Where does he rest at last?
The times are foul!
The hangman reigns,
And none recalls the past.
(Taras Shevchenko, “The Haidamaks”)
The national-liberation movement of the Ukrainian people has always occupied a special place in their history. One such heroic page is Koliyivshchyna, a liberation war led by Ivan Gonta and Maksym Zalizniak in 1768. Leaving aside the tragic side of those events, let us focus our attention on tracing Zalizniak’s roots.
Historians know very little about the early period of his life. There are conflicting opinions on certain points of his biography, particularly his place of birth and final resting place, origins, political status during the uprising, the ultimate goal of the insurgents, and his further destiny after his conviction. Armed with references and the opinions of historians and ethnographers on Zalizniak’s life, in this article I analyze documented historical evidence and sources in order to determine his birth, origins, and age.
The historical literature on this subject may be divided into several groups, depending on the supposed place of Zalizniak’s birth. Some experts firmly believe that Zalizniak was born in the village of Medvedivka, now Chyhyryn raion in Cherkasy oblast.
Other researchers take a more ambiguous position, citing sources that point to two different places of Zalizniak’s birth. Among these references are The Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia, A Reference Book of Ukraine’s History, The Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedic Dictionary, etc.
I also came across other supposed birthplaces of Zalizniak, such as the villages of Melnyky (now Chyhyryn district), Oleksiyivka (now Bobrynets raion in Kirovohrad oblast), and Pykivtsi (pre-revolutionary Berdychiv raion).
None of the cited reference books mentions another theory: that he was born in Ivkivtsi. Of the three above-mentioned villages Oleksiyivka is of special interest. A. O. Skalkovsky, the celebrated historian of Zaporizhia, was the first to suggest that this village was Zalizniak’s birthplace. In his study Haidamak Incursions into Western Ukraine in the 17th Century, he writes: “On the river Hromoklei, in Bobrynets county of Kherson gubernia, in the place now called Aleksiyivka, lived the old Zaporozhian Cossack Hryhoriy Zalizniak, the former kurinnyi tovarysh and regimental osavul (aide-de-camp), who until 1775 had wintered on the river Sur in the small Kodak fortification, and later settled there. Of his two sons, the younger Maksym served as his deputy in the Tymoshiv battalion. The Cossacks in this battalion said that he was of Polish origin, from the village of Pykovets, and had recently, in 1740 or 1750, arrived in the Zaporozhian Sich. But everyone agreed that Maksym Zalizniak was a brave, clever, and intelligent Cossack, who served for a long time as an artilleryman.” The Oleksiyivka version was fully supported by D. Mordovtsev and a century later, by V. K. Chernetsky.
This version has the unquestionable right to exist, but it remains in the realm of conjecture because no documents confirm that the Oleksiyivka-born Zalizniak was the man who became the hero of Koliyivshchyna.
Scholars have categorically rejected Oleksiyivka and other versions, focusing instead on the villages of Ivkivtsi and Medvedivka. The question of Zalizniak’s birthplace rose to prominence at the dawn of our statehood, in 1993, when the public observed the 225th anniversary of the beginning of Koliyivshchyna and a monument to Zalizliak was unveiled in Medvedivka. Differences of opinion about his birthplace sparked a bitter dispute between the residents of Medvedivka and Ivkivtsi, who stubbornly insisted that the monument be installed in their respective village only. The residents of these two villages have not forgotten this quarrel.
Meanwhile, funded by the Ivkivtsi community, a silicate brick pedestal and gypsum bust of Maksym Zalizniak by Ivan Honchar was installed in the village center. Honchar, who is a prominent cultural and civic figure, sculptor, painter, engraver, ethnographer, People’s Artist of Ukraine, and winner of the Shevchenko State Prize, is widely acclaimed both in Ukraine and abroad.
At first glance, the situation appeared to be a conflict of ambitions between the two villages laying claim to being Zalizniak’s birthplace. But, irrespective of local ambitions, this question remains unanswered. The more books on 18th-century Ukrainian history are published, the more puzzling this question becomes. There are also attempts to hush up this kind of information, obviously owing to its controversial nature. Historians, ethnographers, and journalists continue to advance differing views about Zalizniak’s birthplace. Some researchers prefer the Medvedivka version.
For instance, Kost Huslysty notes on page 21 of his Koliyivshchyna: A Historical Outline: “He (Zalizniak — Ed.) was a peasant from the village of Medvedivka in the Chyhyryn region. When Maksym’s father died, the boy, who had just turned 13, went to the Zaporozhian Sich, where he was a hired laborer; then he moved to Ochakiv to do the same job.”
M. F. Kotliar writes in his History in Life Stories (p. 215): “The course of events brought Maksym Zalizniak to the forefront. Historians do not know much about the early period of his life. When asked during an interrogation in the Karhopil Rifle Regiment (June 1768) about his name, occupation, parentage, faith, and place of residence, he said, “My name is Maksym, son of Iyevliy, Zelezniak, of the Greek faith, of peasant ancestry; I first lived in the village of Medvedivka, the Polish district of Chyhyryn gubernia, and later, after my father died fifteen years ago, I went to the Zaporozhian Sich, then I was in the tavern business in the Turkish city of Ochakiv.”
Dmytro Doroshenko writes on page 257 of his Outline of the History of Ukraine: “This uprising was led by Maksym Zalizniak. Born into a peasant family in the village of Medvedivka, he became a Zaporozhian Cossack.”
N. Sushynsky notes the following about Zalizniak in his book Cossack Leaders of Ukraine: A History of Ukraine through the Images of 15th-19th-Century Leaders and Commanders (p. 602): “He was supposedly born in 1740 in the village of Medvedivka in the Cherkasy region. His parents were poor peasants, but some of his ancestors may have been Cossacks.”
According to the book, From the Mace to the Crown, the Second Half of the 18th Century: A History of Ukraine in Prose Fiction and Documents, edited by V. A. Smoliy and O. I. Hurzhiy (p. 376): “Maksym Zalizniak was born in 1740 on the Medvedivka estate in the Chyhyryn region. As a 13-year-old boy, he went in search of employment to the Zaporozhian Sich fisheries. Soon after, he became a Cossack in the Plastun battalion.”
The well-known researcher of the Koliyivshchyna period, I. Y. Khraban, also supports the Medvedivka version in his study A Flare-up of the People’s Wrath (The Anti-Feudal and National- Liberation Uprising in Right-Bank Ukraine in 1768-1769). For obvious reasons, I have cited a small number of studies.
In his monograph Koliyivshchyna: the Haidamak Uprising of 1768, Petro Mirchuk, a Ukrainian Diaspora researcher of the Haidamak movement, makes a detailed study of these theories. He also says that “the Cossacks of the Tymoshiv battalion maintained that Zalizniak was born in the Polish village of Pykovets and arrived in the Zaporozhian Sich in 1740-1750.” Where the Pykivtsi version is concerned, it is clear even from an initial unbiased glance that this is a distortion of the name “Ivkivtsi.” Meanwhile, L. Pokhylevych in his The Story of the Populated Areas of Kiev Gubernia places the village of Pykivtsi (Pykovtsi) in Berdychiv county, while the List of Populated Areas of Kiev Gubernia, published in 1900 includes another Pykivtsi near Uman.
A number of researchers are inclined to consider Ivkivtsi as Zalizniak’s birthplace. For example, A. O. Skalkovsky says in A History of the New Sich, or the Last Zaporozhian Formation: “The otaman of the Tymoshiv battalion confirmed that there was a Cossack named Maksym Zalizniak, the son of a married Zaporozhian from the Polish village of Ivkivtsi,” who arrived at the Sich in about 1757 and signed up for the above-mentioned battalion. At first he was an apprentice in various winter billets and then joined a unit of artillerymen. He would often disappear for a long time, and everyone was convinced that he had ‘gone into the infantry,’ i.e., he was fighting as a haidamak in Poland. People also said that he was hiding, disguised as a junior monk, in Mezhyhirya Monastery or, more often, in the woods near Lebedyn and Motronynskyi monasteries. The Cossacks claimed that the Lebedyn archimandrite gave him his blessing to kill the Poles and Jews. In 1762 he worked as a laborer in the Dnipro fisheries and sold vodka in Ochakiv. When did he go to Poland and how did he manage to muster a gang? No one in the battalion or the kish knew.
On p. 395 of The Zaporozhian Cossacks V.A. Golubitsky writes: “On July 2, 1769, in response to the Kish’s request to furnish information about the person Zalizniak, Vasyl Korzh, otaman of the Tymoshiv battalion, wrote: ‘Registered in the Tymoshiv battalion, Maksym Zalizniak was born in the Polish village of Ivkovets. Upon arriving here, he was a hired laborer for some five years...”
(To be continued)
