Ivan Vyhovsky, serving in the Polish military, had been captured by Khmelnystsky's rebel Cossack forces at Zhovti Vody in May of 1648; freed on account of his education and experience, he had risen to become secretary-general or chancellor of the Cossacks and one of Khmelnytsky's closest advisors.

Elected hetman upon the death of Khmelnytsky, Vyhovsky seeks to find a counterbalance to the pervasive Russian influence present in Ukraine after the 1654 Treaty of Pereyaslav.

While the Cossack elite and the ecclesiastical authorities support this pro-Polish orientation, the masses and the Cossack rank-and-file remain deeply suspicious and resentful of the Poles, by whom they have long been forced into serfdom.

As a result, some Cossacks, led by Iakiv Barabash, put forward an alternative candidate for the hetmancy in Martyn Pushkar, the colonel of the Poltava regiment of Cossacks.