Nalyvaiko was born in the town of
Husiatyn not far from
Ternopil into a
furrier's family. After the killing of his father by the servants of the magnate Kalinowski he moved with his mother to
Ostroh where his elder brother was a seminary student. He later served with the registered Cossacks under Prince
Kostiantyn Vasyl Ostrozky in the army of
Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1593 he fought against the rebellious
Zaporozhian Cossacks led by
Krzysztof Kosiński during the
Kosiński Uprising. He left the service in 1594, and organized a paramilitary unit of unregistered cossacks in the vicinity of
Bratslav, and raided several
Moldavian and
Hungarian towns. The following year, Nalivaiko's Cossacks were joined by many run-away Ukrainian peasants and captured the town of
Lutsk where his men massacred
Polish nobility, Catholic clergy and local
Greek-Catholics. From
Volhynia Nalivaiko's Cossacks moved into
Belarus, where they pillaged
Mogilev. ==See also==