The Decline of Ukrainian Autonomy

After the failure of Mazepa’s plans, the Ukrainians were put on the defensive. Nonetheless, the absorption of the Hetmanate into the Russian Empire was a long drawn-out process. Not all Russian rulers in the 18th century were such dedicated centralizers as Peter I.

Basically, Russian centralizing policies in Ukraine had three goals: (l) to coerce the Ukrainian elite and general populace into complete obedience; (2) to coordinate Ukrainian government, economy, and culture with those of Russia; and (3) to extract the maximum from Ukraine’s human and economic resources. It should be noted that Ukraine was not unique in this respect, for the tsarist government applied the same policies in the other lands bordering the empire and in the Russian heartland as well. Ivan Skoropadsky (1708–22)

Although Skoropadsky was implicated in Maze-pa’s plans and committed to Ukrainian autonomy, Peter I agreed to his election because Skoropadsky was old and unaggressive.

The extraction of Ukrainian resources took various forms. Between 1709 and 1722, Ukrainians had to support ten Russian regiments that were stationed in the land. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Cossacks were sent to the north to work on the construction of the Ladoga canal and the tsar’s new capital of St Petersburg under exceptionally harsh conditions, in which many of them perished. In 1719, Ukrainians were forbidden to export their grain directly to the west. Instead, they had to ship it to the Russian-controlled ports of Riga and Arkhangelsk, where it was sold at a price set by the government. Finally, Russian merchants were given preferential treatment to export their goods to the Hetmanate, while Ukrainians had to pay huge duties on the items they shipped to the north.

But the greatest shock for Ukrainians came in 1722 when the Little Russian Collegium, a Russian governmental body made up of six Russian officers based in Ukraine, was empowered to share power with the hetman.

After Skoropadsky’s death, the starshyna requested permission from the tsar to elect a new hetman. In the meantime, it chose the respected and self-assertive colonel of Chernihiv, Pavlo Polubotok, as acting hetman. Polubotok took immediate and vigorous steps to thwart the Little Russian Collegium, repeating the requests for the election of a new hetman. Irritated by his persistence, the tsar replied that all hetmans had been traitors and that there would be no election until a trustworthy candidate could be found. Undaunted, Polubotok pushed on. When Peter I was involved in a war in Iran, the acting hetman obtained an order from the imperial senate that forced the collegium to inform him of its plans and to coordinate its activity with the Ukrainian government. Because the collegium was ostensibly created to deal with the complaints of Ukrainians against their government and especially against the corrupt judicial system, Polubotok resolved to address these problems himself rather than have the Russians do it. He reorganized the courts along collegial lines, forbade bribetaking and appointed inspectors to see that his orders were carried out. To reduce peasant complaints, he pressured the starshyna to act less blatantly in its exploitation of its subjects.

These changes, initiated by the Ukrainians, greatly irritated the tsar. In the summer of 1723, he summoned the acting hetman and his associates to the capital to explain their obstruction of the collegium’s work. Seeing a chance to undermine Polubotok, Veliaminov, who was the chairman of the collegium, persuaded several Ukrainians to lodge complaints against him and to request the introduction of Russian institutions in the Hetmanate. The acting hetman responded by sending an emissary to Ukraine to organize a petition campaign that overwhelmingly supported Ukrainian self-government.

With Polubotok gone, the collegium had free rein in the Hetmanate. In 1722, to the great dismay of Ukrainians, it introduced direct taxation. By 1724, Veliaminov proudly reported a 600% increase in taxes over what the tsarist government had previously extracted from the Hetmanate. However, Veliaminov’s success proved to be his undoing. He demanded that the Russians who owned land on the Left Bank also pay the new tax. Suddenly, Prince Menshikov, the most influential statesman in the empire, who was the owner of vast estates in the Hetmanate and a bitter opponent of Ukrainian autonomy, began to speak up in defense of Ukrainian self-government and strongly criticized the collegium. Other Russian officials also started to take a more benign view of Ukrainian autonomy because in 1726 it appeared that war with the Ottomans was imminent and, under the circumstances, they did not want to alienate the Ukrainians. Therefore, in 1727, Menshikov’s influence and strategic considerations led the imperial council to dismantle the first Little Russian Collegium and to decree that “a person who is worthy and loyal should be chosen as hetman in order to satisfy and appease the local populace.”⁸

In October 1727, Danylo Apostol, the 70-year-old colonel of Myrhorod, was elected hetman. The general approval with which this event was met was tempered by the fact that the imperial government not only refused to confirm all the articles of the 1654 Pereiaslav Agreement, but imposed further limitations on the hetman. A Russian resident was to supervise all his foreign contacts, a Russian field marshal was to control military affairs, and the tsar had the right to make land grants in the Hetmanate.

He continued with the reform of the judicial system and established an office of the treasury that provided the Hetmanate with its first annual budget. Because the fund of public or “rank lands” had been seriously depleted, between 1729 and 1731 Apostol conducted a thorough survey and restored many of the lost lands. He was especially effective in supporting Ukrainian commercial interests, successfully protecting Ukrainian merchants from unfair Russian competition and reducing the onerous customs duties that had been imposed by imperial officials. He even scored a few political victories. By regaining the right to appoint the general staff and colonels, Apostol greatly reduced the number of Russians and other foreigners in his administration. He also brought Kiev, which had long been under the sway of the Russian governor, under his own jurisdiction. A dramatic indication of the improved conditions in the Hetmanate was the return to Russian sovereignty in the spring of 1734 of the Zaporozhians who had lived in exile on Crimean territory since 1708. Apostol did not live to see this event, for he died in January of that year. The Governing Council of the Hetman’s Office (1734–50)

As tsars changed in St Petersburg, so too did their policies towards Ukraine. Immediately after Apostol’s death, the new empress, Anna Ivanovna, again banned the election of a hetman and established yet another a new collegium, called “The Governing Council of the Hetman’s Office.” It consisted of three Russians and three Ukrainians and was headed by a Russian president, Prince Shakhovskoi. While creating the impression that his collegium was only a temporary arrangement, Shakhovskoi received secret instructions to spread rumors blaming previous hetmans for the taxes and mismanagement that existed in the Hetmanate.

The imperial government also ordered Shakhovskoi to discourage the marriage of members of the Ukrainian starshyna either with the Polish or Belorussian gentry or with Right-Bank Ukrainians. At the same time, matrimonial ties between Ukrainians and Russians were to be encouraged by all means. Attempts to dilute Ukrainian distinctiveness took other forms as well. In 1734, the new president of the Governing Council, Prince Bariatinsky, arrested the entire city council of Kiev and confiscated their ancient charters of rights so that “in time, these burghers will forget their contents and, lacking documents, will be unable to bring up the issue of their rights.”⁹ In that same year, the imperial senate twice refused to confirm a Ukrainian as mayor of Kiev and acquiesced only after proof had been provided that there was no Russian in the city qualified for the post.

During the reign of Anna Ivanovna and her all-powerful German favorite, Ernst Biron, a mood of fatalism enveloped the Left-Bank elite, resulting in its tendency to avoid public affairs and to concentrate instead on personal matters. The mood was occasioned by the application of such Russian political practices as the infamous slovo i delo (Word and Deed Statute), according to which the expression of even the slightest criticism of or opposition to the tsarist regime in either word or deed made one liable to be summoned to the dreaded Secret Chancellory for interrogation, torture, and possible death or exile. Moreover, the slovo i delo obligated even one’s closest friends and family members to inform the authorities of any suspicious talk or behavior. Thus, fear and mutual suspicion became the order of the day on the Left Bank.

Peasants and Cossacks also suffered greatly during the so-called Bironov-shchina, or the period of supremacy of Anna’s favorite, Biron. The greatest burdens imposed upon them were associated with the Russo-Turkish War of 1735–39, a conflict in which the Left Bank served as the main staging area for the imperial forces. During the course of these four years, tens of thousands of Cossacks and peasants were mobilized to aid in the war effort. Ukrainian fatalities during the war reached 35,000, a huge figure for a population of about 1.2 million. As well, in 1737–38, Ukraine had to maintain at its own expense between fifty and seventy-five Russian regiments. This maintenance cost the Hetmanate about 1.5 million rubles, ten times its annual budget. The demands of the Russo-Turkish War were doubly painful to Ukrainians because they were preceded by a long series of destructive conflicts. Most of the nearly century-long Cossack/Polish/Russian/Ottoman wars had been fought in Ukraine. And by 1740, it had been bled white. Even Russian officers who traversed the land were astounded by the devastation they encountered. For decades to come, the Ukrainian starshyna would complain that their land was unable to recover from these losses.

The Governing Council did manage one constructive achievement. Because of the chaotic state of Ukrainian law, most of which was still based on the Lithuanian Statute of the 16th century, a commission was formed in 1728 to codify it. In 1744, after sixteen years of work, the eighteen-man commission finally completed a new codex entitled “The Laws According to which the Little Russians Are Governed.” Kyrylo Rozumovsky (1750–64)

While Biron brought Ukrainians little in the way of benefits, the husband of the next empress, Elizabeth, was more helpful. When she came to power in 1741, Elizabeth’s consort was Oleksii Rozumovsky, a simple, personable Cossack from the Hetmanate who had caught the fancy of the future empress when he had been a singer in the imperial choir. Although Oleksii avoided politics, he did have a great affection for his homeland. Apparently, some of this attitude rubbed off on his wife, especially after she had been received with great enthusiasm on a visit to Kiev in 1744. On that occasion, the Ukrainian starshyna approached Elizabeth with yet another request for a new hetman. The empress responded positively. However, she put the matter off because the candidate she had in mind, Kyrylo, the younger brother of Oleksii, was only sixteen and needed experience before he could take the post. Young Kyrylo was sent off to study in the universities of Western Europe. In the meantime, Russian troops were removed from the Hetmanate and the Governing Council was gradually dismantled. Upon his return from Europe, Kyrylo was appointed president of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. In 1750, in Hlukhiv, amid great pomp, he was inaugurated as the new hetman at the age of twenty-two.

Under Rozumovsky, the Hetmanate experienced the golden autumn of its autonomy. Although he spent much of his time in St Petersburg where he was deeply involved in court politics, Rozumovsky maintained close contacts with the Left Bank. Realizing that the society of the Hetmanate had become too complex for the starshyna to perform judicial as well as administrative and military functions, Rozumovsky started organizing a separate judiciary. In 1763, after much preparation, the Hetmanate was divided into twenty judicial districts, each of which had courts specializing in criminal matters, boundary claims, and property conflicts. Judges were elected, usually from among the landowning elite. As had been the case previously, townsmen were judged before their own courts.

Rozumovsky also succeeded in extending once again the hetman’s authority over Kiev and the Zaporozhians. Moreover, he initiated a somewhat superficial attempt at modernizing the Cossack army by systematizing its drills, providing it with uniforms, and improving its artillery. Plans were drawn up to establish a university in Baturyn, Mazepa’s old capital, and to extend primary education to the sons of all Cossacks. However, political developments prevented their implementation. The hetman did succeed in bringing a touch of European sophistication to Hlukhiv by adorning it with gracious palaces, English gardens, and a theatre in which visiting Italian opera companies performed. The town had numerous coffee shops and French fashions became the rage among the elite.

With the hetman frequently away at the imperial capital, the starshyna governed the land as it saw fit. It was during Rozumovsky’s tenure that the Cossack elite finally came into its own, completing the transformation, begun late in the 17th century, from an officer corps to a typical nobility. It now began to refer to itself as shliakhta, the Ukrainian equivalent of the Polish term for the nobility (szlachta).

Yet, even the lenient Elizabeth did not respond positively to many of the hetman’s initiatives. When he asked for permission to establish diplomatic relations with European courts, the petition was refused. The response was also negative when he tried to have Ukrainian troops exempted from wars not directly related to Ukrainian interests. Even during these favorable times for the Hetmanate’s autonomy, some aspects of imperial centralization were pushed through. In 1754, for example, the budget of the Hetmanate was put under Russian control and the customs boundary between Ukraine and Russia was eliminated. When Rozumovsky sought a free hand in distributing lands on the Left Bank, he was informed that only the empress enjoyed this prerogative. It was clear that there were established limits to the extent to which Ukrainians were to be allowed to control their own affairs.

After Catherine II came to power in 1762, Rozumovsky returned to the Hetmanate to concentrate on its affairs. In 1763, the hetman and starshyna held an important council at Hlukhiv. Its original purpose was to discuss judicial reforms. But the discussion soon expanded to a consideration of the decline of the Hetmanate’s political prerogatives. In the end, the delegates sent a strongly worded petition to the new empress that called for the return of their lost rights and the creation of a parliament of nobles on the Left Bank, modeled after the Polish sejm. The Hlukhiv petition was based on the premise that the hetman and starshyna considered their land to be a distinct political and economic entity linked to Russia only in the person of the monarch. In the view of Zenon Kohut, the petition “contained some of the most autonomist views publicly expressed since the time of Mazepa.”¹⁰ Rozumovsky followed it up with the bold proposal that the empress make the hetmancy hereditary in his family. In other words, what the Ukrainians were asking from Catherine was a permanent commitment to their autonomy.

But the Ukrainian elite had miscalculated. At exactly this time, influenced by a scathing attack on Ukrainian autonomy written by Teplov, Rozumovsky’s former tutor, Catherine II decided to abolish this autonomy altogether. She ordered Rozumovsky to the capital and demanded his resignation. After procrastinating and making some attempts at bargaining, Rozumovsky relinquished his office on 10 November 1764. The liquidation of the Hetmanate

Catherine II finished the work that Peter I had begun in Ukraine. Although herself a German who married into the Romanov dynasty, Catherine was a dedicated proponent of Russification and centralization. Like so many other rulers during the age of enlightened absolutism, she was convinced that a government based on the absolutist principle and devoid of such “feudal relics” as special status for various regions was the most rational and efficient. Hence, her negative attitude toward Ukrainian as well as Livonian and Finnish autonomy. “These provinces,” she argued, “should be Russified… That task will be easy if wise men are chosen as governors. When the hetmans are gone from Little Russia, every effort should be made to eradicate them and their age from memory.”¹¹ And the empress did choose a wise man – Peter Rumiantsev, an outstanding Russian military leader and statesman – to rule the Left Bank as its governor-general.

In carrying out his functions, Rumiantsev was aided by a second Little Russian Collegium, which consisted of four Russian officers and four trusted members of the starshyna. In a set of secret instructions, Catherine enjoined Rumiantsev to move carefully “so as not to arouse hatred for the Russians.”¹² To prepare the ground for the elimination of Ukrainian autonomy, the governor-general was further advised to stress to the peasants that their worsening plight was primarily a result of the backwardness of “Little Russian ways.” Meanwhile, Rumiantsev was to apply a carrot-and-stick approach toward the starshyna. While all expressions of autonomist tendencies were to be severely punished, those “who were not infected with the disease of self-willfulness and independence”¹³ were to be offered attractive posts in the imperial government. They were also promised that their status would be equalized with that of the Russian nobility and that they would gain greater control over the peasantry.

Rumiantsev fulfilled his mandate well. Initially, he avoided major changes and concentrated on winning goodwill. Numerous Ukrainians were appointed to his staff, a postal service was introduced, and a thorough survey of the socioeconomic conditions of the land was carried out. But not everything went according to plan. Anxious to demonstrate the enlightened nature of her regime, Catherine II established her famous Legislative Commission in 1767. Delegates from all strata of society (with the exception of the peasantry) and from all regions were assembled in Moscow to present their views and desiderata to the empress. To the great chagrin of Catherine and Rumiantsev, a number of Ukrainian delegates, led by Hryhorii Poletyka, used the occasion to reiterate their desire for the renewal of the hetmancy and the restitution of traditional Ukrainian rights. Similar disturbing views were expressed by delegates from the other bordering lands. Using the ensuing war with the Ottomans as a pretext, the empress permanently “postponed” the sessions of the commission.

After the Russo-Ottoman War of 1768–75, Rumiantsev made his decisive moves. The first blow was aimed at the Zaporozhian Sich, which was destroyed in 1775 during a surprise attack by Russian troops. The turn of the Hetmanate itself came in 1781 when, in conjunction with an all-imperial administrative reorganization, the traditional ten regimental districts of the Left Bank were abolished. In their place, three provinces (those of Kiev, Chernihiv, and Novhorod-Siversk) were established. These were similar in size and organization to the thirty other provinces of the empire. Simultaneously, the appropriate branches of the imperial bureaucracy replaced Ukrainian administrative, judicial, and fiscal institutions. The abolition of the famous old Cossack regiments came next. In 1783, they were replaced by regular dragoon regiments to which peasants and non-Ukrainians were recruited for six-year periods. A separate Ukrainian Cossack army thus ceased to exist. Contrary to government propaganda, the extension of the Russian imperial system to the Left Bank exacerbated rather than improved the plight of the Ukrainian peasantry. In 1783, they were deprived of the right to leave their landlords just as Russian peasants had been long ago. In other words, the peasantry of the Left Bank now became formally enserfed.

The Ukrainian elite, in contrast, benefited from these changes. The peasants were finally placed under its complete control and, in 1785, it was exempted from all government and military service by Catherine’s “Charter to the Nobility,” thus attaining equality with the Russian nobility. For these reasons, the leadership of the former Hetmanate accepted the liquidation of its autonomy with scarcely a complaint. There were only rare cases of protest against the changes, such as that of Vasyl Kapnist, who in 1791 secretly tried to win Prussian support for the restitution of the Hetmanate. These actions were insufficient, however, to prevent the absorption of Cossack Ukraine into the Russian Empire.