Vishnevetskii, Ieremiia Mikhail

Born 1612; died 1651. Major magnate of the Left-bank Ukraine.

Vishnevetskii received his education from Jesuits in L’vov and later in Italy and Spain. Upon his return to his native land in 1631 he converted to Catholicism and cooperated in the compulsory propagation of Catholicism and the polonization of the Ukrainians. The possessor of the large panstvo state; —literally, “landlordality” of the Vishnevetskiis in Left-bank Ukraine (the city of Lubny was its center) with a population of 288,000 people—and domains in Volyn’ and Poles’e, he had his own fortresses and maintained a large army. He headed a group of magnates that struggled against centralization of the Rzecz Pospolita (the commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania). He was one of the initiators of the struggle with the Russian state and took part in the war against Russia in 1632-34. Vishnevetskii repressed peasant-cossack revolts in the Ukraine with extreme cruelty. During the War of Liberation of the Ukrainian People of 1648-54 he lost a large part of his domains. He occupied the highest posts in the Polish army and was defeated in a number of large battles by insurgent peasants and cossacks.