Samilo Kishka

Samiylo Kishka (, , born approximately in 1530 – died in 1602 was a nobleman of Dołęga coat of arms from Bratslav. He was a kish otaman and Hetman of Zaporozhian Sich (1574 – 1575, 1599 – 1602). Samiylo Kishka headed the Cossack army in a range of sea campaigns against the Turks, Moldavian raids, the Livonian campaign (1600–1603), as well as a number of maritime campaigns against the Crimean Khanate: Gezlev, Izmail, Ochakiv, and Ackerman.

Biography

Early life Samiylo Kishka was born in 1530 into a family of noblemen from Bratslav. At the age of twenty, he began to live as a Cossack. During the first years of being an active Cossack, he took part in several campaigns headed by Dmytro Vyshnevetsky, a Hetman of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, who built Khortytsia Castle, and is therefore sometimes considered the founder of the first Zaporozhian Sich. Being an ordinary Cossack, he confronted Tatar attacks on the Ukrainian lands.

Hetman of Zaporozhian Sich

Hetman Samiylo Kishka is famous for heading the Cossacks in successful naval expeditions against the Turks. In the late 1560s, he began leading sea campaigns against the Turks. Cossack campaigns brought much concern to the Ottoman Empire, so the sultan Selim II decided to use diplomatic and military means to influence Rzeczpospolita King Sigismund II Augustus. The King attempted to terminate the Cossacks' sea campaigns, but that tactic failed.

In 1602, during that campaign, Samiylo Kishka died in the Siege of Fellin (present-day Viljandi in Estonia). The Cossacks elected another commander and continued to fight, though they ceased being paid by the Polish government. Consequently, they resorted to looting local towns and villages for sustenance and other needs.

In art There are some historical songs and Dumas with moral and patriotic ideological subtext that are dedicated to Samiylo Kishka.

Borys Yanovsky wrote the epic opera A Song Of The Black Sea about Hetman Samiylo Kishka and his Zaporogian Cossacks in Turkish captivity.