Ivan Sirko

Іван Дмитрович Сірко Ivan Dmytrovych Sirko
Otaman Ivan Sirko, an imaginary representation by Ilya Repin
Born	1605 (1610) Murafa, Bracław Voivodeship
Died	August 11, 1680 Hrushivka, Zaporizhian Host
Allegiance	Zaporozhian Host Left-bank Ukraine
Years of service	1648-1680
Rank	Kosh Otaman
Battles/wars	Thirty Years' War Khmelnytsky Uprising Russo-Polish War (1654-1667) The Ruin
Spouse(s)	Sofia

Ivan Sirko (Ukrainian: Іван Дмитрович Сірко, c. 1610–1680) was a Ukrainian Cossack military leader, Koshovyi Otaman of the Zaporozhian Host and putative co-author of the famous semi-legendary Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks that inspired a major painting by the 19th-century artist Ilya Repin.

The first biography of Ivan Sirko, written by Dmytro Yavornytsky in 1890, gave Sirko's place of birth as the stanitsa of Merefa near the city of Kharkiv. Historian Yuriy Mytsyik states that this could not be the case. In his book Otaman Ivan Sirko (1999) he writes that Merefa was established only in 1658 (more than 40 years after the birth of the future otaman). The author also notes that Sirko later in his life did actually live in Merefa with his family on his own estate, and according to some earlier local chronicles there even existed a small settlement called Sirkivka. However, Mytsyik also points out that in 1658-1660 Sirko served as a colonel of the Kalnyk Polk (a military and administrative division of the Cossack Hetmanate) in Podilia, a position usually awarded to the representative of a local population. The author also gives a reference to the letter of Ivan Samiylovych to kniaz G. Romodanovsky (the tsar's voyevoda) in which the hetman refers to Sirko as one born in Polish lands instead of in Sloboda Ukraine (part of Moscovy). Mytsyik also recalls that another historian, Volodymyr Borysenko, allowed for the possibility that Sirko was born in Murafa near the city of Sharhorod (now in Vinnytsia Oblast). The author explains during that time when people were fleeing the war (known as the Ruin, 1659-1686) they may have established a similarly named town in Sloboda Ukraine further east.