Military Reforms during the Hetmancy of Kyrylo Rozumovs'kyi, 1750-64

OLEKSII SOKYRKO

The middle of the eighteenth century marked the beginning for Ukraine of the second and last restoration of the institution of the hetmancy. The imperial decree “On there being a hetman in Little Russia in Accordance with Former Rights and Customs,” initiated by the starshyna aristocracy with the support of Oleksii Rozu­movs'kyi, was signed in May 1747, but the starshyna council in Hlukhiv proclaimed the brother of the empress's favorite Kyrylo Rozumovs'kyi the new hetman only in February 1750.

By contrast, the second part of his hetmancy was marked by a much higher degree of activity, which has been rightfully named in the literature “the era of Rozumovs'kyi's reforms.” Perhaps the best researched of them to this day is his judicial reform, which established a branch court system in the Hetmanate, mod­eled on the practices of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

It is quite difficult to judge Kyrylo Rozumovs'kyi's military talents, or at least his aptitude for military affairs. One of his first official biographers, Dmitrii Ban- tysh-Kamenskii, in his essay dedicated to General Field Marshal Rozumovs'kyi, was forced to confine himself mainly to sweeping descriptions of the mild and indulgent temperament of his protagonist and to retelling numerous worldly anecdotes.³ In fact, Rozumovs'kyi began to receive his military ranks subsequent to his court and academic titles. In 1748 he was awarded the ranks of lieutenant colonel of the Izmail Life Guard regiment and of adjutant general, and that of field marshal, after his resignation from the hetmancy, as a form of compen- sation.⁴ Reports left by contemporaries did not show any special interest in mil­itary matters on the hetman's part, but this is not surprising. As commander of one of the guard regiments, Rozumovs'kyi served more as a patron, as it were, to his subordinates than as an actual commander of a military unit, which was a generally accepted and normal practice at that time.

However, from the point of view of contemporaries, the lack of military talent was not a shameful flaw in the noblemen of the time, even those of them who sought to distinguish themselves in the military field.⁵ Zealous service to the throne could be embodied not only in literal service in the military, on battlefields, and in the storming of fortresses, but also in participation in numerous meetings, commissions, and the development of reform projects.

Naturally, the upstart hetman, unlike his predecessors, did not have reliable and stable support among the Cossack aristocracy: the “notable” people of the Hetmanate fawned on him rather than providing real support for his rule. A sig­nificant problem was the hetman's basic lack of familiarity with the “rulers of the Fatherland”: Rozumovs'kyi left Ukraine at too young an age and at a social level that precluded communication with starshyna circles. In November 1750, Hlukhiv was ordered to send complete lists of general, regimental, and company officers, and fellows of the standard and fellows of the banner, “indicating their rank and the year in which each rank was assigned, and of these, who is where and doing what, who is in a unit and who is at home.

The hetman's defense of his sovereignty as a ruler was fully consistent with the intentions of the general starshyna. Already in December 1751, at the request of General Chancellor Andrii Bezborod'ko, the hetman issued a decree forbidding colonels to carry out the orders of Russian generals and officers.⁹

However, the successful personnel appointments of his relatives and expanding his circle of supporters was not enough to implement changes. Rozumovs'kyi should have seen to winning the sympathy of wide circles of the starshyna, which would have guaranteed him the support not only of the Cossack aristocracy, but also of the rest of the less notable officials, and would have shown him in the im­pressive role of defender and protector of the “rights and liberties” of the Cossack estate and his “beloved Fatherland.” A convenient opportunity to show concern for the public good was the issue of equating the officer ranks and offices with the imperial equivalents, which involved not only the military hierarchy, but also the political supremacy of the Cossack elite. After the efforts of starshyna depu­tations to decide the matter in their favor stalled hopelessly, the question of the equalization of ranks, which had become overgrown with accompanying letters, explanatory notes, and extracts (ekstrakty), was shuttled back and forth between the Imperial Cabinet and the Senate for almost five years, until in 1750 it finally returned to the latter.

The impetus for a positive decision in the matter was the imperial decree of 24 July 1750, according to which “at all celebrations and public ceremonies the Little Russian hetman is to have a place with our general field marshals, regarded by them according to rank seniority.”¹⁵ Simultaneously, another report about Little Russian ranks was submitted by the Senate and the Ukrainian ruler for the empress's consideration, to which on 27 October, Elizabeth “deigned to command that the hetman be informed that she was pleased to grant the above-mentioned ranks to Little Russians officers, but no one could be granted the abovenamed ranks before informing Her Imperial Majesty of those persons and their merits.”¹⁶ The imperial decree was more a declaration of intent than a full-fledged law, but the hetman's court was already preparing to leave for Hlukhiv and the Christmas holidays were approaching, which gave the Senate grounds to consider the case quite settled and to transfer it to the archive.¹⁷

The Seven Years' War of 1756-63 brought the dust covered case to light once again. The Senate and the Military Collegium were trying to determine how much to pay in salary to the ranks of irregular troops, and what the penalties for “dis­honor. for those personnel” should be.¹⁸ In response to a Senate inquiry, Rozu- movs'kyi's field chancellery (pokhidna kantseliariia) in October 1756 sent a “Report on the Little Russian starshyna, colonels, fellows of the standard, and regimental and company officers and other ranks and ordinary soldiers, indicating the se­quence of ranks according to Little Russian custom” and the “Excerpt from the list of the gentleman and chevalier which represents as to which Great Russian ranks the Little Russian officials should be considered to be, as well as to which class he, the lord hetman and chevalier, should assign them.”¹⁹

Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine exactly whether this “Little Russian Table of Ranks” received imperial approval or was once again shelved. All that can be said with certainty is that the convertibility of the status of the Cossack starshyna and officials within the framework of the bureaucratic hierarchy and nobility remained elusive. In 1761, in particular, it was confirmed that the children of the starshyna could not be accepted to the Land Noble Cadet Corps because they were not of noble birth. In January 1762, Count Roman Vorontsov reported to the Senate that in the process of enrolling Little Russians for military and civil service, many commoners claimed noble descent, which could not be verified for lack of heraldry and lists of nobles in the Hetmanate, which he recommended to compile.²⁰

The publication by Peter III of the Manifesto on Noble Freedoms, which sig­nificantly reduced the gap in privileges between the imperial nobility and the starshyna, also prompted the regulation of the hierarchy of Cossack ranks and the clarification of the noble rights that the Hetmanate granted to its bearers. The document produced a notable emancipation of the Russian nobility, previously virtually powerless and extremely dependent on the supreme power, freeing no­bles from mandatory civil and military service and granting them the right to freely retire and to freely travel outside the empire. The manifesto was a further step in the development and strengthening of the nobility as a social stratum and political force, which finally consolidated its superiority and advantages over the other estates.

On 22 September 1762, the newly proclaimed Empress Catherine II issued a decree, addressed to the hetman, in which she finally granted the Cossack starshyna “classes corresponding to the ranks of Little Russians.” This document is of particular interest to us because it introduced the conversion of ranks specifi­cally in the military sphere, using a slightly different nomenclature in comparison with previous “tables.”²¹ The ranks of the General Military Chancellery did not appear in the decree, but a separate note stipulated that they should be “regarded as equal to regimental officers by their classes.” The decree declared that the main basis for elevation in rank was conscientious and steadfast service “with unequiv­ocal merits.” The hetman, as equal in rank to a general field marshal, was permit­ted to promote up to the rank of major independently, while the rest had to be submitted to the monarch for review and approval. Left out of the new table was the rank of fellow of the standard, whose number, unlike that of regimental of­ficers, was not clearly defined. The hetman was to create a separate organizational structure for them, according to which they would later be granted equality “in classes,” so that the Little Russian ranks in the staff-(senior) and ober-(lower) of­ficer cadre did not have any advantages over the Russians.²² It was also up to the hetman to monitor the consistent promotions in rank, without bypassing any intermediate stages between the highest and lowest, “since up to this time, these ranks, which did not have Great Russian classes equal to our regular military, were elected by the free votes of the lower officers, bypassing the intermediary ranks, and moved to the higher ones. This [method] no longer corresponds to regular ranks and is abandoned, especially as this is not consistent with Little Russian rights; but we command that elections be conducted by free votes, as be­fore, but so that no one from proximate ranks be bypassed without a show of proper reasons, for that was the custom in the irregular military, and this is already provided for by law in ranks equalized by regular advantages.”²³

In early 1763, Catherine convened a special Commission on the Freedoms of the Nobility, which was to regulate the class status of the nobles, taking into ac­count the provisions of Peter III's manifesto and legislative developments of the Legislative Commission, which was working toward the same end. The commis­sion, which consisted mainly of the empress's closest supporters (Chancellor Count Mikhail Vorontsov, Grand Master of the Court [Ober Hofmeister] Nikita Panin, General-in-Chief Count Zakhar Chernyshev, Prince Mikhail Volkonskii, and Adjutant-General Grigorii Orlov), and several old nobles from Elizabeth's reign (ex-Chancellor and General Field Marshal Aleksei Bestuzhev-Riumin, Sen­ator Prince Iakov Shakhovskoi), also included Kyrylo Rozumovs'kyi.²⁴ It is obvi­ous that this opportunity was a suitable occasion for once more raising the question of not so much the conversion and mutual coordination of the ranks of the Cossack starshyna and the Russian officer corps as about the much more important issues of the status of the Little Russian nobility in relation to the Rus­sian nobles. On 20 February 1763, the hetman appeared at a hearing quoting from an “extract on the freedoms of nobility from the laws of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, known as the statute, according to which Little Russia is governed.”²⁵

Apparently, the imperial decree of 22 July 1762 caused a considerable stir among the members of the commission and the Senate, especially in the anti-hetman party, which was headed by Chancellor Aleksei Bestuzhev-Riumin. On 15 April 1763, a decree was issued on conducting another hearing in the commission “on the classes of Little Russian ranks,” for which Rozumovs'kyi's office prepared a report with a justification and a new Table of Little Russian Ranks with equiva­lents in the Russian Table of Ranks.²⁶ The majority of the commission sided with Rozumovs'kyi. The decision approved at the meeting was generally in line with the imperial decree, making only technical clarifications and additions to it. Thus, the hetman was given the right to grant ranks up to and including that of lieu­tenant colonel, to award ranks only if there were vacancies, to “reward with classes” upon retirement, and to determine the number of fellows of the standard “in proportion to the regiments.” The General Military Chancellery had to main­tain all personnel records and “maintain adherence to the waiting list in those ranks,” both in the case of promotions and of the assignments to military cam­paigns, business trips, and the like.²⁷

The commission's positive decision was largely due to the absence of Rozu- movs'kyi's opponents at its meeting and Nikita Panin's support for the project plan. However, this course of events further upset the anti-hetman party, which saw the decision as another boost for the positions of its opponents. On 10 June 1763, Aleksei Bestuzhev-Riumin submitted to the empress an “Opinion on the Classes of Little Russian Ranks,” in which he tried to rebut Rozumovs'kyi and present the essence of the case as one that harms the foundations of Russian state­hood.²⁸ Bestuzhev began his opinion by refuting the traditional preamble to all the hetman's statements regarding the sovereignty of Ukraine's choice of Russian suzerainty and its voluntary acceptance. Indeed, according to the former chan­cellor, “the Little Russian people have been Russian subjects from time immemo­rial,” who had been taken away at one time by Poland but returned to the Russian crown by Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich. The absence of a system of ranks and grades in the Hetmanate, Bestuzhev wrote, could actually present certain obstacles and difficulties in governance, but granting them was fraught with the danger that an opportunity might arise in which Little Russians would command Great Russians, which is absolutely inadmissible. Citing the precedents of the Livonian nobility and the Cossack officials of the Don Cossack Host, who had ranks corresponding to the Table, the count pointed out that those ranks had been “granted to them only for their persons,” that is, they were isolated cases, exceptional incidents. They had rightly resorted to this practice during the reign of Elizabeth, when the desire of the officers for equalization in ranks was not satisfied and, instead, they were promised that they would be given Russian ranks and grades in accordance with their merits, without creating precedents for the aforementioned Don Cos­sack Host. Complaining about the large number of officials in Ukraine, especially fellows of the standard, Bestuzhev stressed that, according to local traditions, of­ficials there were awarded ranks and retired voluntarily, and that if they are equated with Russian ranks, who move up the service ladder “by degrees from lower to higher,” there may be a “diminution.”

Whatever the decision in this matter, the author of the note advised that Rus­sians be given priority over Ukrainians, like the guard regiments had seniority in ranks over the army, and the army, in turn, over the garrison and land militia ranks. Finally, Bestuzhev also offered specific observations on the starshyna “classes” and their analogues: thus, the rank of lieutenant general was too high for the general quartermaster, so they could be “satisfied” with the rank of major general, since even former hetmans had the rank of general-in-chief, and the cur­rent one has the rank of general field marshal (“out of great personal favor and trust in him... for based on old examples, among whom was Mazepa, should such trust and excessive privileges be really allowed to future hetmans”).²⁹ It is also possible that Bestuzhev feared a large influx of Ukrainian starshyna to the ranks of the imperial officers and bureaucracy which could eventually devalue the entire system of ranks.

It is difficult to say what direction further discussions about starshyna ranks and nobility would have taken, if Catherine II, dissatisfied with the work of the commission, which sought to establish the rights of the “first” estate at the level of the law, binding on both subjects and the monarch, had not dissolved it in Oc­tober 1763.³⁰ It is quite possible that after this the hetman returned to Ukraine with a firmer and more mature belief in the need for more decisive actions to con­firm the separateness of Cossack autonomy and the superiority of its starshyna- nobility stratum.

Actually, the measures that directly concerned the army of the Hetmanate can hypothetically be divided into two stages - the reorganization of the court troops (nadvirne viis 'ko) which became a proving ground for testing new ideas and mod­els, and later changes that affected the registered Cossack regiments and the ar­tillery corps.

Appearing in Hlukhiv no sooner than a year after his election, Rozumovs'kyi first turned his attention to outfitting his residence, which, however, he did not regard as his permanent residence: the time spent in the imperial capital counted for him more. Therefore, of all the more or less notable military innovations of the newly fledged hetman, one can single out his concern for the court guard. Hetman Rozumovs'kyi's court, which is still awaiting its researcher, was un­doubtedly an extraordinary phenomenon in Ukrainian culture. For the first time, Western influences and models, borrowed both directly from European counterparts and a completely modern imperial court, clearly dominated. Rozu­movs'kyi's court, at least in its ceremonial and external aspects, rather quickly ceased to resemble the old-world models of its predecessors. Saturated with in­novations, consistent with the refined court fashions of the era of absolutism, it was, according to the apt observation of the historians, a miniature copy of the imperial court.

By a separate order issued in the summer of 1752, Rozumovs'kyi created the institution of the adjutant: it consisted of ten fellows of the standard, “appointed by order” at the hetman's court.³¹ The court's armed retinue was also to be ex­panded and reorganized, not so much in accordance with tradition as in the spirit of the newly fledged hetman's tastes. The hetman's frequent travels resulted in a division of the court troops (nadvirne viis'ko) into two unequal parts: a smaller part (a kind of life guard unit), which accompanied His Illustrious Highness in St Petersburg and Moscow, on trips, balls, hunts, court celebrations and travels, and performed guard duties at his residences in both imperial capitals, and a larger part that, as before, guarded the hetman's residences in Hlukhiv and the institutions of the General Military Chancellery. The administration of the two components was transformed accordingly: the Life Guard units were mainly in the charge of the hetman's Household Office, and the rest, as earlier, the General Military Chancellery.

Naturally, the life guard unit received priority attention: more money was spent on it and the guards were the first to receive new uniforms and be provided with everything needed to make them a worthy calling card of the ruler of the Het- manate in the imperial capitals. This unit consisted of bodyguards and guards­men, as well as liveried servants (haiduks, footmen, and musicians). The military component was represented by cavalry and infantry units: a mounted court unit, zholdak unit (Hetman's personal guard), a Zaporozhian Cossack unit (kurin), pandury, and military musicians. Judging from everything, the first Life Guard units appeared in 1751, when Rozumovs'kyi first visited Hlukhiv and, when leav­ing, wanted to take some exotically dressed Little Russian Cossacks with him to the capital. Then, four officers and six members of the court kompaniitsi unit (cavalry guard hired regiment) started out on the long journey as part of the het­man's entourage.³² During the late 1750s to early 1760s, the cavalry unit increased in size and became firmly established. By 1763 it consisted of eight mounted and two infantry court kompaniitsi, and thirteen mounted kompaniitsi, “who had been re-outfitted as hussars and are used to ride by the carriage of His Illustrious High­ness,”³³ and ten foot soldiers, dressed “as pandury” commanded by the kompaniitsi regimental aide-de-camp (osavul) Petro Kanevs'kyi.³⁴ Ten kompaniitsi soldiers, dressed in hussar uniforms, led by the regimental flag-bearer Vasyl' Septukhov, accompanied Hetman Rozumovs'kyi on his last journey to St Petersburg, when he was forced to renounce the mace.³⁵

In addition, the hetman's Household Office include a zholdak unit, composed of twelve soldiers, headed by a lieutenant, a corporal, and a drummer dressed “in German clothing.”³⁶ A separate unit was made up of musicians, assigned to serve the hetman by General Military Musicians. As of 1755, it consisted of four trum­peters and one kettledrum player (lytavryst or dovbysh).³⁷ Smartly uniformed elected Cossacks of the Hlukhiv Company were included on the trips to St Pe­tersburg and Moscow as an auxiliary unit.³⁸

An innovation and a kind of highlight of the hetman's Life Guard was the newly created Zaporozhian Kurin. The decision to form it was obviously made sometime in late 1751 or early 1752. The “Zaporozhian unit, which is to be part of His Grace's retinue in the train to Moscow,” consisted of ten Cossacks and three officers, re­cruited from among the experienced kompaniitsi and Zaporozhian Cossacks.³⁹ It was led by the kompaniitsi aide-de-camp Petro Cherniavs'kyi and Captain (sotnyk) larema Cherkes, who personally selected soldiers for service in this unit. In March 1752, when recruitment to the unit ended, its personnel were included “as part” of Chasnyk's kompaniitsi regiment.⁴⁰ At the end of 1752, funds were allocated to the unit for sewing clothing which was to be different from all existing analogues. Although the sum disbursed from the treasury for uniforms was huge - 595 rubles (for comparison - the annual salary of the entire court company [khoruhva] in 1759 amounted to only 459 rubles!), the production of these uniforms lasted sev­eral years.⁴¹

The ambitious demands of the new hetman also required a numerical increase and further development of those court military formations that remained in the Hetmanate. In particular, the court company, which had been separated out at the start from the Second Kompaniitsi Regiment, to which Hnat Chasnyk's com­pany from the Third Kompaniitsi Regiment was later added, was increased nu­merically. Thus, while in 1751-53, there were only 108 fellows in the unit, in 1755, there were already 214.⁴²

An order issued by the hetman on 16 January 1752 ordered general aides- de-camp lakiv lakubovych and Petro Valkevych “to have them in command and supervision, so that they are in good order.” The same order “directed these com­manders to keep a decent number of people at our court in the great hall as the guard with banner and kettle drums, with which to sound Reveille and post and put in place a guard detail in the appropriate places in this court,” which were to change weekly. In addition, the hetman allowed the use of court kompaniitsi to guard prisoners and as couriers to serve the needs of the General Military Chan­cellery.⁴³ Subsequently, however, repeated conflicts arose between the general aides-de-camp and the chancellery over jurisdictional spheres and powers. The chancellery insisted on its exclusive right to enlist recruits to the company, to see to its ongoing replenishment and maintenance, to submit reports to the hetman regarding vacancies and appointments, and assigned inspection and administra­tive functions to the aides-de-camp.⁴⁴

In May 1752, Kyrylo Rozumovs'kyi, accompanied by General Chancellor Andrii Bezborod'ko, General Aide-de-Camp lakiv lakubovych, and his indispensable ad­viser Grigorii Teplov, spent two months visiting the regiments of Left-Bank Ukraine. For the young hetman, this trip was in the nature of a first close acquain­tance with his new domains, but, in any event, the impression it left formed an overall picture of the state of the Cossack regiments, their administration and management.⁴⁵ On the other hand, for the general officers, and especially lakubo­vych, the hetman's visit became an opportunity to check the serviceability of the Cossack troops, and especially, the corps of the rank-and-file Cossacks (vyborni kozaky), which suffered from a traditionally unstable system of rotation and re­plenishment. Indicative in this regard is the inspection report of the Chernihiv regiment, which revealed all the shortcomings of the maintenance and combat readiness of the elect Cossacks and Cossack helpers (pidpomichnyky). The het­man’s directive based on its results ordered, in particular, “that the required proper twenty-thousand strong number set for rank-and-file... Cossacks by former... decrees be recruited and supplemented, and that the full complement be always in complete combat readiness; and such rank-and-file Cossacks for further service be organized in companies of such who from a single household can indepen­dently outfit themselves with all military needs for horses and acceptable clothing.” At the same time, the service and duties of the regimental Cossack helpers were to be streamlined, who were treated not only as providers of economic support for household rank-and-file Cossacks, as had been the case earlier, but also as an independent auxiliary force and recruitment reserve: “Cossack helpers (who need to be maintained along the Dnipro line, at outposts, which are now being manned by the elect Cossacks alone), could supply themselves with at least one horse and be combat ready, to be used instead of the elect Cossacks, because these elect Cos­sacks must remain for command and more essential tasks.”⁴⁶

After the Russian Empire was drawn into the Seven Years’ War in 1756, the army of the Hetmanate, the effectiveness of which was in great doubt, was expected to take an active part in it. The Assembly at the Highest Court - the highest insti­tution of the military and political administration of the empire - decided to ini­tially “outfit for the upcoming campaign” five thousand Ukrainian Cossacks, in addition to which “a sufficient number of horses” were to be assembled to re­plenish losses to artillery and in military supply wagons. Additionally, regular units from the Volga provinces were transferred to Left-Bank and Sloboda Ukraine, which were eventually to form a separate corps, to be joined by local garrison and land militia regiments.

Judging by everything, the army command did not rely too much on either the combat readiness of the Cossacks or the diligence of the hetman, given that in September 1756, the Assembly at the Highest Court ordered that before the ar­rival of Rozumovs'kyi in Hlukhiv, the “local Military Chancellery, in accordance with the request sent directly from His Excellency General Field Marshal and Chevalier (Stepan Apraksin - O. S.) that everything be expeditiously and urgently fulfilled,”⁴⁷ and by October 5th of that year the hetman was to “expeditiously and urgently fulfill everything and satisfy all requirements.”⁴⁸ On the last day of 1756, Rozumovs'kyi ordered that the Cossacks of the five thousand-strong unit be kept in full combat readiness, awaiting his orders.⁴⁹

It should be noted that in the mid-eighteenth century, Russian military art had not yet developed established practices in the organization and operation of ir­regular formations in wars with European armies. While the experience of using Cossacks and hussars, who made up the light cavalry, was well developed in the defense of borders and the wars with Tatars and Turks from as far back as the sec­ond half of the seventeenth century, large-scale clashes with regular troops were limited to the campaigns of the Northern War of 1700-21.⁵⁰ In the middle of the eighteenth century, the government and army command had no clear plan for the use of light irregular cavalry, nor accurate data on its strength and combat potential. As early as in 1753, “Her Imperial Majesty deigned to order to check the status of old affairs and thoroughly specify how many cavalry mounted troops there were in Little Russia from the beginning of its annexation to the Russian state, and how they, Little Russians, defended themselves against... the Turks and Tatar attacks without the addition of Great Russian troops, and how many of their own troops there were in the campaigns in such cases?”⁵¹ The instruction on managing of the army, which Apraksin received in October 1756, was confined in the case of the Cossacks to two main guidelines: to monitor them so that they not loot and not “mount raids into Prussian lands and alarm his troops (the king's - O.S.) and exhaust them with anxiety.” The regular units were to be added to the irregular ones mainly so that “if all sorts of disorders and arbitrariness were not completely avoided, then at least significantly reduced and prevented.”⁵²

Rozumovs'kyi's second trip to Ukraine, necessitated by preparations for war, was very different from his first visit. This time the hetman had to deal as inti­mately as possible with the “military state of affairs,” all the time reporting about them to St Petersburg.⁵³

The preparations for sending the corps of elect Cossacks to the front, in par­ticular, pointedly raised the question of the quality of their combat training. The mobilization of the Cossacks and other preparations, due to the slowness of the administration and the reluctance of the starshyna to go on campaign, stretched for almost six months. The departure of the corps for the front was therefore postponed until the autumn of 1756. General Aide-de-Camp Iakiv Iakubovych was appointed commander of the corps, and he was to report directly to the com­mander of the Russian army in Prussia, Field Marshal Apraksin.⁵⁴ The decrees of the Senate required the “enlisting” to the corps of only elect horse-mounted Cos­sacks in decent attire and with serviceable weapons, ammunition, and equipment, and supplies of gunpowder, provisions, and fodder. In early December 1756, the General Military Chancellery sent an order to the regimental governing bodies, according to which all the Cossacks were to gather in Hlukhiv for training.⁵⁵ Later, their number was reduced to 120 men from each regiment, headed by a captain.⁵⁶

On 29 November, the Chancellery asked lakubovych for a resolution regarding “how to drill the Cossacks detailed. to go on campaign, and what to teach them in training.”⁵⁷ In response to this request, two special instructions were issued, which together represented the first drill regulations of the Cossack army: “Form, how to begin a review of troops in Little Russian regiments” and “Military training of light troops.”⁵⁸ The “form” was a standard instruction for conducting a troop review, nine points of which contained guidelines for checking the appearance of the Cossacks, their weapons, ammunition, clothing, food supplies, how they saluted, how to write or submit reports, and so forth. The document encompassed the most typical elements of troop reviews that were used in the Hetmanate dur­ing the first half of the eighteenth century. The “Military training” was a typical training regulation, which specified military techniques, the formation of units, the order of their movement and actions in various conditions.

The semantic and textual basis of the regulations contained many borrowings from Russian analogues of the time. However, borrowing some external elements of the military training of the Russian army, the hetman's regulations were largely based on the experience and needs of the Cossack army and became the first drill regulations in the Cossack formations of the Russian Empire.

The preparation of the corps of elect Cossacks to be sent to the fronts of the Seven Years' War, in addition to the problem of training, once again raised the question of their armament. Reviews of the Cossacks showed that some of them had only half of the required set of weapons, while its firearms consisted of dif­ferent types and different caliber rifles and pistols. Cossack units inspected in the summer of 1756 before departing for the Ukrainian line, showed evidence of hav­ing very low quality weapons and an almost complete unwillingness to use them, “because in that unit there are many Cossacks and, for the most part, are supplied with such defective weapons, that in some the cartridges are empty, and in some, even though with bullets, they are not the size needed for the weapon, so that they do not fit the weapon. In some, the cartridges were very small as against the caliber, and especially that in the case of some Cossacks, the powder in the shells and powder horns is old and has been ground into dust from that old age, so that it is extremely unfit for firing.”⁵⁹

The rearmament of rank-and-file Cossacks with carbines (ruchnytsi) in the i73os-4os, initiated by Hetman Danylo Apostol, gave only a temporary effect: without a proper production and repair base, many weapons failed, and those lost in campaigns and on the battlefields were not replaced with new supplies.⁶⁰ Despite this, the center immediately hastened to secure control over the distri­bution and production of weapons for the hetman's army. On 4 July 1751, the Mil­itary Collegium issued an order “On not producing in the irregular forces of guns and other weapons outside and without the knowledge of the Tula Armaments Chancellery.”⁶¹ Henceforth, all “arms” needs had to be addressed to the Collegium of Foreign Affairs, after which, through the agency of the Armaments Chancellery, contracts could be concluded with merchants and factories armaments plants.

The “Form” and “Military Training” of 1756 that we discussed above put the armament and fire training of rank-and-file Cossacks on a qualitatively new level. Now the combat readiness of the regiment and company were made directly de­pendent not only on the availability of the necessary weapons, but also on the ability of the Cossacks to use them, care for them, and maintain them in good condition. However, the ongoing supply of both firearms and cold weapons con­tinued to be decentralized and multifaceted. Despite St Petersburg’s directives, the colonels, with the approval of the hetman or the General Military Chancellery, independently concluded contracts with manufacturers and re-equipped or ad­ditionally equipped their regiments at their own discretion. In December 1760, Rozumovs'kyi issued an order confirming the right of regimental administrations to conclude contracts to ensure “military serviceability,” reserving only their ap­proval for himself.⁶² The process of re-armament, therefore, was not instanta­neous and took into consideration the different types of weapons and the state of the regimental treasuries.

Thus, in January 1756, the Hadiach Colonel Vasyl' Rozumovs'kyi ordered 1,500 single-caliber carbines from Tula, which were scheduled to replace the outdated and heavy Cossack carbines. The following year, the old models of the Tula car­bines were also deemed unfit for use by the general officers who reviewed the five-thousand-strong Cossack corps before it was sent to the front.⁶³ At the same time, the regimental administrations also turned their attention to the state of cold weapons: in 1759, the Lubny and Myrhorod regiments simultaneously, and a little later, the Hadiach regiment, began to conclude contracts for the supply of a uniform model of sabers. The reasons for and process of the rearmament itself can be clearly seen from the materials of the Hadiach regimental chan­cellery. In October 1759, the Hadiach regimental Aide-de-Camp losyf Sytens'kyi sent a report to the General Military Chancellery, in which he noted that “the sabers of all those elect Cossacks are hardly fit for military use: namely, first, they are of various models, such as those remakes from old Russian swords, old Polish, hussar, Don Cossack, and for the most part, Cossack swords of local Little Russian manufacture, simple without a handle and any other good setting, which have already been thrown out as useless; second, some are too short; third, some are too narrow; fourth, some curved and other completely straight sabres are made of simple and twisted iron by local craftsmen, are blunt, and many are broken and repaired, and providing no protection on the hilt.”⁶⁴ Meanwhile, according to the aide-de-camp, a Cossack needs a saber both in cavalry and infantry ranks that is “good, long, sharp, broad, and with sufficient swing.” “Without it,” wrote the aide-de-camp, “it is extremely hopeless for the Cossack to withstand the enemy for the following reasons: in battle with the enemy, it sometimes happens that often the gun misfires, or the sling or wind deflects volley of fire, or the wet weather creates obstacles in that the gun does not fire, or even if it fires, because of the enemy's bold attack, there is no time to recharge [the rifles], and the lance is sometimes knocked out of [the Cossack's] hand, or broken, or owing to the closeness of a rapid turn, he does not hit the target, or for some reason the Cos­sack experiences failure, as he loses his horse, gun, and lance, all that is left to the Cossack in such situations is to act with his sabre, which should always be in his sabre-knot.”⁶⁵ Citing the practice of the neighboring Lubny and Myrhorod reg­iments, Sytens'kyi asked that the new saber be “long, broad with a strong setting... comparable in length and stoutness to hussar sabers on Cossack belts.”⁶⁶

The choice of the final design of the saber, which was to serve as a model for all regiments, was made by the General Military Chancellery, which sent out the relevant samples in December 1759. However, there is every reason to believe that the desired uniformity was still not achieved. While the first batches of sabers, which were ordered at the beginning of the war, were modeled on hussar sabers, the later ones copied those of the dragoons. Thus, the sabers for the Chernihiv regiment ordered in Tula in 1763 had copper hilts and wooden grip, covered with leather and wrapped with copper wire. At the beginning of the 1760s, the regi­mental staffs were already concluding orders for the supply of carbines, sabers, and ammunition together. Thus, in December 1763, the Chernihiv regiment, fol­lowing the practice of the Nizhyn, Lubny, and Myrhorod regiments, concluded a contract with the Tula armorer Ivan Oslopov for the production of 1,706 car­bines, 32 pairs of pistols, 1,738 sabers, and 1,738 cartridge boxes. The cartridge boxes had a uniform appearance: a box for 22 cartridges with a lid made of a cop­per plate with the regimental coat of arms engraved on it and the inscription “Chernihiv Regiment.” The cartridge box (ladivnytsia) was worn on a red leather shoulder belt two fingers wide.⁶⁷

As in previous periods, the Cossacks had to rearm themselves at their own ex­pense, which immediately cooled the reformist fervor of the regimental author­ities. First of all, the price of weapons had increased significantly since the first half of the century. In addition, the Cossacks now had to buy not only guns, but also sabers and ammunition, and simultaneously have new uniforms sewn. In 1763, such a set cost the Chernihiv Cossacks 6 rubles, 60 kopecks, but could also cost much more. Thus, for example, a hussar saber for the Myrhorod-elect Cos­sacks cost alone 3 rubles.⁶⁸ The supply of necessary weapons was therefore slowed down by the collection of money from Cossack households and debts to con­tractors. The latter, in turn, after concluding lucrative contracts, were often unable to deliver the necessary equipment on schedule because of its absence at the plants, which, judging by everything, worked on such orders by the job with long breaks in between. The result of all this was that the rearmament of the Cossack regiments with uniform firearms and cold weapons once again stretched out in time, outliving the abolition of the Hetmanate and lasting until the beginning of the Russo-Turkish war of 1768-74.

In addition to weapons and equipment, the next attempt at uniformity in­volved Cossack clothing and military symbols, which became the most visible re­sults of the reforms of the 1750s and early 1760s for contemporaries. The famous chronicler of old-world life in the Hetmanate, Ivan Kotliarevs'kyi, wrote enthu­siastically in his Eneida (Aeneid):

Each unit was known by its city name,

The kozaks - by their headgear frame,

Each man, according to his height,

Received an overcoat in blue,

As well, a jacket, white and new;

To make him look a kozak-knight.⁶⁹

The importance of external changes also appealed to historians, overshadowing other, more significant aspects of the military reforms.

The time that passed after Cossack attire was “settled” by the reform of 1735 did not make any particular changes in the appearance of elect Cossacks. Their need to pay for their own clothing and ammunition, which depended directly on the financial capabilities of the Cossacks and their helpers, and the tedious and burdensome service at the outposts and the Ukrainian line, left concerns about clothing perhaps last on the list of worries of the registered Cossacks. Reviews of the units, which were conducted in the early 1750s, invariably showed that for real or made-up reasons, most of the Cossacks were unable to provide themselves with the necessary clothing because of “indigence and extreme poverty.” The het­man’s orders from the first years of Rozumovs'kyi’s reign did not particularly insist on perfection in the appearance of Cossacks, reminding them only to start out on campaigns in “acceptable clothing,” “the same one-color blue uniform as those other uniforms were.⁷⁰

With the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War, the hetman’s government once again had to make sure that the Cossacks setting out to the European theater of oper­ations wore decent clothes and did not shock the local inhabitants with their ap­pearance. The review of the five thousand-strong corps conducted in January 1757 by General Aide-de-Camp lakubovych, however, showed that the situation was far from comforting. The hetman ordered that all elect Cossacks must have a uniform, and the old and worn ones were to be re-sewn and re-faced. It is note­worthy that the effort to regulate Cossack uniforms enjoyed the special attention of those colonels who proved themselves to be zealous supporters of the “regu­larization” that was being implemented by Rozumovs'kyi. Thus, in 1759, Lubny Colonel Kuliabko ordered the rank-and-file Cossacks of his regiment to have, in addition to the drill uniform (stroiovyi mundyr) of cornflower blue cloth, also an everyday uniform, sewn from gray homespun cloth for duty travel and outpost service. Justifying his innovation, Kuliabko wrote that the elect fellows, “being in places beyond the Dnipro (zadniprskikh) [their uniforms] are used not so much as specified by decree, as in an improper and even more so in contraindicated manner, not only by Serbian officers, but by the rank and file, particularly in man­ual labor, such as for heating pipes in winter, cleaning horse stables, milling flour, pasturing livestock, and transporting firewood,” they wear out their combat uni­form “for futile and useless purposes.”⁷¹ Having weighed the correctness of these arguments, the General Military Chancellery ordered that all the other regiments also have a working uniform. When sending the separate Thousand squad to Prussia in 1760, all the Cossacks were ordered to have, in addition to their usual uniform, also a “Circassian gray, sewn in the Don [Cossack] style.”⁷²

More systematic changes with respect to the Cossack uniform came at the end of the war, when former court quartermaster (Hoffurier) of the imperial court Petro Myloradovych, an expert on the capital's court and guard fashions, was ap­pointed to the Chernihiv colonelcy. In August 1762, the newly fledged colonel submitted to Rozumovs'kyi a design of a Cossack officer's uniform (before this, the dress of strarshyna was never regulated, which was a manifestation of the sep­arateness and superiority of the social status of the Cossack elite). According to the proposal, which was approved by the hetman, uniforms were now to be worn by regimental starshyna, captains, and also court secretaries (sudovi pysari) and Cossack city chieftains (horodovi otamany). In general contours and colors, it re­sembled the Cossack uniform: a cornflower blue outer caftan with a red collar and lapels (velvet for the regimental starshyna and woolen cloth for the rest), dec­orated with three pairs of gold stripes in the middle of the sides and one pair under the collar; the caftan worn underneath was made of white cloth. This en­semble was supplemented by a red sash, with ends decorated with gold embroi­dery, hats with blue cloth tops and black lamb fur margins, as well as boots - black for “everyday” and red dress boots (“for church and solemn days”). Each officer had a cartridge box on a shoulder strap of gold braid (tas'ma) and a saber with a saber knot of gold and black silk threads.⁷³ The uniform of the fellows of the banner was to be similar to that of the starshyna, with the exception of four pairs of double-row stripes of gold braid instead of collar patches.

In August 1762, the Chernihiv regimental authorities ordered the rest of the company (sotnia) officers to have a uniform that was different from that of or­dinary Cossacks: the top coat (kuntush) of dark blue cloth (karun), with a collar like those on the uniform of a fellow of the banner, with a stripe of “a single gold braid,” an under caftan of white cloth, hats with tops of red cloth “in the Don Cossack style,” red woolen belts and black boots, and cartridge boxes with brass buckles engraved with the regimental coat of arms on a red silk braid. Ordinary Cossacks had to reverse and mend old uniforms, and if necessary, sew new ones from the same dark-blue cloth as the officers' uniform.

In addition to clothing, the Cossacks' and starshyna’s ammunition and equip­ment was also regulated,⁷⁴ including the general appearance and material of sad­dle girth, bridles, reins, and stirrups. Lances were made according to uniform models. A separate directive pertained to Cossack horses, which were supposed to be “kept in cleanliness, with good hay as feed and not pasture, and not be over­worked, and try as hard as possible to train them to be calm and not afraid of gunfire.”⁷⁵ It is interesting that these measures were aimed not only at polishing the Cossacks' appearance, but also at drill training, because the order was “to train those Cossacks drill, as prescribed by His Illustrious Highness, and espe­cially to load and fire respectably and quickly, and also to salute correctly, that is to present arms. And however many rank-and-file Cossacks live in the same household, train them all sufficiently... so that those on foot, in particular, can fire correctly and swiftly, as whole companies or as the companies divided into two, three, or four.”⁷⁶

The culmination in the process of unification came at the starshyna’s general assembly in 1763, which required each regiment to send tall Cossacks to Hlukhiv, for whom model uniforms were sewn and ammunition was produced that in general appearance and colors copied the ensembles described above, which had been approved on Myloradovych's initiative. The innovation was the introduction of the regimental color for the crowns of hats: red for Kyiv, Lubny, Poltava, and Chernihiv; blue for Pryluky; and green for the Nizhyn and Starodub regiments.⁷⁷

The next reform of clothing, again carried out at the expense of the Cossacks, progressed slowly. As evidenced by the materials from company chancelleries, the Cossacks often avoided sewing new things and buying ammunition, citing poverty or losses caused by recent crop failures. The hetman's orders to purchase white cloth for under caftans at the Novi Mlyny and Baturyn factories, which were owned by Rozumovs'kyi, were often ignored. Both the starshyna and the or­dinary Cossacks bought cheaper and more affordable fabrics instead of the “reg­ulation” ones, which ultimately negated the original intentions to uniformize the Cossack uniform in cut, color, and fabrics. The lack of centralized funding was exacerbated by the abuses of local authorities: captains, concerned about their own profits, concluded contracts for the production of caftans, coats (svyty), and hats without the consent of the Cossacks, almost forcibly charging them the cost of uniforms at clearly inflated prices.⁷⁸ It is worth noting here that the Cossacks, owing to their social psychology and habits, were themselves slow and reluctant to accept the introduction of new clothes. Thus, in July 1763, many Chernihiv Cossacks, who were the first and best uniformed in new attire of the other regi­ments of the Hetmanate, went on duty at outposts “without any uniforms, in simple coats.”⁷⁹ New clothes were saved for other occasions - general reviews and distant military campaign.

On the other hand, it is difficult to overestimate the symbolic significance of uniform reform in the context of Rozumovs'kyi's introduction and establishment of the “national style.” The basis of the Ukrainian army - the Cossack regiments - continued to maintain their traditional costume, which was organically con­nected to local traditions and way of life. At the same time, this style was subject to the new trends of the era - certain standards and unification, which, however, did not deprive it of its authenticity. It is significant that like the reformers of the Crown (Polish) and Lithuanian troops of the Commonwealth, Rozumovs'kyi did not introduce Western European uniforms for the Cossacks, dressing only his own guard in them, and opted for the traditional costume of the Cossack estate, making it uniform and adding rank symbols and insignia, as required by the needs of contemporary military practice.

Of particular significance in the context of the changes initiated under Rozu- movs'kyi's hetmancy was “small flag reform” (mala praporova reforma). The well- known Ukrainian vexillologist lurii Savchuk, who introduced the term, interprets it as a series of systematic uniformizations of regimental and company flags of a nationwide character (regulation by orders of the hetman and the centralized fi­nancing [at the expense of the Little Russian Treasury] of the production of reg­imental and company regalia) and scale (the preserved archival documents and museum exhibits serve as convincing evidence that the replacement of old flags with new models flags took place in at least a third of the companies in nine of the ten registered regiments).⁸⁰ According to his observations, the first harbingers that set a sort of standard for images that later spread throughout the Hetmanate were the company flags of the Nizhyn regiment. In March 1754, the Bakhmach company command applied to the hetman for permission to have a new company flag made. In response, an authorization came from Moscow, ordering the allo­cation of the necessary funds from the treasury, “and on that Bakhmach company flag there should be the coat of arms of the Little Russian Nation on the right side, and on the other side, that of the Bakhmach company that the company uses as a seal.”⁸¹ We have before us perhaps the first mention of the traditional coat of arms of the Zaporozhian Host - a Cossack with a musket - as the coat of arms not only of the Hetmanate, but also of the Ukrainian nation. From then on, the national style began to establish itself rapidly in virtually all segments of the material life of the Hetmanate - from military symbols to architecture, included.

Researchers have yet to adequately appreciate and analyze this symbolic ac­companiment of the outburst of Ukrainian autonomism, which in a dialogue with its imperial counterpart sought to assert the self-sufficiency and rootedness of its own particular, regional variety of autonomism. For us at this point it is significant and important that the symbolic separation of the national from the imperial began with the holy of holies of Cossack statehood, the core - its troops. A year later, on 8 March 1755, the hetman's new decree for the first time established uniform symbols for all company flags: “the company flags, if any company needs one, will be updated spending the necessary amount from the military treasury, laying out money for those flags without excess and transfer, and order that those flags bear the coat of arms of the Nation on the right side of the flag, and that of the company for whom the flag is being updated on the reverse side.”⁸² From 1754 to 1761, eight new company flags were sewn for the Nizhyn regiment, which had blue panels of standard size depicting the “decreed” images (in the companies that did not have their own seals, letters were drawn to indicate their names on the back of the panels instead of the coat of arms).⁸³

Concerns about the appearance of the rank-and-file Cossack corps at the be­ginning of the Seven Years' War accelerated the production of uniform flags in other regiments, as well. In May 1757, the General Military Chancellery gave per­mission to produce a new flag for the Syniavka company of the Chernihiv regi­ment, which was to be “constructed” according to the hetman's order of March 1755, featuring the company symbols on one side, and the “national coat of arms,” on the other. By 1762, a single design of new regalia was produced for at least five companies of the Chernihiv regiment.⁸⁴ We get an idea of the complete set of regimental flags (that is, the regimental flag and the company colors) from the correspondence with the General Military Chancellery of the Lubny regimental administration and the individual flags preserved in museum collections. In the spring of 1758, the newly appointed Lubny colonel Ivan Kuliabko asked for per­mission to make flags for the Kurinka and Zhovnyn companies, sending an “out­line” (drawing) to Hlukhiv for approval, “so that the same flags could be designed for the other companies.”⁸⁵ The obverse image with the “national coat of arms” was the coat of arms of the Zaporozhian Host - a Cossack with a musket and a saber, surrounded by a magnificent baroque cartouche, superimposed on a frame­work of flags, cannon, muskets, maces, and musical instruments; the reverse fea­tured the image of the regimental coat of arms - a hand outstretched from a cloud, holding a mace (pernach), framed by an identical cartouche and armature. A comparative analysis of two preserved flags (from the collection of the National Historical Museum of Ukraine), as well as descriptions of lost flags from the mu­seum catalogues of the Kremlin Armory and the Kyiv Museum of Church An­tiquities, conducted by lurii Savchuk, showed that all of them have significant differences in the character of the drawings, and especially in the inscriptions on the panels. Thus, for example, the flag attributed to the Sencha company of the Lubny regiment featured on the reverse side, in addition to the image of the al­leged company emblem in the form of a hand with a cross, supported by two an­gels, also verses (“Where Jesus suffers for the people, in the preservation of the mystery is our salvation. Look out before sinning, if someone is performing his duty”).⁸⁶ After restorers cleaned the image, they found that this drawing had con­cealed an earlier image of the regimental coat of arms - a hand with a mace. Ob­viously, numerous variations and deviations were also characteristic of the obverse images with the “national coat of arms.” Thus, for example, the flag of the Domontov company of the Pereiaslav regiment of 1762, sketched at the be­ginning of the nineteenth century by the amateur historian Dominique Pierre de la Flise, had two equally sized images of a Cossack with a sword (apparently, de la Flise confused it with a musket) and the Russian double-headed eagle on the front side; the inscription indicating the flag's ownership was placed not on the reverse side, as the hetman's orders usually prescribed, but along the perimeter of the front side.⁸⁷

Unfortunately, the materials of company and regimental administrations from the middle of the eighteenth century have been preserved extremely unevenly, so that in the absence of the relevant documents, it is difficult to say how full-scale and comprehensive the unification of Cossack flags was. The replacement of old flags with new ones proceeded as they naturally wore out and accelerated con­siderably during the Seven Years' War. At the same time, the lack of money in the treasury, the slowness of concluding contracts in the regiments, multiplied by the long search for the necessary consumable materials, made the production of new regalia anything but quick. It is safe to say that the Cossack regiments did not have time to renew all their regalia even after the end of the war, and this process lasted almost until the end of the 1760s.

Perhaps the most successful and systemic reforms were those of the artillery corps. During Rozumovs'kyi's reign, an attempt was made to concentrate the management of the general and regimental artilleries in the hands of the general quartermaster. In November 1751, the then general quartermaster Semen Kochu­bei submitted a report to the hetman, in which he described all the disadvantages of a decentralized artillery department. Citing the fact that from the time of Het­man Apostol's reign, the General Artillery was supplying the regimental artilleries with gunpowder, munitions, and horses, and allocating funds for the repair of cannon, for transport, and for training of personnel, yet had no control over them or assistance in return, Kochubei asked that all the income of the regimental ar­tilleries be transferred under his control, and “all those found in the regiments serving in the regimental and company artilleries as gunners... cannoneers, craftsmen. be ordered to be at my complete disposal and obey my orders in everything.”⁸⁸ Although this proposal (“in order to bring the regimental and com­pany artilleries to the best possible level of serviceability”) was approved by the hetman's order of 21 November 1751, it failed to result in the ultimate centraliza­tion of the administration and supply of the artillery.⁸⁹ At the same time, the or­ganization of artillery personnel was streamlined (cannoneers and gunners), who were formed into companies with a permanent staff, and the foundry yards in Hlukhiv were renovated, which began manufacturing uniform cannon for the regimental artillery.

Strategically important for the development of the artillery and the hetman's armed forces in general was the resumption of gunpowder production, which had been prohibited by the imperial government in 1742. The order to restore gunpowder production signed by Rozumovs'kyi on 29 March 1751 was apparently issued without prior permission, without the traditional “highest” approval. How­ever, the confrontation over the gunpowder monopoly did not end there, having received a new impetus after the coming to power of Catherine II. In January 1763, General Chief of the Artillery (Generalfeldzeugmeister) Alexander de Ville- bois wrote to Rozumovs'kyi to ask on what grounds “the Little Russians have per­mission in the matter of gunpowder,” and in response received a rather vague explanation that the Hetmanate has from the emperors “special affirmations, rights, and privileges by virtue of which it is permitted to use all domestic prod­ucts. freely and without encumbrance.” In January 1764, when circumstances tended to point to the abdication of the hetmancy by Rozumovs'kyi, the Senate sent the empress a request to resolve the “Little Russian gunpowder case,” which received an unequivocal resolution: “the Senate can solve this matter without me, by virtue of existing laws.”⁹⁰ On 30 January 1764, a decree was issued “on the destruction of the existing gunpowder factories in Little Russia and henceforth on the non-existence thereof, and on the delivery of gunpowder made in Moscow to the Little Russian troops.”⁹¹ This order was the final word in the empire's af­firmation of its monopoly on the production of strategically important ammu­nition munitions and control over their distribution, forever depriving the hetman's armed forces of an independent material base, and therefore prospects for development.

Meanwhile, the conditions for Rozumovs'kyi's turbulent reformist activity had changed. The ascension to the Russian throne of the new Empress Catherine II did not initially affect Ukrainian affairs - Rozumovs'kyi had been her friend for a long time. The situation was changed by the assembly of the starshyna, which gathered in Hlukhiv in the fall of 1763 to begin the tradition of “Cossack Diets.” The newly formed starshyna parliament approved a petition that reminded St Petersburg of the contractual nature of its relations with Ukraine and asked to secure the right to inherit the hetman's mace by the Rozumovs'kyi family, which constituted an open challenge to imperial centralism. The matter was settled without much fanfare - the Russian troops in the Hetmanate were put on alert, and the uncrowned Cossack “monarch” was summoned to the capital, where he was persuaded to voluntarily renounce the hetmancy. This position remained vacant for some time, until in November 1764 Catherine II signed a decree that eliminated it forever. Many historians interpreted the abolition of the hetmancy as a consequence of Catherine II's irritation with the Rozumovs'kyi family's dy­nastic claims. In fact, this was a pretext, while the true reasons were hidden in fears of the strengthening of the Hetmanate as a result of reforms, with the prospect of turning it into a separate Little Russian Principality under the rule of the Rozumovs'kyis.

Translated from the Ukrainian by Marta Skorupsky

NOTES

Originally published as Oleksii Sokyrko, “Viis'kovi reformy za het'manuvan- nia Kyryla Rozumovs'koho, 1750-1764 rr.,” in Ukrams'ka derzhava druho'i polovyny XVII-XVIIIst.:polityka, suspil'stvo, kul’tura, ed. Valerii Smolii (Kyiv, 2014), 359-84. Copyright 2014 by nasu Institute of History of Ukraine. Translated and reprinted with permission.

1 Tsentral’nyi derzhavnyi istorychnyi arkhiv Ukrainy v m. Kyievi (Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kyiv; hereinafter tsdiauk), f. 269, op. 1, spr. 2, ark. 2-2 zv. Needless to say, a fierce struggle for influence and future grants was underway among the starshyna leadership in anticipation of the hetman's arrival in the capital. Thus, Val'kevych and Skoropads'kyi tried to remove General Judge lakym Horlenko from the General Military Court, accusing him of negligence, and to replace him with a temporary Collegium of Governors from among their confidants (Ibid., ark. 30-30 zv., 37-8).

2 A more or less integral study of the Cossack military of the Rozumovs'kyi period is Oleksii Putro's, “Ukrains'ke kozats'ke viis'ko,” Kyivs 'ka starovyna 6 (1997): 3-33; 7 (1998): 3-25.

3 D.N. Bantysh-Kamenskii, Biografii rossiiskikh generalissimusov i general- fel’dmarshalov (St Petersburg, 1840), 1:240-54.

4 The control by the Rozumovs'kyi brothers, Oleksii and Kyrylo, simultane­ously of two units of the Imperial guard opened another channel for Ukraini­ans to enter imperial service and at the same time launched the formation of one more network of their clients. In the middle of the eighteenth century, as a result of two palace coups, the imperial guard finally turned into a Praeto­rian corps, all the ranks of which were linked not only by official but also

by personal ties with various high government officials and court parties.

Researchers rightly point out that in the coup of 1741, the guards were not just extras and executors of the will of the nobles, but also full-fledged actors in it. This was facilitated by the behavior of Elizabeth, who for many years paid a lot of attention to the guard regiments. Not only was the empress friendly with officers, but she also did not disdain the company of non-commissioned officers and ordinary soldiers, to whom she generously gave money, attended their weddings, and christened their children. This played a significant role in the events of the November revolution: the guard did not follow abstract slo­gans, but “their” empress, the daughter of the legendary Peter I. The appoint­ment of Rozumovs'kyi as the commander of the regiment (the real colonels and chiefs were traditionally members of the imperial family, as was Elizabeth Petrovna herself at that time) can be considered indicative and symptomatic. Founded in 1730, the Izmailovskii Lifeguard Regiment was a unit formed by a decree issued by Anna Ioannovna that was supposed to become a kind of counterweight to the “old” imperial guard, which was characterized by hostil­ity to the Empress and her minions. However, from the beginning of its existence, the regiment had a significant number of “Little Russians” and “Ukrainians” in its ranks - homesteaders (odnodvirtsi) and soldiers from the Kyiv gubernia and the regiments of the Ukrainian Land Militia (landmilitsiia) (A.V. Viskovatov, Istoricheskoe obozrenie leib-gvardii Izmailovskogo polka. 1730­1850 [St Petersburg, 1851], 2-5; N.A. Znosko-Borovskii, Istoriia leib-gvardii Iz­mailovskogo polka: 1730-1880 [St Petersburg, 1882], 5-6). This factor, of course, may have played an additional role in the nomination of Rozumovs'kyi, but Elizabeth's desire to put the supporters of the former empress and the Ger­man court party under the close control of her “own” person clearly weighed no less. Judging from everything, a traditional model of patron-client rela­tions, typical for the army milieu of the time, had emerged in the regiment during Rozumovs'kyi's time (1748-96).

The commander was a high-level patron of the officer corporation, a fa­ther-protector and defender of non-commissioned officers and soldiers, who at the same time took little part in the daily life of the regiment, which was actually run by his trusted representatives, not necessarily from the military establishment. Thus, denunciations from the beginning of the 1750s accused the hetman's close advisor and assistant Grigorii Teplov of monopolizing all promotions and appointments to positions in the regiment (A. Vasil'chikov, Semeistvo Razumovskikh v5 tomakh [St Petersburg, 1880-94], 1: 107).

5 The Saxon diplomat Pezold wrote about Chancellor Vorontsov and the older Rozumovs'kyi brother, Oleksii, as people who “have no idea of military mat­ters” (“Doneseniia sekretaria posol'stva Petsol'da s ianvaria 1742 po mart 1744 g.,” in Sbornik imperatorskogo russkogo istoricheskogo obshchestva; hereafter sirio [Moscow, 1873], 6: 396).

6 S.V. Andriainen, Imperiia proektov: gosudarstvennaia deiatel'nost'P.I. Shuval­ova (St Petersburg, 2001), 149-70.

7 L.G. Beskrovnyi, Russkaia armiia i flot v XVIII veke (Moscow, 1958), 304-9; V.A. Zolotarev, M.N. Mezhevich, and D.E. Skorodumov, Vo slavu otechestva rossiiskogo (Razvitie voennoi mysli i voennogo iskusstva Rossii vo vtoroi polovine 18 v.) (Moscow, 1984), 106-7.

8 tsdiauk, f. 269, op. 1, spr. 70, ark. 3.

9 Ibid., f. 269, op. 1, spr. 115, ark. 2; spr. 275, ark. 2-2 zv., 4.

10 Instytut rukopysu Natsional’nol biblioteky Ukrainy im. V.I. Vernads ’koho (Manuscript Institute of V.I. Vernads'kyi National Library of Ukraine; hereinafter - ir nbu), f. 8, spr. 538, ark. 1-7.

11 Ibid., art. 8-8 zv.

12 Ibid., ark. 10-10 zv.

13 Ibid., ark. 11 zv.-12.

14 Ibid., ark. 12 zv.

15 Ibid., f. 8, spr. 2267, ark. 52; f. 61, spr. 1084, ark. 11-11 zv.

16 ir nbu, f. 61, spr. 1084, ark. 10 zv.; Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (Moscow, 1875), 7: 285, 290-1.

17 ir nbu, f. 61, spr. 1084, ark. 10 zv.

18 Rozumovs kyi had tried to raise this matter as far back as in March 1756, but his report was scheduled “to be presented at a general meeting” no sooner than in July, when military preparations were in full swing, and the matter had to wait its turn until the fall, when an urgent need arose in this respect (ir nbu, f. 61, spr. 1084, ark. 15).

19 Both documents, borrowed by O. Lazarevs'kyi from the Sulimovskii arkhiv. Famil'nye bumagi Sulim, Skorup i Voitsekhovichei. XVII-XVIII v., were pub­lished in 1884 in Kievskaia starina (the excerpt was cited even earlier by

O. Shafons'kyi in his Chernigovskogo namestnichetva topografichekoe opisanie s kratkim geograficheskim i istoricheskim opisaniem Maloi Rossii [Kyiv, 1851]), but omitting some important details, in particular, the division of ranks into classes (See “Malorossiiskie chiny i dolzhnosti i oklad ikh soderzhaniia,” Kievskaia starina 6 [1883]: 381-5). Another “Report on the Little Russian starshyna” which is in the Kharkiv Archive of Ancient Documents, was cited by D. Miller (Ocherki iz istorii i iuridicheskogo byta staroi Malorossii. Pre- vrashchenie kazatskoi starshiny v dvorianstvo [Kyiv, 1897], 17-18). They all contain differences and variant readings, which is why we cite the text from yet another report from the middle of the eighteenth century, found in O. Kistiakovs'kyi's collection (ir nbu, f. 61, spr. 1084, ark. 13 zv-15).

20 Miller, Ocherki iz istorii i iuridicheskogo byta staroi Malorossii, 18-20.

21 Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv drevnikh aktov (Russian State Archive of Ancient Documents, hereinafter - rgada), f. 13, op. 1, d. 55, ll. 1-2 zv.

22 Ibid., ark. 3 zv.

23 Ibid., ark. 3.

24 S. Troitskii, “Komissiia o vol'nosti dvorianstva 1763 g.,” in S.M. Troitskii, Rossiia vXVIII veke: Sbornik statei ipublikatsii (Moscow, 1982), 145-6.

25 Ibid., 145-7.

26 rgada, f. 13, op. 1, d. 55, ll. 15-20. The commission's researcher S. Troitskii lost sight of this page in the history of the commission's activity, because the materials from the hearings on the “Little Russian” matter were removed from the funds of Catherine Il's Cabinet and the Sixteenth Razriad (fund) of the State Archive of the Russian Empire, where most of the commission's paperwork was held, and were included in the funds-collection “Dela ob Ukraine” (f. 13) of rgada.

27 Ibid., ark. 9-11 zv.

28 Ibid., ark. 21-2 zv.

29 Ibid., ark. 22.

30 Troitskii, “Komissiia o vol'nosti dvorianstva 1763 g.,” 189-92.

31 tsdiauk, f. 51, op. 3, spr. 11304, ark. 4.

32 Ibid., spr. 12519, ark. 2.

33 Ibid., spr. 17664, ark. 2.

34 Ibid., f. 269, op. 1, spr. 4543, ark. 2.

35 Ibid., f. 54, op. 3, spr. 527, ark. 1.

36 Ibid., f. 269, op. 1, spr. 3997, ark. 2.

37 Ibid., spr. 4543, ark. 2 zv.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid., f. 51, op. 3, spr. 11389, ark. 1-9, 11.

40 Ibid., f. 269, op. 1, spr. 1039, ark. 2-2 zv., 3-4.

41 Ibid., ark. 13-13 zv.

42 Ibid., f. 51, op. 3, spr. 10762, ark. 2; spr. 11702, ark. 15-17; spr. 12906, ark. 10 zv.

43 Ibid., spr. 11641, ark. 3-4.

44 Ibid., ark. 5-5 zv.

45 Vasil'chikov, Semeistvo Razumovskikh, 1: 161. It is noteworthy that Rozu- movs'kyi was accompanied by the officers who were most familiar with the state of governance of the country; it is also known that the hetman inspected the fortifications.

46 tsdiauk, f. 108, op. 2, spr. 236, ark. la-ia zv.

47 Arkhiv kniaza Vorontsova, 3: 493.

48 Ibid., 511.

49 tsdiauk, f. 51, op. 3, spr. 14411, ark. 2-2 zv.

50 This trend applied not only to Ukrainian and Sloboda Cossacks but also to other irregular military formations. It was not until the mid-i77os that a course was set for the massive use of Cossack corps and coordination of their actions with the field army, the provision of artillery, and so forth (Zolotarev, Mezhevich, and Skorodumov, Vo slavu otechestva rossiiskogo, 58).

51 Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova, 7: 326.

52 Ibid., 3: 515, 524-5.

53 Vasil'chikov, Semeistvo Razumovskikh, 1: 207.

54 tsdiauk, f. 269, op. 1, spr. 1971, ark. 54, 63, 76.

55 Ibid., ark. 156.

56 Ibid., f. 108, op. 2, spr. 498, ark. 1a.

57 Ibid., ark. 2.

58 The originals of the instruction are held in tsdiauk, f. 108, op. 2, spr. 498, ark. 3-3 zv., 4-4 zv.; for the publication and analysis of the texts see O. Sokyrko, “Mushtrovi statuty het'mans'koho viis'ka 1756 roku,” Kyivs 'ka starovyna 5 (2005): 67-81.

59 tsdiauk, f., 51, op. 3, spr. 14141, ark. 2, 5.

60 For greater detail about this, see O. Sokyrko, “'Malorosiis'ka ruchnytsia' i pereozbroiennia kozats'koho viis'ka 1728-1750 rr.,” Kyivs 'ka starovyna 6 (2005): 3-12.

61 S. Slavutych, “Ozbroiennia kozats'koho viis'ka Het'manshchyny u XVIII st.,” in Viis’kovo-istorychnyi al'manakh 1 (16) (Kyiv, 2008), 140.

62 Ibid., 144.

63 tsdiauk, f. 51, op. 3, spr. 14054, ark. 43, 44.

64 Ibid., spr. 15839, ark. 2-2 zv.

65 Ibid., ark. 2 zv.

66 Ibid.

67 Slavutych, “Ozbroiennia kozats'koho viis'ka Het'manshchyny u 18 st.,” 146.

68 tsdiauk, f. 51, op. 3, spr. 15839, ark. 7.

69 Ivan P. Kotliarevs'kyi, Eneida, trans. Bohdan Melnyk, 1st ed. (Toronto, 2004), 146.

70 S. Slavutych, “Do istorii kozats'koho mundyru v Het'manshchyni,” in Viis’kovo- istorychnyi al 'manakh 2 (19) (2009): 90-1. The Military Collegium sent all the irregular troops special regulations that prescribed a uniform color of cloth from which the uniforms were to be sewn.

71 Ibid., 72-3.

72 Ibid.,

73 tsdiauk, f. 108, op. 2, spr. 658, ark. ia-2; Slavutych, “Do istorii kozats'koho mundyru v Het'manshchyni,” 1 (20), 73-4.

74 tsdiauk, f. 108, op. 2, spr. 658, ark. 2 zv.

75 Ibid., ark. 3.

76 Ibid., ark. 2.

77 Slavutych, “Do istorii kozats'koho mundyru v Het'manshchyni,” 1 (20), 75.

78 Ibid., 74-5, 79.

79 tsdiauk, f. 108, op. 2, spr. 732, ark. 15.

80 Iu. Savchuk, “K voprosu o znamennoi reforme K. Razumovskogo 1755-1764 gg.,” in Vos 'maia Vserossiiskaia numizmaticheskaia konferentsiia, Moskva, 17-21 aprelia 2000 g.: Tezisy dokladov i soobshchenii (Moscow, 2000), 217-19.

81 Iu. Savchuk, “Z istorii formuvannia praporovykh tradytsii Nizhyns'koho polku (druha polovyna XVIII st.),” in Spetsial 'ni istorychni dystsypliny: pytannia teorii ta metodyky (Kyiv, 2004), 11:56-7.

82 tsdiauk, f. 51, op. 3, spr. 12121, ark. 25.

83 Savchuk, “Z istorii formuvannia praporovykh tradytsii Nizhyns'koho polku,” 81.

84 lu. Savchuk, “Sotenni prapory Chernihivs'koho polku druhoi polovyny XVIII st.” in Spetsial 'ni istorychni dystsypliny: pytannia teorii ta metodyky (Kyiv, 2005), 12:6-25.

85 lu. Savchuk, “Natsional'nyi herb ta formuvannia prapornychoi tradytsii v Ukraini-Het'manshchyni (na materialakh Lubens'koho polku XVIII st.),” in Ukraina kriz viky: Zbirnyk naukovychprats’ na poshanu akademika nan Ukrainy profesora Valeriia Smoliia (Kyiv, 2010), 1075-6.

86 Ibid., 1084.

87 D.P. delia Fliz [Dominique Pierre de la Flise], Al bomy (Kyiv, 1996) 1:127.

88 TsDiAUK, f. 51, op. 3, spr. 10108, ark. 99-99 zv.

89 Ibid., ark. 100.

90 Ekstrakt iz ukazov, instruktsii i uchrezhdenii s razdeleniem po materiiam na deviatnadtsiat' chastei... 1786goda (Chernihiv, 1902), 276-7.

91 TsDiAUK, f. 269, op. 1, spr. 4147, ark. 2.