SECTION D THE COSSACKS
Most of the ordinary Cossacks remained in the ranks of a special social group which could not be found in the other European countries of that time. It is true that in the seventeenth century there were in the Russian state also special groups of servicemen — the riflemen (strel’tsy), artillerymen (puskhari), cavalrymen (reitary), and others.
They also occupied an intermediate position between the noble owners of landed estates and the peasants of free villages (chernye volosti). But there the society had not concluded the process of establishing larger hereditary groups and, when it did in the eighteenth century, these special groups were eliminated. It could be expected that later this special Ukrainian social group (the Cossacks) would also be absorbed into other hereditary classes of Ukrainian society but that did not happen.In the seventeenth century the ordinary Cossacks were, in principle, the same servicemen as the noble army fellows. Like the noble army fellows they participated in the military campaigns of this period. Their number was fairly large. A great number of the townspeople and, even more, the peasants enlisted in the Cossack Army during the Bohdan Khmelnytsky Rebellion against Poland. In theory, when the uprising gained victory and the new Ukrainian state was established, the whole Cossack class (the old ’’registered” Cossacks of the pre-revolutionary period were now in the minority) should have taken over the place and position of the upper social group. However, as we noted already, it was a rather difficult task for them to provide the new state with military and civil services while personally attending to their small farms. Because of their relatively great number, the Cossacks could not be supported by the dependent peasantry. The heavy responsibility of defending Hetman Ukraine against her powerful and better organized neighbours had to be carried out by the Cossacks themselves.
But in most cases each Cossack was an ordinary peasant who tilled his land with his own hands and whose frequent and long absence from work ruined his farmstead. This explains the relative instability of the Ukrainian Cossack units during the long campaigns, and their decreasing number immediately after the victory of the Bohdan Khmelnytsky Rebellion. rThis situation explains also the consistent efforts of some hetmans — in the first place Peter Doroshenko, Ivan Samoilovych, and Ivan Mazepa — to establish a standing army of sorts, with military units of permanent character. Their members were not connected with and supported by the lands and farmsteads. As a result, during the military campaigns they did not long to return to the farms which were falling into decay. As these professional soldiers did not possess landed estates and farms, they — the units of mercenaries — had to be paid for their service. Under the conditions of a predominatly natural economy the remuneration and upkeep of these forces was very difficult. We shall see later that in the late seventeenth century it became one of the most important problems of internal policy for the Ukrainian Government. We are talking here about the kompaniis’ki (also known as serdiuts’kj, okhochekomonni, zholdats’ki, etc.) regiments and squadrons. The servicemen of these military units sometimes were also called the ’’Cossacks.” But we have to distinguish them from the Ukrainian Cossacks as a hereditary class because, as a rule, these hired ’’Cossacks” did not belong to the Cossack social group. Often they included some foreign elements. While in Poland and Russia the mercenary units were mostly composed of German soldiers, in Ukraine they included at first many Belorussian Cossacks who retreated to Ukraine after their defeat in 1659; later many Serbians and Rumanians (Moldavians) were recruited.
As a separate hereditary class‘the Ukrainian Cossacks should be distinguished from the peasantry (a lower social group) and the noble army fellows (an upper social class).
During the Bohdan Khmelnytsky Rebellion many Ukrainian peasants enlisted in the Cossack Army and not a few remained as members of the Cossack class. Soon, however, the enlistment was limited (particularly from the villages which belonged to the monasteries) but occasionally it was still possible to enlist, especially when a peasant married a Cossack girl or widow and became a member of her family’s farmstead. Further development of the class structure of the society and further increased separation of social groups led to the prohibition of movement from class to class (the ’’Hetman Articles” of 1669, 1672, and 1687). The archival materials show indeed «that beginning from the later seventeenth century it was more and more difficult for a peasant to join the Cossack class and enlist in the Cossack Army.It was much easier for a Cossack to enter the peasant class. The service to the state was a heavy burden for many a Cossack who was often willing to join the lower class of peasantry. It is interesting to note that the Russian authorities acted to prevent this. When it was able to directly interfere into the domestic affairs of the Hetman Ukraine, the Moscow government by an edict of April 16, 1723 prohibited such a change in the class position of the Cossacks. Later this prohibition was confirmed by the edicts of July 16, 1728 and January 8, 1739. The last edict also prohibited the purchase and seizure of Cossack farmsteads by noble army fellows and officers of the Cossack Army.
These edicts of the Russian Government tried to arrest the development of social relations in Hetman Ukraine leading to the decline of the Cossack class. The eighteenth century Russian empire needed the Ukrainian Cossacks as a source of manpower. The Cossacks were used not only as military units (in this period they became more and more auxiliaries of Russian military establishments) but as a labour force used for the construction of canals, ports, fortifications, etc. This situation, however, increased the efforts of not a few of the Cossacks to join the peasantry, to sell their plots to the members of the upper class and, in the end, to become the serfs of the noblemen and landowners. The leader of the Russian populist historians, V.
Miakotin, had already established in his works that this process of the enserfment of the Cossacks was in most cases voluntary. Despite the Russian edicts the Cossacks very often contrived to avoid the prohibition against lowering their class position, and their transition to the peasantry continued through the whole eighteenth century. It was especially intensive in the period of the lesser dependency of Ukraine during the rule of Hetman C. Rozumovsky (Razumovsky).In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the process of Cossack subjection to the noble army fellows and Cossack officers sometimes involved the attachment of several Cossacks to some noble army fellows (especially the standard and army fellows) or to some Cossack officers for assistance and service during the military and administrative assignments of the latter. These Cossacks became the kurinchiki (retainers or orderlies) of some members of the upper class. In. 1735 the Russian Government eliminated this group in an effort to prevent a reduction of the Cossack ranks.
In the seventeenth century the heavy load of Cossack duties was partly lightened by the formation of a group of the pidsusidky (Cossack ’’neighbours”) — peasants who helped the Cossacks in their farming. In the eighteenth century these ’’neighbours” became the serfs of those Cossacks who entered the upper social group; at the same time the ordinary Cossacks lost their right to such assistance. Indeed the Russian government realized that the Cossacks, in order to perform their military and labour duties without ruining their farmsteads, needed some help. Thus it decided to divide the Cossacks into two groups — those who perform their service and those who only assist them. The reform was carried out in 1734. The Cossacks were divided into vyborni kozaky (selected Cossacks) and pidpomichnyky (helper Cossacks). Only the first of them, who possessed better farmsteads, participated in military campaigns.
We already mentioned the transition of many Cossacks into the peasantry.
But we should also mention the transfer of some of them to the socially higher groups of the noble army fellows. If we examine the komputs (rosters) of the noble army fellows, especially the banner fellows, we shall see that some of them, even in the eighteenth century, came from the Cossack class. For instance the komput of 1742 shows us that from twenty-five to thirty percent of the banner fellows came from the ordinary Cossacks. In the Regiment of Poltava, the region of lesser social differentiation, this proportion increases to sixty-two percent. That shows that the Ukrainian hereditary classes were not completely closed and separated social categories (otherwise they would have become castes) and that movement (up or down) was possible for the Cossacks.We should mention some particular groups of the Cossack class. Among them we can name the StriVtsi (riflemen) and ÚîÜãîѵïóêó (beaver hunters). The ÚîÜãîѵïóêó had to hunt beavers (the most valuable game of that time) and the StriVtsi had to supply the hetman’s palace or the households of the colonels with other game. Performance of these special services relieved these groups from usual Cossack duties, especially from participation in military campaigns. There were a number of large settlements of these special Cossack groups in the northern part of Hetman Ukraine (the regi- merits of Starodub and Chernihiv). There were also some lesser groups of the Cossacks. Staienni kozaky (the equerries) cared for the hetman’s stables. The palubnychi were Cossacks who cared for the palyby — the wagons and carriages of military transport. The armashi (artillerists) also constituted a special group. At the same time all these special categories were parts of the whole Cossack social class and their legal and social positions were on the whole determined by the overall status of the whole Cossack group.
We should also mention the dvoriany (household attendants) of the Ukrainian hetmans. Russian dvoriany — the court retainers of princes (and, later, tsars) gave their name — dvorianstvo to the entire hereditary group of the Russian nobility.
In Hetman Ukraine, on the contrary, the dvoriany were just the house attendants and other servants of hetmans. Therefore their name had rather an occupational than a social meaning. In some cases a hetman’s dvorianyn could belong to the lower layer of the upper social group; in other cases he could be a member of the Cossack class.In 1783, when the Russian government put an end to the autonomy of Hetman Ukraine, it also did away with the military and territorial-administrative organization of the Ukrainian Cossacks. The Cossack regiments and hundreds were abolished. In the newly created Chernihiv and Poltava guberniias (provinces) of the Russian Empire the Cossacks remained a special social class whose members had to serve in the ten ’’carabinier” regiments of the Russian army.
As we see, the Cossack class of Hetman Ukraine was a special social group of this state. But the historical development of the Ukrainian state led to a progressive decline of this class; and its complete disintegration was in the end prevented by the government of Russia. This class had done great services to its country. In numerous difficult struggles against Poland it won the freedom of a large section of Ukraine. It defended the new state during the first decades of its history. Therefore the Ukrainian Cossacks became the acknowledged representatives and protectors of national interests. When the Cossacks were divided in the ordinary Cossacks and the noble army fellows, as the new upper social class, they passed on the leadership to a social group whose members were Cossacks by origin. As a result Cossack Ukraine was still alive in the late seventeenth and in the eighteenth centuries even if its society and government had been changed in many aspects.