His ethnic origins are not known, but he is generally regarded as of Ukrainian ethnicity, including by Ukrainian authors. However, an unkown number of Romanian authors claim he was a Romanian, and from Transnistria. More broadly, Pidkova was a "Kozak otaman who led the Moldavian and Ukrainian struggle against the Turks." After rising to prominence as a successful soldier, he became a leader (ataman) and the sworn brother of Hetman Yakiv Shah, elected by the Cossacks of the Registered Zaporozhian Host from Ukraine neighbouring Moldavia. In 1574, Ioan Vodă cel Cumplit, whose brother Pidkova claimed to be, had named the territory "Our Country from over the Dniester". Other Moldavian Atamans and Hetmans of the Cossacks were Grigore Lobodă (Hryhoriy Loboda; 1593–1596) and Dănilă Apostol (Danylo Apostol; 1727–1734).
Pidkova was one of the so-called Domnişori ("Little Princes"), named so because of a more or less based claims of belonging to Moldavian ruling families, thus exercising demands of the throne. Claiming to be Ioan III Vodă's half-brother, he together with Hetman Yakiv Shah chased Peter the Lame from the throne and resisted the first wave of violent Ottoman reaction. The Turks, their Wallachian vassal Mihnea Turcitul and their Transylvania vassal and Polish partner, King Stefan Báthory, managed to remove him. In the end, Pidkova was taken prisoner by Poles and decapitated in Lviv.
He is the hero of Taras Shevchenko's romantic 1839 poem Ivan Pidkova, of Romanian writer Mihail Sadoveanu's socialist realist 1952 novel Nicoară Potcoavă, and of several Cossack ballads. His monument is placed on one of the small central squares in Lviv, Ukraine.
