Executions of Cossacks in Lebedyn

The commission was presided by Alexander Menshikov[3] All those suspected of loyalty to Mazepa, including those who did not report to the Hlukhiv Rada council, were taken to Lebedin for torture and execution.

Archbishop Konissky wrote: "The execution was a usual Menshikov's craft: wheeling and putting on a stake, but the easiest one, considered a child's play, was hanging and beheading.

Their guilt was determined through their own confession, and the reliable means for that was the most glorious "sacrament" of the time - torture, of which postulates are still known to these days by this Russian proverb: "The whip is not an Angel: it won't remove the soul from the body, but shall compel the truth", and which tortures were carried out with the utmost accuracy and according to the instructions of the Assembly Code (Sobornoe Ulozhenie) in other words: step-by-step and in this order - first whip, then whip and splint i.e., hot iron, that was drawn gently and slowly over the flesh of a living man from which act he would seeth, and boil, and rise in agony.

"The decree for army sergeants who had left with the Swedes to Mazepa" from 1 November 1708 as: "And those who by this Decree, having forgotten the fear of God and the Oath to Us, the Great Tsar, and the wholeness and indivisibility of the Motherland from him, the thief and traitor Mazepa, and from this enemy shall not depart, and to Us, the Great Tsar, would not return in the course of this month, i.e. by the 1st of December 1708, shall be declared our and our Motherland's traitors.

About the torture and execution of the Cossacks in Lebedin, referring to the alleged author of "History of Ruthenians" Archbishop George Konissky of Belarus and legends preserved among the locals, writes Archbishop Filaret (Gumilevsky) in his book "Historical and statistical description of Kharkov diocese, "written in 1852-59: "The most wonderful time for Lebedyn was the end of 1708 and beginning of 1709.

He said that Menshikov used different torture - whip, hot iron were used against the unfortunate victims of Mazepa's fraud, conscious about their collaboration Mazeppa.

[14] According to the deputy chairman of the Sumy Regional State Administration, in April 2009 it was scheduled to replace a wooden cross on the grave of "Getmantsy" for the monument.