Colonel of the Zaporozhian Host: The Right to Free Elections in Light of Cossack Traditions, Prescribed Regulations, and Political Realities

VIKTOR HOROBETS '

“Senior officers appointed by decree, in the expectation that they will not be re­moved without a decree, cause sufferings to those under their command, impose very heavy burdens [on them]...

However, despite these arguments, the hetman succeeded in defending the autonomy of the Zaporozhian Host in this matter only to a certain degree. More­over, the tactical victories he won were not long-lived and were cancelled by the imperial government a few years after Apostol’s death. But was the imperial gov­ernment’s interference the only thing that stood in the way of the full-fledged development of the principles of free election in Cossack Ukraine?² To what extent did the political practices of the Hetmanate differ from the norms pre­scribed in legislative acts and hallowed by tradition? How were the election pref­erences of the Cossack military fellows (tovarystvo) coordinated with the right and will of the hetman to command the Zaporozhian Host? What were the mech­anisms used to coordinate these interests?

These and other related questions that provide insight into the declaration and realization of the right of the Cossack military fellows of a regiment to elect their own officers by a free vote will be the subject of this article.³

Legal Regulations and Political Pronouncements: Regarding the Free Election of Colonels of the Zaporozhian Host

The right to freely elect colonels - as well as the hetman, as a matter of fact - was one of the few cornerstones of the sociopolitical lexeme “ancient Cossack rights and liberties” that marked the concept of Cossack liberties and privileges, which the Cossacks defended so staunchly starting from the beginning of the sixteenth century.⁴ Accordingly, the stripping of Cossackdom of this right by the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth government in accordance with the 1638 “Regulation on the Zaporozhian Host” (Ordynatsiia Viis'ka Zaporoz'koho') served as one of the main causes of the eruption of the Cossack uprising at the beginning of 1648.

During the hetmancy of Bohdan Khmel'nyts'kyi, opposition among the Cos­sack military fellows was not clearly articulated in the documents currently known to researchers. However, there unquestionably was opposition to these actions, as evidenced, for example, by the support enjoyed in their regiments by Matvii Hladkyi and Stepan Khmelets'kyi, who had been dismissed from their colonelcies by the hetman.⁶ In the face of an unfolding civil war in Ukraine dur­ing the hetmancy of his successor Ivan Vyhovs'kyi - when not only the fully le­gitimate in the eyes of the Hetmanate authorities Poltava Colonel Martyn Pushkar but also the Myrhorod Colonel Stepan Dovhal', elected in opposition to the hetman’s protege, and a number of other officers, whose legitimacy was questioned by the Hetmanate authorities (quite justifiably, it should be noted, given their failure to comply with the then existing election procedure), joined the opposition against the hetman - the problem of the legal authority to elect or dismiss colonels became exceptionally important. Moreover, it became one of perhaps the most painful and urgent issues in the internal political life of the Hetmanate at the time.

Iurii Khmel'nyts'kyi’s so-called New Articles of 1659, drafted in Pereiaslav in the course of restoring the Ukrainian-Russian alliance (broken by the Treaty of Hadiach that Ivan Vyhovs'kyi’s government concluded with the Commonwealth), included the norm that colonels, as well as other officers, had to be elected not at the direction of the hetman but by the will of the Cossack military fellows: “and to elect colonels in the Host at the council from among those among them whom they preferred.”⁷

It is worth noting that the Pereiaslav Articles of 1659 contained an array of pro­hibitions and regulations concerning the procedures of appointing and dismissing colonels of the Zaporozhian Host.

Newly baptized foreigners were also not permitted to hold starshyna posts. The justification for the first, as well as the second, requirement apparently stemmed from recent memories of the role of the former Socinian Iurii Nemyrych in the rupture of relations between the Zaporozhian Host and Moscow and the con­clusion of the Treaty of Hadiach in 1658. However, the text of the treaty dealt with this in a more generalized way and, no less important, in a socially acceptable way: “because much chaos and infighting in the Host is initiated by the newly baptized, [and] the Cossacks of the Zaporozhian Host are subjected to exactions and exploitation.”¹⁰

In establishing the fact that important changes were made in the procedure of electing officers, particularly colonels, we cannot ignore who it was that initi­ated these changes and whom they benefited. In the assessment of the Ukrainian- Russian treaty of 1659, there is broad agreement in historiography regarding this document, which was forced on the government of Iurii Khmel'nyts'kyi by the Russian side.¹¹ Aimed, first and foremost, at ensuring favorable conditions for controlling political processes in Ukraine, the Russian government sought to cre­ate a system of counterbalances to the authority of the hetman by strengthening the position of the colonels. The task of protecting colonels from the hetman's absolute power in the event of their dismissal appeared to be a matter of top pri­ority.

Having devoted so much attention to the procedure of electing colonels in the 1659 articles, subsequent agreements mention this prerogative very cursorily, mainly in the context of rewarding the colonels for their service with privileges and gifts of money and property.¹³

An interesting interpretation of the meaning of the “free election” of officers, including to regimental offices, is found in the instruction given by Hetman of Right-Bank Ukraine Pavlo Teteria to his envoys to the Warsaw Diet of 1664.¹⁴ The hetman's instruction did not explicitly deny the right of free elections of regi­mental and company officers. But to ensure that candidates for the senior officer posts “were people who were experienced in knightly matters,” permission for electing a new colonel had to be given by the hetman, and for a captain by a colonel, respectively.¹⁵ Incidentally, even more interesting were Pavlo Teteria's proposals regarding the procedure of conducting the election of the hetman. With respect to this, the instruction stressed that “revolts break out regularly” in the Zaporozhian Host because of free elections, therefore, to avoid this problem in the future, the document proposed making the election of the hetman subject to a set standard, defining its limits by “general law [pospolyte pravo].” In particular, henceforth the hetman was to be elected not for “as long as the army likes him,” as in the past, but to a fixed, legally defined term - until the next general Diet.¹⁶

In the years and decades that followed, the election of colonels did not become subject to legal regulation.

How important this issue was in the political life of the Hetmanate is evident from the fact that the authors of the 1710 Constitution dealt with it by including an article about the nature and procedure of appointing officers, and also about ways to prevent corrupt actions by the hetman in the exercise of his powers: “Be­cause all the burdens, abuses, and extortions weighing down on the miserable people mostly have their origin in the greed for power of office buyers, who, with­out relying on their own merits but prompted by an insatiable appetite to secure military and civil offices for their private gain, corrupt and ensnare the Hetman's heart and thereby thrust their way, without a free vote and against law and equity, into the office of colonel and into other offices.”¹⁸

In order to eliminate irregularities and prevent “office buyers” from holding starshyna offices, the drafters of the constitution resolved: “that His Excellency the Hetman must not be guided by any, even the largest, gifts and favors, and must not appoint anyone to the office of colonel or other military or civil office in return for a bribe, nor assign anyone arbitrarily to these positions, but that both military and civil officers, especially colonels, must always be elected by a free vote.”¹⁹

While securing the right of free election for the Cossack military fellows, the authors of the Constitution at the same time placed the process of the election/re- election process under the hetman's control, reserving for the latter the right to sanction the appropriate actions: “but the election of these officers should not take place without the Hetman's consent.”²⁰ In addition, the hetman retained the right to confirm the results of the elections (“and after the election, be confirmed by the Hetman's authority”).²¹

As we know, however, the political development of the Hetmanate after the events of 1708-09 took a completely different turn than the one that the authors of the 1710 Constitution had hoped for.

The Will of the Community and the “Supreme Right” of the Hetman in the Election of Colonels: Balance of Interests in Political Practices

One of the typical models of the procedure for electing colonels that emerged at the beginning of the last quarter of the seventeenth century, and which clearly remained in force in subsequent decades, can be reconstructed on the basis of the universal issued on 22 July 1676 by Hetman Ivan Samoilovych to the volunteer Colonel Illia Novyts'kyi.

According to this document, the request for conducting elections of the colonel was made by a delegation from the Starodub regimental starshyna, which came especially for this reason to the hetman's residence. Responding to the request, Samoilovych not only gave permission to conduct the election but also selected and sent “a notable person from our side” (not named in the document) home with the Starodubites to monitor the entire procedure. In addition, the hetman ordered the volunteer colonel not to hurry leaving the Starodub regiment in ac­cordance with the instruction received earlier, but to remain in Kister during the election in Starodub, until the Starodubites “elect a leader from amongst them­selves and return to original order.”²⁴

Not wanting to show his disregard for Cossack rights and liberties in any way, the hetman undertook a whole series of symbolic actions. Thus while Novyts'kyi was the hetman government's officially authorized officer to the election of the Starodub colonel and would travel to Starodub through Kister, Samoilovych ordered that he should not appoint any of his people to accompany him and not allow any volunteers to go to Starodub, but only monitor the progress of the election from a distance and be prepared to intervene if an urgent need arose: “watch what is happening, what kind of order emerges among them, and what they do next.”²⁵

The role of the hetman was much more active in the election of the colonel of the Pryluky regiment, which, significantly, took place at the hetman's residence in April 1678. In accordance with the hetman's universal, the electors who arrived in Baturyn - the regimental officers and “several fellows” - with the hetman's “permission... with their consenting votes proclaimed Fedir Movchan the colonel and placed him above themselves,” and, for his part, the hetman con­firmed the election of Movchan “in all respects in that office. knowing of the existence in the Zaporozhian Host of this deserving and capable man, suited to knightly matters.”²⁶ Although, considering where the election was held, it is logical to assume that the role of the hetman's government in approving the decision was actually much more important than attested by the document quoted above.

The important role of the hetman in the election of colonels on an alternative basis is indicated in the materials dealing with the election of a colonel in the Pereiaslav regiment in 1690, during Ivan Mazepa's first years in the office of het­man. It so happened that the historical sources on the Pereiaslav election in 1690 have preserved perhaps the greatest amount of information on this event in the entire history of the Hetmanate. An analysis of this information allows us to shed light on the actual procedure of electing colonels, or at any rate, in the version that existed at the initial stage of the hetmancy of Ivan Mazepa. The American historian George Gajecky, who is well-known in Ukraine, generally views the doc­ument about the 1690 election as one that “demonstrated unequivocally that in the seventeenth century at least, the Cossacks themselves elected their colonels,” and, on the other hand, “rejects to some extent the views of several researchers who claimed that the authority was transferred in an atmosphere of chaos, bribery, and corruption.”²⁷

It is difficult to say how appropriate it is to extrapolate the characteristics of the 1690 Pereiaslav election to the realities of the Hetmanate as a whole, even if we confine them to the second half of the seventeenth century. Most likely, this was in a sense a model case, which was made possible by a concatenation of a whole series of circumstances. Under different circumstances, this exemplary model was obviously subject to deformation.

Thus Ivan Mazepa, having removed Leontii Polubotok from power for the second and last time in 1690, rather than single-handedly appointing his suc­cessor, appointed a temporary senior officer to administer the regiment “to maintain order and implement various precautions,”²⁸ and issued an order to organize the election “in accordance with the ancient rights and liberties of the Zaporozhian Host.”

First, a candidate was nominated for the vacant office at the general meeting of the military fellows of the regiment. From indirect accounts about this stage in the election process, we can assume that the overwhelming majority, and per­haps even all of those who took part in this preliminary procedure, expressed themselves in favor of having the colonel's baton (pernach) go to the notable military fellow Ivan Lysenko. He had already served as the Pereiaslav colonel from the second half of 1677 to the middle of 1679, and, as the materials on the vote of the representatives of Pereiaslav city community suggest, was remem­bered, at least by the townspeople of the regimental center, in a positive light, inasmuch as it was during his tenure that “the city grew, and after him was brought to ruin by later colonels.”²⁹

Apparently, it was this circumstance that was decisive in the choice of both the residents of the regimental center and the rest of the regiment members. The results of the preliminary election are not reflected in the source to the full extent; there are only individual mentions of them. In particular, the representatives of Voronkiv, Helmiaziv, Kropyvna, Bubnove, Baryshivka, and Berezan companies, as well as the notable military fellow Ivan Momot, mention their choice during this stage of the election. Interestingly, they all point to the candidacy of Ivan Lysenko as having the support of the Host: “they gave their vote to pan Lysenko: thus, we all being in the Host, the whole Host spoke.”³⁰

Although the document contains nothing about any other candidate in the preliminary election, at the next stage of the election, now in the presence of the representatives of the hetman's government and the authorized represen­tatives of the companies and regimental authorities, an alternative candidate appears. This candidate is Kostiantyn Mokiievs'kyi, a nobleman from Right­Bank Ukraine and, notably, a relative of Hetman Mazepa, who apparently had not previously held any starshyna posts in the Zaporozhian Host. Thus, for ex­ample, when Hetman Mazepa later had to present his protege to official Mos­cow, the most he could say about the merits of this notable military fellow was to mention the heroic service in the Cossack Host of Kostiantyn Mokiievs'kyi's father and grandfather.³¹

Given Mokiievs'kyi's kinship with the hetman and the lack of any mention of him at the preliminary stage of the election, we can assume that his appearance among the candidates was initiated by the hetman himself. The only thing that remains a mystery in this story is the motivation behind his nomination. If Mazepa sincerely sought to have Mokiievs'kyi elected to the Pereiaslav colonelcy, why did he temporarily hand the levers of power over the regiment to Lysenko? The only explanation can be the assumption that the candidate demonstrated a belated desire to contend for the colonel's baton, which the hetman's government supported in this dilatory manner.

The final election took place in Pereiaslav on 25 June 1690 with the participation of the representatives of the hetman's government - military fellows Zakharii Shyikevych (former general chancellor in Ivan Briukhovets'kyi's government, sentenced to exile in Siberia at the end of 1665³²), Iakiv Zhurakivs'kyi (former colonel of the Nizhyn regiment in 1678-85), and Nizhyn Captain Vasyl' Humen- s'kyi (Ihumens'kyi).

The electors consisted of officers of the Pereiaslav regiment, notable military of the regiment fellows (znachni viis'kovi tovaryshi polku), captains and represen­tatives of the Cossack fellows from every company in the Pereiaslav regiment, and also the authorized representatives of the local city government.³³ But while all the companies of the regiment had their representatives at the election, this right was granted only to the community of the regimental center from among all the city communities. The companies were represented by captains (or their substitutes) and elect Cossacks (vyborni kozaky), usually twenty men from each company. The exceptions were the regimental companies, represented by forty or thirty Cossacks, and for some reason also the Baryshivka company, whose del­egation to Pereiaslav numbered as many as seventy persons. As we can see from the document, some companies were represented by only eight to ten Cossacks. But regardless of the difference in size of the representations of the various com­panies, in the final count, each company had the right to cast only one vote for one candidate or another.³⁴

After the reading of the “hetman's important proclamation” to the electors, the captains consulted with the electors from their companies in the street, and after that, the electors, “sitting in the middle of the courtyard,” proceeded to vote. The count of the votes was entrusted to the regimental aide-de-camp (osavul; the aides-de-camp usually served as managers at military councils: general aides-de- camp served in this capacity at the general councils, and regimental aides-de- camp did so at regimental councils).³⁵

According to the results of the Pereiaslav vote, those who voted in favor of Ly­senko's candidacy included the regimental quartermaster and the regimental judge, three notable fellows, the representatives of fifteen companies, and the au­thorized elector from the Pereiaslav city administration. Mokiievs'kyi received the vote of three regimental officers - regimental chancellor Sava Stefanovych, the regimental aide-de-camp and the regimental flag-bearer (both not identified by name), and also the town otaman of Pereiaslav. The hetman government's nominee was also supported by las' Hulachenko (obviously a native, like Moki­ievs'kyi, of Right-Bank Ukraine, he was the son of the general quartermaster in the government of Petro Doroshenko, Ivan Hulak, who by then had moved to Left-Bank Ukraine).

The electors of Mokiievs'kyi, who represented the military fellows of the reg­iment's companies, also present a very interesting picture. Mokiievs'kyi received the votes of the representatives of two companies (of the seventeen in the regi­ment), namely, the Kropyvna and Baryshpil [Boryspil] companies, even though, as the document pointed out, at the preliminary stage of the election, “in the Host,” both the captain and the whole Baryshpil' company, “had cast their vote for pan Lysenko.”³⁶

If we apply a purely mathematical approach, Lysenko won twenty-one to seven. His victory was especially impressive in the regiment's companies. However, among the regimental starshyna, his standing proved weaker than that of his com­petitor. Mokiievs'kyi received the votes of four representatives of the regimental starshyna, while Lysenko succeeded in winning the support of only two of them.

It is not difficult to guess on whose side Hetman Mazepa was. But the victory of the former Pereiaslav colonel was fairly decisive, and this time Mazepa did not oppose the will of the community, and so he issued Lysenko the decree for his colonelcy, and handed him the regimental banner, baton, seal, and kettledrums.

The Pereiaslav election described above obviously represented an exemplary model of the election of a colonel, in which the will of the regiment’s military fellows was taken maximally into consideration, and all the necessary conditions were created for expressing this will. In practice, however, the procedure for elect­ing colonels was not infrequently breached, primarily by the hetmans, who wanted to play a more active role in the elections and not be hostage to the sym­pathies of the local starshyna and local military fellows. In particular, the earlier rotation of the colonel’s office in Pereiaslav, which had taken place two years ear­lier, at the end of 1688, had not come anywhere close to this kind of exemplarity in the functioning of military democracy. At that time, in December 1688, after dismissing the opposition-minded Rodion Dmytrashko-Raicha, Ivan Mazepa ex­ercised his authority to appoint to the colonelcy Iakym Holovchenko - a native of Right-Bank Ukraine and the former Cherkasy colonel and general aide-de­camp in the government of the Right-Bank Hetman Petro Doroshenko. In the report sent to Moscow, Hetman Mazepa described the change of leadership in the Pereiaslav regiment as follows: “summoning to Baturyn the members of the Pereiaslav regiment and announcing to them the decree of Your Imperial Majesty, I confirmed Colonel Iakym Holovchenko, an old-time Pereiaslav Cossack, who this past summer served as the acting colonel on my orders, as their full colonel.”³⁷ In other words, after removing Dmytrashko-Raicha from the colonel’s office in the regiment, the hetman in the summer of 1688 exercised his authority to appoint as acting colonel of the Pereiaslav regiment a former Right-Bank officer, whom he knew well from his service in the entourage of Hetman Doroshenko. Half a year later, he confirmed him as full colonel, summoning for this purpose the “Pereiaslav regiment members” (most likely, the regimental starshyna, captains, and notable military fellows) to the hetman’s residence, but, as we see from the text of the letter, not to elect a colonel, but only to present to them their new leader, who had already been confirmed by the tsar’s decree.

Traditionally, the role of the local starshyna, military fellows, and commoners in the process of electing a colonel was more active in the southern regiments, above all, in the Poltava regiment. A collective complaint submitted to Hetman Ivan Skoropads'kyi in September 1714 by the starshyna, military fellows, and townspeople of the Poltava regiment offers a description of the 1710 election in Poltava, when Ivan Levenets', who had discredited himself by his irresolute actions during the siege of Poltava by Swedish forces, was replaced by the captain of the Poltava town company Ivan Cherniak.

With the permission of Hetman Skoropads'kyi, a council was convened in Poltava - “having assembled the starshyna and notable military fellows from the whole regiment, the Poltava townspeople, and people from the volost” - and was attended by the general standard-bearer, lakiv Lyzohub, as the representative of the hetman's government. At this council, “universally and amicably by consent­ing votes... [they] elected their colonel pan Ivan Cherniak to this post.”³⁸ The next important stage in the election of the colonel was the legitimization of his authority, which was realized by means of “the presentation of the regalia to the colonel by your noble self, our gracious lord,” and therefore, “all of us, those who agreed to be with him, with a single hand swore loyalty to His Holy Majesty the tsar.”³⁹

The rotation in the office of colonel in Nizhyn in 1695 could also have been af­fected only by means of a direct appointment by the hetman, when Ivan Mazepa appointed his above-mentioned nephew Ivan Obydovs'kyi “at a young age” to the vacant colonelcy after the death of Stepan Zabila.⁴⁰ According to Oleksander Ohloblyn, Obydovs'kyi was born in 1676, making him only nineteen years old when he took office. He had not performed any “services” in the Nizhyn regiment that could have allowed him to recommend himself in any way to the regiment. The candidate's only service distinction at the time was that he had been awarded the title of master of the table (stolnyk) by the tsarist government in 1689, when he was only. thirteen years old, so that his merits, except for his birth in the family of the hetman's sister, were quite dubious.⁴¹

However, the letter that Hetman Mazepa wrote to Tsar Peter I in May 1698, which was found by Mykola Petrovs'kyi in the collections of the Little Russian Department (Malorossiiskii prikaz), speaks of the election of Obydovs'kyi “at a young age” to full colonel in Nizhyn at exactly the time when this letter was written - the spring of 1698.⁴² In other words, Mazepa may have used the following tech­nology of installing his candidate in the colonelcy at the end of the 1690s: first, the master of the table was appointed acting colonel by the hetman's authority, and then, a few years later, his “election” to the office of colonel was organized.

Thus, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, no one in the Hetmanate had any illusions about who in fact had the decisive voice in elections to regi­mental offices. Although, for example, the Eyewitness Chronicle, in describing the causes of the anti-hetman uprising that broke out in mid-July of 1666 in the Pereiaslav regiment, as a result of which the first to lose his life at the hands of the rebels was Pereiaslav Colonel Danylo Iermolaienko, notes that the “Pereiaslav Cossacks did not like [him], because he had been imposed on them,”⁴³ that is, he had not been elected by the Cossack military fellows but had been sent to them by Hetman Briukhovets'kyi. Now, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, there is information from an anonymous author about a banquet held by the se­nior Cossack starshyna with boyar Boris Sheremetev on the occasion of the Cos­sack army's release from the Baltic campaign of 1700-01. In response to the tsarist nobleman's half-joking comment to the Poltava colonel about his desire to ask the tsar to be appointed to the colonelcy in the Poltava regiment, while the Poltava colonel transferred to the Nizhyn colonelcy left vacant after the death of Oby- dovs'kyi (the colonelcy in Poltava at the time was still held by Ivan Iskra⁴⁴), the latter said the following: “We have a sovereign (vlastitel’) in Baturyn, he will give it to whomever he wants.”⁴⁵

Ivan Iskra's remark is interesting in that, as has already been noted, the military fellows and starshyna of the Poltava regiment maintained the privilege of electing their regimental leaders longer than any other regiment in the Hetmanate. Yet another of the first students of the history of the Poltava region in the early mod­ern period, Oleksandr Lazarevs'kyi, observed that the Poltava regiment, by virtue of a number of factors - proximity to the Zaporozhian Sich (“And the Zaporozhi- ans and the Poltavites live together amicably, like husband and wife”⁴⁶), the special aspects of a steppe economy, and so forth - “was an exception to the rest of Little Russia, where, starting from the end of the seventeenth century, not only the peas­ants but also the Cossacks became almost fully dependent on the starshyna, which, even though it was regarded as elective, de facto represented the hetman's offi­cials.”⁴⁷ In the Poltava region, on the other hand, at least until the end of the sev­enteenth century, the election of the colonel actually did depend on the will of the military fellows, who, as the historian claimed, were always led by a small group of wealthy Cossacks, who knew how to hold their sway over the rest of the regiment members.⁴⁸

To be sure, the Poltava regiment also experienced some exceptions to the tra­dition of freely electing their colonel in the second half of the seventeenth century. In particular, in the second half of 1663, Hetman Briukhovets'kyi, who had only recently acquired the hetman's mace at the famous “black” council (chorna rada, council of common Cossacks) in Nizhyn, appointed the Zaporozhian Sava Fe- dorovych Omelnyts'kyi as a replacement for Poltava Colonel Demian Hudzhol. And only two years later, the latter was replaced by Hryhorii Vytiazenko, who had previously served as general standard-bearer in the Briukhovets'kyi administra­tion. Notably, in both Omelnyts'kyi and Vytiazenko's cases, it is safe to say that we are not talking about the election of the colonel by the Poltava starshyna and military fellows but about an appointment by the hetman's authority. While we can perhaps attribute the exceptional circumstances of the appointment in 1663 to the force-majeure nature of the black-council perturbations,⁴⁹ it is much more difficult to understand the passivity of the Poltavites two years later with respect to the appointment of the general standard-bearer to the Poltava colonelcy. The fact that the 1665 rotation in office was indeed affected by the hetman's appoint­ment of the colonel is confirmed by the collective complaint submitted the very next year by the Poltavites to Hetman Briukhovets'kyi on account of the “intol­erable wrongs and abuses” to which the tsarist voivode Bohdan Khytrovo sub­jected them. In this complaint, the authors, recalling the voivode's insults to their colonel, noted that the latter had been given them “by your kindness and grace.”⁵⁰

However, after the tragic end of the Briukhovets'kyi hetmancy, the Poltavites regained their regiment's exceptional status, whereby the change of government took place by the authority of the local starshyna and military fellows. Or it oc­curred through the manipulation of the will of the latter - not by Baturyn but by Poltava. At the same time, however, the tendency of the center of decision­making regarding personnel changes in the regiment to shift from Poltava to Baturyn was increasingly evident.

Thus, for example, when news reached Poltava at the beginning of June 1668 about the killing of Hetman Briukhovets'kyi on Serbyn field, near Dykanka, the Poltava military fellows not only stripped Vytiazenko of his colonel's baton, but he and the regimental aide-de-camp Obidenko were “chained to cannons and soon brutally beaten to death, and their houses were sacked.”⁵¹ In place of the murdered Hryhorii Vytiazenko, the Poltavites again elected themselves a colonel “with free votes” (their choice fell on the “good, humble, pious, and simple- hearted” Demian Hudzhol).⁵² The will of the military fellows was also decisive in Poltava regimental elections in 1669, 1670, and probably 1672, 1674, 1675, 1676, and 1679.

When Prokop Levenets' ousted Pavlo Hertsyk from the colonelcy in 1677 and assumed the colonel's office in the Poltava regiment for the second time, the Ukrainian historian Oleksandr Lazarevs'kyi saw in this rotation the hand of, first and foremost, Samoilovych, for whom it was important to have an experi­enced commander heading the regiment, especially during the Chyhyryn cam­paigns of 1677-78.⁵³ When two years later, despite the valor of Levenets' in the Chyhyryn campaigns, the Poltava starshyna (headed by the former Colonels Fedir Zhuchenko and Pavlo Hertsyk) yet again organized a conspiracy against the acting colonel and arranged for a collective complaint to be submitted to Samoilovych accusing their leader of “threatening the life of notable persons and defaming them,” the hetman publicly took the side of Levenets', and in his letter to the Poltavites reminded them of the colonel's heroic deeds, including during the recent war with the Turks. However, it is interesting to note that Samoilovych's arguments failed to make the appropriate impression on the Poltava starshyna and military fellows, and in June 1679 Levenets' was forced to give up the colonelcy in favor of Fedir Zhuchenko.⁵⁴

The incident in 1679 was apparently the last example of such disregard by the regiment members for the opinion of their hetman. At least, General Judge Vasyl' Kochubei, commenting on Hertsyk's return to the office of colonel four years later (during the hetmancy of Ivan Samoilovych, Hertsyk was twice elected colonel - in 1675 and 1683 - but from the context of Kochubei's report, “after Cherniak... [he] became the colonel,” suggests that he was referring to 1684⁵⁵), drew attention to the fact that the candidate was less concerned about the opinion of the regiment than about paving a path to power for himself by bribing Hetman Samoilovych, one of his influential sons, and his nephew, Hadiach Colonel Mykhailo Samoilovych: “That pan Hertsyk became the colonel for the second time after Cherniak by making large payments to the former hetman himself and to his son, and with the help of the Hadiach colonel.”⁵⁶

Naturally, this information needs to be taken with a grain of salt, because Kochubei's comments are in essence a denunciation, with all the exaggerations and manipulations inherent in the genre. Consequently, the arguments cited by Kochubei were meant primarily to cast a shadow on the father-in-law of his op­ponent, Pavlo Hertsyk. But, aside from that, “large payments” as a compelling ar­gument in the election of a colonel were apparently a rather commonplace part of this political event.

If he did not agree with the will of the regiment regarding the election of a new colonel, the hetman could refuse to give permission for a new election, at least until additional circumstances in the matter were established. In the case of the attempts of the opponents of Prokop Levenets' to remove him from the colonelcy, Samoilovych acted in the following manner: the hetman called on the Poltava opposition to wait until the Holy Resurrection of Christ and then come together with Levenets' to Baturyn and present their arguments, assuring them that if the presented proof of guilt was convincing, he was prepared to punish his own father, let alone the Poltava colonel or anyone else.⁵⁷

However, when the Poltava regimental starshyna complained again in 1702 to Hetman Mazepa about the actions of their colonel, Ivan Levenets', who allegedly did not pay heed to the opinions of the starshyna and even secretly communicated with the Tatars, the latter was removed from the colonelcy by order of the hetman, and leadership of the regiment was temporarily entrusted to the General Stan­dard-Bearer Mykhailo Hamaliia, who, incidentally, held the Poltava colonelcy for almost two years.⁵⁸

The Role of the Regimental Starshyna in Electing Colonels and Stripping Them of the Colonel’s Baton

Approximately ten years after the incident in the Poltava regiment described above, in 1714, a part of the Poltava regimental starshyna again attempted to topple the serving colonel, Ivan Cherniak, and replace him with Vasyl' Vasyl'ovych Kochubei, the grandson of the former Poltava Colonel Fedir Zhuchenko and son of the General Judge Vasyl' Kochubei, who had been executed by Hetman Mazepa.

The conspiracy in 1714 was headed by the Poltava regimental Judge Petro Ko- van'ka, who brought into this plot the regimental chancellor Ivan Zalies'kyi, who, like Vasyl' Vasyl'ovych Kochubei, was the grandson of Fedir Zhuchenko, and thus would have had the opportunity to substantially strengthen his position under the colonelcy of his close relative, who, moreover, would be beholden to him for his rise to this office. If there is truth to the words of Petro Kovan'ka’s opponents (who sided with the serving colonel and on 9 September 1714 submitted a col­lective appeal to Hetman Ivan Skoropads'kyi), in seeking to change the leadership of the Poltava regiment, the Poltava regimental judge was pursuing, first and fore­most, his own interests - to save his daughter, whom he was obliged to sentence to death in accordance with the norms of the Lithuanian Statute for giving birth outside of marriage to three children with her cousin and murdering them, thus being “impure,” who, living in sin, “became pregnant and then deliberately killed the fetus.”⁵⁹

The technology of changing leaders that Kovan'ka tried to apply consisted in the following approach. In Poltava, the conspirators “secretly” drafted a “petition or report” about Colonel Cherniak’s abuse of power, under which “the names of some military fellows... were signed without their knowledge.” Kovan'ka and Zalies'kyi traveled with this petition to the hetman in Hlukhiv “to ask that their petition be sent to the monarch’s court in an effort to obtain the Poltava colonelcy for Kochubei.” At the same time, the candidate for this regimental of­fice himself left for Kyiv, presumably to meet with representatives of the Russian government in Ukraine, most likely with the Kyiv Governor-General Prince Dmitrii Golitsyn.⁶⁰

Given the reputation of the candidate’s father and the tsar’s affection for this senior Cossack officer who died opposing Hetman Mazepa and attempted in vain to inform the Russian authorities of the latter’s true intentions, the younger Kochubei had a good chance of obtaining the desired result from the Russian government. Therefore, the Poltava regimental starshyna, and, above all, Colonel Cherniak himself, were quite worried by this prospect and tried to convince the hetman that the accusations against the Poltava leader were unfounded and, even more important, that the Poltava community did not want the young Kochubei as their colonel not only because of his age - “who is still a young child” and “above all, very arrogant.” The Poltavites were also outraged by the fact that “the two of them, against our will, want... to enslave all the people, which we, the regimental starshyna, as well the captains and the military fellows, the townspeo­ple, and all the common people find objectionable.”⁶¹

The defenders of Ivan Cherniak did not know the contents of the charges brought against him. So, in their response they denied the possibility of any illegal actions by their leader and asserted that their colonel was in no sense suspicious, inasmuch as the Cherniak family had not disgraced itself by participation in any kind of “vile betrayal” since ancient times. And Kovan'ka and Zalies'kyi were un­able to accuse the colonel of something that could be interpreted as oppressing the people.⁶² The only thing they could think of in that context was the colonel's request for “assistance” during the construction of his own building “from regi­ment members of some towns in bringing in wood from the forest.” This, how­ever, in the opinion of the authors of the petition did not in any way cast a shadow on the reputation of the officer, since “we all already know that no one in authority does without this obligation whereby they get help in construction from the reg­iment.”⁶³ Therefore, the Poltavites asked the hetman not to believe the words of the regimental judge and the regimental chancellor, take into account the uniform support for Ivan Cherniak from the whole starshyna, military fellows, and com­moners of the regiment, and not send the complaint against the head of the reg­iment to the imperial court until they, together with the colonel, sorted out things in a face-to-face meeting with the petitioners. In conclusion, the petition posed the rhetorical question: “If the two of them, plotters, are believed, despite all our information, then are we unfortunates unworthy of earning for ourselves and the whole regiment your gracious lordship's favor so that the two of them were be­lieved and we were not.”⁶⁴

The appeal, which was undoubtedly initiated by Cherniak, does not bear his signature, of course; instead, we see under it the signatures of all the regimental officers loyal to the regimental authorities: Quartermaster Klym Nashchyns'kyi, Aides-de-Camp Vasyl' Sukhyi and Hryhorii Buts'kyi, acting Judge Stefan Mizin, Flag-Bearer Pavlo Harasymovych, as well as the artillery aide-de-camp and the regimental flag-bearer, the Poltava town otaman (lieutenant) with his military fellows, the kurin' (detachment) otamans of the Poltava regiment companies with their military fellows, or specifically with a particular military fellow, and the cap­tains of the Stari Sanzhary, Reshetylivka, Bilyky, Novi Sanzhary, and Kobeliaky companies with their respective military fellows. The regiment's commoners (pospil’stvo) were represented by the Poltava reeve (viit) and city mayors (burm- istry), and also by the master craftsmen of the tailors', butchers', shoemakers', iron- smiths', weavers', potters', and coopers' guilds. What strikes the eye is the absence from the appeal of the voices of the representatives of a number of companies of the Poltava regiment. However, as we see from the document, this was not due to a show of their attitude to the action or their support for the actions of Ko- van'ka and Zalies'kyi, but only to the fact that the signatories were trying to submit their petition to Hlukhiv as quickly as possible, and that meant that “others had not arrived in time.”⁶⁵ At least, that is what the authors of the petition told the hetman government.

Owing to a lack of the necessary evidence in sources, it is difficult to determine what had prevented Kovan'ka and his allies from realizing their plan - whether it was active opposition from the Poltava starshyna, or the position of the hetman, or something else - but Kochubei had to wait another decade and a half to be elected colonel. It is significant, however, that even though at the time that this complaint was submitted, Stefan Mizin was already listed as the “acting Poltava judge,” Petro Kovan'ka, despite the failure of his plan, remained the judge in Poltava until 1718, perhaps even up to his death, since in 1719 the Poltava regi­mental roster (komput) listed the post as vacant, meaning that there had been no new election. Whereas after Vasyl' Kochubei ascended to the Poltava colonelcy, in the 1732 roster we see the descendants of the regimental judge among the Poltava starshyna, namely: Herasym Kovan'ka is listed as the captain of the Poltava regiment's company that controls a part of the village of Rybtsi and Anton Ko­van'ka appears as “artillery flag-bearer.”⁶⁶ We do not know the fate of the other conspirator, Ivan Zalies'kyi (characterized in the collective appeal as “completely unsuited to chancellery work”).⁶⁷ But he ultimately lost the office of chancellor in Poltava. At any rate, under 1715, Mykhailo Slabchenko lists someone named Levko Levkovych as the chancellor of the Poltava regiment, and the 1719 roster names Hryhorii Bohaievs'kyi as the regimental chancellor.⁶⁸ This document also mentions Ivan Zalies'kyi, but as without an office, calling him a “noted fellow” and owner of 42 “tax-paying” (tiahli) and “pedestrian” (pishi) peasants in the vil­lage of Ivashky, 17 and 15, respectively, in the village of Tiahamlyk, and 8 and 20 of each in the village of Fedorovtsi.⁶⁹ The former regimental chancellor did not live long enough to realize his plan to pass the colonel's baton to his close relative; in 1732 census records, Zalies'kyi's properties are listed as having passed to Colonel Kochubei “by inheritance from Ivan Zalies'kyi,” or as having become the property of the city administration.⁷⁰

The efforts of the Lubny regimental starshyna aimed at the re-election of Colonel Andrii Markovych a few years later, in 1718, ended just as unsuccessfully. A close relative of Hetman Skoropads'kyi, Markovych, having obtained the office in Lubny “by the grace of the monarch” and having the support of the hetman, acted as the absolute master of the regiment, ousting the regimental starshyna in short order from participation in the administration of the regiment, arbitrarily disposing of land resources, and so forth. When the starshyna decided to pro­test against this, Markovych, learning of their intention, “reported the above­mentioned starshyna to the hetman, accusing them of being rebels; [they were] called back from service in the campaign and placed under strong guard by Fedir Protasiev, then mercilessly beaten with wooden bats, their properties confiscated, their estates ravaged.”⁷¹

Under the year 1719, sources record an attempt by the Pryluky regimental starshyna to topple the authority of their Colonel Hnat Halahan. As is evident from the complaint that he himself submitted to Hetman Skoropads'kyi, the con­spiracy was headed by the Pryluky regiment’s Aides-de-Camp Mykhailo Movchan and Hryhorii Panchenko, who were joined by Captain Hryhorii Storozhenko of the Ichnia company and Captain Ivan Storozhenko of the Ivanytsia company. As we can see from the materials of the case, the underlying cause of the conflict was the rivalry between the local Pryluky starshyna clans and the Zaporizhzhia native Hnat Halahan, who had been appointed by order of Peter I.⁷² It bears remem­bering that Ivan Storozhenko, obviously the father of the captains of the Ichnia and Ivanytsia companies, held the office of the Pryluky colonel from the end of the 1680s to the beginning of the 1690s, and the father of the first aide-de-camp, Mykhailo Movchan, also served in the administration of the predecessor of Ivan Storozhenko, Lazar Horlenko, as the regimental aide-de-camp, and for a time even held the Pryluky regimental office (possibly as acting colonel).⁷³ The name of the second aide-de-camp, Hryhorii Panchenko, was sometimes written as “Pankevych,” under which name there are mentions of Mykhailo, the Chornobyl colonel who died in the battle of Loiev in July 1649, and Matvii, colonel of the Irkliiv regiment in 1658-63 who was exiled to Siberia in the fall of 1663 by Hetman Briukhovets'kyi for supporting Iakym Somko and brought back to his native land by his successor in 1670.⁷⁴

The abovenamed officers were outraged by the lack of respect shown them by Halahan. In particular, in July 1719, they complained to the hetman that the colonel “unjustly defamed them, his petitioners,” calling them “traitors, peasants, and unfit for office.” “He beat [the regimental aide-de-camp Hryhorii Pan­chenko] with the butt end of his gun last year near Tsaritsyn.” “He ordered Captains Hryhorii and Ivan Storozhenko to be violently driven out in disgrace from his house,” and in so doing, the colonel’s servants “robbed them of their coats (kuntushi)” On another occasion, “they pulled [the Ivanytsia company

captain, Ivan Storozhenko] by his hair in his own house, and splashed his face with soup.” The colonel illegally “took possession” of Hryhorii Panchenko’s hay meadow, located beyond the Ruda River, and as to “the steppe belonging from long time ago to all the Pryluky residents, which he had taken away from the deceased colonel of Nizhyn, Zhurakovs'kyi,” Halahan “seized all of it, not allowing people to mow hay there.”⁷⁵

In addition, as is evidenced by the appeal, the authors were concerned that by calling them “traitors, peasants, and unfit for office,” the colonel was trying to force them with his abuse “to abandon their offices of their own volition, and to replace them... with his relatives and Zaporozhians.”⁷⁶ By mentioning the Za- porozhians, the petitioners moved the matter of Hnat Halahan out of the category of private insults to the regimental and company starshyna and into the realm of treason, inasmuch as after the Zaporozhian Sich took the side of Charles XII in the spring of 1709, the Zaporozhians were prohibited by order of Peter I from re­turning to the territory of the Hetmanate without the permission of the tsarist government. The tsar’s resident in the hetman’s administration had a special di­rective regarding this.⁷⁷ Aware of this, the authors of the appeal accused the Pry­luky colonel of allegedly deliberately ignoring the orders of the tsarist government and “committing various violations, receiving and keeping with him Cossacks from the Zaporozhian Sich and not reporting them to Your Excellency.” What is more, the petitioners alleged that Halahan had placed these same Zaporozhians “by his own will as otamans in towns and villages of his regiment, and some he kept with him, getting their hopes up waiting for offices at some future time.” Specifically, the regimental and company officers were afraid that Halahan, having forced them to resign, would appoint Zaporozhians to the offices of regimental aides-de-camp and captains.⁷⁸

The Pryluky colonel, in his response addressed to Hetman Skoropads'kyi, com­plained that owing to “their unjust denunciations and verbal defamation, con­siderable trouble has been created and substantial dishonor”; he strongly denied all the accusations brought against him, claiming that the reason the regimental starshyna was slandering his good name lay in nothing more than attempts “to bring down your anger as the military commander on me and remove me from the office of colonel, and all because at the time of Mazepa’s treason, I demon­strated loyalty to Your Imperial Majesty unlike other Pryluky regiment mem­bers.”⁷⁹ In addition, Halahan asked that after completing the investigation of the case involving the false accusations against him, the hetman punish his opponents not only by removing them from their offices but also with actions that would result in injury to their health.⁸⁰

Broadly speaking, it is worth noting that dismissal from office in the political culture of the Hetmanate was perceived as more than just the loss of a certain amount of an official’s credibility among the military fellows or a higher authority vested with the appropriate powers. In the court case of the Novhorod-Siversk captain, Fedir Lisovs'kyi, we come across an interesting passage about him strip­ping one of the company’s kurin otamans, named Terekh, of power. The latter, in appealing this action to the Starodub colonel, qualified it as nothing short of “the obliteration of his long- standing military service.”⁸¹ Thus it is logical to as­sume that precisely this perception of the stripping of office also existed on the much higher level of colonel.

Bribery as an Argument in the Election Process

There have already been several mentions above of “large payments” and of at­tempts to “curry favor with and pay off Cossacks” as decisive arguments in the election of colonels. How widespread the practice of paying bribes to the hetman for a regimental office in the last third of the seventeenth century can be seen from the denunciation of Hetman Ivan Samoilovych by the starshyna in 1687 (al­though, of course, the specifics of the genre of such documents needs to be taken into account). In particular, the starshyna accused the military commander of the fact that it was precisely “for the office of colonel” that he demanded “large bribes, thereby causing people suffering.”⁸² Admittedly, we learn from the following lines in the denunciation that the office of the general judge had also been vacant for a long period of time (“for four years now”), because Samoilovych “wants that judgeship to be bought for a large amount of money.”⁸³

That bribery in the appointments to regimental offices also flourished during the hetmancy of Ivan Mazepa was spelled out by General Judge Vasyl' Kochubei in his denunciation of the hetman in 1708:

In past years, whenever there was a change of colonels for any reason, or the colonel died, they elected a person of their choice to that office with free votes, informing the hetman; it was announced in articles at councils that colonels should be elected with free votes by amicable agreement, and expert and disgraceful bribery was unheard of; whereas now he takes large bribes for the office of colonel, regardless of the fitness of a fellow for that office; and if he does not have enough money, he will not merit acceptance, but those will merit it who have the devil knows how much money and have enough to give him plenty [of it].⁸⁴

Historians cite as perhaps the most telling example of a colonelcy being ob­tained specifically through bribery rather than because of distinguished service in the Cossack Host and the respect of the military fellowship the case of the Lubny regimental Aide-de-Camp Leontii Svichka. Svichka obtained the regi­mental office of colonel in 1688, even though, in the historians’ opinion, “he had no qualifications for this other than great wealth.”⁸⁵ Admittedly, Oleksandr Lazarevs'kyi, although he was the first to introduce the subject of bribery as prob­ably the way in which Svichka obtained his office - “Svichka was a moneyed man, and Mazepa loved money”⁸⁶ - provided no evidence of bribes being paid owing to a lack of relevant documents.

Whereas the testament of the widow of Hadiach Colonel Mykhailo Boru- khovych records a similar case of a candidate using monetary enticements for the hetman to obtain a regimental office. In her will, the colonel’s widow mentions an attempt by one of her sons, after the death of his father in 1704, to take up the vacant office and his request to be granted “a thousand ducats and as many hun­dred minted (byti) thalers from the total undistributed treasury” to be paid to Hetman Mazepa. Although on this occasion the bribery did not have the desired result and the colonelcy in Hadiach was not taken up by her son but by a close relative of Mazepa, Stepan Troshchyns'kyi (the hetman’s nephew), Borukhovych Junior at least succeeded in getting confirmation from the hetman of his right to possess all the estates that had belonged to his father.⁸⁷ In the decree of protection (oboronnyi universal) issued on 10 November 1704 to the family of the deceased colonel, the hetman noted:

as during the life of the deceased pan Mykhailo Borukhovych, the Hadiach colonel, his whole house was covered by our protection... so now after his death, we place this same house and Mykhailo Borukhovych’s widowed wife pani (lady) Elena Ivanovna, with her sons, son-in-law and all their relatives under our special protection. protecting all their possessions from people, [holding them] esteemed and respected and protecting them from trials, regimental and others, because even if anybody has any claims against them, nobody may take them to regimental or any other court.⁸⁸

There is also a reference to a gift of a thousand thalers to the hetman in the case concerning the retention of the estates of the deceased Starodub Colonel Mykhailo Myklashevs'kyi by Anna Myklashevs'ka-Samoilovych-Shvaikovs'ka in 1706. Immediately after burying her husband, who had died on a battlefield in the Northern War, Anna Myklashevs'ka, together with her stepchildren, rushed to Hetman Mazepa to ask for his protection. She offered the hetman a “silver cre­denza” that cost a thousand thalers. In response, the hetman, “taking into account that Anna Shvaikovs'ka was the widow of Myklashevs'kyi,” confirmed her and her stepsons' property rights to the estates of their deceased husband and father.⁸⁹

A rather high price for the appointment to a post in the starshyna was also de­scribed by Pelahiia Boldakovs'ka-Tomara, the daughter of the Belarusian Captain Vasyl' Boldakovs'kyi and widow of Vasyl' Tomara. She stated that having arrived in the Chernihiv region with only one horse and several pieces of woolen cloth, without any military service credentials or contacts among the local starshyna, Vasyl' Tomara spent nearly 400 rubles from his wife's dowry to obtain, first, the office of the captain of Vybli company and eventually that of the Chernihiv reg­imental judge.⁹⁰ It goes without saying that the colonelcy cost more.

Indirect evidence of the hetman's abuse of power in the sphere of personnel policy is contained in the already mentioned article of the 1710 Constitution, which concerns the nature and procedure of starshyna appointments, above all, appointments to the colonelcy, as well as ways of preventing corruption in the exercise by the hetman of his powers, especially his power to prevent this office being occupied by “greedy for power office buyers.”⁹¹

Summarizing the material presented above, it can be asserted with confidence that the actual practices in the political life of the Hetmanate followed in the elec­tion of colonels and removal of officers from power in the regiments differed fundamentally from the models that were prescribed in legislation or sanctified by traditional notions of Cossack rights and liberties.

The desire of a given territorial group of Cossack military fellows to elect a leader by a free vote was usually in conflict, to one degree or another, with the wishes of the hetman of the Zaporozhian Host, who took advantage of his “supreme power as the military commander” either to modify the will of the com­munity somewhat or impose his own candidate on the latter. There were appar­ently not enough existing legal regulators or mandatory norms of customary law in early modern Ukraine to make it possible to firmly control the situation.

At the same time, it is worth noting however that there did exist a certain model in the political culture of the Cossacks that to a significant extent made it possible to reconcile the interests of the military fellows and the hetman in this matter, while respecting the will of local voters to elect the candidate of their choice and respecting the right of the military commander to give permission to hold elec­tions, send his authorized representative to this event, and approve its results. Such an exemplary model, as a rule, was implemented at times of weakened au­thority on the part of the hetman. With the accumulation of power in the hands of the military commander, his participation in the election of colonels grew sub­stantially, and then only some elements of the “full” procedure of the election by a free vote were implemented. In certain cases, the hetmans openly disregarded even these elements.

A distinct tendency to harmonize the interests of the military fellows and the hetman can be seen in the articles of the 1710 Constitution. These, however, had no chance of being realized in practice, and therefore can be viewed only as a po­litical declaration, even though it was based on the real wishes of the military fellowship and was aimed at offering the Cossacks an acceptable model for har­monizing the relations between the government and subjects of the Hetmanate.

Translated from the Ukrainian by Marta Skorupsky

NOTES

Originally published as: Viktor Horobets', “Polkovnyk Viis'ka Zaporoz'koho: pravo vil'noi elektsii v svitli kozats'kykh tradytsii, rozporiadchykh prypysiv i politychnykh realii,” in Ukrams'ka derzhava druholpolovyny XVII-XVIIIst.: polityka, suspil'stvo, kul’tura, ed. Valerii Smolii, 88-125 (Kyiv, 2014). Copyright 2014 by nasu Institute of History of Ukraine. Translated and reprinted with permission.

1 Quoted from B. Krupnyts'kyi, Het’man Danylo Apostol i ioho doba (Kyiv, 2004), 115.

2 On the nature and scale of this interference, see V. Horobets', “Pravo vil'noi elektsii polkovnyka Viis'ka Zaporoz'koho: kozats'ki tradytsii u vyprobuvanni impers'kymy novatsiiamy,” Ukrams’kyi istorychnyizhurnal 5 (2015): 70-91.

3 On the office of colonel of the Zaporozhian Host, see V. Horobets', “Polkovnyk Viis'ka Zaporoz'koho ta ioho vlada,” Ukrams’kyi istorychnyi zhurnal 4 (2014): 50-70.

4 For example, see S. Lepiavko, Kozats’ki viiny kintsia XVIst. v Ukralni (Cherni­hiv, 1996); V.A. Smolii and V.S. Stepankov, Ukralns 'ka derzhavna ideia: problema formuvannia, evoliutsil, realizatsil (Kyiv, 1997); V.A. Smolii and

V.S. Stepankov, Ukralns’ka natsional 'na revoliutsiia XVII st. (1648-1676 rr.) (Kyiv, 1999).

5 For the author's understanding of the trends in the development of the polit­ical system of the Hetmanate, see V. Horobets', Vlada ta sotsium Het'manatu: doslidzhennia zpolitychnol i sotsial'not istorii rann ’omodernol Ukralny (Kyiv, 2009); V. Horobets', “Derzhava i suspil'stvo v Ukraini v rannii Novyi chas: praktyky Het'manatu,” in ed. V. Smolii, Vlada i suspil 'stvo v Ukrarni: istorych- nyi kontekst (Kyiv, 2013), 120-236.

6 See V.A. Smolii and V.S. Stepankov, Bohdan Khmel 'nyts 'kyi: sotsialno- politychnyiportret (Kyiv, 1995), 303-7.

7 Universaly ukrarns ’kykh het'maniv vid Ivana Vyhovs’koho do Ivan Samoilovy- cha (1657-1687), ed. Ivan Butych et al. (Kyiv-Lviv, 2004), 119.

8 Ibid., 119.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

11 For example, see A. lakovliv, “‘Statti Bohdana Khmel'nyts'koho' v redaktsii 1659 r.,” in luvileinyi zbirnyk na poshanu akademika M. S. Hrushevs ’koho (Kyiv, 1928), 1: 220-34; A. lakovliv, Ukrains'ko-moskovs'ki dohovory vXVII-XVIII vikakh (Warsaw, 1934); V. Horobets', “Volymo tsaria skhidnoho”: ukrains’kyi Het'manat ta rosiis 'ka dynastiia do ipislia Pereiaslava (Kyiv, 2007), and others.

12 Universaly ukrarns ’kykh het'maniv, 119.

13 See, for example, Istochniki malorossiiskoi istorii, comp. D.N. Bantysh- Kamenskii, 2 vols (Moscow, 1858-1859) 1:144, 145, 218, 256.

14 On the document itself, see V. Horobets', “Kozats'kyi Het'manat u sociopoli- tychnii strukturi Rechi Pospolytoi: proekt ustroievoi modeli het'mana Pavla Teteri z roku 1664,” in Moloda natsiia. Al 'manakh, no. 1 (2000), 40-61; V. Horobets', Elita kozats 'koi Ukrarny vposhukakh politychnoi lehitymatsii: stosunky z Moskvoiu ta Varshavoiu, 1654-1665 (Kyiv, 2001).

15 Dzial rpkopisow Biblioteki Ksiqzqt Czartoryskich w Krakowie (Department of Manuscripts of the Princes Czartoryski Library in Cracow; hereinafter - Czart.), sygn. 402, no. 22: 547-63.

16 Ibid.

17 For the author's view of the matter, see V. Horobets', “Ustroieva model Het'manatu za Konstytutsiieiu 1710 roku: chy isnuvaly vnutrishni pidstavy dlia realizatsii proektu?” in Pylyp Orlyk: zhyttia, polityka, teksty, ed. Natalia Iakovenko (Kyiv, 2011), 234-48.

18 Istochniki malorossiiskoi istorii, 2: 251-2.

19 Ibid., 251.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid.

22 Krupnyts'kyi, Het’man Danylo Apostol i ioho doba, 115.

23 V. Horobets', “Pravo vil'noi elektsii polkovnyka Viis'ka Zaporoz'koho: kozat- s'ki tradytsii u vyprobuvanni impers'kymy novatsiiamy,” Ukrarns ’kyi istorych- nyi zhurnal 5 (2015): 70-91.

24 Universaly ukrarns'kykh het'maniv, 705.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid., 734.

27 lu. Haiets'kyi, “Storinky z pobutu Het'manshchyny: vybir polkovnyka,” in Siverians’kyi litopys, no. 1-2 (1997): 48.

28 Lysty Ivana Mazepy, 1687-1691, comp. and introduction by V. Stanislavs'kyi, 2 vols (Kyiv, 2002), 1: no. 182: 393.

29 Akty, otnosiashchiesia k istorii Iuzhnoi i Zapadnoi Rossii, sobrannye i izdannye Arkheograficheskoi komissiei (hereinafter - Akty luZR), 15 vols (St Petersburg, 1861-1892), 13: 367, 454, 471; M. Petrovs'kyi, Do istoriipolkovoho ustroiu Het’manshchyny (Nizhyn, 1929), Addendum, 73.

30 Petrovs'kyi, Do istoriipolkovoho ustroiu Het’manshchyny, Addendum, 73.

31 Nikolai I. Kostomarov, Istoricheskie monografii i issledovaniia, vol. 16 Mazepa i mazepintsy (St Petersburg, 1885), 141-2.

32 G. Gajecky erroneously asserts that Shyikevych was the general chancellor in the governments of Ivan Briukhovets'kyi and Demian Ihnatovych, holding that post in 1665-69, but in reality, after the signing of the Moscow agreement of 1665, Briukhovets'kyi's officer entourage, above all the party of the Kyiv colonel Vasyl' Dvorets'kyi, succeeded in having “Zakharko” arrested and exiled to Siberia. See Akty IuZR, 6: 13-14. See also V. Horobets', Het’man Briukhovets 'kyi: zhyttia u slavi, vladi ta han ’bi (Kyiv, 2019), 327-32.

33 Analyzing these elections on the basis of Mykola Petrovs'kyi's work, Vira Panashenko speaks of the access to the election of “fellows of the banner” (znachkovi tovaryshi, distinguished individuals in each regiment, lowest group of Cossack officer hierarchy), but the document published by Petrovs'kyi refers to the notable fellowship: “old fellow and notable of the Pereiaslav regiment.” See V.V. Panashenko, Polkove upravlinnia v Ukraini (seredyna XVII-XVIII st.) (Kyiv, 1997), 8; Petrovs'kyi, Do istorii polkovoho ustroiu Het’manshchyny, 72-3.

34 Petrovs'kyi, Do istoriipolkovoho ustroiu Het’manshchyny, 72-3.

35 Ibid. See L. Okynshevych, “Heneral'na rada na Ukraini-Het'manshchyni XVII-XVIII st.” in Pratsi komisii dlia vyuchuvannia istorii zakhidno-rus ’koho ta ukrains’koho prava, ed. N.P. Vasylenko (Kyiv, 1929), 6:253-425; Idem, “Hen­eral'na starshyna na Livoberezhnii Ukraini XVII-XVIII st.” in ibid., 2:84-171; V. Horobets', Vlada ta sotsium Het'manatu: doslidzhennia zpolitychnoi i sotsial’noii istori rann'omodernoi Ukrainy (Kyiv, 2009).

36 Petrovs'kyi, Do istoriipolkovoho ustroiu Het’manshchyny, 72-3.

37 V.V. Kryvosheia and V.M. Orel, Ukrains’ka shliakhta naperedodni vyzvol'noi viyny seredyny XVII stolittia (Kyiv, 2000), 98.

38 See Tsentral’nyi derzhavnyi istorychnyi arkhiv Ukrainy v m. Kyievi (Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kyiv; hereinafter - tsdiauk), f. 51, op. 3, spr. 122. Suplika polkovoi i ratushnoi starshyny, kozakiv i mishchan Poltavs'koho polku. 1714. 4 ark.; V. Modzalevs'kyi, “Poltavskaia intriga 1714 goda,” in Kievskaia starina 91, nos. 11/12 (1905): 173-85.

tsdiauk, f. 51, op. 3, vol. 1, spr. 122, 4 ark.; Modzalevs'kyi, “Poltavskaia intriga,” 173-85.

O. Ohloblyn, Het’man Ivan Mazepa ta ioho doba, 2nd ed. (New York Kyiv Lviv Paris Toronto, 2001), 91.

Ohloblyn, Het’man Ivan Mazepa ta ioho doba, 68; D.N. Bantysh-Kamenskii, Istoriia Maloi Rossii ot vodvoreniia slavian v sei strane do unichtozheniia getmanstva (Kyiv, 1993), 560.

M. Petrovs'kyi, Narysy istorii Ukrainy XVII-pochatku XVIIIstolit’ (Doslidy nad Litopysom Samovydtsia) (Kharkiv, 1930), 106, fn. 8.

Litopys Samovydtsia, ed. la. I. Dzyra (Kyiv, 1971), 100.

A. Lazarevskii, “Poltavshchina v XVII v.,” Kievskaia starina 34 (1891), 373-4;

G. Gajecky, The Cossack Administration of the Hetmanate, 2 vols (Cambridge, ma, 1978), 2:519.

Istochniki malorossiiskoi istorii, 2:29.

Akty luZR, 6: 99.

Lazarevskii, “Poltavshchina v XVII v.,” 360.

Ibid., 361.

For more about this, see V. Horobets', “Chorna rada” 1663 roku: peredumovy, rezul'taty, naslidky (Kyiv, 2013).

Akty IuZR, 6:195.

S. Velychko, Litopys, ed. V. Shevchuk (Kyiv, 1991), 2:161.

Ibid.

Lazarevskii, “Poltavshchina v XVII v.,” 371; V. L. Modzalevskii, Malorossiiskii rodoslovnik, vol. 3 (L-O) (Kyiv, 1912): 48; Gajecky, The Cossack Administration of the Hetmanate, 2:518.

See Velychko, Litopys, 464; Lazarevskii, “Poltavshchina v XVII v.,” 372 Leontii Cherniak held the colonelcy in Poltava (for the second time) in 1680-82, and it was he who was replaced by Pavlo Hertsyk. See Gajecky, The Cossack Administration of the Hetmanate, 2:518.

Istochniki malorossiiskoi istorii, 2: 148.

Universaly ukrains’kykh het'maniv, 744.

V.A. Diadychenko, Narysy suspil’no-politychnoho ustroiu Livoberezhnoi Ukra'iny kintsia XVII-pochatku XVIIIst. (Kyiv, 1959), 201.

tsdiauk, f. 51, op. 3, t. 1, spr. 122, ark. 2-4. The complaint of the regimental and city administration starshyna, Cossacks, and townspeople of the Poltava regiment regarding the unfounded attempts of the regimental judge Petro Kovan'ka and the regimental chancellor Ivan Zalies'kyi to remove from office the Poltava colonel Ivan Cherniak and make Vasyl' Kochubei colonel. 1714. The document was put into scholarly circulation by Vadym Modzalevs'kyi, who used the copy of the case made by Mykola Vasylenko, which at that time was held in the Kharkiv Historical Archive. See Modzalevs'kyi, “Poltavskaia intriga 1714 goda,” 173-85.

tsdiauk, f. 51, op. 3, t. 1, spr. 122, ark. 2-4. tsdiauk, f. 51, op. 3, t. 1, spr. 122, ark. 2zv. Ibid., ark. 3.

Ibid., ark. 3 zv.

Ibid.

Ibid., ark. 4 zv.

“Komput vsego polku Poltavskogo... 1719” in Instytut rukopysu Natsional'not biblioteky Ukratny im. V I. Vernads ’koho (Manuscript Institute of the V.I. Ver- nads'kyi National Library of Ukraine; hereinafter - ir nbu), f. 1, spr. 1 54480, ark. 2; “Videnie polkovogo goroda Poltavi, skol'ko v onoi obretaetsia polkovoi starshiny, bunchukovikh tovarishchei i znatnikh vdov. 1732” in ir nbu, f. 1, spr. 54335, ark. 1, 348 zv.

tsdiauk, f. 51, op. 3, t. 1, spr. 122, ark. 3.

M.E. Slabchenko, Malorusskii polk v administrativnom otnoshenii (istoriko- iuridicheskii ocherk) (Odesa, 1909), 343; “Komput vsego polku Poltavskogo,” ir nbu, f. 1, spr. I 54480, ark. 2.

ir nbu, f. 1, spr. I 54480, ark. 44, 65, 121. The peasants were divided by economic status into categories, and this division determined their taxation assessment and the nature and extent of their labor obligations to their landowners and the state. See Viktor Horobets', Vlada ta sotsium Het'manatu: doslidzhennia politychnot i sotsial ’not istorit rann ’omodernot Ukratny (Kyiv, 2009).

“Videnie polkovogo goroda Poltavi, skol'ko v onoi obretaetsia polkovoi starshini, bunchukovikh tovarishchei i znatnikh vdov. 1732,” ir nbu, f. 1, spr. 54335, ark. 349 zv., 351, 385.

A. Lazarevskii, “Liudy staroi Malorossii: Markovichi,” Kievskaia starina 8, no. 1 (1884): 55-6; Idem, “Istoricheskie ocherki poltavskoi Lubenshchini XVII­XVIII st.,” Chteniia v Istoricheskom obshchestve Nestora-letopistsa (hereinafter - chiONL), no. 11 (1896): 54.

tsdiauk, f. 51, op. 3, t. 1, spr. 373, ark. 2-3 zv.

L. Okynshevych, Tsentral ni ustanovy Ukrainy-Het manshchyny XVII-XVIII st. part 2: Rada starshyn (Kyiv, 1930), 85; Gajecky, The Cossack Administration of the Hetmanate, 1:251-7.

V. Lypyns'kyi, “Uchast shliakhty u Velykomu ukrains'komu povstanni pid provodom het'mana Bohdana Khmel'nyts'koho,” in Idem., Tvory, ed. Lev Bilas, vol. 2 (Philadelphia, 1980), 271; Akty luZR, 7: 377; M.S. Hrushevs'kyi, Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy, 10 (Kyiv, 1998): 144; Dopolnenie k aktam istoricheskim 6 (St Petersburg, 1857): 75; Gajecky, The Cossack Administration of the Hetmanate, 2:635.

tsdiauk, f. 51, op. 3, t. 1, spr. 373, ark. 2.

Ibid.

See V. Horobets', Prysmerk Het’manshchyny: Ukraina v roky reform Petra I (Kyiv, 1998).

tsdiauk, f. 51, op. 3, t. 1, spr. 373, ark. 2.

Ibid., ark. 2zv., 3.

Ibid., ark. 3.

tsdiauk, f. 51, op. 3, spr. 153, ark. 47.

Istochniki malorossiiskoi istorii, 1: 302.

Ibid.

Ibid., 2: 109.

Diadychenko, Narysy suspil ’no-politychnoho ustroiu Livoberezhnoi Ukrainy, 201; See also Lazarevskii, “Istoricheskie ocherki Poltavskoi Lubenshchiny,” 48. Lazarevskii, “Istoricheskie ocherki Poltavskoi Lubenshchiny,”48.

Akty luZR, 5: 244; S. Pavlenko, Otochennia het'mana Mazepy: soratnyky ta prybichnyky (Kyiv, 2004), 88; Diadychenko, Narysy suspil’no-politychnoho ustroiu Livoberezhnoi Ukrainy, 201.

Universaly Ivana Mazepy, 1687-1709, ed. I. Butych (Kyiv-Lviv, 2002), 446.

A. Lazarevskii, “Liudy staroi Malorossii: Miklashevskie,” Kievskaia starina 3, no. 8 (1882): 248.

A. Lazarevskii, “Liudy staroi Malorossii: Goluby, Kryzhanovskie; Tomary,” Kievskaia starina 12, no. 5 (1885): 17-18.

Istochniki malorossiiskoi istorii, 2:251-2.