With the destruction of the Zaporozhian Sich in 1775, the most senior Cossacks were repressed. Among them was Holovaty's older brother Pavlo who was one of those arrested together with the last Zaporozhian kosh otaman Petro Kalnyshevsky. Both Kalnyshevsky and Pavlo Holovaty spent a year incarcerated in Moscow, and were given death sentences which were later commuted to incarceration for life. Kalnyshevsky was later pardoned at the age of 110. Most Cossacks escaped repressions by moving beyond the Danube into Turkish territory.