthy family that owned huge land allotments with peasant serfs in the Left-bank Ukraine.

Under Hetman I. S. Mazepa, Kochubei held the high positions in the hetman government of general clerk (1687–99) and general judge (1699–1708). As a member of the Ukrainian cossack troops, he participated in the Azov campaigns (1695–96). He found out about secret negotiations on the part of Mazepa with the Swedish king Charles XII and the Polish king S. Leszczynski for the purpose of separating the Ukraine from Russia and placing it under the rule of the Polish-Swedish invaders, and he warned Peter I several times of the treason that was soon to take place. However, the tsar, trusting Mazepa, considered the information slanderous and gave over to the hetman Kochubei and his Iike-minded comrade, Colonel I. I. Iskra, who had fled to Russia. After being tortured, they were executed. When Mazepa’s treason became known, Kochubei and Iskra were buried in the Kievo-Pecherskaia Laura.