Pavlo Polubotok

Pavlo Polubotok (Ukrainian: Павло Полуботок) (born around 1660, died on 29 December 1724), was a Cossack political and military leader and Acting Hetman of the Left-bank Ukraine between 1722 and 1724.

Polubotok family coat of arms.

Pavlo Polubotok was born around 1660 in Borzna (according to another version, at his family's khutor-farm Polubotivka, today part of Shramkivka) into a rich Cossack family and as a young man served under his relative Hetman Ivan Samoylovych.

In 1706 he became polkovnyk (colonel) of Chernihiv regiment and during the Great Northern War remained loyal to the Russians and fought against Ivan Mazepa. Pavel Polubotok was seen by many as a possible replacement for the disgraced Hetman, but the Russian Tsar Peter the Great distrusted Polubotok and supported Ivan Skoropadsky, who became the next Hetman. Nonetheless, Polubotok's loyalty was rewarded when wealthy estates throughout Ukraine were given to him.

In 1722, after the death of Skoropadsky, Pavlo Polubotok was named as his temporary replacement. As Hetman, Polubotok supported greater autonomy for Cossack Hetmante within the Russian Empire and defended the old privileges of the Cossack nobility. He wrote numerous petitions to Peter the Great asking him to re-instate the former way of electing the Hetman by the starshyna. In 1723 Alexander Rumyantsev was sent to Ukraine to investigate Polubotok. Within several months Polubotok was arrested, implicated in secret dealing with Pylyp Orlyk and accused of treason. The Hetman was incarcerated in the Petropavlovsk fortress and died there less than a year later on 29 December 1724.

Historians are divided on Polubotok's legacy. Soviet historians saw him as a greedy man who concentrated on overt class interests. Some modern Ukrainians consider him as a martyr and a hero of the Ukrainian struggle for independence.

Ukrainian hryvnia coin depicting Pavlo Polubotok

Polubotok was written about in the poem "Son" ("A Dream", 1844) by Taras Shevchenko.