Koliivshchyna

thumb|260 px|Monument of Gonta and Zalizniak in Uman, Ukraine The Koliivshchyna (; ) was a major haidamaky rebellion that broke out in Right-bank Ukraine in June 1768, caused by the dissatisfaction of peasants with the treatment of Orthodox Christians by the Bar Confederation and serfdom, as well as by hostility of Cossacks and peasants to the local Polonized Ruthenian nobility and ethnic Poles. The uprising was accompanied by pogroms against both real and imagined supporters of the Bar Confederation, particularly ethnic Poles, Jews, Roman Catholics, and especially Byzantine Catholic priests and laity. This culminated in the massacre of Uman. The number of victims is estimated from 100,000 to 200,000. Many communities of national minorities (such as Old Believers, Armenians, Muslims and Greeks) completely disappeared in the areas devastated by the uprising.

==Etymology== The origin of the word Koliivshchyna is not certain. Taras Shevchenko, whose grandfather had participated in the uprising, wrote a poem, Haydamaky, in which kolii is described as a knife that is blessed in a church and used by Ukrainian villagers to kill animals humanely, according to the local understanding of animal rights. The blessing of knives had occurred two or three weeks before the uprising as a rule, so the members and supporters of the Bar Confederation and its military forces fled to the Ottoman Empire before the uprising. However, some fortresses such as Uman and Lysianka were still occupied by the members of the Bar Confederation.