“Needle” Mykyta Shvachka

The centre of the Koliivshchyna in the 18th century was Kholodnyi Yar in the Cherkasy region. The main otamans of the uprising against Polish oppression were Ivan Honta and Maksym Zaliznyak. In a few weeks they managed to ignite an uprising almost across all of Ukraine. Peasants and Cossacks rose en masse against the nobles and moneylenders who gave Ukrainians no life. Taras Hryhorovych described this event in many works. The most fateful phrase in his works about this event is “and a new fire will blow from Kholodnyi Yar”. In 1768 the uprising spread across the Cherkasy, Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions. Zaliznyak’s army tried to take Bila Tserkva by storm – one of the most fortified places. Detachments led by Mykyta Shvachka, Ivan Bondarenko and Andrii Zhurba surrounded Bila Tserkva but could not take it, because a Russian garrison was stationed there. For a long time the uprising was successful and gave hope for the liberation of Ukraine, but the combined efforts of the Muscovite and Polish occupiers suppressed the uprising, and the key figures were executed. The greatest role as avenger and judge for the pogroms was played by the Polish hetman Ksawery Branicki, who personally captured 2,000 haidamaks and assigned each of them a punishment: execution by hanging, beheading, quartering and impalement. For such an inhuman and cruel massacre, Branicki, on the recommendation of Catherine II and by order of the Polish king Poniatowski, was rewarded with a gift – the richest starostwo in Ukraine, that of Bila Tserkva. That is why 2 of our small sculptures are dedicated to Mykyta Shvachka (in the shape of a needle) and Maksym Zaliznyak (in the shape of a hammer), who pricked and hammered the enemies of Ukraine. They are placed at the spot from which the haidamaks tried to storm Bila Tserkva.