Between East and West: Understanding Early Modern Ukraine

Oleksii Sokyrko

The face of modern Ukraine was shaped between the 16th to the 18th centuries. As the successor of the Slavic principality of Kyivan Rus, the various state en­tities that emerged on the Ukrainian lands, or Ukraine-Rus, during this early modern period, absorbed the heritage of Eastern Christian Byzantium while also existing within the cultural and political orbit of Central and Western Europe.

The early modern period of Ukraine's history was defined by constant ex­change and conflict with its convenient geographic location at the intersection of the agricultural and nomadic worlds made it an important transit hub for regional trade. Notable among these was its position along the salt road, bet­ter known as the key trade route between the Varangians and the Greeks, and the Silk Road spanning across Eurasia and connecting its eastern and western extremes. New trade arteries, which had emerged between the 11th and 16th centuries, also served to link Eastern and Central Europe to the Baltic States and the Black Sea region, further reinforcing Kyivan Rus and Ukraine's eco­nomic importance. However, its status as geopolitical borderland also meant that these economic benefits were accompanied by a series of seemingly never­ending wars.

At that point in history, the most powerful political actors in domestic and foreign trade were the Rus ruling princes, descended from the medieval Rurik and Gediminas dynasties; the boyars and shlakhta, who formed a caste of mi­nor nobles and landowners; and Cossack officials (starshyna), as well as the local Orthodox clergy.

However, those among the old Rus elite who had seen their lands incorpo­rated into Lithuania had retained a significant portion of their social and pro­perty rights. Although this did not create any impetus for political autonomy, the idea of establishing a Grand Duchy of Rus did emerge within the political discourses of the mid-15th century. Through various strategic marriages, Rus aristocrats not only became the relatives of Polish Kings and Lithuanian Grand Dukes, but also came to occupy important state positions as well as appearing as proponents of new models of governance based on the idea of a socio-poli­tical contract between monarchs and political elites that challenged the earlier systems of feudal power. This was best exemplified in the 1569 Union of Lublin, which united the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland into a single state: the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. At the time, this new polity included most of the lands that had previously formed Kyivan Rus.

In the first half of the 17th century, on the Rus territories which the fron­tier between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the “Wild Fields” (Dyke Pole, Lat. Loca Deserta), forming the Pontic steppe which is now located in the territory of present-day eastern and southern Ukraine and southern Russia, north of the Black and Azov seas, two new social strata were established: the Ukrainian shlakhta and the Zaporizhian Cossacks.

Having successfully acquired autonomy, the Hetmanate immediately launched a war for full sovereign independence, concluding alliances with the Crimean Khanate, the Ottoman Empire, the Kingdom of Sweden, and various other Eastern European states. These wars and alliances radically changed the international balance in the region. Of these, the most decisive was the union with the Tsardom of Muscovy, known interchangeably as Russia since the accession of Tsar Ivan IV in 1547, established under the Treaty of Pereiaslav of 1654. Although the then Tsar Alexis represented the weakest link in a series of potential allies-cum-neighbours, he extended recognition to the Cossack Het- manate only under pressure from Khmelnytsky who had presented him with the unappealing alternative of the Host becoming an Ottoman protectorate. The Cossack elite was therefore able to establish relations with Moscow on a negotiated contractual basis, placing them within a legal framework previous unknown to the Muscovite tradition.

The new Ukrainian elite declared the Cossack Hetmanate as a successor to Kyivan Rus, delineating the borders of the restored state based on those terri­tories populated by ethnic Ukrainians. The concept of turning the Hetmanate into a Grand Principality of Rus, an idea long-cherished by the territory's lead­ers since the time of Hetman IvanVyhovsky (?-1664), was, above all, a reflection of ongoing attempts at reconciling the majority with the that of the nobility as the region's traditional elite. Such a “momentous blend” not only had to take place between the ruling echelons of Ukraine and the Polish-Lithuanian Com­monwealth, but also, and even more so, within wider Ukrainian society itself, a situation that saw growing unrest and a series of local Cossack revolts. De­spite official attempts at reconciliation, best illustrated by the 1658 Treaty of Hadiach, signed between the Cossack and Polish-Lithuanian diplomats, how­ever these efforts ultimately proved unsuccessfully in restoring socio-political cohesion.

The failure of Hadiach also served in triggering the gradual erosion of Ukrainian statehood, which later provided grounds for a pessimistic retro­spective evaluation of the ability of the then Ukrainian elite to adequately represent society. Indeed, the inability of the Cossack starshyna to find any workable solutions resulted in political division and fragmentation along the Dnieper River, culminating in the loss of Right-bank Ukraine and the Het- manate's gradual curtailing of the Hetmanate's sovereignty in the Left-bank by the Russian Tsardom that continued for over a century.

Despite resistance to unification, the Cossack starshyna was invariably committed to ideas that they represented a distinct political and social elite for whom the establishment of the Cossack Hetmanate as a sovereign entity would remain a goal from the of Mazepa, through the mid-18th century and even after its political dissolution. Indeed, the concept of the Zaporizhian Host as a polity with historical roots that went deeper than simply the era of Kyivan Rus, being linked to Russia only though the figure tsar, remained at the heart of this elite's guiding convictions. Thus, under Hetman Kyrylo Rozumovsky (1728-1803), the starshyna were able to articulate a programme of reform designed to restore not only the internal self-sufficiency of the Hetmanate but also its independent standing in the international arena.

The Ukrainian national myth that had begun to emerge in the 18th century was well-tuned to the challenges of the early modern period. It legitimized the establishment of the Cossack Hetmanate in line with the requirements of the times, while at the same time rejecting Muscovy's territorial claims to the Ukrainian lands. Over time, Ukrainians were able to enlist the help of Orthodox intellectuals, who began emphasizing the historical links between the Cossack Hetmanate and earlier traditions of political independence. Un­der Mazepa, new ideological conceptions were constructed to highlight the Zaporizhian Host's perceived historic mission as a successor of Kyivan Rus.

Despite Russia's expanding political and cultural influence, the intellectual heritage of the Ukrainian Cossack elite was not lost: beginning in the 19th cen­tury, some among their descendants were once again seeking to build a new Ukraine. Most importantly, the historical and legal work produced by this ear­lier movement would serve as a blueprint for the intellectual birth of modern Ukrainian national identity. This closely mirrored what had happened in ear­lier centuries when a portion of the nobility had been integrated into Cossacks society; these new incomers proved vital in enriching the territory's intellectual culture and providing the latent precedent for the restoration of the Ukrainian state. In this way, a sense of continuity was preserved among the remnants of the Ukrainian elite, preventing its complete absorption into those of the wider Russian Empire. Responding to the new challenges of the time, those who had established early-modern Ukrainian statehood were also able to lay the ide­ological foundations necessary for the creation of a fully independent state. Such foundation proved to be strong enough to both outlive the Cossack Het- manate and fuel the rise of the modern Ukrainian national idea during the 19th century.

The Lithuanian Statutes were especially significant within the European legal and political culture of the Ukrainian elite, representing the first official codes that regulated the basic principles of government as well as civil, crim­inal, and property law. The Statutes also synthesized the legal traditions of the various regions that had comprise the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania - specifically the Belarusian, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian lands - and based on customary law and “Rus Truth” (Pravda Rus’kaia). Following in the Renais­sance fashion that centred on the structures of Roman law, the codes also incorporated the norms of the Polish, Czech, and German traditions. In­deed, from a contemporary perspective these statutory norms would appear quite modern for the time with the inclusion of elements such as equality before the law, the full right to a fair trial, and the right to representation for different minorities and ethnic communities. The depth with which the Statutes had influenced legal norms guaranteed their persistence within the territory's judicial framework and continued use within the Ukrainian lands that formed part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth after 1569. Under the Hetmanate, the norms of the Statutes also subsequently became the basis of the first “Cossack Code”, delineating the “Rights under which the people of Little Russia are judged” (1743). Even in the imperial era of Ukrainian history, Lithuanian-Rus law remained in force, being revived either in the form of the new Russian imperial rights, that existed between 1807 and 1835, or in the practices of the Kyiv Magdeburg, which was only abolished in 1834.

Ukraine's social institutes also had much more in common with those of Central and Western Europe, particularly the Magdeburg Rights (Lat. Jus Mu­nicipale Magdeburgense) and craftsmen unions. Municipal self-governance was introduced at the same time as its cities revived from the Tatar-Mongol inva­sion of the 13th century, leading to a subsequent increase in their economic role. Self-governance itself traditionally overseen by magistrates: community governments comprised of two elected collegiums. Moreover, most of these municipal governments, including local mayors, were elected, effectively cre­ating virtual city-states with their own governance, laws, taxes, police, even systems of measurement.

The village community was another element of what was still largely an agrarian-based economic and social system, guaranteeing that skilled peasants - in partial or total serfdom - continued to remain in service to their landlords or the state. American historian Steven Hawk even describes these communities as having primarily been a mechanism of mutual social control within rural Russian society. Such systems were based on the level­ling principle and developed a specific labor ethic whereby those outside the privileged class of elders and estate managers were expected to remain obe­dient and working as much as was necessary to meet their economic needs. Consequently, Russian peasants were generally no poorer or richer than their counterparts further west. However, their attitude to work was entirely dif­ferent, dominated by stifled initiative, fear of punishment, envy, and hostility towards their neighbours.

The Cossack Hetmanate's foreign trade that generated much of the rev­enues needed to maintain the central budget went in two major directions: west, by way of the Commonwealth and Habsburg Monarchy, and south-east where the Ottoman Empire and Crimea were the major trading partners. The westward trade corridor, through which cattle, grain, horilka, and other agri­cultural products were shipped to other European countries dated back to the 16th century and connected Ukrainian merchants from Poltava and Starodub with Gdansk, Breslau, Stettin, Marburg, Riga and other early modern trade centres. Nevertheless, the success and productivity of this vital economic artery was ultimately dependent on protection of the state government. The south-eastern route was no less lucrative with trade between Cossack Ukraine and Crimea being worth half a million ducats by the end of the 18th century, an enormous sum at that time. However, merchants still required secure routes for moving the luxury goods they acquired, leading most to favour a more indirect journey through Right-bank Ukraine, under the rule of the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth, that allowed them to avoid attacks by bands of armed Tatars and the Zaporizhian Cossacks, as well as the threat of epidemic diseases. It was from there that wines, sugar, cereals, dried and smoked food, Turkish delight, silk, weapons, and Ottoman-crafted jewellery flowed into the Hetmanate and a number of provinces in southern Russia, while the steppe routes were mostly used for cattle, salt, and fish. This segment of commerce was entirely controlled by the Ottoman Turk, the Cossacks and chumaky, Ukrainian merchants who traded salt extracted on the Crimean Black Sea coast and who were better adapted to the extreme conditions of life on the steppe.

Just as in other European countries, commercial life in Ukraine was cen­tred around two key spheres, with the main one being agriculture followed by urban craftsmanship and trade. These served as the basis for property rights and economic self-organization expressed through the territory’s network of craft workshops and commerce. Having remained open and relatively unpop­ulated until the 18th century, Ukraine’s steppe regions offered plenty of oppor­tunities for commercial colonization. This led to the development of a special social type of entrepreneurial landowner who constantly competed with nature and nomads while relying only on their own resources. This made it somewhat comparable to Europe’s other “buffer zones” that boasted similar agricultural­based economies such as the Balkans or the Pyrenees during the period of Mus­lim rule over the medieval Iberian Peninsula.

Prior to the start of the 18th century, the Russian economic model had had little contact with external influences. This started to change, however, with the launch of Tsar Peter I’s, more commonly known as Peter the Great’s, West­ernisation reforms that sought to turn the Romanov Empire into a major Eu­ropean power and player on the international stage. It’s historical predecessor the Grand Duchy of Muscovy, had also sought to introduce Western innova­tions and organization practices as means of releasing its already vast terri­tory’s economic potential, while retaining traditional methods mostly based on domination by the state, centralised administration, distribution of assets, and the marginalization of private initiatives. For Ukraine, the lands of which were progressively drawn into the Russian orbit throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, this entailed the crushing and transformation of the economic and social structures established in the late Middle Ages and their reconstruction along completely different principles. The Ukrainian state and its institutions, whether under Polish-Lithuanian rule or during the Hetmanate, had never had total influence and control over the economy, allowing it to develop freely in re­sponse to external markets and domestic demand.

The situation changed when Russia began to pursue its political and eco­nomic interests in the early 18th century. Through its victory over the rival Swedish Empire in the Great Northern War (1700-1721), the Russians were granted a hand in being able to redistribute political influence in Central-East­ern Europe while perpetuating the spread of their own preferred economic model and business practices. By 1714, St. Petersburg had monopolized trade in most of the region's strategic goods including Ukrainian potassium, flax, goat fat, and timber for shipbuilding. Moreover, Ukrainian merchants were now ordered to direct their goods to northern ports in Riga and Arkhangelsk instead of the common routes to Krakow, Gdansk, and Breslau.

Surprisingly, even in times of conflict the southern trade routes continued to yield high profits; during the 18th century there were as many as four major wars between the Russian and Ottoman empires. During this period, St. Pe­tersburg had eagerly commissioned Ukrainian merchants to aid in provision­ing the Imperial Russian Army owing to the comparative cheapness of their goods and detailed knowledge of the southern steppes and major river cross­ings. The situation changed dramatically after the Sixth Russo-Turkish War (1768-1774), which severely disrupted trade with Crimea while creating new prospects for transporting goods via the Black Sea ports and bases of which Kherson was initially the largest.

However, Ukrainian merchants once again found themselves out of favour as the Russian Empire sought to first colonize its newly annexed western ter­ritories before undertaking economic development measures. Successive gov- ernors-general, alongside high-ranking court figures, Russian merchants, and foreign investors, were instead charged with organizing the wholesale trade of agricultural products intended for export. Left without government support, Ukrainian merchants were consequently forced to switch to domestic whole­sale and retail trade. Historians have observed that in the second half of the 18th century, trade fairs boomed but were not accompanied by an increase in the number of merchants, implying that both the urban and rural populace, including the Cossacks, were now involved in trade. This was also facilitated by the Cossack starshyna and monasteries, which were very active in the domestic market andhad enjoyed significant privileges grantedunder the hetmans' rule. However, from the 1780s, the Russian government began to prohibit both from engaging in trade in order to protect the economic interests of the expanding cities.

These measures were followed by the increasing regulation of the legal sta­tus of the territory’s merchant and entrepreneurial class with any economic activity being exclusively limited to those registered as Russian subjects. The problem was only exacerbated by the Ukrainian market being re-oriented to­wards the export of raw materials while stifling domestic industries through the import of finished Russian products. This process also involved the Russifi­cation of the cities, where Russian-speakers emerged as the most economically powerful group. The events of the late 18th century thus represented the end of the early modern period of Ukrainian history, in which the territory had ex­isted as part of both the Western and Eastern cultural traditions. The 19th cen­tury would mark the beginning of a new phase in the Ukrainian history - the Imperial Period.

Selected Bibliography

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Isaievych, Iaroslav. Voluntary Brotherhood: Confraternities of Laymen in Early Mod­ern Ukraine (Edmonton and Toronto: Canadian Institute ofUkrainian Stud­ies Press, 2006).

Kohut, Zenon. Making Ukraine. Studies on Political Culture, Historical Narrative, and Identity (Edmonton and Toronto: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 2011).

Kohut, Zenon. Russian Centralism and Ukrainian Autonomy. ImperialAbsorption ofthe Hetmanate, 1760s-1830s (Cambridge, Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press, 1989).

Plokhy, Serhii. The Origins ofthe Slavic Nations: Premodern Identities in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Plokhy, Serhii. The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine (New York: Basic Books, 2015).

Rudnytsky, Ivan L. and Himka John-Paul (eds.) Rethinking Ukrainian History (Edmonton: The Canadian Institute ofUkrainian Ivan L. Rudnytsky Stud­ies, The University of Alberta, 1981).

Sevcenko, Ihor. Ukraine between East and West: Essays on Cultural History to the Early Eighteenth Century, second, revised edition (Toronto: University of Al­berta Press, 2022).