Tymofiy Bohdanovych Khmelnytsky or Tymish Khmelnytsky (, Tymofiej Chmielnicki; 1632 - September 15, 1653) was the eldest son of Cossack hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky.
Married to Moldavian princess Ruxandra Lupu (Rozanda in Ukrainian), daughter of Prince Vasile Lupu, he took part in the Battle of Finta (1653) as commander of a Cossack force. After the defeat, Timofiy was besieged by a Wallachian army in Suceava and died in the confrontation.
Biography
He was born in 1632 in Subotov. According to sources, Tymish was short, red and had freckles on his face. In February-March 1648, as a result of negotiations between Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the Crimean Khan İslâm III Giray and the conclusion of an agreement on a joint struggle against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Tymish was left hostage in Bakhchisarai.
From 1648 Timysh was a Chyhyryn centurion and together with his father took part in the campaigns of the Ukrainian army in Galicia, the Battle of Zboriv in 1649, the Battle of Berestechko in 1651, the Battle of Batih in 1652, during which he distinguished himself by courage and bravery. After the capture of the capital of the Moldavian principality by Iasi, the Ukrainian-Moldavian alliance was concluded, for the strengthening of which Tymish married the daughter of the Moldavan Prince Vasile Lupu - Ruxandra. This marriage is a very important fact, because thanks to this marriage the Khmelnytsky family was related to the most influential noble families of Eastern and Central Europe at that time - the Radziwills (Ivan Radziwill was married to Rozanda's sister), the Koniecpolski, Żółkiewski, Zbaraski and Wiśniowiecki, therefore, Bohdan Khmelnytsky in a sense became on the same social level with them.
The alliance of Ukraine with the Principality of Moldavia caused concern among the Transylvanian Prince George II Rákóczi and the Wallachian lord Matei Besarab, who, uniting with the detachments of the candidate for the Moldavian throne of Chancellor (logofet) Gheorghe Ștefan, started a war against Lupul. In April 1653, a combined force of Vasily Lupul's opponents captured Iasi and installed Georgica on the Moldavian throne. The Ukrainian army, led by Khmelnytsky, came to Lupul's aid and defeated Stefan Georgica's troops near Iasi on May 1-2, 1653. Trying to strengthen his success, Khmelnytsky launched an offensive on Wallachia, but on May 17 he was defeated at the Battle of Finta and was forced to retreat. Trying to help his father-in-law, whose troops were surrounded by joint Wallachian-Polish forces in the Suceava Fortress (now Romania), Tymish, led by a 9,000-strong Cossack detachment, broke into the city on August 10.
In the first decade of August, Hetman Bohdan sent a new Cossack corps to the Principality of Moldavia, led by his eldest son and son-in-law Vasily Lupu, Timosh Khmelnytsky.
On August 17 or 18, the Cossacks entered in Suceava. Tymish marched in several columns, ravaging the country in order to provoke Stefan to withdraw from Suceava, as well as not giving the opportunity to accurately locate the direction of the march of its main forces. As a result, Stefan lifted the siege and Tymish was able to enter Suceava, barely meeting resistance (the blocking detachment of 500 soldiers left by Stefan was easily defeated).
On August 21, Georgy Stefan's army approached Suceava and tried to take the Cossack camp under the walls of the fortress. This attempt completely failed, because in the few days that passed from the arrival to Suceava, the Cossacks were able to build strong fortifications; the siege of the fortress began.
After the siege began, Tymish sent a letter to Bohdan Khmelnytsky asking for help. On August 29, Khmelnytsky received an alarming letter from his son requesting reinforcements. However, having only 10,000 soldiers in Chyhyryn (other regiments gathered near Bila Tserkva), he did not dare to send large forces to Suceava before the threat of an attack by the Poles (several thousand Cossacks could not save the situation). Therefore, he wrote back to Timosh that he could not send reinforcements at the moment and advised him to defend himself. Sources say that after that the hetman sent universals to the officers three times with an order to gather to help the besieged in Suceava, but they did not want to do it. In the second decade of September, only two regiments of Cossacks gathered in Rashkov.