Vasily Kochubey

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Vasily Kochubey

Vasily Leontivych Kochubey (Ukrainian: Василiй Леонтiйович Кочубей) (circa 1640 - July 15, 1708) was a Ukrainian nobleman and statesman. His great-grandson was the eminent imperial statesman Viktor Kochubey.

Between 1687 and 1704 Kochubey was a close associate of the Ukrainian hetman Ivan Mazepa. He was nominated chief judge of the Cossack Hetmanate and stolnik. As a Cossack military leader, Kochubey took part in the Azov campaigns of 1695 and 1696.

In 1704 63-year-old Ivan Mazepa proposed to marry Kochubey's 16-year-old daughter, Matryona. Kochubey refused his marital advances and distanced himself from Mazepa. Between 1704 and 1707 he warned repeatedly Tsar Peter I of Russia about Mazepa’s secret intention to break away from Russia. In 1707 he approached the governor of Kiev, Prince Dmitry Golitsyn, submitting detailed information about Mazepa’s dealings with the Poles and Swedes and divulging the hetman's plan to side with Stanislaus I Leszczyński and Charles XII against Russia.

The tsar, however, flatly refused to believe Kochubey. He commissioned Gavriil Golovkin and Peter Shafirov to investigate Kochubey’s allegations. Presently, Vasily Kochubey was arrested and put to torture.

On July 15, 1708 Vasily Kochubey was beheaded in the village of Borshagovka, near Bila Tserkva. Within few months Mazepa's treason became known and Kochubey was given dignified burial at Kiev Pechersk Lavra.

Kochubey's story was romanticised by Aleksandr Pushkin in his poem Poltava and by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in his opera Mazepa.