Ostap Dashkevych

Ostap Dashkevych (Ukrainian: Остап Дашкевич; born in Ovruch – died after 1535) is considered to be the first recorded leader of a Cossack defense force (according to Dmitri Bantysh-Kamensky, Dmytro Doroshenko, and others). However that claim of "first" is debatable because there were many other early leaders, including Bohdan Glinski from Severia and Dmytro Vyshnevetsky.

Dashkevych held a position of starosta in Cherkasy (1514–35) at the early stages of development of cossacks and is sometimes mistakenly referred to as a hetman. Some sources as well as oral tradition claim that Dashkevych lived past the age of 80, at which age he routed the Tatars at Cherkasy.