CHAPTER 10 THE UKRAINIAN COSSACK ORGANIZATIONS in the Slobodian Ukraine and elsewhere

In our description of the Belorussian Cossack Pvegiment or the Zaporozhian Host we dealt with the self-governing organizations which recognized their dependence on the Ukrainian Hetman.

In the seventeenth century the colonists from Ukraine moved to this land. The first were political refugees who in the 1630’s escaped from the Ukrainian Dnieper Valley after the defeat of Ukrainian uprisings against Poland. The Russian Government received these Ukrainian refugees because their settlements in the desolate steppe blocked the way to Tatar raids.

The Ukrainian colonization of the Slobodian Ukraine (Sloboda meant a free settlement) intensified in the 1660’s and 1670’s. At this time the refugees from Right-Bank Ukraine were fleeing, not from the Poles, but as the result of the fratricidal civil way in Ukraine in the ’’period of destruction” (ruina).

Moving to the east, the Ukrainian refugees brought to their new homeland their customary forms of social and political organization. This was also a Cossack society. Even in its early phase it included quite a few peasants. There were five Cossack Regiments established, as the units of military and territorial-administrative character. These were the Regiments of Kharkiv (Kharkov), Okhtyrka (Akh- tyrka), Izium, Sumy (now in Ukrainian Republic) and Ostrogozhsk (now in Russian S.F.S.R.). The Moscow Government, however, did not permit their incorporation into the Ukrainian state and did not consent to their unification. There was no central organization and each of these Regiments was directly controlled by the Russian governmental organs.

There was double subordination of these Slobodian regiments to the organs of Russian local and central administration. Locally the region was governed by the voevoda (military governor) of the Bel­gorod Fortress. The central organ that controlled the Slobodian Cossack regiments was the Razriad, a kind of Russian department of defence. Among its duties were the organization and maintenance of the defensive line in the areas of the southern frontier.

The ’’Great-Russian Agency” organized the collection of direct and indirect taxes, granted landed estates to military and adminis­trative personnel, controlled the work of the local Cossack adminis­tration and examined complaints against the action of Ukrainian Cossack colonels. As the legal status of the Regiments of the Slobo- dian Cossacks was different from those in Hetman Ukraine, the autho­rity of the Great-Russian Agency differed from that of the Little- Russian Agency. Whereas the latter carried out external relations with the Hetman Government of Ukraine, the former directly exer­cised the functions of control and administration of the Slobodian regiments.

Evidently the authority and functions of the Great-Russian Agency in Moscow paralleled, and clashed with, in many aspects, the authority and functions of the Russian voevoda in Belgorod. This situation changed in the early eighteenth century during the reign of Peter I, when the Great-Russian Agency was abolished, and the regions of the Slobodian Cossack regiments were included into the recently established Russian guberniia (province) of Azov. After that they were directly supervised by the Russian provincial organs.

The dependence on the local government agents of the Muscovite state and, later, of the Russian Empire, as well as the direct inter­vention of Russian organs and officials into the Cossack Regiments in the Slobodian Ukraine, allow us to define them only as the semi- autonomous regions of the Russian state.

Their autonomy was manifested in their administrative system which was distinctive and different from the political organization of the Russian state.

The social structure of Slobodian regiments was less complex than that of Hetman Ukraine. There were not as many different social groups and as complex social relations as in Hetman Ukraine, where, especially in the northern Regiments, we find the influence of the old nobility and the towns governed by Magdeburg Law. At first there were just two social groups in the Slobodian Ukraine, the Cossacks and the peasants. Only later the burgher class was formed. Here we also find a gradual differentiation of the Cossack class it­self. This began later than in Hetman Ukraine, but it had assumed the same forms as in Hetman Ukraine. This process was caused by basically similar historical conditions but, on the other hand, we cannot deny the possibility of the direct influence of social order in Hetman Ukraine. A group similar to the noble army fellows in the Ukrainian state was formed and they were called the pidpraporni, i. e. the Cossacks who served under the banner (prapor) of a Regi­ment. They were exempted from the jurisdiction of local government in Hundreds, and were directly subordinated to the Colonels.

In the eighteenth century the Russian Government and its local organs and officials more and more restricted and violated the auto­nomy of Cossack regiments in the Slobodian Ukraine. In 1765 the Russian Government was able to abrogate this autonomy altogether and to abolish the Cossack autonomous units in the region. The terri­tory of Kharkiv, Okhtyrka, Sumy and Izium regiments was organi­zed into a new Slobodian-Ukrainian guberniia which, except for its name, had a governmental system completely similar to other Russian provinces. The Ostrogozhsk Regiment became a part of the Voronezh ' guberniia. The upper layer of the population acquired the rights of the Russian nobility (dυorianstvo). The Cossack hereditary class was abolished altogether and its members became free peasants, but had to provide the Russian Army with draftees for the five regiments of light cavalry (the Hussars).

In other regions beyond the boundaries of Hetman Ukraine, especially in western Right-Bank Ukraine, the Cossack organization did not last long. After Peter Doroshenko’s defeat this devastated and depopulated region belonged at first to Turkey but in the 1680’s, excluding the Kamianets-Podilskyi (Kemenets-Podolskii) Fortress, was transferred to Poland. It was repopulated soon and anew there was established the Cossack organization. The Cossacks of western (Right-Bank) Ukraine had for a short period their own hetmans (Ivan Mohyla, Hryshko and Samus) who resided in the Podilian city of Nemyriv (Nemirov). There were seven Cossack Regiments; those of Bila Tserkva (at first of Fastiv), Bohuslav, Korsun, Chyhyryn, Uman, Bratslav and Mohyliv (Mogilev, on the Dniester). Some of these regiments existed until 1711.

Cossack organization was just a shadow of the old Cossack Ukraine. The legal nature of its relation to Poland was never clearly defined and it never acquired the status of a vassal state. Its armed forces were not strong enough to defend it from its powerful neighbours: its population basis was not sufficient. Its organizational structure was imperfect, and consequently the power of its Hetmans was just a shadow of the Hetman rule in eastern (Left-Bank) Ukraine. It was rather a title of one of the Colonels and in fact, the other colonels were very little dependent on their nominal superior.

Soimd national instinct impelled the Cossack leaders of Right- Bank Ukraine to look for support from the comparatively strong Ukrainian state in Left-Bank Ukraine; Hetman Ivan Mazepa who ruled in that period tried to incorporate the western provinces into his state. But there was some friction between Hetman Ukraine and the Cossacks of these provinces. This could be explained by the different social structure of both organizations. In Ivan Mazepa’s time Hetman Ukraine was already a state ruled by the new upper class of the noble army fellows. In the west the situation was different. This recently repopulated area was the land of ordinary Cossacks who still had close social contacts with the peasant masses. This caused some agitation in the western provinces against the ’’new lords,” the owners of the landed estates in Hetman Ukraine. There were calls for a ”Khmelnytsky-type” uprising against Hetman Ukraine’s new upper class. These calls were connected with the name of Semen Palii, the colonel of the Regiment of Fastiv₁ who subsequently was arrested on Hetman Mazepa’s orders, and exiled by the Russian Government to Siberia. After the defeat of Ivan Mazepa the Cossacks of Right-Bank Ukraine lost the support of Left-Bank Ukrainian state which no longer was able to pursue an independent policy. That led to the dissolution of these regiments. Then the Polish and Polonized owners of manorial estates returned to Right-Bank Ukraine, and the Ukrainian ethnic element was once again represented by the enserfed peasants. There were many instances of armed struggle by these serfs against the new social order. Most of them took the form of Haidamak uprisings. These were unorganized manifestations of so­cial and religious (and only indirectly national) discontent by the local population. Social and spiritual separation from eastern, Left- Bank, Ukraine was at that time so complete that the armed forces of Hetman Ukraine participated in the suppression of the Haidamak peasant uprisings.

A few words should be said about the Cossack organization in the regions which were temporarily annexed by Turkey. In parts of Right-Bank Ukraine conquered by Turkey in 1677-1681 the govern­ment of George Khmelnytsky, as the ’’Prince of Sarmatia” was established. This undertaking was short-lived and unsuccessful. In the times of Ivan Mazepa there was some talk about the existence of so-called "Dubossary hetmans.” There exist unpublished data about these ’’hetmans” in the Moscow archives of the former Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Evidently this was an attempt by the Turkish sul­tans to create an embryo of their own Cossack organization that could be used in the event of a conquest of Right-Bank Ukraine by the Turks. The impressive title of ’’hetmans” was in fact inapprop­riate for these petty Cossack chieftains who resided in the Molda­vian village of Dubossary of the lower Dniester Valley, under the protection of Turkey, and who according to the available date had very few (several hundred) Cossacks.

In all instances when the Ukrainian population had an opportu­nity to start its struggle for liberation (with exception of the ’’Sar­matian Principality” of George Khmelnytsky), whether it was in re­mote steppes of the Slobodian Ukraine, or in Podilia during the rule of Samus and Ivan Mohyla₁ or in Turkish Dubossary, there were Cossack ’’hetmans” and ’’colonels” who led a Cossack organization. There was no upper class of the old nobility in the recently populated or the old but devastated regions and, as a result, the new leading groups arose out of the Cossack class. Evidently the formation of this Cossack group was influenced by the traditions of the long li­beration struggle by the Ukrainian Cossacks which began in the sixteenth century and resulted in their legendary glory and admi­ration of the masses. It also could have been influenced by the socio­political order of the Hetman state in Left-Bank Ukraine which was also based on the Cossack organization, even if it had changed its forms.

We can say that this Cossack organization was a special national Ukrainian form of socio-political relations in the period of hereditary social structure. This distinguished Ukraine from the other states and nations of this period (with the exception of southern Russia’s Cossack organization in the Don and Ural valleys).

EPILOGUE

After the incorporation of Hetman Ukraine into the Russian Empire the last flame of Ukrainian independence was extinguished. Other Ukrainian regions had lost their independence or even limited autonomy a long time before and had become provinces of other states such as Poland (the large part of the Ukrainian lands to the west of the Dnieper—until the downfall of this state); Moldavia (Ukrainian Bukovina until 1774); Hungary (Transcarpathia) and finally Austria (Galicia and Bukovina — since 1772 and 1774, re­spectively). They were distinguished from the other provinces of these states only by the fact that the enserfed Ukrainian peasants had preserved their language, their old customs.

The Russian Empire at this time included the larger part of Ukrainian ethnic territory. In its direct possession was easternmost Slobodian Ukraine since 1765; it had incorporated the region of the Zaporozhian (Zaporogian) Host in 1775 and the territory of Hetman Ukraine in 1781. After the partition in 1793 and 1795 of Poland (officially — The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) which could not survive the struggle against the coalition of the absolute monar­chies of Russia, Austria and Prussia, the Russian Empire acquired also Right-Bank Ukraine, i. e. the Kiev region, Volhynia and Podilia (Podolia). As in the other parts of the Russian Empire the Ukrainian regions were divided into guberniias (provinces). There were the eight guberniias of Chernihiv, Poltava, Kharhiv (which at first was called the "Slobodian-Ukrainian guberniia”), Kiev, Katerynoslav (Ekaterinoslav) and Kherson as well as the guberniias of Podilia and Volhynia. Parts of southern Ukraine were included into the Taurida guberniia (on the Black Sea) and the ’’Oblast [territory] of the Don Cossack Army.” A part of the northern borderland of the Eastern Ukraine was included into the Russian guberniias of Kursk and Voronezh. All these provinces had a uniform Russian administrative structure and organization.

The population of these new regions of the Russian Empire was officially designated as the Russian (unofficially, the malorossy- Little-Russians). This gave the Ukrainians some privileges enjoyed by the Russians as the dominant national group in the Empire, with the most extensive personal rights and best opportunities, especially in relation to employment by government. In this respect the Ukrai­nians enjoyed some privileges in comparison with the status of the inorodtsy (^,,non-Russian people”) or the population which did not belong to the established Eastern Orthodox Church, This situation was in some respects personally advantageous to the inhabitants of the Ukrainian land, but at the same time meant that they had to renounce their own national identity.

The magnificent northern capital of the Russian Empire, St. Petersburg, attracted a great number of the Ukrainians, mostly from the upper layer of society. Here they became the servants and some­times (let us mention the names of the Kochubeis, Bezborodkos and Rozumovskys who held the higher posts in this empire) the masters of the Russian state. Many of them had to feel that they entered a new bright and enlightened world and left behind the provincial backwoods, where their fathers quietly lived the rest of their days. Few of them could understand that the backwardness of Ukraine was caused by her political situation and the downfall of the Ukrainian state. If that state continued to exist, its own capital — as Kiev was in medieval times — could have been too a great European metro­polis.

It was a time of great achievements in the foreign affairs of the Russian Empire. In the west it acquired Finland, the Baltic Pro­vinces, a large part of Poland, a larger part of Ukraine, Belorussia (White-Ruthenia) and Bessarabia. In the south it conquered the Crimea and fought for the incorporation of the Caucasus. In the east it had already the vast expanses of Siberia reaching up to the Pacific Ocean, and the conquest of Central Asia had begun. A great alliance of Eastern Europe and Asia could have developed, provided it were a commonwealth of free nations. In this empire of two conti­nents the Ukrainian people met and joined many conquered nations. Most of them lost their independence and were in the process of losing the last traces of their autonomy. This multi-national empire faced great danger during the War against Napoleon in 1812, but its adversary showed himself to be not sufficiently prepared and strong, and the Empire itself was sufficiently consolidated. The victorious Russian Armies marched through Central and Western Europe toward Paris. After that Russian diplomacy for long time played the most important and influential role in the ’’Concert of Europe.”

In the Russian Empire the Ukrainian people found a social here­ditary structure in one of its most pronounced forms. It was a state dominated by its nobility (Avorianstvo) which did not share power with other social groups. The serfdom system was still very strong and its severity was much more pronounced than in the somewhat patriarchal relations between the landlord and serf as they existed in Hetman Ukraine.

Did the Ukrainian people completely lose in this period — the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century — all traces of their autonomy and the system of their laws? The answer would be nega­tive. There remained some traces of this autonomy and these laws.

At first we should mention the Zaporozhians (Zaporogians). The Zaporozhian Host was destroyed by the Russian Army in 1775. Its region fell under the direct administration of the officials and insti­tutions of the Russian state. But a considerable part of the Zapo- rozhian Cossacks did not accept that situation and emigrated to Turkey. In this act, and in the efforts to preserve its old organization, the Zaporozhian Host showed its will to oppose Russia much more than had been shown by Hetman Ukraine. Evidently this can be explained by the more favourable geographical position. The Zapo- rozhian land was situated farther from the core of the Russian Empire and it was easier for the Zaporozhians to retreat from the Russian-occupied territory. In Turkey or to be more exact, in the Turkish dependent territory in the lower Danube Valley (now in Rumania) they established a new Zaporozhian Host and restored the old Zaporozhian organization. Its thirty-eight kurins were reestabli­shed and again at the noisy meetings of the Sich Assembly the Zapo- rozhians elected their Sich leaders and other officers. During the Russo-Turkish War in 1828 the Sich Chief O. Hladkyi betrayed Turkey and with a part of the Zaporozhian force came over to the side of Russia. This led to the destruction of the new Zaporozhian Host by the Turks. The Zaporozhian organization was finally des­troyed and the Zaporozhian autonomy under Turkish rule came to an end. Those Zaporozhian Cossacks who remained in Rumanian Dob- ruja (Dobrogea) became just a category of free peasants.

The Zaporozhians who did not emigrate to Turkey were orga­nized into the ’’Black Sea Cossack Army” in the 1780’s. In the 1790’s Russia, helped by these Black Sea Cossacks, occupied the fertile lands of the Kuban Valley, and a considerable part of this territory was assigned to these Cossacks. In this land remote from Central Russia the former Zaporozhians and their descendants preserved some traces of their old organization. It is true that these Black Sea Cossacks (their name was changed to the ’’Kuban Cossacks” in 1864) were led by an ’’Acting Commander” (nakaznyi otaman) appointed by the Russian Government, but some traces of the old autonomy were preserved in their internal organization. As in the old Zapo- rozhian Host the Kuban Cossacks at first were divided into forty squadrons (kurins). These squadrons — and here there was a differ­ence — were military units as well as administrative-territorial districts, and each of them had a special settlement as its administra­tive centre. The old Zaporozhian principle of self-government with elected administrative organs, was preserved until 1920, in the organization of the Cossack settlements. Their chiefs (stanychni otamany) were elected at the Cossack village meetings.

These remnants of the old Cossack autonomy to some extent were a temporary exception to the general elimination of all the features of Ukrainian statehood and autonomy. This process was also somewhat interrupted or, rather, slowed down in the new Russian viceregencies (namestnichestυa) and, later, the new guber- niias organized in the territory of former Hetman Ukraine. The guberniias of Chernihiv and Poltava preserved some traces of the old governmental and social system. The upper layer of Ukrainian society acquired the rights of the Russian nobility (dυorianstυo) in 1785. But in each case the admission of an Ukrainian family to the ranks of the Russian dvorianstvo was separately examined and de­cided by the Department of Heraldry of the Ruling Senate. As a result we could find even in the 1820’s and 1830’s in the Chernihiv and Poltava guberniias quite large categories of persons who were as yet not certified as belonging to the Russian nobility. Until their legal status was finally established they continued to call themselves by their former Ukrainian Cossack titles and ranks; for instance ’’the bunchuk fellow,” ’’the son of a regimental judge,” etc.

A more important difference of these regions from the other provinces of the Russian Empire was the existence of a hereditary class (or social estate) absent in Russia proper. We have in mind the class of the Cossacks. It was not possible to include this Ukrainian social group into one of the social estates of Russian society because this society had no corresponding social category. On the other hand it was not possible to place this large group of Ukrainian people, who cherished their old freedoms, in the position of serfs. As a result the rank and file Ukrainian Cossacks retained their position as a separate hereditary class in the Chernihiv and Poltava provinces up to the October Revolution of 1917. The Cossacks of Chernihiv and Poltava provinces did not serve in the special Cossack units of the Russian Army as did the Russian Cossacks of the Don and Ural valleys as well as the Ukrainian and Russian Cossacks in the Kuban Valley. The legal status of the Chernihiv and Poltava Cossacks was closer to the status of the free and non-enserfed farmers (peasants). Fright­ened by the early military successes of Napoleon I in 1812, Russia started again to organize the Cossack regiments in Left-Bank Uk­raine; but after the defeat of the French Army this stopped. It was repeated again, with the same results, during the Polish Rebellion of 1831.

During the rule of Paul I (1796-1801) the old Ukrainian Supreme Court was temporarily restored in the region of former Hetman Ukraine,and at that time its judicial system differed from the judi­cial system in other Russian provinces. When the territory of the Ukrainian state was incorporated into the Russian Empire it preser­ved for several decades its old laws. The Russian legal rules did not operate in the provinces of Chernihiv and Poltava until 1842 when the rules of Lithuanian Statute were abrogated. But even after that these provinces preserved some norms of their old law (in the first place, the rules of inheritance and succession). The cities and towns of Left-Bank Ukraine were governed up to 1835 by the rules of Magdeburg Law, and retained their old municipal organization which differed significantly from the Russian one.

These differences in the governmental, social and judicial system in the provinces which were organized in the regions of former Hetman Ukraine distinguished them from the other administrative and territorial units of the Russian Empire. When some of these special features were abrogated by the Russian Government (the Magdeburg law or the Lithuanian Statute), it led to opposition and passive resistance, shown in the pleas to restore the old rights and old laws.

Western (Right-Bank) Ukraine incorporated into the Russian Empire after the partition of Poland — the later provinces of Kiev, Podilia and Volhynia under the authority of a Governor General — did not preserve the traces of its old socio-political system because even before the incorporation into the Russian Empire it was an ordinary part of Poland. This region also differed from former Het­man Ukraine in the position of its upper social group. The new dvoriane (noblemen) of eastern (Left-Bank) Ukraine were Ukrai­nians by origin and even after their ’’Russification” they still cheri­shed the Cossack past of their ancestors. A nobleman and owner of a manorial estate in the western (Right-Bank) Ukraine was at that time a Pole or a ’’Polonized” Ukrainian, who had even changed his religion and had become a Roman Catholic. The large part of these noblemen in Right-Bank Ukraine treasured the memory of the Polish state and culture. When in 1831 and 1863 the people of the central Polish regions (incorporated into the Russian Empire) rose up for the liberation and the restoration of the Polish state, the nobility in Right-Bank Ukraine actively participated in these uprisings.

The hostile attitude of the new dvoriane in Right-Bank Ukraine toward Russia provoked repressive measures of the Russian Govern­ment against Poles and, to its efforts to ensure the support of the local ’’Little-Russian” (i. e. Ukrainian) elements of this region. This action, however, was not successful because the larger part of the Ukrainian population were serfs. An insurmountable wall divided a Russian official, who was a dυorianin (nobleman) from his ’’Little- Russian brother” in Right-Bank Ukraine, who was a serf. Conse­quently, the Russian organs made only minor efforts to alleviate serfdom and the oppression of peasants by the Polish landlords. Among the measures against the interests of Polish landowners in Right-Bank Ukraine we should mention the strict verification of their rights to be recognized as members of the Russian upper class in 1840-1845. This verification resulted in the exclusion of more than 60,000 small Polish landowners from the registers of the Russian nobility. They acquired only the status of free peasants. The Gover­nor General of ’’South-Western Land” in Kiev, D. Bibikov, introdu­ced in 1847 the so-called ’’inventories,” the cadastres of landed estates, which established the limits of peasant bondage services to their masters. This measure for a time significantly improved the situation of Ukrainian peasants. Under Bibikov's successor, Prince Vasilchikov, some supplementary rules were issued which, in fact, abrogated the larger part of the measures established in Bibikov’s cadastres.

In our brief description of the situation of Ukrainian lands in the late eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century we have to move farther to the west. A historian of the Ukrainian socio­political system usually leaves Galicia in the middle of the fifteenth century. In this time the special institutions and legal norms of the old Rus’ (Ruthenian) Law in Galicia were abrogated and the region was divided into three provinces (wojewδdztwa) — Ruthenian (with the city of Lviv as its centre), Podilian (Podolian) and the province of Belz. Their status became identical to that of all other regular Polish provinces. The subsequent history of these provinces includes the ’’Polonization” of their nobility, the acceptance of Polish culture by the townspeople; religious struggle for and against the Eastern Orthodox Church; the granting of some privileges to the Roman Catholics, in comparison with the members of the Greek Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches; and the increasing dependence of peasants on the noble owners of manorial estates. The legal norms and forms seldom deviated from the legal norms and forms of other Polish provinces.

In the first partition of Poland in 1772, Galicia was given to the Austrian Empire. Also included were some Polish ethnic regions close to the city of Cracow (Krakow). The whole region was named the "Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria" but in fact it became an ordi­nary Austrian province.

The Austrian Empire of the late eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century was an autocratic state. Its struggle against the French Revolution resulted in the establishment of Metternich’s ultra-reactionary rule. Under such conditions the inclusion of Ga­licia, and Bukovina (1774), "into Europe” did not bring the results we could expect. The Austrian Government paid little attention to the industrial and cultural development of its Slavic lands. Conse­quently the Slavic regions newly incorporated into Austria continued to preserve the characteristics of their old socio-political order, which for a long time was influenced by Polish social forms (Moldavian, or Rumanian in the case of Bukovina). Now these forms acquired one additional feature: German became the language of communication with the Austrian Government and its local administrators. The situation of Ukrainian serfs was somewhat improved during the rule of Joseph II (1780-1790). But most of the improvements were annul­led by his successors.

If we mention the Ukrainian Transcarpathian region — long ago conquered by the Hungarians — which became a northern part of Hungary (at that time herself an Austrian province) we can have the full picture of the Ukrainian land, a large belt from the Kuban Valley in the Northern Caucasus to the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Ukrainian people were not masters of their own land, although this great people lived here from time immemorial. If we exclude the Kuban Cossacks, who served the Russian Empire in its warfare against the people of the Caucasus and had preserved some part of their old autonomy, the Ukrainian lands had became regular parts of Russia or Austria. The upper class was included in the Russian and Austrian (really Polish) nobility and was gradually losing its Ukrainian national character, although more slowly in the case of Left-Bank Ukraine. In Ukrainian cities the dominant role was more and more played by Russian, Polish and Jewish (the latter in Right-Bank Ukraine and Austrial Ukrainian lands) groups. Only the peasant masses preserved their Ukrainian ethnic character but most of them were peasant-serfs. Only the pro­vinces of Chernihiv and Poltava maintained the old social class or estate of the Cossacks. But these Cossacks had lost their former influence and their original role as members of the Ukrainian armed forces.

In this period the states were based on the system of the here­ditary social estates and were dominated by the nobility. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries this system acquired espe­cially sharp and clearly expressed forms. Therefore, the situation of the Ukrainian people looked very hopeless indeed. According to the famous Russian poet, Lermontov, the Russian Empire of that time was a ’’country of slaves and their masters.” The Slavic provinces of Austria also could be described in these words. In fact most of the Ukrainian people in both empires had the social position of unfree peasant-serfs.

But the sources of national spirit remained active. Even in this time of national decline of Ukraine rising voices heralded the advent of the new time. It suffices to mention Kotliarevsky’s and Kvitka^,s literary works, and Maksymovych’s scholarly studies. We can also name the Decembrist ’’Society of the United Slavs” as well as the ’’Society of Sts. Cyril and Methodius” which planned to establish a federation of the free Slavic peoples with the city of Kiev as its metropolis. Kostomarov, a nobleman, and Kulish, a Cossack (a descendant of the ’’banner fellows”) from Left-Bank Ukraine, and Shevchenko, a serf from Right-Bank Ukraine were the principal ideologists of the latter group. They showed that there still were those who loved their native land and believed in its historical des­tiny. In the Austrian Ukraine we see the fruitful cultural work of the "Ruthenian Three” (Markian Shashkevych, Ivan Vahylevych and Jacob Holovatsky).

It was the beginning of a new period. Society divided into here­ditary classes was in its last days. A new life with its rapid economic development called for release from the old social fetters which ham­pered and impeded this process. Western Europe started to move toward the elimination of the very foundations of the old class-divi­ded society. In 1848 Austria also went this way. The Western Ukrai­nians, the first time after a long interval, established their own na­tional organization — "The Supreme Ruthenian Council” (Holovna Rus’ka Rada) and raised their national demands both in Galicia and in Vienna. Most of these demands, especially the most important one — the separation of Ukrainian Galicia from the western ethnically Polish regions, were not realized. But the serfdom of peasants was abolished.

This happened somewhat later in Ukraine under the Russian rule. At the time of the Crimean War against Great Britain and France the Russian Empire revealed the obsolescence of its social and political organization and, consequently, its inability to struggle and compete with the progressive countries of Europe. Emperor Alexan­der II, who understood the situation, made a brave step and emanci­pated the serfs in 1861.

From this time on we can date the beginning of a new period in the history of the Ukrainian people. It is true that the reforms of 1848 and 1861 were not a social revolution and that they did not do away with all the forms of the division of society into hereditary social estates. But that should not allow us to think that the former system of social relations remained intact. The emancipation of serfs undermined the very foundation of the social relations of the pro­ceeding period. The peasant ceased to be a serf who was forced to till the great landed estates without remuneration. Now he became the free owner of his own farmstead. It was up to him to decide whether he would remain on his farm or go to work in industry. The nobleman ceased to be the serf’s master and retained in his possession only a part of his former land. Towns began to change their old organization of the closed communities of burghers, due to the influx of the new workers from rural areas. Although the diffe­rentiation of classes still was preserved in the legal norms, it lost its role as the most significant feature of social relations. This really was a new period, with new problems and new aspirations.