SECTION A ETHNIC STRUCTURE OF THE POPULATION
The rule of the hetmans of the Zaporozhian Army did not extend over the whole ethnic territory of the Ukrainian people. The southern boundary of this ethnic territory corresponded with the southern frontiers of Ukrainian settlements in the seventeenth century.
The regions to the south of it, which later were organized as the provinces of Kherson and Katerynoslav, and the northern part of the future province of Taurida and, still further to the southeast, the Kuban Valley, which in our time are populated by the Ukrainians — were not at that time settled by the Ukrainian people (with the single exception of the narrow enclave of Ukrainian lands that ba- Ionged to the Zaporozhian Host).Outside the territory of the Hetman state were the large regions of western Ukraine. These areas to the west of the Horyn and Mu- rakhva valleys remained the provinces of the Polish state. The denationalization (Polonization) of the upper classes of West Ukrainian society — the nobility and townspeople — progressed further in these areas. Only the peasants, at that time the serfs of the Polish or Polonized owners of manorial estates, preserved their language and ways of life. Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s promise ”to drive the Poles away across the Vistula,” which, in fact, was a programme for the complete unification of whole Ukraine of his time, went beyond his resources and those of his successors. In the east the boundary of Hetman Ukraine also did not correspond to the ethnic frontier of Ukrainian settlements. In fact, the ethnic Ukrainian boundary lay much farther to the east and spread over the wide steppes of the Slobodian Ukraine which had recently been colonized by Ukrainian settlers. These ethnic Ukrainian regions had never been ruled by the Ukrainian hetmans and constituted an integral part of the Russian state. We shall later describe their social structure and governmental system.
After the downfall of Hetman rule in Right-Bank Ukraine the territory of the Ukrainian state was limited by the boundaries of the future Chernihiv and Poltava provinces, while the major part of Ukraine remained beyond the limits of this state and outside the rule and influence of its leaders.
Still the programme of the unification of the nation was evidently never forgotten by the hetmans of the Ukrainian state. That can explain Ivan Samoilovych’s efforts to retain rule over the whole ςpntral and eastern Ukraine even after the division of Ukrainian lands was proclaimed by the Andrusovo Treaty between Russia and Poland in 1667. That can also explain Hetman Ivan Mazepa’s attempts, against the Russian Government’s explicit orders, to incorporate into his state the regions of Right-Bank Ukraine which were repopulated and where the Cossack organization, under the rule of their own colonels, was temporarily restored. These plans and efforts failed as a result of an unfavourable political situation and insufficient military strenght.
While the Ukrainian state of the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries could not unite in its boundaries all the regions populated by the Ukrainians, it nevertheless included some parts and areas with a non-Ukrainian population. Among these was the above-mentioned Belorussian Cossack Regiment, which existed during a short period (1655-1659) and was not directly ruled by the organs of the Ukrainian Government. Another, though comparatively small Belorussian territory, was included into Hetman Ukraine as its integral part; this was the large part of the Starodub region and the northern parts of the future province of Chernihiv. These areas still preserve their Belorussian nature. Before the establishment of the Hetman State they belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania; some of these regions were later united in the Starodub Regiment. Ukrainian historiography has never completely understood the special nature of these regions. Surely, the ethnic structure of the population was different here.
The ethnic variance resulted in some centrifugal tendencies; such as the attempt of P. Roslavets, the Colonel of the Staro- dub Regiment, to break away from Hetman Ukraine. Later the upper classes of this ethnically Belorussian region actively participated in the socio-political affairs of Hetman Ukraine. However, this region was incorporated into Hetman Ukraine from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania’s Belorussian ethnic lands. They had not participated in the Cossack struggle of the preceeding period against Poland. In fact, in the earlier period there were no Cossacks and no Cossack organizations here. The Cossack organization was established only after the incorporation of these regions into the Ukrainian state. This new Cossack organization always exhibited special features. The area of the Starodub Regiment was the place where the old social relations of the Polish-Lithuanian period remained in many aspects intact. Consequently, when Hetman Ukraine began the restoration of a social system based on hereditary classes, this region very much influenced the process and determined its forms.Among other non-Ukrainian elements we can mention the settlements of Russian refugees from religious persecution. We have in mind the ’’Old Believers” and their villages (posady) in the Belorussian north of Hetman Ukraine. They opposed their former rulers and therefore remained the loyal citizens of the Hetman State. It is not possible to find a single case of a revolt or a conspiracy of these refugees against the Ukrainian Government, or for that matter of their effort to look for the assistance of the Russian state. Among the ethnically non-Ukrainian elements of the population we should also name the Tatar war prisoners from the Crimea — those who wished to settle in Ukraine had' to accept Christianity. Most of them quickly adopted the Ukrainian way of life. The regiments of mercenaries (kompaniis’ki polky) often included many foreigners. At first these regiments were the remainders of the Belorussian military units which retreated into Ukraine after the defeat of the Belorussian Cossacks (the units of Murashka, Konstantinov, and others).
Later we find in these regiments many Serbians and Rumanians. There were only a few Germans, although Germans were the principal foreign mercenaries in the armed forces of Russia and Poland (as in many other European countries). As a rule, service in such regiments of the Ukrainian Hetman was for these foreign elements just a transitory stage; later many of them married Ukrainian women and settled in one of the administrative regions of the Ukrainian state entering, at the same time, one of its hereditary social groups. Some of them joined the ranks of the Ukrainian upper class and sometimes even played an outstanding role in Ukrainian public affairs (for instance, Colonel Voitsa Serbin and noble army fellow Panteleimon Radich were emigres from Serbia; Judge General Basil Kochubei was of Tatar origin, Daniel Apostol, a hetman in the eighteenth century, was of Rumanian origin, and Philip Orlyk, the Ukrainian hetman in exile after the defeat of Ivan Mazepa, came to Ukraine from the Vilna region in Belorussia, etc.). Members of the Jewish people could become Ukrainian citizens if they were baptized and adopted Christianity. Some of them did just that and the descendants of Hertsyks, Markovychs, and Kryzhaniv- skys held the leading posts in the Ukrainian state (Nastia Markovych was hetman Ivan Skoropadsky’s wife and was known for her energy and influence). In general, however, Hetman Ukraine was a state populated predominantly by Ukrainians, and did not practice legal discrimination based on the ethnic origin of its citizens.But religious denominations were not treated equally. The seventeenth to eighteenth century was not a time of religious tolerance. It did not exist in Ukraine, especially as the establishment of the Ukrainian state was a result of a religious as well as a national struggle. As a rule the population had to belong to the Eastern Orthodox Church. Members of the ethnic groups who belonged to a non-Chris- tian church (the Jews or Moslems) could live in Hetman Ukraine only after they were baptized. The Catholics (of ’’Latin” i. e. Roman as well as Eastern rites) were not permitted to reside in Ukraine. Especially, the Catholic Church of the Eastern Rite was prohibited in Hetman Ukraine by special treaties, among them the Hadiach Treaty with Poland in 1658. An exception to the strict rules against other churches was a tolerant attitude to the above-mentioned Russian ’’Old Believers” who found in Hetman Ukraine an asylum protecting them from persecution in their own country.