Ivan Briukhovetsky

Ivan Briukhovetsky (Ukrainian: Іван Брюховецький, Polish: Iwan Brzuchowiecki, Russian: Иван Брюховецкий) (died 18 June 1668) was a pro-Russian hetman of Left-bank Ukraine from 1663 to 1668.

He was a registered Cossack, belonging to the Chyhyryn Company (Chyhyryn Regiment). Early in his career he served as Bohdan Khmelnytsky's courier and diplomatic emissary. He was elected Kosh otaman (1661–3) of the Zaporizhian Sich. At the Chorna rada of 1663 he was elected Hetman of the Left Bank with the support of Moscow as an alternative to already elected Hetman Pavlo Teteria. Briukhovetsky's election was at the roots of the division of the Cossack State and is known in history as The Ruin.

However, Briukhovetsky's reign and cruelty worked against him. Early on he arrested and executed his opponents, namely polkovniks Somko and Vasili Zolotarenko. To gain support he signed the Moscow Articles of 1665, which placed Left-bank Ukraine under direct control of the Tsar. In return, Briukhovetsky secured for himself the title of boyar, properties, and marriage to Prince Dolgoruky's daughter. This treaty went on to be called the "Briukhovetsky treaty" and caused massive rebellion in Ukraine. His popularity among the clergy fell when he suggested that Moscow appoint and send a metropolitan to the Kievan Metropolia.

As his domestic policies failed, Briukhovetsky put the blame on the Russian authorities and sided with the Cossacks' rebellion in an attempt to save his reputation, but it was too late. Faced with his failures as hetman, in 1668 in the town of Budyshchi, a Cossack mob killed him by chaining him to a cannon and beating him to death.

His daughter's father-in-law was his rival Ivan Sirko.

Briukhovetsky family coat-of-arms.

After him was named one of kurins of the Zaporozhian Host and later after resettlement of cossacks stanitsa Bryukhovetskaya.