Ostap Dashkevych

Eustachy Daszkiewicz or Ostap Daszko (Russian: Евстафий Дашкович, Ukrainian: Остап Дашкевич; born in Ovruch – died after 1535) is considered to be the first recorded leader of a Cossack defense force (according to Dmitri Bantysh-Kamensky, Dmytro Doroshenko, and others). However that claim of "first" is debatable because there were many other early leaders, including Bohdan Glinski from Severia.

Daszkewicz held a position of starosta in Cherkasy (1514–35) at the early stages of development of cossacks, and is sometimes mistakenly referred to as a hetman. Some sources as well as oral tradition claim that Dashkevych lived past the age of 80, at which age he routed the Tatars at Cherkasy.

The information about his origin is very scarce. The Polish poet from Kiev region Józef Bohdan Zaleski in the foreword of his duma "Out of the Savur's Grave or duma about the first hetman" wrote that in his childhood he heard stories about Daszko Wisnowecki who lived on the Knyahynia [Princess] island just south of Kodak. According to the folk tale, the prince perished in his youth leaving on the island his wife (supposedly of Polish origin) and his son who eventually became a glorious a Cossack hetman. Zaleski suggests that Ostap Daszko was a son of Daszko Wisnowecki. In his opinion, the origin of Daszkewicz from the Princes Wisnoweckis could be confirmed as Ostap Daszko has a same family coat of arms. According to Seweryn Uruski, a Polish heraldry specialist, Daszkewicz belonged to the Leliwa coat of arms.

Ruthenian Ostap Dashkevych of Orthodox Christian religion, he was presumably a descendant of Rurikid and Gengisid from Ovruch. Daszkewicz also became known as a founders of Zaporizhian Host. He donated his lands near Kyiv to the Church of Resurrection of Christ at Podil in Kyiv. His estate eventually transformed into the village of Voskresenska Slobidka and later gave a name to the Voskresenka neighborhood which is now a part of modern Kyiv on the left bank of Dnieper.

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