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DOCUMENTSNew Evidenceon the 1630 Zaporozhian Cossack UprisingВ. N. FLORJAThe 1630 Zaporozhian Cossack uprising led by Taras Fedorovyc was animportant event in this period of Ukraine's history. It has constantly drawnthe attention of authors of general works on the history of Ukraine and thehistory of the Zaporozhian Cossacks; 1it has also been the subject of anumber of specialized studies (Żukovi6 1912; Tomkiewicz 1930; Śćerbak1980). Information on the uprising can be found in a whole range ofsources, which, it is important to note, describe the events from variouspoints of view. These sources contain material connected with the actionsof the authorities of the Commonwealth; reports from the insurgents' camp(the description of the uprising in the Lviv Chronicle is based on these); anda narration by Hryhorij Hladkyj, a spy from Putyvl' (then under Muscovitecontrol). However, a scarcity in the sources of descriptions of the entireseries of episodes and the discrepancies between the sources regarding theinterpretation and treatment of the same events make the task of broadeningthe scope of sources on the uprising a timely one—particularly so sincesome important materials known to scholars of the first half of the twentiethcentury (such as the correspondence between King Zygmunt III and GrandCrown Hetman Stanisław Koniecpolski and the report on these eventspresented by Koniecpolski to the Diet of 1631) apparently were lost duringthe Second World War.It is hoped that the information presented here will help introduce onemore piece of evidence into scholarly circulation. The document under considerationis an account made by an eyewitness to the events (an eyewitnesswho was also, to some extent, a participant); furthermore, it is an accountthat comes from a faction not yet represented in the extant body of information.This new testimony, which sheds light on some of the murkier aspects1The description of the uprising by M. Hruäevs'kyj (1913) is the most detailed of this type ofgeneral study and is based on an independent study of sources. For the most recent descriptionof the uprising, see Serczyk 1984, pp. 303-6.